Evaluation

The practical skills I have developed throughout this module include book binding, screen print and knowledge of Illustrator. I think I could have explored screen print a lot more through using more colours, and it maybe wasn't the best process to use for the book and range of gift products when I was only using black and it was so time consuming. I am not sure if I will use this process again; I will definitely try to decide on the most appropriate process next time, rather than the one I want to do for the sake of it. My Illustrator skills have improved through the Guardian postcards brief and I learnt some new techniques and used this to develop a distinctive style for the project. I went quite wrong with the print production in this brief because I forgot about things like pantone matching and spot colours so I don't think it wouldn't have worked if they were to be printed for real. I think I should have found out how it would be done if it were to be mass printed (whether it would use spot colour or CMYK and what process is best for runs with these specifications). This would have given me a better understanding of design for print and would have made me think about if I were actually designing for thousands of copies and how that affects the decisions and costs.
Others skills I think I have improved are concept building and time management. I managed to come up with an idea for the competition brief in a day, which is usually the part of a brief which I get scared of in case I can't think of anything. I think my time management has been good as I did 4 briefs, although I didn't produce as much work for the last brief as I would have liked to so I will have to remember to stick to mini deadlines throughout the next module.
Through this module I feel I have developed a way of working which works for me, and I have gained more confidence from this. More confidence towards the end of the module gave me the ability to get through a brief in a week and not get stuck because I was a bit more sure of my decisions. I think I can do work quite speedy and this is a lot to do with the confidence I have gained.
I think the strengths in my work are different in each project but overall I am mostly pleased with the amount of work I have done, and the idea based work like the PJ's smoothies brief. I was pleased with the amount of gift stuff I made but I think I could have been a bit more experimental with the format of some of the products and thought more about how I could have applied my drawings in an original way.
A weakness of my work is that I haven't investigated print enough and factors which can affect the production of design for print like stock etc. I also didn't research very much contemporary design/designers and this probably would have helped me a lot. I think some of my work looks very childish and I would like it to look more professional but still keep the 'style' my own.