Assignment 1 Tutor Feedback and Reflection:
Assignment 1 Tutor Feedback and Reflection:
The exercises throughout the course are excellent opportunities to practice the concepts that are introduced. Understanding how visual communication works is crucial to graphic design, your first exercise asked you to explore this through playing visual charades. Some of the examples are rather straightforward film titles - in the sense that the titles refer to objects (nouns) or the film has a distinctive symbolic image that can be drawn. Examples of challenging film titles for this exercise might be titles based on ideas (eg. Inception or Pixar’s Brave). I would like to propose that you challenge yourself for future exercises. It can only serve to benefit you because you will learn more through the process. The written reflection for this exercise provides enough information about the process and experience of completing the exercise. The one part I want to draw attention to is where you comment “it would have been easier to get more right” The value you gain from this exercise (and any others) is not from getting the final result “right” but from working through it. In this case you can learn much more about visual communication when the person you play the game with doesn’t get the answer right. I know it can be difficult, but I would encourage you to accept some ambiguity and allow yourself space to make mistakes.
I completely agree with this. My chosen films were too easy, I was taking them from films that I felt we both could mutually know, rather than trying to visually communicate other films, which was the whole idea of the task. In future I will definitely be thinking why I am doing an exercise rather than looking for a ‘good’ outcome immediately. I feel like I struggle with making mistakes and want to avoid it (which is wrong of me as I am aware it’s all about making mistakes, learning and improving,) this feedback has made me realise this. I aim push myself more and explore ideas in the future.
Your learning blog is well presented and you have documented your decisions well, decisions about the mediums used, about layout and style and decisions about practicalities - like getting postcards from ebay. Each of these decisions is important to document because it gives you the opportunity to demonstrate your creative and analytical thinking skills and this documentation is what you will need to provide if/when you decide to submit for assessment. You may want to consider incorporating subheadings or other organisational elements (dividers, call out boxes, captions etc) to incorporate in your posts to break up the length and draw attention to the elements you want to highlight. You demonstrate an awareness of broader trends and cultural influences through the inspiration you draw from. As important as it is to recognise that your work, as a graphic designer does not exist in a silo it is also important to be true to yourself and develop your own style. You have struck a good balance between referencing source materials and drawing on your own ideas. Continue to attend to this, as the workload increases in this course it can be tempting to take shortcuts for some exercises or assignments. Try to include your own voice/your own unique take in the work you submit.
I will continue to improve showing my document and decision making and processes, this is something I feel I didn’t show in its entirety as I got further into the task. I felt as if some processes weren’t needed to be shown, but from your feedback I now realise the importance of presenting my process. I definitely think that subheadings/ a more clear layout would be beneficial going forward with my Learning Log to break up sections, and to show final ideas in a more clear way.
To further develop your future learning logs I would suggest making more connections to the assigned readings. It could be the reading for that specific section, or any previous reading as it is expected that the knowledge you build is cumulative. Consider specific paragraphs or quotes that made you stop and think, or perhaps you read something you disagree with or have experienced differently. Reflecting on the reading in your learning log will help you better understand the concepts and ideas discussed, it can help you memorize the historical facts and terminology, and it can serve to inform your assignment. I have a few technical suggestions for the blog as you continue to add more content. The assignment URL is currently the landing page, this works for one assignment, but there will be five for the course - ensure each is easy to navigate to independently. The images are placed well in relation to the written content, unfortunately they render quite small on the screen, and there are many with rich detail. Could you enable a gallery view or add the option to click each image to view full size? Currently I am unable to click any images to view the detail.
I will make more connections in my Learning Log to assigned readings in the future. There were a lot of ideas that happened from reading the initial texts/books I purchased on Graphic Design when I began this course that I could’ve referred to and will as I continue. I will add a section to my blog dedicated to other research, including any books/external reading or visuals I find that influence me. I will definitely improve the way the content is viewed on my Learning Log, I will look into adding a gallery view option so images can be viewed in greater detail.
Assignment one asked you to introduce yourself by designing a series of postcards that say something about your interests and influences. I noticed that your statements are very certain (I wanted... I decided...etc.) and there isn’t much evidence of exploration - asking questions, doubting yourself, curiosity (even when you say collage is something you are trying for the first time you speak of the decisions you make with certainty). I could be wrong here, and it may just be the way it is written that it comes across like this. It makes me wonder if you let yourself explore ideas freely and openly leaving space for making mistakes?
I definitely explore ideas and test them, but not as much as I should. I need to show my process and aim to document it better as I continue. I am very self critical and question my ideas constantly despite not showing it as much as I should’ve in my Learning Log. This feedback has made me realise the importance of documenting my process. I feel like my writing style is very definitive and comes across as more ‘black and white’ than I intend, which I will try to improve. I struggle with making mistakes and try to avoid it (stupidly,) which is something I know is wrong and Graphic Design/art is all a process which involves making mistakes, learning and improving. I look forward to working on this in the next assignment.
The assignment asks that you design the postcards as a series. This can be interpreted in different ways, but typically a series would include some form of uniting element or style or treatment. Although there are some similarities between the three it would have been well to consider the three side by side in your reflection and comment on how they fit together as a set. As an option for future submissions, you could consider using three dimensional mockups for your final work. This is useful when you want to include work in a portfolio - you can download many free photoshop files that allow you to place your work into a photograph (so a poster will look like it is actually hanging, framed on a wall). These mockups allow you to present your work professionally without the hassle/expense of printing it. Below I will give you some feedback on each card individually. You mention wanting to use the “real” postcard backgrounds for authenticity. This is a great idea. To really create the sense of authenticity you need to pay attention to small details. For example, the writing on the back of the card would have been written before it was sent and stamped by the post office - therefore the words you wrote by hand would not be written around the round stamp, but underneath it. Pay attention to the small details - if you are striving for authenticity this will matter.
As I progressed further through the assignment I lost track of the postcards being a series. This is a good learning curve as I will check the brief and underline the key words to make sure I produce work that the brief has asked me to do. I will definitely try using 3D mock ups in the future, this would’ve been a good way to present the final postcards. Looking back across my postcards there is so much I would’ve done differently, this is something I should’ve thought about, and in the future I will go over my work specifically looking at the finer details making sure they work well.
Out of the three this one feels the most out of place if considering the postcards as a series. The decision you made to replace the smooth background with the crumpled texture works well. Did you consider going a step further and using the same stained paper treatment for the background here as the other two? This one also incorporates typography. Another way to unite the cards as a set could have been to introduce typography. You mention an interest in typography and desire to incorporate type. This will be explored in more detail later in the course. But even before it is formally introduced in the assignments and exercises I would encourage you to incorporate typography. You can play around by introducing text in your process work - even if you decide not to include it in the final you can document your reasons. Working with software you can easily duplicate a text many times and try different effects and treatments. It is quick and non-destructive, meaning you can create 20 or 50 or even 100+ different versions to find what you think works best to create the effect you want.
I did actually try the background as the cooked paper (which I now realise I should’ve documented) but decided not to go with it as I didn’t want them all to look too similar. Looking back I should’ve thought about this in relation to them being a series. More typography would’ve been good, and I should’ve tested with it more. I look forward to incorporating and testing with typography in future assignments.
The documentation included for this card is the least detailed. From the original (source) visual to the cropped and edited image included here there is very little detail. You can use screenshots to capture your editing process and show different versions (side by side) of the work as it evolved. The decisions here that are significant to document would be anything from the scale and colour choices to the position of the shadows and location of the sun (it would need to be much lower on the horizon to cast such long shadows). The sketches you did of the hand-drawn text have a great texture. I wonder if there might be a more interesting way of incorporating the text (so that it feels part of the image) as opposed to a speech bubble. Could the texture of the graphite be in the soil they walk on or wispy clouds in the sky. Maybe use a font but fill it with the hand-drawn texture?
I will include more documentation/screenshots of my process going forwards, and keep in mind those elements to document. That would’ve been a good idea, I feel like I should’ve planned and tested more for each postcard. Overall I definitely need to focus on documenting my process; showing my exploration, experimenting more, and to pay attention to the smaller details (such as the shadow length, and post card stamp from the back of my first postcard.) I look forward to using this feedback going forwards and improving with my next assignment and exercises.
