1. What practical skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?
I think the greatest thing I've developed during this module is my approach to research. I've always been the type of person to take a systematic linear approach to work and don't bother researching things that I can't picture having clear relevance and impact on my work, but through collecting and collating data from numerous sources I've learnt how taking a more scattered stimulated approach to work can aid idea development.
2. What approaches to/methods of problem solving have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?
As stated before, I'd taken a more stimulated approach to my work... not on a huge level but much more than I've ever done before and I found it very beneficial and somewhat liberating as it opened up my mind to other ways of thinking. Overall I went through about 4 different concept ideas and various book-design ideas all which had numerous variations.
Over Christmas my original idea was to do 100 stop-motion videos consisting of 100 frames each, I started doing a few but after some thought I came to the conclusion that if it would be very difficult to translate into a book (and I admit it was very time consuming and I wanted my break!) so I looked at picture frames instead... and I went with this idea for about 2 weeks into the module. The main reaction I got from peers and during crits was, 'its boring', I completely agreed, I wanted to change my idea... but what do I do and how do I keep to the theme of frames?
The answer came during a seminar with Fred a couple days after when we saw previous students work, someone had done a video which was quite impressive and he explained how the packaging fit into the criteria of what a book should be. Thus it led me back to the idea of doing videos consisting of 100 frames. I was back to square one.
3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?
The main strength is my final piece and the originality of the idea. I think that the concept was interesting and from reactions I got from people viewing the video was very positive. I was very pleased with the design of the book, even though the video screenshots were not the highest quality print I think the aesthetics of the design and the way it feels in the hand is very unique. The craftsmanship was very strong, definitely a step-up from my mock-up!
As stated before, I'd taken a more stimulated approach to my work... not on a huge level but much more than I've ever done before and I found it very beneficial and somewhat liberating as it opened up my mind to other ways of thinking. Overall I went through about 4 different concept ideas and various book-design ideas all which had numerous variations.
Over Christmas my original idea was to do 100 stop-motion videos consisting of 100 frames each, I started doing a few but after some thought I came to the conclusion that if it would be very difficult to translate into a book (and I admit it was very time consuming and I wanted my break!) so I looked at picture frames instead... and I went with this idea for about 2 weeks into the module. The main reaction I got from peers and during crits was, 'its boring', I completely agreed, I wanted to change my idea... but what do I do and how do I keep to the theme of frames?
The answer came during a seminar with Fred a couple days after when we saw previous students work, someone had done a video which was quite impressive and he explained how the packaging fit into the criteria of what a book should be. Thus it led me back to the idea of doing videos consisting of 100 frames. I was back to square one.
3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?
The main strength is my final piece and the originality of the idea. I think that the concept was interesting and from reactions I got from people viewing the video was very positive. I was very pleased with the design of the book, even though the video screenshots were not the highest quality print I think the aesthetics of the design and the way it feels in the hand is very unique. The craftsmanship was very strong, definitely a step-up from my mock-up!
4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully?
One of the things we discussed in the final crit with Fred was that a lot of us found that most of us took about 3-4 weeks to filter through our ideas and decide the direction in which we were going and that included me, by that time I still had a very large chunk of work to do - my plan was originally very ambitious and involved a lot of filming - I wanted to do 100 videos!
Fred gave us some good advice which was to generate ideas and explore ideas quickly towards the beginning of the module so we have more time to get on with our work... this will be especially helpful in shorter briefs.
What made my work very difficult (and life very stressful) is that technology just seemed to be against me. I hired out a camera from the video department and originally planned to do all the editing at home on my own software during the last week of the module. After obtaining the software and plugging the camera into my computer, the camera just wouldn't be read... I think my fire wire port must be broken. It sunk in that I'd have to edit it all in college on the very buggy macs on software I wasn't very familiar with. Overall I had to call a technician in 3 times, the programme crashed about 15 times and often wouldn't capture certain bits of film (which meant I had to re-film it), I also had to save all the files to a USB stick as we only have 1gig of file space on our user names - transferring of files would normally take about 10 minutes and somewhere during the process I lost half of my work. Not fun at all. This meant staying in college till 8pm for three nights capturing and editing when I could be getting on with other work.
What I learnt from this is, always have a plan B! Also, make sure you have everything you need before attempting to do something very ambitious!
Due to time constraints and problems arising which were out of my control my research was lacking a bit, I would have liked to do a lot more. Most of the research I have is primary and it needed more secondary backup work.
5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?
1. Have a plan B if things go wrong, don't count your chickens before they hatch because they might not. Have some duck eggs too and look after them with an equal amount of love!
2. Being ambitious is good, but a realistic goal is a better idea. This will save a lot of stress and I might have a final product with time to spare to be more ambitious and make improvements.
3. Once again time management, this includes making sure that you have everything you need in order to achieve your goal i.e. a fire wire port that works! I found the time management sessions very beneficial as I've found myself doing more things than ever. Being in a new relationship, looking for a house and being an active member of the Christian Union can cause a lot of pressure.
4. Use blog more, I've made more entried than I did during the last module but theres a lot more room for improvement.
5. Come to a conclusion of your idea early with lots of time to develop the one idea.
6.How would you grade yourself on the following areas:
5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor
Attendance 4
Punctuality 4
Motivation 3
Commitment 4
Quantity of work produced 2
Quality of work produced 3
Contribution to the group 4
5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor
Attendance 4
Punctuality 4
Motivation 3
Commitment 4
Quantity of work produced 2
Quality of work produced 3
Contribution to the group 4
Labels: OUGD102
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