On Friday, we had our final crit for the 'how to...' group brief. We each had to stand up in groups and present our idea's in a powerpoint and verbal format. Unfortunately I was quite ill and had to leave the session early, I managed to see half of the groups and unfortunately was unable to present mine. Here is a self-evaluation of how I feel the project went;

Self Evaluation

• What problem did you identify?

'How to make a Paper airplane'. Initially we decided to aim this at children looking at an activity pack which then branched our idea's further to a board game or science 'investigation pack'. However, after our interim crit with Amber and Jo they decided we needed to focus on a different target audience looking more at paper planes and their function directly. Therefore we decided to think of a paper airplane as a physical object and look at it's uses. We decided the paper airplane is essentially a 'mesenger' and this branched us to our final idea to create an iPhone or smart phone app which will appeal to an older target audience. This would be a 'fun' app which allows you to personalise and design card which will then physical fold on screen into a paper airplane and sent to the person of your choice. We went down a route of 'air mail' and used a consistent design throughout the app. 

• What evidence did you find to support your decisions?

We took a lot of research into the physical folding of planes and how they appear visually, experimenting both hands on as well as collected research from the internet and video based sources. We also looked at interesting facts about Paper airplanes to see what could influence our ideas and when Lisa came up with this messenger app idea we then conducted research into smart phone apps, how they physically appear, the content of them, their simplicity etc. 

• What methods did you use to gather your evidence and what forms did it take?

I conducted a questionnaire for research and as a group we also collected research from online sources as well as watched video's on YouTube that gave us demonstrations on how to use paper airplanes. We also created mock up miniature airplanes and larger forms too as well as a mock-up game board for one of our earlier idea's to see how the size would physically suit in a typical household. 

• (categorise your research using terms primary, secondary, quantitative and qualitative)

In last weeks session with Fred we focused more heavily on research and understanding qualitative and quantitative data. We had to choose 10 facts to categorise under this criteria before defining tasks for each member of the group. Here are our 10 facts which have been categorised before deciding who does what task. 

Here is some photographs of the sheets produced on the day categorising data in this way;

• What methods of research did you find useful and why?

I personally found the video's really useful as well as the physical mock-up versions of our designs as this allowed the group to visualise our work physically, and expand on our idea's decided whether this was suitable or unsuccessful as a design and a product. I also found the interesting facts about Paper airplanes really useful for example; how similar they are to real planes in many ways looking at their relationship with gravity etc and also unusual facts about the world record for the longest flight and so on. 

• How did these inform your response to your problem?

The video's really informed our response as it allowed us to demonstrate each stage visually in the construction of the plane on the app. We also experimented and attempted to create a small video clip or motion graphic of the plane physically folding however this was very difficult to conduct and resolve with a professional looking outcome. Our research into 'air mail' and looking at other examples of paper airplane designs was really useful and allowed us to create a basic repetitive layout for our app design which was effective as it appeared on every slide of the presentation as well as every page layout of the app itself. 

• What methods did you encounter as problematic?

Coming up with an original and effective idea was probably one of our most difficult challenges, we really struggled to retreat away from the target audience; children. However once we had managed to do this coming up with our App solution I feel our idea became much stronger and we managed to work better as a group. Another problematic factor was the construction of the motion graphics. As none of us were confident in any of the Adobe programmes suitable for created a motion graphics or video we decided to use an online source called 'make a gif' this worked however, because we didn't have a large enough source of photographs it became very distorted in appearance and we decided to leave it out of the presentation and final App design at this stage. However, this would be something to work on in the future. 

• How did you overcome this?

We each brainstormed many idea's and came us with a body of design sheets for us the experiment with idea's and solutions more visually online. We then decided as a group what solutions worked best and which ones were less effective. We decided that the App was something new, unusual and unique which hadn't been produced before and had a lot of room for exploration and development so decided to go with this as our final solution. Not all group member were 100% agreed at first, however we were rapidly running out of time for the brief, a decision had to be made and with each of us being off ill at some point during the two week brief we had little to work with. Therefore we had to go off majority vote and who was present at the time. Our second major problem we came across was the video, unfortunately we ran out of time and were unable to resolve this. There is a small 'make a gif' file on my Design Practice blog, which if you click on to enlarge shows the format of the App and how the process would appear on screen. This is easier to visualise and is something similar to what we had hoped to design for the construction of each plane format. This is certainly something we can work on and develop before the final Module submission.

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

I feel that a questionnaire directed more at our target audience to see if the App would appeal to people would have been more useful and more direct research relating to our brief. I also think that a stronger body of research especially Primary research would have been more effective so expanding the number of experiments we did with mock-ups of the game and miniature paper airplane designs. I also feel that more research or a bigger quantity of research into App design would have been more useful however, because our idea was generated so late in the design process we were unfortunately unable to spend quite as long research as what would have been useful in developing our App and making it stronger both visually and in terms of how it works and is programmed.

5 things...

Here is a list of 5 things I have learnt about the design process over the last 2 weeks;

- You never have quite enough research into each specific idea

- It's important to communicate, however sometimes a decision just has to be made and this can involve going a head with things that not everyone feels 100% about

- Teamwork and communication is key if an idea is to be successful and effective

- Consistency throughout a design is much more effective and gives a product identity

- It is important to have 3 key stages in the design process and keep going back and re-doing the same process throughout the entire time; research, produce, evaluate.

Here is a list of 5 things that I would do differently next time;

- Create more consistency throughout the design process; although I tried to do this effective I feel this could have been refined and improved to make it better 

- I would have conducted more research into App designs and specifically the relationship between my target audience and smart phones and Apps. 

- I would have used my time to learn how to create a motion graphic appear visually aesthetic as I feel this would have been one of the highlight elements of the design had it been created successfully. 

- I would have spent less time trying to come up with different idea's and more time focusing and developing one specific idea.

- I would have created a flow chart to show the process of the App allowing my audience on friday to visually see each stage and how it works, I also feel this would have helped me produce each design if my time limit had been extended and I'd had more time.

Earlier today we had our interim crit for the group brief - 'how to make a paper airplane', we felt like we had a strong idea, however after discussion with both Amber and Jo we realised that we had focused too much on the game and not enough on the construction of the paper airplane. Despite already looking at different designs of paper airplanes we will now be expanding this looking at different paper weights, and different sizes of paper. We will also make the game more education changing our purpose from entertainment to educating. We will include key facts about flying and also incorporate a ruler to measure the precision of flying the plane. As well as expanding our original idea we will also be researching educational children's games, and how to construction a 'perfect' paper airplane. We will take our idea's back to the drawing board to come up with completely new inspirations to try and improve the response to the brief.

What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

I feel that I have developed my confidence skills, whilst I've never been one to refuse to stand up and talk in front of large groups, I've also never really been the person who volunteers or enjoys it either, and I feel that the past 8 weeks or so have allowed me to expand my confidence with talking to new people and standing up in front of different groups and talking about my work, my concept and why I went about it the way I did. 

I also feel that thanks to the short briefs I have developed a greater ability to develop idea's within a short period of time. Coming from A-level meant I had two projects over the full academic year and therefore to have so many in such a short period of time came as a new learning curve. 

I have managed to broaden my knowledge of Adobe Illustrator during the workshops with Simon. Despite using illustrator over the past two years on my previous course, I learnt many new skills and developed area's where I already had a basic understanding of how to work the programme. I then applied these skills to my Proverbally yours set of briefs which allowed me to expand and develop my work with the pen tool. 

I think I am still in the process of developing my ability to work effectively to a brief. Whilst this has come a long way since beginning the course here back in September I still feel that I am on a long learning path and that over the coming months and years this skills set will be refined and developed further. 

I can now confidently critique, analyse and evaluate both my own work as well as other people's giving my honest opinion and offering constructive criticism where necessary. As well as critiquing both my own work and work of peers the sessions with Jo have allowed me to develop my vocabulary when discussing work of other designers, this has also allowed me to develop specific skills key to Graphic Design. 

I have also been a very neat and organised person and so I knew I wouldn't have much need to develop my skills there, however I feel that I have strongly developed my understanding of a more 'professional' Graphic Design atmosphere, working on many different projects at the same time by managing both OUGD403 along with other module like OUGD401 and OUGD404 etc. This has been vital to my time management and organisation skills. 

I think that I have more recently managed to grasp blogging, whilst I'e had a personal blog for the past 6-7 months or so I feel that the intense nature blogging has on this course has finally sunk in, and in the later two briefs I have managed to blog various stages of the processes I have been on allowing my blog to tell more of a story. I hope to continue to expand these skills over the coming briefs and modules and develop a very organised and focused approach to blogging.

What approaches to/methods of idea generation have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

Being a perfectionist I have always found it difficult to include rough design sheets in my working process. However being involved in the workshops with Amber has allowed me to develop my understanding of design sheets and also allowed me to realise the importance of jotting down quick idea's in a short period of time. I have found this difficult at times however I feel that my process with design sheets is constantly developing and I am becoming more and more confident as I complete more briefs throughout the programme. 

Blogging is a key part of my design development. It allows me to think out loud (or on screen) and gives me the opportunity to think through idea's slowly which I have found often develops my working process sparking new inspirations and development ideas. I feel that blogging research also allows me to expand my design idea's, over the OUGD403 module I didn't really fully get into research blogging until the final brief, however throughout this brief it led me to many different new idea's and I now hope to blog more and more research as my briefs develop over the rest of this academic year. 

I have also developed my understand of the importance of the library. I now find many of my inspirations in books and journals and find it easier to gain enthusiasm for a design when I can visual see a piece in front of me. I have taken full advantage of the photocopying system and now use this to regenerate idea's from inspirations in books and journals. 

The progress crits have been a strong part of my idea's generation. When I am stuck on where to go next it is really positive to gain feedback from other on their opinion and also to understand whether my work is going in to right direction to meet the criteria of the brief, as well as whether is it understood from the view of someone else. 

As well as the progress crits, me and my peers often guide one another of different paths to take etc when working in studio. I have never really liked the studio environment in college, however, since being here I have begun to realise it's importance in gaining inspiration and advice from others, and have often ended up staying late without realising as I get carried away working on a brief. 

What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?

I feel one of my greatest strengths since coming here is my ability to stand in front of a group of people and talk confidently about my work. This is something I have never before had the confidence to do, however I now realise that is a vital part of developing my design processes.

Another key strength is time management and organisation. I have always been prompt with briefs and deadlines and never needed extensions. I think this is a really important habit to get into as this will be expected in industry and often the time scales will be much more restricted than ones I've had to deal with so far. 

Punctuality and attendance has to be one of my strongest assets since becoming a student at Leeds College of Art. To date I have never missed a session leaving me with 100% attendance and 100% punctuality as I have also never been late. I think this is really important as it gives a more professional view for employers. I also have a fear of taking time off as I hate the feeling of knowing you have to catch up on all the work you have missed whilst being away. As this is a high demanding course there are things happening everyday and so I feel it is vital to attend every session in order to make the most of my time here.

I feel that one of my strongest briefs so far has to be the partner typeface. Despite really struggling for inspiration and ending up using an idea that I didn't feel related to Sam's personality I am really pleased with the aesthetics and visual appearance of the final outcome. If I had even more time I would possible alter one or two of the letterforms however I feel visually they are strong and also work as a typeface which I developed at a later stage using the phrase 'the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog' to demonstrates that my typeface works when used to create words as well as being both readable and legible. I also feel that as the briefs have gone on they have got stronger and stronger, my understand of the working process and need for design sheets and research have strengthened and this has strengthened by designs as an overall piece too. 

What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?

One of my greatest weaknesses is my perfectionism. I understand that whilst this trait also often falls under the category 'strengths' it often can get in the way of my designing process. I struggle to come up with rough idea's and design sheets, as I find them harsh to look at, however over the past few weeks this has come a long way and I hope that in coming briefs I will be able to create lots of design sheets showing my full working process in how I came about a final solution.

A great weakness is my ability to produce idea's quickly in a short period of time. I have been working on this in the sessions with Amber and over coming briefs hope to further this even more allowing myself to show every thought process without worrying about the way it looks or comes across on a design sheet. I tend to start worrying about producing idea's fast which stops be from jotting them down and then I lose the initial idea's that I wanted to go with. 

I feel that my Illustrator brief is one of my weakest designs as I don't feel is shows many skill sets. However I chose to go with this idea as it was the one which was most aesthetically pleasing and visually attractive. It stood out which was also what I wanted to brief to carry across and as is demonstrated on my blog I found it difficult to take my idea's from Brief one, as inspiration for this design. I came up with many visual solutions before deciding that this simple example would be the one that had most impact and carried most effect. 

Another area I would like to improve is putting my own personal style into all my designs. I feel they are very jumbled and don't tell a lot about my Personality, I hope to improve this over the coming Modules and Briefs. I hope to challenge myself more and create more interesting pieces.

Finally I would like to expand my understanding of design processes. I am very looking forward to different inductions and things coming up as I will be learning new skills that I can hopefully use and portray within my working style on set briefs.

Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

- Produce a greater number of design sheets at a high standard. This is my main focus over the coming weeks and months. It's an area i've always though of as weak within my working process and hope that I can develop and expand this for future designs and briefs.

- I hope to further my research skills, and remember to blog every stage of my process. I often take research for granted not always realising everything I do that is counted as research towards a brief.

- Take on board more advice from the crit sessions, especially progress crits. I feel I have successfully tried to take on board advice in crits changing aspects of my 'proverbally yours' poster set, as well as altering the mailing list from my final brief as a result of crit feedback, however I hope to take more advice on board in future even if I don't always initially agree with their opinion, I might find the visual outcome stronger.

- I hope to be more experimental with new processes including print methods etc. After all of my inductions are over I hope to use the skills learnt in these sessions throughout my briefs to expand the style of work being produced.

- Finally, I would like to create more structure to the briefs, and tell a story through my design sheets and blog posts which allows people to understand the journey I have been on to create that piece as my final outcome. 

How would you grade yourself on the following areas?

Attendance = 5

Punctuality = 5

Motivation = 4

Commitment = 4

Quantity of work produced = 3

Quality of work produced = 3

Contribution to the group = 4

(5= excellent 4=very good 3=good 2=average 1=poor)

Following some earlier research for my OUGD403 Proverbally yours brief I decided to have a look at the V&A museum website to find out about new exhibitions as I will be visiting it in early 2012. I instantly saw an advert for the new 'Postmodernism' lecture and I am now very excited to go and learn more about this era. Follow the link below to visit the website.

V&A Museum

Here are some images of the website.

Whilst carrying out some of my own research for another brief I came across some architectural pieces which I found really inspiring. They immediately reminded me of some of the work we had been looking at in the Lectures with Richard. Their postmodern style is instantly receivable and they take on many characteristics of previously studied architecture like the Guggenheim museum, Bilbao (1997) designed by architect Frank Gehry and also the Neue Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany (1977-1983) designed by James Stirling. Here are my images;

Yesterday we had our final critique session's for our 'Proverbally Yours' Part 2 brief. We were each put into pairs and had to define 5 crit questions that would be the basis of our analysis of other peoples work. I was paired with Andrea and we critiqued to other peoples work whilst other people critiqued my own work. Overall I gained very positive crit feedback, one group made me aware of  spelling mistake on my mailing list, which is only a minor detail easily altered, whilst another group suggested that I had made the best of a link between my proverb 'out of sight, out of mind' and my 'fisherman' profession, however the create a better link between the two I could incorporate a deep blue tone into my original 3 poster designs. With the feedback from my earlier poster crit to change the composition make the series of images create a whole face I have now redesigned my original posters taking on advice from two different critique sessions. Overall I am pleased with the outcome of both Proverbally Yours briefs. However, as further development for my 'fisherman' I will create a 'belly band' to prevent any flyers being lost in the post ( another factor suggested by one of the crit groups). Overall I gained positive feedback from all who critiqed my work. 


Here are copies of the critique sheets filled out with reflection of my work;

I was doing some exploring this morning, catching up with people that I used to go to college with who have now gone on to study Graphic design at other institutions, and whilst viewing their work I came across some artist research which I found really inspiring. I find the colours and compositions of these illustrations work really well, I've always been drawn to illustration and hope that I can further this passion in future briefs. 

BUDI SATRIA KWAN // SOCIETY6.COM

BLOSSOM BIRD by IGO2CIARO

Wild and Free by Katie Daisy.

“Strive for perfection in everything you do. Take the best that exists and make it better. When it does not exist, design it.”

- Sir Henry Royce

I was visiting a restaurant in Manchester for my Dad's birthday yesterday evening and printed on my napkin was this quote. I found it really inspirational.

For our final crit session this coming Friday we have been split down into our DP1 groups, and then paired into alphabetical order. My partner is Andrea and me and Andrea will be assessing two other peoples work by a set criteria. We had to devise this criteria today and stick to it. We have five initial criteria by which we will critique the work on Friday;


- does the design have a strong aesthetic impact?
- does the use of the proverb work effective and relate to the piece?
- is the target audience appropriate to the brief?
- does the resolution fit with the concept? (final outcome)
- how had the idea's development affected the final outcome?
(is the research relevant, is there a strong link to the original poster, is there a wide range of development, etc)

Issues Raised


- what is the purpose of the design?
- who are the audience, how is the piece directly targeted at them?
- the idea works well and indirectly relates to the original proverb 'out of sight, out of mind'
- where does the proverb appear on the design?
- is it right to incorporate a different proverb to represent 'out of sight, out of mind' indirectly?


Actions to be taken


- focus more heavily on the purpose of the piece (to create a campaign awareness for 'project ocean'
- think about the audience, and create a stronger focus or target (who are they, how is it aimed at them)
- incorporate my original proverb effectively
- create my typeface using Adobe Illustrator
- book my print appointment in the principle dungeon
- address the problem of stock (what weight of paper will i use, what texture, and will i use card?)
- construct mailing list which is visually and aesthetically pleasing.


Structural order of importance


- create typeface using Adobe Illustrator for design
- focus more heavily on a solid purpose
- think about audience and how they relate to the purpose of the piece
- incorporate my original proverb; 'out of sight, out of mind'
- construct a visually appealing mailing list
- address stock issues; will it print easily, can you print double sided etc. 
- book digital print appointment 

Andrea also collected some research into graphic design on instruction manuals. She decided to specialise in instruction manuals for flat pack furniture. Here are her findings which she inputted to the group and we discussed;

Images 1 and 2

Images 3 and 4

Another area of research that we had to look into as a group was food packaging. Here is Andrea's selection of research for graphic design within food packaging;


She has research fruit packaging and how bright colours are used to represent health and give a more positive outlook on the product and she has researched 'high class' food packaging on 'M&S' food and looked at how they portray their food through imagery. Here are her collected of photographs.

Image 1

Image 2

Image 3

^^ Andrea's imagery. 

After looking at Andrea's research I decided to do some personal research of my own and collected some imagery. Here are my own personal photographs relating to Graphic Design of food packaging.

For this crit session we each analysed two people's work anonymously and our work was also analysed anonymously by two individuals with no verbal feedback or discussion taking place, the feedback was provided in a written format. The feedback came in the form of a series of answered questions about my work. After receiving two feedback sheets, this allowed me to gain two differing perspectives and two different opinions of my work, some points made were similar whilst other's differed largely in advice and criticism. The main concurrence about my work was that it worked really well and the fact it was anonymous meant I gained more honest feedback which was more supportive. I gained some interesting comments, many about the use of black and white and how they felt colour would have worked better. However I did earlier experiments with colour and from peer feedback at the time I decided to go with a more neutral appearance. Other feedback which came back was that I could experiment with the visibility of the text so show that this is also out of sight, or make it 'double vision' as though she is closing her eyes and seeing double. The most interesting feedback I gained was to experiment with mirroring the features on the 'image' piece and the 'type and image' piece, so that the series would make a complete face. This is really interesting and certainly something to work with. Here are my crit feedback from my 'Proverbally Yours' brief (21/10/11);

This brief involved designing a typeface for another persons character and personality, we could ask the person a set series of questions and then had to work from the results of the questionnaire as inspiration for our designs. For the crit session 5 or 6 groups of pairs were taken into studio 4, where we placed all our work onto the wall and analysed each piece individually. As pairs, each person was asked to discussed what they thought about the typeface designed for them and what was saying about there personality, as well as whether they thought it related to them. This then lead to group discussion about how successful the work had been. 


I felt the typeface that had been designed for me was closely related to my personality as it was based around walking and as I have recently completed a 100 mile hike over 6 days this certainly related directly to my personality. I really liked the simplicity and the use of lowercase type however that would not I been my personal choice I still feel it works well as a final piece. The typeface that I designed for Samuel Hoh was based around dinosaurs and although I don't feel that it related to Sam's personality I do feel it worked successfully as a series and as a final outcome. Sam's feedback about my design was that it didn't relate directly to him, however he liked how I had related the typeface to a similar structure of that of 'kai' (one of Sam's favourite typefaces). He did like how the letterforms worked as a series and he said he was pleased with the piece. He also liked how the entire piece was completely hand drawn whereas the majority of people used Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator to help construct their designs. However, because the final outcome was to be hand rendered I chose to hand render the entire piece form beginning to end and this was really well received in the crit session. I feel the reason I struggled to come up with initial idea's for the brief was the little information provided in the questionnaire, however after speaking with Amber about this I jut went with what I had there on the sheet. Overall, my piece was given positive feedback and I now need to expand on this work by producing some words using the letterforms.