Over all I feel that this assignment has been productive, there has been good and bad points to the assignment. I have learnt a great deal about typography and how a design studio is run by having different time tasks.
I have enjoyed learning about typography something that I didn’t really know much about before I started this assignment. I was given a typographer to research, which was Erik Spikermann. I have done lots of research on my chosen typographer and feel that I know more about typography from doing this task. I then produced a presentation about Erik Spikermann which I found quit easy to put together, I felt that I did the right amount of research to produce the final presentation with the information that I had found, and from the presentations that we had in the lesson really helped. I then had to perform my final presentation. I felt that I could have done better at the presentation if it wasn’t for nerves, but overall I think I did quit well as I haven’t really done that many presentations before.
Over all I didn’t think that I would enjoy the timed tasks as much as I did and feel that I have really benefited from having the opportunity to experience what a studio environment is like. I made sure that before we started this part of the assignment I had researched Indesign so that when it came to the timed tasks I knew exactly how to work the different tools in this software and feel that I benefited for this as I had taken screen shots in my sketch book so that I was able to look back at these for help if I needed it. I liked the way that none of the timed tasks were the same which meant that I was able to improve my design skills and also learning more about the design industry.
The first task was Hokai, In this task we had to produce packaging for a paint tube. I feel that my performance wasn’t as good as the other timed task because for some reason I couldn't’t get the measurements correct as the aliments on the page wasn’t to the correct size. But when I worked out what was wrong with the layout I was then able to produce a more standard piece of work. It was also a challenge to make all of the information fit in a small amount of space. We were given the information but needed to work the design around the information so that it would all fit on the page.
The second task was Vodafone, we had to design an advertisement for the phone company. We were given the information that needed to go on the page, but we had to work out which would be the best size layout to fit the logo and information on to. I liked the task as there was more to think about then just being given the size of the page, we had to decide which would be the best design solution. Even though I didn’t think this was one of my best designs I still feel that you could see a big improvement from the other timed tasks that I did before this one.
The third timed task was Johnathan Gee, we had to produce a news paper article making columns so that the title, information and logo would fit to the structure of the columns. I feel that this was one of my best design tasks as it was a lot different to the other task that we had done. There was more to it then just designing one product I had to think about where the title, main text and the picture would go, I had to split it up into smaller design tasks. I feel that the presentation that we had before really helped me structure my work as I don’t think I would have been able to produce as good a design as I did for this task.
The fourth timed task was Grid, we had to produce a template of a newspaper article, we had to structure the page so that we used columns and grids. I thought that this task was one of the hardest because we had to make sure that we had used measurements which where exact, so that when we came to designing our structure in Indesign we knew exactly how the page should look. I felt that this tasks wasn’t the most existing of the tasks as there was no information or graphics to be placed on to the design. We had to make sure that boxes where placed where the columns and grids where going and placing measurements on to the design. So that it would make it easier to produce the next design task.
The fifth task was story, this followed on from the grid task where we designed a structure for a newspaper article. I enjoyed this task as we was able to produce a graphical title, implement the given information and choose our own heading. This was more of a task where it was the chance to structure the design as we wanted. I feel that I had really improved from the first design that I had done and feel that this was my best design out of them all and also feel that this was the most enjoyable.
I feel that in this assignment you can really see the improvements that I have made form the other assignments and feel that I have really improved in my design skills, however there is still lots more that I need to learn. But feel that learning about typography will benefit me when I have to design any other web sites, as I will know more about which fonts go best with different typefaces and what fonts should be used where. I also feel that the timed tasks will help me be able to plan my work better as we had a strict amount of time to produce these tasks and feel that I now can implement this in to the other assignments.
Today I emailed Steve again to ask for today's tasks. My first task was to create mood boards that related to my music using the spider diagrams that I created yesterday. First of all I listened to my Cd again before starting the task. I really enjoyed this task as it allowed me to get creative. First of all I broke down different categories for my spider diagrams so that I was able to create 4 different individual mood boards. After this I then looked through magazines and the Internet for things that I could put on the mood board. I found loads of good pictures which fitted well with the category of each board.
The third task was to create spider diagrams and mood boards about the word “Emit”. I researched what the company was about before starting my spider diagrams. There wasn’t much information on “Emit” but I found enough out to create my spider diagrams. I then moved on to create the mood boards from my spider diagrams. There where lots of pictures on the emit site which I added in to my mood boards which I created 3 mood boards.