Through this brief, I have learned to depend more on other classmates and their opinions. I was very open to asking people what they thought worked best design wise and (usually always) colour design.
My InDesign skills have improved dramatically since the type and grid sessions and I hope to use this program more in the future. It was usful understanding the fine techqnique that goes into making such things like newspapers and magazines and it is certainly somthing I will keep in mind for the futre.
What approaches to/methods of research have you developed and how have the informed your design development process.
For this brief I've looked in a number of different places to gain research, information and inspiration. I relied allot on my younger brother for his input into ration packs and the general army cadet life. He also let take apart one of his ration boxes to record pictures of. I also compiled a few questionnaires for the 'speaking from experience' brief which proved useful in finding out just what sudents would want to survive on in that first week.
What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?
I believe that my overall design skills have come along way since he beginning of the year. I now fully understand that not all design work is going to be about myself and losing some of that personality may prove beneficial to the overall result.
My packaging skills have also come along way and I was rather surpised to see that I had no problems with getting the correct measurements for all of the labels. This is an area I really want to look into some more and I hope to do more Brieifs that I can design packaging for in the future.
I've also found more skill in my Indesign work and I feel that the 3 DPS's that I did on Craig F where far better sturcted than the "What I have Learnt So Far" booklet we did in the last module.
What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully?
I don't want to use this excuse but I lost nearly two weeks of this brief but I feel that if I sturtured myself proppaly then I probbaly could have had more work established.
I seem to have jumped the gun one again and gone straight for one idea and gone from there. There was not an awful lot of design sheets and I feel that I did not put these last five weeks to good use.
I had been worried before hand because I did not feel that I did too well on the last five week brief that we had and his time round I wanted to better myself. That perhaps because I had learnt from my mistakes before, I would not fall behind once again. This was not the case and I feel I could have more to show for my time.
This is the same problem I had with Type and Grid. This being because I did not quite understand at first and even though I took books out on the subject and looked it up online, I was still simply baffled. After talking it through with Lorenzo one on one though, I seem to have the hang of it now. Perhaps next year these skills will be a little more polished and refined.
Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?
1. To try not to dwindle because five weeks is not a lot of time when it comes down to briefs like this one.
2. To have more worksheets and design ideas before jumping the gun and sticking to one idea.
3. More research into my target audience and pin pointing exactly what it would be that would suit their needs and tendency's.
4. To not worry about making something look neat (work book and work sheet wise), but to simply get on with the idea at hand. I can always come back and work on it later if I do not think it is up to scratch.
5. To not leave things until last minute.How would you grade yourself on the following areas:
5= exellent, 4= very good, 3= good, 2= average, 1= poor
Attendance: 3
Punctuality: 4
Motivation: 3
Commitment: 3
Quantity of work produced: 2
Quality of work produced: 2
Contribution to the group: 3
