Design Practice Blog

OUGD102 Evaluation

It seems strange handing in a module with only five boards, a mock up and some blocks of wood. I like it though. It doesnt feel officially over but then again it never really is. Infact I am a large hater of long briefs. I always seems to accomplish so much more in short briefs as they dont give me time to start to hate what I am investigating and making. However, in this particular brief it seemed that my vagueness (although wrong to have for such a long time) did my a favour as it allowed me to play with the bigger picture for a while. I did finally realise that the big picture was to big to put onto paper in this brief but without doing so, allowed to me find things out about my taste that I'd never thought of before.

Research wise, not my best point. I found my subject matter really hard to find research upon as it was opinion based. An opportunity for primary based research you might think but still it was hard to do so as it was within a subject that isn't a common thought in the publics mind. It allowed me to conduct research in a wider spectrum of things but on paper looked really vague. It was clear in my mind but I couldn't translate it, especially through research. however I stepped up the research game once I had picked a stable subject matter, cells and developed that concept of functional beauty. Research also became easier when it came to finding different imagery for each side of ugly form and beautiful function. My brain storming helped massively. I feel as though I still struggle on research but I find that brainstorming is one of my strongest points of projects.

It took me a while to refine my project. It wasn't so much lingering on decision making, it was more trying to get my head around how this could be made simple. If good is accidental functional beautiful things then how can this be transformed into a useful object? I found it hard to convert this subject matter into a design for print. I finally refined it to trying to make people think how I was thinking is good. That is to say the project then became about persuading designers that nature is good to look at as a piece of well made design.

I think that I found some inventive ways of demonstrating this. I tried to not go wild with crazy methods of delivery but apply it through print and use graphics as the tool of conveying a message through the way it is being told.

The wood printing was a good success quality wise. I was really pleased with it's result. I think that the lenticular idea was pushed past the face value of what is normally seen which was a plus. I wanted to create something that would be interactive but still had the packaging element missing. This is why I made the pencil box and pencils as I wanted it to be used. I hate making useless things that won't be used. I don't know if I am right in what I made but I am happy I used stationary. Its a shame the post stinks around here as it would have been nice to have handed in a better mock up than the one I gave in however I think I pushed myself out of my comfort zone a little by the print processes I used. The point of the brief right?

Print process wise. I have learnt so much from this brief. It is one of the strongest learning curves yet on the course. I have loved and hated print all in the space of three months. I still would have a few beads of sweat when asked what is right and wrong to use and not use in the print industry, but am a damn sight more informed than I was. I feel so much more comfortable finding out more about it as I have a pretty good starting point of what is possible out there.

All in all I'm not feeling like I could shout to the world about how good my last piece of work was. I think that I have improved in some ways, but I've still got a long way to go in making my work look professional and having professional understandings, but I do feel one step closer.