Congratulations on completing the first semester of the programme. At this mid-way point of the year we are asking you to reflect on the last few months of your studies and evaluate what you have learned about yourself, how you learn, the content that you have been introduced to and your growing awareness of Graphic Design.
Your task is to review your blogs, your research, your work and your experiences to date. Having done this you are asked to identify:
Your task is to review your blogs, your research, your work and your experiences to date. Having done this you are asked to identify:
- 10 things that you have learned about yourself as an individual and as learner. These should reflect your personal development and individual journey since the start of the programme.
- 10 things that you have learned about yourself as a designer. These should reflect your growing awareness of your own interests within graphic design as a subject, discipline and profession.
10 things I have learnt about myself as an individual and as a learner are:
I am a home bird. I only come from Bradford originally and I battled with my parents to let me move to Leeds as I thought this would be the answer to enjoying university. However I have found that without fail I have gone home every weekend since starting university and sometimes go home on a wednesday too, due to having no classes on an afternoon. However I have also since learnt that I need to start learning to let go of my home comforts and will aim to stop in Leeds more.
There is such a thing as being able to work and play. When I first got the news that I had received an offer to go to Leeds college of art, I was convinced that the hours I spent awake, would be consumed by work. I felt that I would not make it through the first year and the work would overwhelm me. However I have found that I am able to enjoy myself at the same time as doing work, and that I get great enjoyment out of doing work too. I have slowly over the semester learnt to always create a balance in my life.
I am the most boring fresher that ever graced university, and alcohol is not my thing. Since I first moved to university, the weekend before starting at LCA, the total of nights out I have been on is 1. And this night out was the first day that I ever moved into university. Paired with my insomnia and 9 o'clock starts at university, I switched the alcoholic beverages for some hot chocolate.
A washing machine is a real thing and clothes are not cleaned via magic. Before I had come to university I had never really used a washing machine before, I had done other things such as the ironing, hoovering and loading the dishwasher etc. I found that when I first attempted to use the Washing machines in the halls, That the visual instructions on the wall were not effective enough, seen as I walked straight past them and put my £2.50 into the slot for the dryer. Cue me pressing all sorts of buttons on the washer and yelling at it for not working. I then realised it was not the instructions that were at fault, but my inability to not be blonde. I have since refined my talent and learnt how to use a washing machine.
I do not like noise at night. Coming from a quiet house at home I had never really encountered this problem. People in my house where almost certainly in bed by 11pm on work nights, which was easy surroundings for a good, healthy 8 hour sleep. However I have found coming to university that the 11pm noise curfew must really say 'hey have a 4am party' or wake me up at 3am stumbling in from a night out, this does not always go down well.
I am a human Filofax. Although I have always been organised, I could never prepare myself for how organised I would need to be for university. I took the time before I started the course to try and find a required reading list and take out some of the books on this from the library. This being the start of the journey, I have shown up to every class on time and with the correct work needed.
Blog as you go! Being new to Graphic design, I found at first that just trying to keep up with the practical projects was hard enough without trying to evaluate myself and the process along the way. However I found that my weekends would be sadly used blogging up all my work from the previous week. After gaining more experience in graphic design through a range of briefs and tuning more into the creative flow, I found that blogging and developing at the same time became easier and is essential to being successful.
I am a Kinaesthetic Learner. I have found that through attending both interactive classes such as Fred's design principles context/PPP sessions and attending lectures that I am a kinaesthetic learner. I learn things better when classes are interactive such as the sessions ran by fred, rather than lectures which are more appropriate for auditory and visual learners.
Compromise is key! Suddenly living with people you have never met before from living at home can be quite the challenge. Some people are nocturnal, some people are early birds, and pretty much all 5 people want to cook their tea at the same time. Compromising, so that everyone gets the chance for some good sleep and eat their tea when they would like has proved a key thing to learn seen as though we will be living with a set of people for our 3 years at university.
Friends you make at university are the friends you make for life. I have found that I have met who I would consider friends I will have for a life time at university, and can't wait to move in with my two closest friends commencing year 2. I have found that these friends have also helped me to settle into life more at university and made me more comfortable about being away from home.
10 things that I have learnt about myself as a designer are:
In order to be successful I have to reject personal style. Although it may seem all too much of an attractive prospect to constantly create design that looks like your favourite works, or breathes the style of design to like the most, It may not be appropriate to the Brief. Always look back at the brief making sure that your constantly making sure to create a resolution for this instead of your personal wants.
I pick things up quite fast! When I first started the course I was scared as I had no prior knowledge of how to use illustrator and had only previously used photoshop for small tasks. I have however become quite confident using illustrator and now enjoy using this medium as much as hand rendering, I thought that for at least the first year of the course I would constantly designing hand crafted pieces rather than digital.
Never forget to consider the effect of stock on your work. I have for a previous brief created a piece of work which I feel quite proud of. I thought I had chosen a great stock however, a few days before module hand in I was advised to try out a different stock and so I spent my remaining printing allowance, buying a stock which was slightly darker in colour (Champaign instead of white) and had a more grainy texture. Thus, this changed the effects of colour and readability of text on my final piece, the colour of the paper had made the colours seem less bright and the grainy texture meant that the text was less readable. Although I wrote in the evaluation that it would have been nice to edit the design to work with the new paper it would have been nice to have a final piece I was happy with, and so I have learnt to always try stock out before I go to final print.
Don't be disheartened. I have learnt not to feel down about my work when I look at others who I think is submitting what I would consider better work than mine. I now remember to be proud of myself and what I have learnt in the 4 months I have spent studying Graphic design. I have also learnt not to put myself down when I look at work from professional designers, as I have only just began my journey and still have a lot left to learn.
I really enjoy the research aspect of design. I have found that I have really enjoyed the Design process module as this considered the process and context in which the works have been designed instead of focusing all energy on the end product. I have enjoyed having more well informed design, and having a thirst for knowledge, constantly learning things that I did not know before. I found that this appeared in two specific briefs, 'How to: get people to use public transport' where we created 3 different research boards which would inform our design process and outcome and 'Research, Collect, Communicate: PRODUCT, in which we were given 3 weeks to fully research, initially design and come up with a final resolution to the brief.
I am just as successful working in a group as I am by myself. When we first arrived at college we were given our first brief which we were to create a resolution for in a group. I feared working in a group with a bunch of Graphic design students who most probably wanted to try persuade each other to go along with their ideas I found the experience very rewarding. Although you quickly found who you would not particularly like to work with again, you learnt what type of designers you would work well with. I have since learnt that, even when we are working on individual briefs, we are never working alone because we are constantly receiving crit from our peers that allows us to progress and become more open minded. I also felt working in groups that I absorbed others knowledge which I was unaware of before.
I do not want to get stuck in a rut. I have found that in a couple of projects I have developed a style which incorporates creating designed combining both illustration and photography. However I would like to create some design in the future that works without photography and solely with original illustrations I designed.
This can be seen in my 3 posters evolving into my mail shot design, for Design skills and the most redent brief of Design process, Research, Collect, Communicate: PRODUCT.
Don't always be safe, be experimental. For the first few briefs I worked with on the course, I feared that my designs would not be good enough and so I ended up being quite safe, constantly using the same stock, creating works on small scale because I felt it was easier than creating something on a large scale. For the latest Design process brief 'Research, Collect, Communicate: PRODUCT' I decided that I would work on a range of different stocks, these included white card, champagne grain card, acetate and ribbon. I was given good feedback for being ambitious with my choices and very much enjoyed how much I learnt from printing on different stocks.
I enjoyed working independently. Up until the last Design process brief we were given a lot of guidance as far as where to take our designs, what size they should be, how many colours we should use. However for the last brief 'Research, Collect, Communicate: PRODUCT' we were allowed to work a lot more independently picking our own subject matter, creating a problem and then resolving this. The independence was furthered due to cancellation of crits due to bad weather, however I Found that I quite enjoyed the experience. Before during one weeks briefs where we were given a lot of limitations, I found it difficult to fully research my subject, brainstorm ideas, create initial designs and then a final resolution, alongside workshops and classes. I found that over the three weeks where we worked independently I could really research into my subject, create a range of design ideas and progress with the one that was most appropriate.
Criticism is good and not a personal attack. I think that before coming to college I very much relied on people complimenting my work to feel good about it, and that If someone said they didn't like something about my work I would instantly become disheartened. However I have learnt to love crits and use them to my advantage, especially at LCA, what is better than getting advice from 50 other budding graphic designers and tutors that have done work within industry? I have also found that now I much prefer getting criticism more than compliments because criticism opens a door in which I can better my work, where as I cannot work with a complement.
10 things that I have learnt about myself as a designer are:
In order to be successful I have to reject personal style. Although it may seem all too much of an attractive prospect to constantly create design that looks like your favourite works, or breathes the style of design to like the most, It may not be appropriate to the Brief. Always look back at the brief making sure that your constantly making sure to create a resolution for this instead of your personal wants.
-A piece I created recently for my room in the style of my one of my favourite designers Marian Bantjes.
I pick things up quite fast! When I first started the course I was scared as I had no prior knowledge of how to use illustrator and had only previously used photoshop for small tasks. I have however become quite confident using illustrator and now enjoy using this medium as much as hand rendering, I thought that for at least the first year of the course I would constantly designing hand crafted pieces rather than digital.
Never forget to consider the effect of stock on your work. I have for a previous brief created a piece of work which I feel quite proud of. I thought I had chosen a great stock however, a few days before module hand in I was advised to try out a different stock and so I spent my remaining printing allowance, buying a stock which was slightly darker in colour (Champaign instead of white) and had a more grainy texture. Thus, this changed the effects of colour and readability of text on my final piece, the colour of the paper had made the colours seem less bright and the grainy texture meant that the text was less readable. Although I wrote in the evaluation that it would have been nice to edit the design to work with the new paper it would have been nice to have a final piece I was happy with, and so I have learnt to always try stock out before I go to final print.
Don't be disheartened. I have learnt not to feel down about my work when I look at others who I think is submitting what I would consider better work than mine. I now remember to be proud of myself and what I have learnt in the 4 months I have spent studying Graphic design. I have also learnt not to put myself down when I look at work from professional designers, as I have only just began my journey and still have a lot left to learn.
I really enjoy the research aspect of design. I have found that I have really enjoyed the Design process module as this considered the process and context in which the works have been designed instead of focusing all energy on the end product. I have enjoyed having more well informed design, and having a thirst for knowledge, constantly learning things that I did not know before. I found that this appeared in two specific briefs, 'How to: get people to use public transport' where we created 3 different research boards which would inform our design process and outcome and 'Research, Collect, Communicate: PRODUCT, in which we were given 3 weeks to fully research, initially design and come up with a final resolution to the brief.
I am just as successful working in a group as I am by myself. When we first arrived at college we were given our first brief which we were to create a resolution for in a group. I feared working in a group with a bunch of Graphic design students who most probably wanted to try persuade each other to go along with their ideas I found the experience very rewarding. Although you quickly found who you would not particularly like to work with again, you learnt what type of designers you would work well with. I have since learnt that, even when we are working on individual briefs, we are never working alone because we are constantly receiving crit from our peers that allows us to progress and become more open minded. I also felt working in groups that I absorbed others knowledge which I was unaware of before.
I do not want to get stuck in a rut. I have found that in a couple of projects I have developed a style which incorporates creating designed combining both illustration and photography. However I would like to create some design in the future that works without photography and solely with original illustrations I designed.
This can be seen in my 3 posters evolving into my mail shot design, for Design skills and the most redent brief of Design process, Research, Collect, Communicate: PRODUCT.
Don't always be safe, be experimental. For the first few briefs I worked with on the course, I feared that my designs would not be good enough and so I ended up being quite safe, constantly using the same stock, creating works on small scale because I felt it was easier than creating something on a large scale. For the latest Design process brief 'Research, Collect, Communicate: PRODUCT' I decided that I would work on a range of different stocks, these included white card, champagne grain card, acetate and ribbon. I was given good feedback for being ambitious with my choices and very much enjoyed how much I learnt from printing on different stocks.
I enjoyed working independently. Up until the last Design process brief we were given a lot of guidance as far as where to take our designs, what size they should be, how many colours we should use. However for the last brief 'Research, Collect, Communicate: PRODUCT' we were allowed to work a lot more independently picking our own subject matter, creating a problem and then resolving this. The independence was furthered due to cancellation of crits due to bad weather, however I Found that I quite enjoyed the experience. Before during one weeks briefs where we were given a lot of limitations, I found it difficult to fully research my subject, brainstorm ideas, create initial designs and then a final resolution, alongside workshops and classes. I found that over the three weeks where we worked independently I could really research into my subject, create a range of design ideas and progress with the one that was most appropriate.
Criticism is good and not a personal attack. I think that before coming to college I very much relied on people complimenting my work to feel good about it, and that If someone said they didn't like something about my work I would instantly become disheartened. However I have learnt to love crits and use them to my advantage, especially at LCA, what is better than getting advice from 50 other budding graphic designers and tutors that have done work within industry? I have also found that now I much prefer getting criticism more than compliments because criticism opens a door in which I can better my work, where as I cannot work with a complement.
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