Sunday 14 May 2017

OUGD602 Module Evaluation (Brief One & Two)

The past year has been a very important experience for myself as it has made me realise crucial elements that are key for my own design process. The most important thing I have learnt is that it is absolutely integral to create a concept to develop my work. I realised this as I found I was a lot more passionate about the work I was producing when it had been informed by a body of research. I also learnt the importance of blogging my ideas, as it made final resolutions a lot easier to understand as I had a step by step guide of my idea generation; I found this really useful for group critiques and talking through my work at studio visits, and I therefore believe that it will be incredibly useful in industry when explaining my work, both at interviews and when I have a job to work colleagues. 

I feel a lot more confident when talking through the ideas behind my work this year, I believe this is down to my engagement with the industry through studio visits. The studios that I sent my work were very complimentary and said I have a wide set of design skills which they look for in their employees. 

My presentation skills have improved vastly this year and I believe that this is also due to my engagement with industry, in particular my internship with Foxduo Design. I discovered that there isn’t anything to be nervous about when sharing ideas with clients; the worst that can happen is they don’t like the design - this isn’t the end of the world.

I think my biggest weakness this year was time management. I left contacting studios till late due to the fact I wanted to get my personal branding and online presence perfect before contacting them, and I feel as though this could’ve jeopardised my opportunity of getting internships due to the studios being fully booked for the year. 

This year I have learnt that I really enjoy collaborating, whether that be with other designers or other specialisms. I think it has a really beneficial impact on my portfolio as it shows I can work as part of a team, but I also believe the outcomes are a lot stronger when more than one person has worked on the brief - two heads are better than one. 


Overall, I have really engaged with university this year and I definitely feel in a better position and feel more industry ready than I was at the beginning of the year.  

Tuesday 9 May 2017

OUGD602 Time Plan - Updated (Brief Two)

November - January: Self-branding

January +: Contact studios

March - April: .PDF Portfolio & CV

April: Internship at Foxduo Design

May: Submit PPP, EP & complete Intermarketing brief

June: Internship at Oslo

July: Be employed / Continue applying for design jobs in Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds.

Saturday 29 April 2017

OUGD602 Manifesto (Brief One)

From what I have learnt over the past three years, I decided to make a short manifesto in the style of a haiku poem for do's and don'ts for myself to follow, and to put on my website so that people will know what I stand for.

I chose to write it in the form of a Haiku poem as it makes it a lot easier to remember due to the rhyming nature. The manifesto is below.


Thursday 27 April 2017

OUGD602 Presentation Review (Brief Two)

Today I did my presentation. I started off really nervous and was a bit all over the place with my words, however after a minute I relaxed into it a lot more and I think it went really well. I managed to say everything that I had planned on speaking about due to using a script, however I tried to not just completely read off it.

When I had previously practiced the presentation it lasted around 7 minutes and 30 seconds, which is spot on as we were supposed to leave 3 minutes for questions, however I'm not sure how long it lasted in the end due to the fact that when I am nervous I speak a lot quicker than I usually would.

I think my presentation was quite interesting, and I tried to make it more engaging by using bright colours and speaking about multiple different aspects of my development instead of just internships and studio visits.