- End of Module Evaluation -

This module has been a test of my abilities. I have tried, learnt and i think succeeded in the new skills i have developed. Firstly in type and grid, i didn't know anything about layouts what so ever. I enjoyed the development of ideas through experimenting with thumbnails then applying them to the computer. I felt that drawing the designs by hand gave you useful visuals to pick out the best and most exciting design. Learning In Design i have felt is going to be very useful in the future. It was a little hard to pick up at first but i think i have the basics. This is evident in my lay out for the In Design brief we did, the end result looks quite professional. I don't think my layout skills are of a professional standard but with practice and time i will get up to a good level.

In the Speaking from Experience i experimented with video which was a first for me. I felt that imagining and drawing your ideas for the story board is much harder for a layout lets say because there is a lot more in a moving image than a still one. But i experimented with different shots and tried to imitate elements from other films. The editing of this video was also another skill which i developed. I found out that editing takes a long time and fitting visuals to audio can be a long process. I think i did well in the editing though, the music i chose for the video works very well and in my opinion makes the film.

My weaknesses lie within the type area i think. I have learnt alot about type since being on this course but i feel that alot of graphic design looks good due to the type used in it. In some aspects of my projects i feel i have done well with the type side of things. My speaking from experience brief led me to making a film poster in the style of 1970's b movie. I researched into alot of movie posters from that time and i think the end result of the font i used and adjusted looks like a genuine movie poster title font. But in other projects such as the communication is a virus brief i felt that the type wasn't thought out enough and it made the design of our calender look un-professional. I think next time more research and more variations for type is needed.

My favourite brief of this module was the Don't Panic - Vogue brief. This is because it was a quick brief and there was lots of artistic room for everyone to try different techniques out. It was also good because there was a chance of our designs being mass produced and put up in the the real world which is an exciting prospect for any young designer.

In the future i will try more visual variations for designs, think more about what type to use and work on the relationship between type and image.

- In Design -

For this project i had to make a double made spread about Alice Vine. I chose to focus on her love for watches.

Here is the final double page spread. I edited some of the single watch photos so they were long and thin and showed only part of the watch.

This was my first attempt of the layout. I didn't like the white back ground and the photo (top right) was quite bad quality so it was pixilated.
Here are a few of the photos i took for the in design lay out. I took individual one of the watches, and in groups.

I did some thumbnails to try out some different visual varitions. Alice's name works really nice because the A and the V are sort of opposites so i was trying different ways of intergrating them.

Here are Alice's answer to the questions i gave her.

- In Context -

Banner

I wanted to make the poster seem like it was a genuine film so i added a small banner like they used to do in the 70's showing the time and place of the showing.

I used an orange banner so it would stand out. The 'times' i put are the timings of the course. I also advertised the Alarm Clock pack bringing the products together. To make it look a bit more authentic i also hand teared the edges. This is because the people that would of promoted a film in the 190's would have printed a roll of these banners and just tore them when they needed them.

Here is the poster with the banner.

I also put it up on the level 4 notice board because this is where people advertise stuff on the course.

Internet

I also designed a longer thinner version of the poster as an advert for the internet. Lots of webpages have adverts so i thought it would be a good vessel to promote the products.

I tried 3 different variations of the design. The hierarchy of text in the first one is all wrong because the tag line is too big and takes focus of the title. The composition of the middle one works best because the illustrations are arranged more smoothly and the title is apart from the illustrations so it doesn't get lost.

I took a generic website, i chose Empire online because its a film website. I then placed my advert into the space where adverts go to show what it would look like. You could use this design on the 1st year blogs also.

Screen Print

I also wanted to screen print the poster because thats how it would have been done back in the 70's. The poster design would look crisp and the colours would be more vivid.

But i did run into a problem. I couldn't print out A2 CMYK black and white designs to expose the screens. This is because there was no space to print out this week. I may attempt this when the A2 printers are less busy.

- Poster Revisions -

I had idea of linking the floppy disks to the course by making them with the module titles. There are 3 main modules and 3 floppy disks on the poster. I first tried making it look like they had been written straight onto the disk with a marker pen.

I then tried it with the labels which they used to use on floppy disks which looked much better.

I finally changed the colour of the stickers for each floppy disk to give it a bit of variation and because i remember that they used to use coloured labels for organisation.

Here is the poster with the revisions.

- Final Products -

- Speaking From Experience Evaluation -

Self Evaluation - I found that the hardest thing about this course is time managment and that everyones problems revolve around time. I asked everyone on the course the question , What is the hardest thing about this course ? I found that nearly every answer was to do with time, whether it was getting in on time or the amount of time your in college. It was all about time. I think for this course i am a good source of research because i was a new student to this course and i remember how i felt about everything. When i came to the course i wanted to be inspired and shown that you could do things that weren't just based on type faces so thats why i came up of the idea of doing a film poster. I think this would show that this course can be fun (but time consuming)

5 things i have learnt about the design process

- I learnt how to edit video

- I learnt some basic motion graphics

- I learnt a lot about video in general

- I learnt that doing design sketches gives you lots of ideas

- That i really enjoy the illustration side of graphics

5 things i would do differently

-Spend more time on the packaging for the alarm clock package, it looked to bland and un-adventurous,(Picture of packaging below)

- I would spend more time on the video, i would try and make it look like a real movie trailer with clips from different scenes and characters.

- I would try a range of illustration styles rather than just one. Because the style i chose looks good on objects like cars or computers but i dont think its as strong on people.(Picture of illustration in the style i did of Ben and Sam.)

- Come up with a better design for the DVD. I wasn't that pleased with the end result.

- Tried a few more composition ideas for the illustration collage

- Time Stealers Poster -