Blog Summary

This blog and I have a love and hate relationship at times. In the beginning I found it hard to blog my journey of projects. This was my first time blogging and always forgot to document my work, i.e. taking pictures of work in class. I started to take pictures but didn’t blog them straight away. I didn’t like the idea of blogging and rather use a sketchbook to document my progress. Now I have rather enjoyed blogging. Following other design blogs has really helped me to see variety of work most have been interesting.

Layout

One of the first workshops I really enjoyed was the layout workshop with Jo. She taught us about editorial design in terms of producing a double page spread. As a group we practically produced a double page spread it had to contain an image, copy, picture caption, stand first, drop cap, sub heading and heading. We had to think about the hierarchy, grid and how to appeal to the audience. I found this workshop very useful, as I would like to pursue the publication industry; it gave me a better understanding how the inside of a magazine is put together. Furthermore it helped me expand my existing skills and knowledge within publication design.

Exhibition

During a wonder round Elephant and Castle a few friends and I came across an exhibition called Safe in Our Hands it showcased work from children and young adults of Kids Company. Art gives them a way of showing their emotions giving them a voice for their trauma and loneliness. Looking at their work I was impressed with what they achieved and made me realise that design and university should be something fun. I have a problem where I feel too serious with my work and panic that I’m not doing something right. This exhibition gave me a boost of confidence and freeness with my work. 

Industry

The industry project gave me different emotions, i.e. excitement, doubt, stress, and relief. It was an interesting project, I like that on this course we have an opportunity to work and learn from real designers in the industry. However it was not what I expected, I thought we would work closer with the designers and actually learn and get advice from them. I didn’t feel I learnt much from the project. I did the Julia project and had to produce a magazine about a typeface. We did this in groups and I chose Avant Garde. I felt very enthusiastic in the beginning, we had to research everything to do with the name, so that included, fashion, media film and of course the typeface. I did find the research interesting but in terms of making a magazine and getting advice on how to produce it, I felt like there was not much guidance. It was my first time making a magazine, and I think the designers should have spent more time with the first years. Even though I did not enjoy it as much as I would of liked I am excited for next years industry partners.

Highlights and Rhythms

My final project is my biggest highlight of the course, I know I have not finished but I feel like this has been the most productive I’ve been all year. I’ve learnt so much and believe these workshops have opened my mind and hopefully made me a better designer. My favourite workshop has to be Ben’s City Rhythms workshop. It is an enjoyable way of researching and developing sound in the city. It shows that lines and shapes can be just as good to show our research rather than taking photos and drawing. It is more difficult but I believe visually it is much better. Plus u can develop more ideas; I do believe it is quite hard to develop at times. But I am determined to develop and use it within my 16-page catalogue. 

Favourite Book of The Year

Great British Editorial, is the best book I’ve borrowed from the library every page has work that inspires me. Unfortunately I did not take any pictures of the work. Its a pretty hefty book in the LCC library cannot miss it. I love editorial and this book reminds me why I’m such a fan. 

VCT 

VCT I guess is the only part of the course where our creative side takes a break and the other part of our mind does work as most of the writing and deep thinking happens there. I enjoy VCT it gives us an historical background within design and gives us an open mind to other parts of design, for example curating. I never actually thought about curating an exhibition before. I did not know it played such a big part of a designers work. I learnt curating could either enhance a designer’s impact on the audience or ruin their ultimate message. Going to the Power of Making exhibition at the V&A museum was a good experience as I actually did learn more from the designers work from just analyzing its curation rather than just looking at their work.

The newspaper article project is a great project as I am interested in publications design and typography. The group worked well together and I was pleased with the topic, which was typography within children’s books. It was exciting to be making one newspaper with everyone’s article within it. I felt I learnt new things within publication design and this will ultimately help me in the future.

Hope and Dreams

Overall the first year of this course has had its positives and negative. It is a course that you need to get used to, and I’m just getting to grips with things, maybe it is a bit late but I’ve got another year to learn from and succeed in. This course has definitely pushed my abilities and my ways of thinking. The GDA PDF is a project where I pushed my abilities; I took on board feedback from the GDF PDF and really understood what was needed from me this time. I felt my design skills improved and that really helped me produce it. I need to learn to let my abilities run wild sometimes.