OUGD406: Design Practice 1 - 'Speaking From Experience' Crit

Using the three design boards we were asked to produce in preparation for the crit, we were asked - in groups of six - to define and present our concept, method of delivery and production for the 'Speaking From Experience' brief  to Simon, Amber and a couple of third year students.

As this was the first brief we were asked to attend for the 'Speaking From Experience' brief we also were given relevant feedback throughout the crit from our peers about how to progress from the research process to producing initial ideas and the final outcome.

My Feedback:

• Visual strong message but no to distracting
• Stickers over the keys? - To stop them going on the internet etc? Would that not make it hard to work, by not being able to see the letters / keys?
• Like the idea of something coming over the top of the screen
• Make it gender neutral for everyones use?
• Interesting concept, although it needs developing
• Design is key
• Like the idea of not only the work in handmade but it in 'DIY'. Handmade for the audience - Personal for them?
• Could you produce a website where the audience would produce there own design for it?
• Production - Laptop skin?
• How are you going to make people use it?

The feedback which I received from the crit was generally mixed. Although, my concept for the brief was well received there were some questions about the method of delivery I had chosen, which suggest to me this still needs developing.

OUGD402: Personal and Professional Practice - Guest Lecturer: Ian Anderson

• The Designer's Republic started on July 14th 1986

Album cover - a Thousand Years of Trouble

• First major label, 1987
• Passport
• Logo - 'All Seeing Eye'
• War through the years

Warp Records Logo

• Futuristic retro
• Thunderbirds
• Space adventures
• Instantly recognisable

Dr. No-B

• Series of inter-linked dots

Emigrate Magazine

• Whole issue dedicated to The Designer's Republic
• Sissy - Represented American foreign policy 
• Cute, but is hiding a baseball bat behind her
• Evolved into a 3-dimentional figure, used in branding and promotional work
• 'God mother of all characters'

Customised Terro, Artist's space

Maluko

• Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork orange
• Maluko - Milk, slang
• Milka Cow

Liberty X - Being Nobody

• Original concept - Working in a hyper-market
• Final concept - Working in a factory: Mass production, shallow

'N5' - Coca-Cola bottle

Helvetica 50 - Chose the year 1961

Oversteps - Vinyl cover

New, Now, Wow

'Wait Here. Help is On The Way'

• Pun on the politeness of british and willingness to que

• 'More is More'

Aim Low + M-iss

• Do What you want to do

OUGD406: Communication Is A Virus: 5-A-DAY, Final Critique & Self Evaluation

As this was the final critique for the 'Communication Is A Virus' brief were asked to formally present our final concept for the brief, the content we included and the methods of delivery we chose to communicate this concept to the rest of the year group.

Overall I feel the presentation went well, as each member of the group made a contribution and we throughly explained our concept and the outcomes we had produced for the brief. However, it was suggested that the poster we produced could have been clearer about the message we were trying to communicate as several people thought that the celebrities in which we used as examples of bad tweets had actually tweeted us.

Self Evaluation

As a group what problem did you identify and why (In response to 5-A-Day / 10,000 Steps / Drink Tea)?

Our group was given the subject, 5-A-Day to which we were asked to provide a 'graphics response' to. Instead of focussing on the obvious interpretation of the phrase we decided as a group to think of the term more literally, for example other things we do five times a day.

We decided to focus on social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram which we all agreed we used at least five times a day. We believed that social media websites would be a appropriate focus for our response as they have - quite quickly - become part of many peoples daily lifestyle and are something that is commonly abused or mis-used.

What methods did you use to gather your evidence to prove this was a problem and what forms did it take? (Categorise, your research using the terms primary, secondary, quantitative and qualitative)

Although we had already agreed as a group that social media websites were something that had become   part of our daily routine we decided to create a tally of how many times we checked/visited any social media site on one given day as part of the primary research process. I, particularly found this process quite eye-opening as it showed me just how dependant I had become on social media as a form of communication. Pooling the results of the group also proved to me that this was the case with many students.

In terms of secondary research, we divided up three areas appropriate to our concept, which originally to create a self help app; Existing self help apps, books and websites; App and website layouts; Internet advertising techniques, placement, sizing etc.
The research we collected in these areas particularly Joe and Grace's research into self help app and websites gave us a better understanding of how serious 'internet addiction' is and the vast amount of material designed to help sufferers of the addiction.

What methods of research did you find useful and why?

In terms of appropriateness to our concept, I personally found the primary, quantitive research useful as enabled us to get an accurate and reliable representation of how big social media addiction has become. The process of producing a tally was also quite beneficial as made me realise how much I rely on social media myself.

What research could you have carried out that would have proved more useful?

In order to collect research which would give a more reliable representation of the amount of time that our target market of students use social media websites I believe we could have extended the primary research process.

How did you manage the workload as part of a group?

Throughout the three-week long brief, our group communication skills were good, as we kept each other up to date with what we were doing during Uni and communicated via a Facebook group outside of Uni hours.

This communication enabled us to manage the workload effectively as a group, particularly during the research aspect of the design process in which member of the group was given a separate relevant areas of research to collect.

Throughout the initial idea generation aspect we managed the workload as a group by each producing several ideas for stickers, posters etc. which we then could pool together  and choose our final outcome.
We felt this would be more beneficial than designing all the design work as a group as it would enable us to produce lots of designs quickly which was necessary so we could start the promotional side of the campaign as quickly as possible.

OUGD402: Personal and Professional Practice -

To start the PPP session, we were asked to rejoin the groups we have been working with for the 'Communication Is A Virus'. We then put into pair and swapped the twenty statements visuals which described ourselves as individuals and ourselves as a practitioner, with another pair.

Using visuals given to us by Adam and Grace, Me and Emily left the group to separate the images into two piles, the personal images and the professional images and then wrote what we believed each image said about them.

ADAM

Personal

Adam is a tea drinker, he particularly likes Earl Grey. The images of a dog and horses show he obviously cares about animals and we a presuming he owns a dog. He owns a large dvd collection and has a particular interest in technology.

Professional

Several of the professional images show that Adam has a keen interest in Illustration, in particular where texture has been used. He also likes bold simplistic design such as the aesthetics of the Russian Constructivist movement.

GRACE 

Personal 

Grace's images show a wide variety of her interests, from the image of divers we presume she enjoys swimming which is perhaps a hobby of hers. Reading and music are obviously great inspirations to her, with her favourite genre being fantasy and alternative rock. We are presuming from 'The Origins Of Species' that she has an interest in science. Another assumption we made was that the image of the forest is somewhere of great importance to her, perhaps somewhere she visits regularly?

Professional

All the professional images chosen by Grace show a particular preference to simplistic design and the aesthetics of the modernist movement and their is evidence of an interest in hand-rendered illustration. We believe, from the images that editorial and packaging are particular aspects of Graphic Design in which Grace is interested in. Throughout  several of the images there is also a use of the colour green, however this could be a coincidence. 

Once we had done this we were able to rejoin the group with our observations which we were able to cross-reference with the original statements Adam and Grace had wrote about themselves. Generally the observations we had made from the images were correct.

Joe and Ant who did mine and Emily's images were also quite close with the observations they made from our images.

STUDY TASK EIGHT

If you were a book what would your subject be and who would read you?

If you were a package what would you contain be and who would open you?

If you were a shop what would you sell be and who would buy it?

If you were a poster what would you promote and to whom?

If you were a brand what would your values be and why would they be important?

If you were an exhibition what would you show and where would you show it?

If you were a leaflet what information would you contain and who would read it?

If you were a sign what would you show, to whom and where?

If you were an App what would you do and who would use you?

If you were a blog, what would you be about and who would follow you?

If you were an event, what would it be and how would you promote it?

OUGD406: Design Practice 1 - Communication Is A Virus: 5-A-Day Critique (1/03/13)

As we only have one week left on the 'Communication is a Virus' brief, we were asked to attend a 'Progress Crit' in which we discussed our concept for the brief and our ideas and thoughts on how we would progress throughout the last week of the brief with our tutor and two other groups from our year group.

As a group we found the crit extremely useful as, currently although the promotional 'sticker-bombing' had worked in the sense that our Twitter page had over 120 followers, unfortunately we had had barely any participation from our followers in out campaign to post more interesting, inspiring tweets. 

The progress crit which we attended enabled us to receive feedback from our peers on possible solutions to this problem.

Taking inspiration from the strategy used by another group in the crit, our tutor urged us to use 'shock tactics' in the designs we produce in order to provoke an response from our target audience.

We therefore decided to use a series of 'bad' tweet which we found on Twitter within our poster designs to illustrate our point that the social media site is being abused, these posters would also give us the opportunity to be quite 'playful' and 'humorous' which I believe the target market would respond to.