OUGD503 - Responsive - Summative Module Evaluation

OUGD503 - Responsive - Summative Module Evaluation

Looking at the module as a whole, it has definitely been my favourite over the two years I have spent on my degree so far. This is because it felt a lot more ‘real’, by being able to pick and choose our own briefs I was able to direct my work in the way I wanted it to go. It felt like it was the first proper chance I was given to have a go at briefs set by ‘real world’ clients, with their own set of requirements and deadlines, and it was exciting to get an insight into what it would be like working out of education. This also gave me a chance to develop my preferred style of work, and choose a lot of illustrative-based projects which I enjoy the most, keeping my momentum up.

Every module I come across teaches me a new, (usually difficult) lesson about time management but this time it was a little different. For example, if I didn’t make the deadline for something in education, it would mean that I wouldn’t be able to continue on my course without penalties, that would affect my overall grade. However, if I were to miss a deadline on a competition, it would simply mean that I wouldn’t be entered and all of my work would go to waste. Somehow, this lack of pressure coming from the competition organisers (since they wouldn’t care if I entered or not) caused me to discipline myself even more and the pressure of the deadline would come from myself. I see this as a greatly positive thing, as the responsibility of the brief rested completely on my shoulders, otherwise I would get entered or I wouldn’t get paid etc.

The feeling of winning the Silver Starpack award 2014 was really great to see real-world rewards and recognitions of my work outside of education. Seeing my work in the Dialogue exhibition occurring more than once was such a proud moment, definitely leaving me wanting to get involved a lot more in these opportunities, having never having the confidence to do so previously. Again, another positive of working with public competitions.

Real-world pressure didn’t come without it’s negative points, though. The fear of being penalised for not properly checking my work for copyright material left me worried for a long time. Lots of extra research into exactly what I could and couldn’t use on my Disney hoodies designs spent up a lot of my time back in January, almost a whole month since I finished the designs, leaving the ‘clients’ rather annoyed and becoming quite abusive over social media. This gap in time also meant that my design practically ‘lost’ over another submitted design, with only very few of my designs actually being downloaded.

On the flip-side also, was the fear of our work being plagiarised, as our work is displayed and sent over the internet, with my classmate’s work being ‘copied’ by another competition entry. This meant that we had to withhold a lot of our blogging being published and our Behance’s being left not updated before the competition deadlines, which was a fruitful lesson to learn.

This is also the first time ever during a module I have time left over at the end to properly photograph my outcomes in a studio, edit the pictures and create presentable design boards that I don’t have to worry about the spelling on! The retouching of the images really improved my Photoshop skills, and I was able to compose and stitch together many different images that couldn’t have been possible for my design boards. By having much more practice to complete design boards during this module, I have also greatly improved my design skills when working with a grid, which I found alarmingly difficult before.

Being able to choose our own partners for the collaborative practice brief went surprisingly well for us. At first, me and Danielle Harrison didn’t particularly want to work together, as we spend a lot of time together anyway, have worked together in the past, and fancied a change but when we found that many others were already paired up, we stuck together. This last minute decision worked highly to our advantage, as we felt that we were already a lot further ahead in our collaborative relationship than perhaps new partners, and knew our skills, capabilities and time management tactics meaning we could distribute the work according to these factors. I wasn’t entirely sure of our choice of brief at first It would be untrue to say we didn’t argue, but we never fell out over the work, and our friendship meant that we could be harsh critics to each other without causing offense as we both wanted the best for the work! We kept in constant contact since we live together and whenever we were apart we would stay in contact over Facebook whilst sharing what we were working on in our shared folder on Dropbox. We found that communication is key and all decisions were made together, yet still there was the freedom to design as we wished. We both have similar design style interests, which helped a lot, too. We worked really well together and managed to create a project we were both more than happy with, which I am very thankful and proud for.

My communication skills, I have found have been improved greatly by the work in this module. Constant presentations, critiques, emailing with clients and working in collaboration have given me a lot more confidence to say what I feel in a respectable, professional manner. This can be seen in other modules, such as PPP where I now feel confident enough to talk to almost anyone, whether it be on email or over the phone, even!

You can see the development and progression of my work into the strong style I want that I am constantly improving upon. My doing briefs which I have enjoyed working on such as Starpack which combined my love for illustration and packaging, I have wanted and been able to put lots of time and effort into, and remain happy with my results! 

I still feel like I need to work on my time management to keep up with the work that I have created in this module, as this is the first time I feel completely in control of my deadlines, quality of work and presentation of work and I’d like to stay this way!

But overall this module has been such a great learning curve that has taught me lots about self-responsibility. Whether it comes to deadlines, being paid, copyrighting, working with others and communication whilst keeping a good standard of work, it all boils down to me as an individual. 

It’s not about if you have a difficult client, it’s about how you handle the situation and how you make them happy whilst remaining in control of your time. It’s not about getting silver in a competition but how you will get gold next time etc. I am so happy with my work that I have produced and look forward to third year when my work is as self directed as it has been in this module.