Personal & Professional Development: November 2011

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

I have learnt how to successfully develop a brand and identity for a concept from scratch and the processes I need to go through to achieve this. From this skill it has meant that my hand skills have greatly improved and my ability to produce thumbnails of logos at speed. My software skills have greatly improved. I am now able to use the Adobe programs in a more professional manner; colours, layout and pre-flight checks. My research ability has improved, I have learnt to think beyond the main subject that I am researching to all the different surrounding subjects (strands of information) that are connected to my ‘good’, hence having a broader understanding and a better ability to develop a successful idea. I have a better skill designing for print and talking to printers; through visiting the printers, Lorenzo’s seminars and producing the Top 10 Manual I have a clear working process and understanding of what you need to consider and know before you even start designing for print e.g. stock, printer type, number of copies, bindings, finishes and costs.

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

I have a better understanding of the process and elements I need to talk about and plan before I start designing for print. I need to know where I want my design to be, how many copies I need printed, what print process it is going to be printed through, the costs, the stock and the finishes. I have learnt that all of these factors will greatly affect the outcome of your print e.g. the stock can make or break your design, it is one of the most important things to plan before you start designing. I have learnt how to make your concept and rationale watertight; this makes your design process more effective, direct and well planned.

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

Through the studio tasks I have learnt to research and evaluate more effectively. Last year relied heavily on information and designs from the Internet but this year the majority of my design for print has comes from various books from the library. This has greatly increased my awareness and knowledge of print and their processes and techniques have really helped my design strategies. My development of branding and Identity have greatly improved, throughout this module I was constantly making changes and improving my brand design and logo until I was completely happy with it and content that my brand was appropriate and accurate at representing my Good. I have really enjoyed every part of this module, I have become really motivated in my work and as a result I am producing a much better quality and quantity of work.

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

I still feel that the tone of voice and content of my promotional work can be greatly improved. I think that I need to condense the information and make it more appropriate to my target audience. Furthermore, although I had a target audience, I still feel that it was too broad and I constantly need to make reference to who this audience is, where I can target them and how I can make my designs successfully stand out and catch their attention. Although I feel my time management has vastly improved since first year, I still have found that I need to plan daily targets and then evaluate how well I have conformed to these.

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

1. Planning ahead – at the start of the module I didn’t plan ahead enough in relation to what I need to consider before I start designing.

2. Target audience – although I initially felt that I defined my target audience, I feel that for the next module I need to clearly define this, and how other designers have caught their eye in terms of design materials, language and context.

3. Resources – I need to make the most of the college resources earlier on in the module e.g. screen print and letter press. I think that this would have provided me with more opportunities and exploitation of print processes.

4. Time management – this has greatly improved since last year but I feel that I spent too much of my time researching which ate into my designing and process experimentation time.

5. Blogging – this is another area where I have improved in however I need to make sure that I evaluate and write down every part of my thought process. As a part of the evaluation process, I feel that I need to talk to the tutors more about my work in the studio development sessions.

6.How would you grade yourself on the following areas: (please indicate using an ‘x’) 5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor
	1	2	3	4	5
Attendance					x
Punctuality					x
Motivation				x
Commitment				x
Quantity of work produced			x
Quality of work produced			x
Contribution to the group				x