OUGD503 Responsive_End of module evaluation

BA (Hons.) GRAPHIC DESIGN		LEVEL	05
Module Code	OUGD503
Module Title	Design Process

END OF MODULE SELF-EVALUATION

NAME	Harrison Park

1.  What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them? I further developed communication skills through communicating with clients when undertaking live briefs. It often proved difficult to get in touch with the clients and left frustrated a couple of times with the lack of direction and indecisiveness. But on my end I was constantly keeping clients up to date via email and meetings, this enabled me to develop the responses collaboratively so that in the end the solution was something not only I was happy with, the client as well. I have drastically improved my collaborative skills through working with Sam, in the past I have dreaded the word collaboration but through selecting my own partner I found it isn’t too much to be scared of. I applied my collaborative skills well by always being available and constantly on top of my work in accordance to the action plan.
2. What approaches to/methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design development process? Through creating a typeface I developed my digital software skills through using Fontographer and creating a fully functioning typeface. I found this a very difficult task and process due to the fact I had to kern each individual letter and pairs. This is a task I don’t wish to do again in the future due to the difficulties I experienced but I developed the skills enough to have a basic knowledge and understanding of the software. I have also developed my mocking up skills drastically, before the module I had no idea how to mock up logos or posters but through online tutorials and peer help I managed to understand the process involved and create visual mock ups that add depth and impact to what would otherwise be a flat image.
3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these? Working collaboratively with Sam has definitely been a strength, I thought I produced the best response to a brief since being at Leeds College of Art because not only did it fully answer the brief. What we created was a typeface I would use in the future as both a header and body copy. The concept behind the typeface and the grid proved to be another strength; it’s something different as opposed to simply illustrating The Big Issue.
4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future? My ability to pick apart briefs has come to light as I often found I didn’t fully answer the briefs, in future I will definitely spend more time reading through briefs and rewriting them using the skills I picked up in workshops. The process of creating design boards has been a weakness, although my design boards have impact and structure I feel they’re lacking in depth. This could be down to the little number of them or the little information on them. This can easily be rectified through spending more time developing boards as opposed to leaving them to the last minute. My brief selections were definitely rushed and left until the last minute, by simply keeping on top of briefs it would enable me to have a larger variety of briefs available but also allow me to keep on top of them and have more design responses.
5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these? 1. In the future I would like to undertake more challenging briefs that take me further out of my comfort zone instead of relying on what I know I can do. This will hopefully aid in the development in me as a designer as well illustrating I’m not just a one trick pony stuck in a loop. 2. I would select briefs a lot sooner so that I’m not just selecting briefs to make up the numbers. By selecting briefs sooner I could spend more time developing the designs and exploring other concepts that in turn open up a large variety of responses. 3. Agreeing on conditions before working with clients so that I am not wasting time waiting on them to deliver images or text. This will allow me to fully complete briefs as opposed to part finishing them and relying on the client to input their own images and text and hope it works. 4. I would definitely pick apart briefs more instead of jumping straight into them, I found that I didn’t necessarily answer the brief fully on a couple of occasions because my responses didn’t fully communicate what was asked, this was mainly down to the lack of brief analysis and unpicking. 5. Next time I would probably select a different brief for my main individual practice, through selecting a poster I thought I was setting myself an easier task than some other briefs but it turned out opposite, I struggled to properly communicate the message. Through selecting a different brief that required more deliverables I would have found it less restricting and could have produced something I was a lot happier with and that answered the brief better.
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
The evaluation of your work is an important part of the assessment criteria and represents a percentage of the overall grade. It is essential that you give yourself enough time to complete your written evaluation fully and with appropriate depth and level of self-reflection. If you have any questions relating to the self evaluation process speak to a member of staff as soon as possible.