OUGD402 Evaluation

What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

Throughout this module I have developed skills that vary in many different ways. I have developed skills in reflection and evaluating my work as a designer and my self as an individual. I have applied them by following the various tasks and evaluation processes to help push myself and work further.

What approaches to/methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

I have taken simple but effective approaches to my PPP design production, especially the brief speaking from experience. There was not a lot of design work there but the idea behind the target and the stickers was effective and sometimes that is was design should be. I have informed my process my researching various time management problems and putting my own experience of this last year into practice. 

What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?

My strengths would be the reflecting and evaluation tasks throughout the year. I will capitalise this further by continuing to look at my work and my individual development.

What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?

The weaknesses I can identify in my work would be in the double page spread. I produced something similar a year ago and half tone seems to be a popular theme in the class today. I should have gone for something different and experimented with layout more. I will address this in the future by researching layout design. I will keep looking out for trends but next time I would put my own stamp on it.

Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

1. As always manage my time and blog more 

2.Research into more innovative and experimental resolutions.

4.Develop a greater understanding of graphic design.

5.Create more design sheets 

Attendance - 5
Punctuality - 5
Motivation - 3
Commitment - 3
Quantity of work produced - 3
Quality of work produced - 3
Contribution to the group - 5

Final presentation boards

These are my speaking from experience boards that I showed on the day of my final crit. They range from initial research to the final mock up piece. I was unable to print off final stickers and target poster due to the print slots being fully booked and the crazy drop ins. I have photoshopped a poster on an office wall below to show how my idea for time management can be put into context.

 

Speaking from experience crit

The crit went well, I think there was some confusion with the sticker colours but people liked my simple idea and thought it would be useful to have. Other feedback was that I could produce more of a range of products and delve deeper with the problem I have briefed myself to tackle.

Speaking from experience

This is a very simple example of how my Target organisation chart works. I wanted to produce a stop frame motion of a printed copy of the poster and stickers however I have unable to print. The general idea behind this project is very simple, for each design module/brief you put up a Target poster and you write 'To Do' tasks on the arrow stickers. Once you have completed the 'To do' tasks you stick it on the Target. The target as you can see is split up into sectors that follow the design cycle. The sectors are Investigate, Plan, Design, Create and Evaluate. I want the target, when finished to make someone stand back and appreciate how much work goes into a brief. It should make them feel proud because it is a visual record of all their hard work.

The stickers build up towards the end of the film.

In the crit I will explain how you only put a sticker on the poster if you have completed the to do task. The more stickers the poster has, the more tasks you have completed. The less stickers, the less organised/unproductive you are.

I want to make a short animation of my idea to help explain the idea behind the poster/stickers purpose. The building up of the stickers show how much work goes into a project and this make you feel that you have worked hard. 

I want the target to be used as a poster, that is based on the design cycle. I have designed a small key at the bottom to explain the different sectors where you can stick your to do tasks.

Speaking from Experience

I wanted to the put the poster into context, so I have photoshopped it into an office/studio near a workspace. I am unable to print the poster/stickers so I thought the best way of presenting it was to show it in context. The main reason I was unable to print was the size of the poster. In the future I may try and print it and use it for myself. I can see it working really well for me because I have a big work load.

This is what the stickers will look like in a packet. They come in the same range of colours as the target. If this product existed I would sell the stickers in the college shop, so people can keep topping up for their tasks and lists.

I have finalised my sticker designs to match the colour coding of my poster. I have made a box for students to write there to do task on, there is plenty of room to do this and I feel that tasks are better to tackle when broken down. 

I have improved the poster and placed the key at the bottom. It looks cleaner and does not distract the main design of the target.

I have finalised the arrow sticker I intend to use for the to do task sticker pack. I chose to put the text box here because it looks cleaner and there is more room to write on that part of the arrow shape. I want to produce a range of colours to help students/designers break up their to do's. In my research I read that if you break them up, they are quicker and easier to do. Once you have done them, you feel satisfied by sticking the arrow on the target.

I am trying to figure out where I can put my text box on my arrow. The shape if difficult to work with and the white space does not look right on this idea.

I have started work on my arrows that I want to make into stickers. I am working on a classic arrow shape but I want it to look more rounded and friendly.

I am trying to figure out how to explain the sectors of the Target. I want to layout a colour coded key because I think the number idea below are messy a clog up the page.

This doesnt not work either, the placement of the number 4 is really distracting.

I am numbering the sectors of the target because I want to make a key that explains the design cycle. I am unsure if this works well. I may try a different layout or even colour coding.

I have begun designing the target for my poster. I have chosen these colours because they are fun and fresh, and sometimes work loads can be over whelm you so I think something happy and fresh may help.

Presentation - subjects to discuss

I have to Produce and present a 7 - 10 minute Powerpoint presentation that communicates a reflective summary of my own experiences on the course to date. I need to aim to identify who I am as a learner and a designer as well as how the things I have experienced over the past nine months have affected my current aims and ambitions. I should also attempt to communicate your ambitions for next year.

My own personal development as an individual and as a designer is affected by all aspects of my life. This is an opportunity to reflect on the experiences from the past nine months that have informed the decisions that I have made/ are making about my future development.

The ability to reflect upon my personal development can help me to gain confidence in my abilities as well as identify areas of strength, focus, ambition and improvement.

What have I learnt and what do I want to learn?

As an individual I have learnt...

How to live away from home

Cook and clean

Budget and organise my own money

Look after my own health care

As an individual I want to learn...

More on how to organise money

How to run a house next year

New recipes 

As a designer I have learnt...

Time management skills

How to juggle briefs 

How to work independently 

How to work under pressure

How to work in a studio environment

How to screen print

How to work with colour

How to work with typography

How to work as a group

Design context

As an designer I want to learn...

Alternative ways on how to manage time

How to use letter press

More about paper stock and print

How to promote myself

How to present my work

More indepth design context knowledge

What mistakes have you made and how have you learned from them? 

As an individual...

I have made the mistake of going to Morrisons at a really busy time.

I have learnt not to stress myself out by doing the food shop at a busy time.

Spending too much money on rubbish food.

Rubbish food makes you feel rubbish and its a waste of money.

Paying out more money for train journeys because I had not booked them properly.

I must check if the train is booked properly so I dont loose out on money

I have forgotten to write down how much I have spent.

I loose track of how much I am spending.

As a designer...

I have not managed my time effectively

I have learnt to write lists to save myself from stress

I have rushed at the end of a project and let the presentation of my work let me down.

I must not rush because all that hard work should not be let down by careless presentation

For some projects I have played it safe and I did not pushed my ideas

I end up with design that doesn't extend my portfolio or push the boundaries 

I sometimes dont explore ideas through design sheets

Jumping into an idea without design sheets does not help you push your ideas further.

Leaving blogging to the last minute

This makes you stressed and you dont have time to give your annotations justice. 

You also dont have time to reflect on your blog.

How will this affect your future development? 

I think by learning from your mistakes, it helps your future development by making you push the boundaries of ideas within your design practice. Individually if I become more organised, it will relief some stress that I have experienced this year.

What are your strengths and how have you/will you develop them further?

As an individual...

I think as an individual I am quite focused and hard working. I think I am a fun and caring person to be around and hopefully next year the house I will be living in will all get along.

As a designer

I am also focused and hard working

I play to my networking strengths and I enjoy getting my name out there

I am good at working with colour

I am good at Illustrator and I have love for vector art

I am open to the world of the unknown

How will I develop this further?

Overall I will use my hard working ethics to push my ideas further.

I want to get my name out there on a professional basis so I could develop some branding. 

I want to explore colour more within my work and build up a archive of colour palettes

I dont always want to rely on vectors but I would like to learn a few more tricks of the trade.

I am open to experimentation, I like the feeling of not knowing how a project is going because it makes you take  risks. 

What are your weaknesses and how do you intend to address these? 


As an individual...
I can be quite shy at times and not very confident in myself, I can address this issue by making myself step out of my comfort zone because in the past this has always worked. 
I worry a lot and sometimes and I need to address this by becoming more organised. 


As a designer...
I sometimes play it safe by sticking to what I know, I have notice this by the way I tackle a brief that I am unsure of/not enjoying. I tend to go for simple vector designs and colour schemes that I have used before. I need to push myself and experiment more.
My weakness's also lie in some of the more practical things such as book binding and manual printing. I wish I had more of a knowledge to these types of finishes because I think they could make my work step up a level. I need to time manage my time better so I can fit these things in whilst the facilities are at my grasp.
I think some of my presentation/finishing skills of my work could do with improvement. I think it is important that you end a project on a high. I sometimes struggle with the finishing touches, like folding and gluing work neatly and sometimes the paper stock I have chosen is not durable for my product. I will address this issue by practicing and taking my time at the end.

What have you enjoyed and why?


As an individual...
I have enjoyed experiencing the student life and watching myself develop into someone I want to be.
I have enjoyed meeting open and like minded people because where I come from I dont feel I am on the same wave length as some people. 
I have enjoyed living in a city, I have never experienced the hussle and bussle before and I am taking advantage of what I have got at my finger tips.


As a designer...
I have enjoyed the close nit studio community because everyone is really friendly and supportive.
I have enjoyed learning new skills such as screen printing because I have never tried i before and it is something I could get really into doing.
I have enjoyed learning new ways of working to a brief, the tight deadlines have made me push myself and I have enjoyed the pressure.




What have you disliked and why?
This year I have not really disliked anything. In Freshers, I had to go under this big change of moving away from home and fending foe myself and I found it quite difficult. 

How does this affect your ambitions?
The whole experience of the first year has been great, I have grown as a person and I can see how my work has developed. I realise that I am lucky that I know what I want out of life and I want to set myself ambitious tasks so that I feel satisfied. 

What did you want to get from the year?

As a designer...
As a designer I wanted to learn a new range of skills and work methods to help push myself forward away from ND level. I wanted to meet like minded people and experience a studio environment that could help me develop as a designer with the help of others. I have experienced collaboration and this was important for me because I wanted to see how people can work effectively as a team.


As an Individual...
I wanted to learn how to stand on my own two feet because when I moved here in Sept I was just 18 and one of the youngest people on the course. I wanted to meet like minded people and experience the social side of Leeds. I wanted to find a good group of friends which I could share a house with next year, I achieved this and I cant wait to move in. 


Have you achieved this?
Overall I have achieved more than I thought was possible, I have made some great friends and I have produced work that I am proud of. I still have a long way to go but I am glad that I made the choice to be on this course because I am lucky to have the studio time and space to work with.

What have you discovered that you weren’t expecting?
I have discovered that Graphic designer is a lot harder than it looks! End of!

Speaking from experience rational

Rough visuals

Today I have jotting down some very rough visuals because I had an image in my head and I needed to write it down before I forget it. I have started work on the target idea I want to develop into a wall planner. There will be stickers to help you break up your to do tasks, plus it is a fun and simple way of keeping your work load organised.

Speaking from experience ideas!

I woke up in the middle of the night and had a brain wave for this brief, I grabbed my note book and I jotted the idea down quick!

Speaking from experience

Write three problems that could be addressed.
Time management skills
Sometimes my lack of motivation
Budgeting my money

Five reasons why
I am quite dyslexic so I can be quite unorganised with my work load. Some weeks I don't get as much work done as I could because I don't always get my priorities straight. I can get quite distracted and I often get overwhelmed by my to do lists.

I sometimes leave certain tasks for weeks, and this often leads to a backlog of work I need to be getting on with. Some of these tasks range from typing up lecture notes to design principle blog posts.

Due to living away from home, my motivation can sometimes lag. I cannot just put all my energy into my work anymore because I have to look after myself. I can get overwhelmed and I sometimes don't know where to start when it comes to tackling a brief. I also feel that I sometimes bombard myself with inspiration and my brain goes into over load and I start comparing my work to others. I think I need to stop trying to be a perfectionist.

In September I told myself that I had to write down all of my spendings into a little book. I have tried to keep up with this task, however I have missed a few costs out. I think it is important to write what I have spent down because it will give me a realistic figure of how much money I will need for second year.

When I go shopping I sometimes over spend. I am rubbish at maths and I find it hard to take my time in the Morrisons in town because it can be quite busy. I often loose count of my total and by the time I get to the check out I have gone over budget and I have to carry all my bags back to the flat because I can't afford a taxi.

Five ways to solve and deliever
Write to do lists and break them up so the tasks don't look too daunting.
Prioritise my time better and go to bed early.
Buy a calculator to use when I go shopping.
Take breaks when constructive motivationa and inspiration is lacking, for example watch a film, make some food or go for a walk.

Write 3 messages to myself in the past.
Don't be too harsh on yourself.
Don't leave your OUGD404 module tasks to the last few weeks before hand in!
You should have taken that dyslexia sooner!

5 reasons why
I can be a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my work and I always want to push myself. This can be quite exhausting and I can put myself down about things.

I sometimes get really tired from doing work and I feel bad about stopping doing my work.

This course makes you juggle a lot of things at once so you have to be strict on your time management. I found it hard to keep up with 404 and I missed a couple of lessons because I was ill. I missed a lot from those two lessons and I found the colour theory work hard to understand.

If I had not left 404, I may be getting a better mark.

I should have taken my dyslexia test sooner. I was put off by the thought of paying out £260 for a test. I do sometimes struggle with some of the essay writing/course tasks so before easter I booked a test. In the end I thought about how much free stuff you get that can benefit my work.

Five ways to solve and deliever.
Take dyslexia test in May.
Don't leave any other module task to the last minute.
Look after myself so I don't get that poorly again.
Take risks.
It's all about the idea at the end of the day.

Mateo Ilasco

I have been looking into some useful stationary that helps with time managment and to do lists. I have found a great site called mateoilasco.com that do a great range of simple but effective note pads and paper. I really like how they have photographed and presented their work. 

http://mateoilasco.bigcartel.com/product/to-do-list-notepad

http://mateoilasco.bigcartel.com/product/desk-calendar

http://mateoilasco.bigcartel.com/product/weekly-notepad

http://mateoilasco.bigcartel.com/product/action-organizing-clips

To - Do List's

I have been looking into how to make the best To - Do Lists. I have found a really interesting article about the benefits of To lists and how people find keeping up with task quite hard and overwhelming. The article also lists are few examples of different organisation software people can use to help them with their work load.

http://blog.echoenduring.com/2010/07/25/getting-motivated-with-your-to-do-list/ 

Getting motivated with your To - Do List

Task management is certainly an important consideration for any designer – freelance or otherwise. Sometimes, however our to-do lists can become somewhat overwhelming. In this article, I would like to look at one small change that you can make in your approach to task management to make it less daunting and more of a motivating factor in your work.

As designers, we all need to keep ourselves organized in some manner. For many of us, this involves using some form of task management. It could be a complete software package for your computer, a smaller app for your phone, or even a good old fashioned notebook in which you jot everything down. Regardless, the chances are good that you have some kind of to-do list for tracking the various projects and tasks that you have to complete.

The chances are also pretty good that sometimes you look at that always growing to-do list and feel a little overwhelmed, or think that things just aren’t getting checked off as quickly as you might like.

Well, in this article I’d like to share a little trick that I’ve found helps approach the to-do list a bit better, and which can also help keep you energized and motivated in your work.

The Importance of the To-Do

Before moving on, however, I really need to stress the overall importance of the to-do list as a productivity tool. If you’re workload is anything like mine (and I would bet that it probably is at least somewhat similar), then you probably don’t have the luxury of working with only one client at any particular moment. I know that some freelancers do their best to focus on working on only one project at a time, but even then I would imagine that there’s still a certain amount of interaction with other clients – general maintenance, trouble shooting, content changes, and the like.

Add onto this the need to be continually working on some of your own personal projects (something I really think every designer should be doing), and suddenly, in addition to being a designer, you also have to become a juggler of sorts, managing all kinds of work at the same time.

This is exactly what happened to me. When I first started freelancing and was working only for my first client, it was pretty easy. But then I started to get a few more clients. I launched my blog and started to get requests for articles. Soon, my workload started to become far more complex, and I was having an increasingly difficult time keeping everything straight with nothing but my memory.

So, I turned to task management software. We’ll talk more about some specific applications towards the end of this article. For now, suffice it to say that the task management software really helped me keep everything organized, which certainly helped with overall productivity.

The Big Problem

Now, there’s probably nothing all that startling or revealing about the importance of keeping yourself organized with some form of task management. Most of you are probably already doing it to some degree, and I touched on its importance mostly for context – and just on the off chance that there’s someone who’s not doing it.

As important as the task management and to-do lists are, however, I always found that there was a certain overwhelming weight to my to-do list when I first started using it. The problem I faced was really a matter of scope. When I started into task management, I would use really general concepts. As a result, my task list would look like this:

• Design [client] layout in Photoshop
• Code [client] layout into custom WordPress theme
• Design [client] logo

The overall list was generally pretty small, but the individual tasks within it were huge. Designing a complete website in Photoshop can take hours and hours of work. The same is true of coding a WordPress theme or designing a logo. As such, I simply found that my to-do list wasn’t really changing all that much from day to day. This in turn made me feel like I wasn’t making any progress, and was somewhat stuck in a bit of a design rut.

And that’s never a good feeling (whether it’s true or not).

The sub-division trick

Fortunately, we humans are silly creatures, who are perfectly capable of deceiving our own minds, even when we are fully aware of the deception. The solution to my problem involved precisely this kind of deception.

Eventually, I realized that these massive items on my to-do list were simply too big. So, I started breaking them down into smaller, more manageable pieces. For instance, instead of just having a single entry about creating a layout in Photoshop, I might start with something like:

• Establish a basic grid
• Create a greyscale wireframe
• Test several different background options

By using these kind of smaller tasks, the complete list becomes larger, but also a great deal more manageable. Often I can get one, two or even more of these smaller, mini tasks completed in a single evening.

The benefit of this is that, while I may not actually be getting any more work done that I was doing before, it feels like I am getting more done, because I’m actually able to check things off on my to-do list pretty much every day. There is just something profoundly satisfying about completing a task, even if that task is only a small part of a larger project. It’s even more satisfying if I can make a nightly to-do list and complete everything that was on it.

It’s also incredibly motivating. Every time I check something off my list, it invariably gives me the drive to get started on something else. Plus, if I can complete everything I had scheduled for one day, I tend to wake up the next morning with more energy and motivation to keep the momentum of my work going.

Interestingly, all of these positive experiences stem from the simple act of breaking larger tasks into smaller and more manageable mini tasks, all so that I can feel as though I am accomplishing more. And, ultimately, because I feel like I am getting more done and don’t tend to get bogged down by the larger scope of the project, I actually do get more done.

Just by giving myself the satisfaction of being able to actually acknowledge my completion of small tasks, I have actually seen a significant boost in my own productivity

Task Management Software

As we bring this article to a close, I thought it would be useful to offer a brief list of different task management applications that you could use for managing your own to-do lists. If you’re already using a different app, these might provide some interesting alternatives. If you’re not using anything at all, then hopefully you can find something that will work for you.

Things

Remember The Milk

Conclusion

Regardless of whether or not you chose to use one of the above cited programs or a method of your own choosing, the important thing is that you are doing at least something to keep track of your tasks. Beyond that, however, I hope that this article has demonstrated how making just one simple change to the way you handle your tasks can really help to increase your motivation and overall productivity.

It’s a small thing that can pay big dividends.