End of design practice module evaluation

This module has proved invaluable to me it has helped me assess where my real skills lie and my weaknesses lie although I feel that the work I produced has not been my best it has prepared me well for my final major project and client based work.

Within my rational I stated that I wanted to work with clients to learn and understand clients needs and deadlines. I felt that I have covered this area and I am beginning to understand this area better than before. In some cases when the project were very client lead I felt my self becoming less creative yet to solve this I ensured that I did quick briefs to bring back my creativity such as the poppy appeal brief and the Ikea brief. Although the outcomes are not to a high quality standard I was working on a creative idea and concept. Whilst working on bigger briefs such as the Leeds public art publication and tag editorial pieces I realised that I enjoyed layout and typography yet I felt that when I work with ideas I need it to have a function or purpose one example would be the Leeds council brief. I created the book for the client and focused the idea on the images that she loved. Yet I felt I needed to develop the brief further for my portfolio and to use my skills that I had stated in my rational. I felt that within the publication there was no concept or branding in which I developed the idea to be based around structure and the city of Leeds creating the logo in a block with a structured typeface tying in the branding amongst the whole publication testing different stocks and sizes this is where I realised that branding was a strength of  mine but also conceptual thinking and understanding the form and function of a design.

With my briefs I had a couple of packaging briefs this is where I felt my weaknesses lie. These were briefs that I did not enjoy and where briefs that I felt where poorly executed. They where live briefs working closely with my work placement. They have again provide an valuable experience as I know that this area of design is something that show weakness I felt that the only purpose of the brief was to sell the product yet this is an obvious function it had no creativity and was just to commercial. This is why I expanded the yalp brief rather than just a label I re branded and made the yalp product have an interactive purpose with it’s younger audience as I felt this way it was playful and sold the product but had a concept. From these briefs I have also understood that the target audience of younger people has proved very challenging for me. The style of design that I appreciate is clean functional design with nothing unnecessary is not what children’s design is. I feel that for my final major project target audiences is to be highly considered.


In order to make improvements for my final major project and to ensure I am hitting the highest standard I can and to cover grade marks I need to ensure that I blog from the very start of a project on my context blog and practice blog as I feel this has been a weakness of mine I should have clearly shown my development of my design practice of each brief from the very beginning therefore I could of been more selective in what I hand in.
I also feel that my photography skills are very poor and for my portfolio  may have to acknowledge other people skills within photography to ensure my work looks the best as it possibly can especially for the highly important new blood exhibition and my portfolio.

My time management skills of multiple briefs has worked well although I did plan to expand briefs more such as the yalp brief with point of sales and promotional posters yet I need to consider more within my time management planning client time and client meeting time as this can take a high percentage of your project time.

Working on multiple briefs was something I enjoyed as stated earlier If I felt I became less focused on a brief I could work on something else to refresh my mind. The structure of the module worked well with crits and tutorials and the professionals coming in and looking at your work put me in a very focused determined direction which helps guide my work and plan for where I want to be within my skills and the future.