Amazing to think of the learning curve I've gone through, through the past few months, I feel I have learnt the most now than over the past 3 years. I think we all had the understanding that it would be like this, because of the amount of work produced, the range of techniques explored and the variations between briefs and clients, another great addition.
Working with clients this module has been such a valuable experience. With previous modules and work load you have the feeling of work becoming a-little fictional.. obviously if into production work can be displayed in the public domain but working briefs didn't have the same effect or feeling of responsibility as a live piece of work. Getting live work with clients at this stage while in the safe environment of university has been valuable experience, allowing for varying timescales, budgets and feedback from fellow students has meant I make simple mistakes now, and not while I'm trying to make a living from my practice.
Aswell as clients, collaborative experience has been so much better in this environment, working with dedicated fellow students and being able to collaborate on ideas. As well as getting the experience, I feel it has benefitted my practice more more also, having a few people rely on you for results and deadlines draws more importance to time management. Having extra work to do on top of briefs has meant I've been much more efficient with my time. I've been in to uni from around 8am, and leaving beyond 7pm most days (7am-9pm the coming weeks before deadline) to make use of the time here and the work I need to complete, and using booked slots for facilities as personal deadlines, and organised critiques between smaller groups.
With only a few weeks remaining of the degree programme and this was the last module to complete, the brief choices and work produced was I feel a strong reflection of what I'm about as a designer.
The new updated SOI-
‘With a focus on print production, combining typographic instruction and direction for commercial solutions’
The brief choices and work produced has almost been a little bit selfish, work I have produced this module is some of my favourite pieces of work that reflect my SOI and what I've done overall. Beautiful Characters and the elbow are two briefs that are most substantial in work and what I wanted to produce. Bc, was a brief originally to be completed in OUGD301 but I felt experience and dedication wouldn't of been enough to do it justice, how I feel I have done it justice to what I have produced. Elbow, originally a smaller brief to chip away at has developed into full type production packaging and contextual development and research into specific field, the end result although might not have the integrity of some pieces I have in my portfolio, but definitely something visually interesting and memorable in the portfolio. I think if you're really happy with the work produced, it should be in your portfolio. producing work that you don't enjoy just for your portfolio just feels a little unethical.
The module overall has enhanced my understanding of print further, working with indesign to a professional standard with the yearbook development, mockups of packaging for folds and stock, how ink will take to certain stocks, the differences of colour between stock of the same document and the general importance on how it makes a difference.
There are a few points I will definitely learn from the past module. Costs and expenses for the module have been the highest for a module of work. Obviously there would be some costs involved but whether or not I would of had to spend as much as I have done. Mockups, paper tests, clothing samples, print tests with different facilities, could I have saved money with certain design decisions? or were they part of the design process. It was a very useful experience to undertake, but nearly £200 on clothing for various facilities could of been saved at some point along the way. Is photoshop a direction should of taken? mocking up examples and outcomes? Although very much a positive point of my FMP module, working with clients has had its obvious downsides. the general, 'please can you email this across with the changes within the next hour' approach has its obvious frustrations, I think i'm just hoping it won't be like this in the industry.
