task 5

CONTEXT

Over the past 10 weeks you have been asked you to research and respond to 5 key questions in the form of a set of tasks. These are:-

o WhoamI–whoarethey? o Wherearethey–Howwilltheyfindme? o HowwillIpromotemyself–whatdotheywanttohear? o Whoelseisoutthere–howgoodarethey?

Statements summarising your research should have been posted to your enterprise blog and should form the basis of an ongoing inquiry.

BRIEF

Write 10 short but informative statements that identify your distinctive ‘positioning’ as a Graphic Designer. Your statements should consider your ambitions, skills and areas of creative interest in relation to the market, your clients, competition and possible collaborators and should be based on the information that you have collected in response to the set tasks.

You will need to compare a list of your skills and services against customer/client needs to those of your competitors, this should help you determine how your company is unique.

I am a young but passionate graphic designer based in leeds. I am focused on creating work which is based on the clients needs rather than forcing my own style on them. I specialise in typography, print, hand crafted and screen but also understand the importance in being flexible when creating something tailored to the clients needs. I want to create this focused work for charities, local councils(events, libraries, etc) and new/small businesses. I don't feel I want to work within retail though I could imagine there are some sectors within this which would be fun to illustrate for etc. I would be very interested to collaborate with photographers and other print and type based designers in creating a publication. There are many things I still feel I have to learn but I am exciting about this and feel that I have begun to identify the sort of designer I eventually want to be.

Task 4

CONTEXT

In responding to this task you will need to consider the following questions:

Who am I competing against? What do they offer? What makes me better? What makes me different?

BRIEF

Based on the principles that have been introduced in lecture 4 of the Enterprise module and your responses to the previous tasks, evaluate the Strengths and Weaknesses of three practitioners or design agencies as objectively as you can.

What opportunities for your own practice have revealed themselves to you as a result of this analysis and evaluation?

Do not use subjective language or make unfounded comments about other peopleʼs businesses.

It is essential that you make references to SWOT and evaluate its usefulness as an analysis or evaluation tool.

In the previous post I have shown work by a design agency in Manchester called 'Music.' I really appreciate the work they have produced and the way they approach design in a down to earth manner. Therefore I have decided to critically analyse their studio.

As the question states a SWOT analysis is to work out how my personal practice can be inspired by other designers strengths and also how I could in fact stand out by improving on their weaknesses.

Strengths of the company include a large range of focused design which has been taylor made for the client. When Music came to do a talk at college I thought their relaxed, down to earth style was really inspiring and they expressed the need to be motivated by the message before you could create anything which worked.

Although it is a simple point, all weaknesses are valid,I feel their website is quite confusing and doesn't showcase their work as you would expect. Also it is quite hard to navigate to their website when simply looking for 'graphic design in manchester' in google search - this will provide for them a large client base so could imagine they will have missed out.

Being in the centre of Manchester they are in a prime location for events and are surrounded by small/medium and large businesses who could go to them for work. Similarly being in a large city centre can pose threats as competition is high and I could Imagine they have to work extra hard in making every part of their company right for their target audience.

Music

I sat through a talk with one of the studios designers and was intrigued and excited by their relaxed and realistic outlook on Graphic Design. The importance for them lies with balance in many aspects of the industry. In making sure that work is well informed and the focus is on the process. They make sure they know the clients needs and the brief is written in conjunction with that so that the best resolution is reached.

I think at one point he said that design is boring.... to those who don't do it and so it is silly to talk strange language to someone who doesn't really care if it is serif or sans serif.

Really down to earth but some amazing design. Something I would like to aim towards!

End of Module Evaluation

1. What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively have you applied them?

This has been an extremely intense module in the sense of learning new skills.  Of course these are specific to screen based work and is generally to do with After effects software.  I feel I have learnt a great deal with the soft ware as it was a case of starting from scratch and as the module progressed as did my comfort in after effects.  I think I struggle in remembering specific things about software etc and have learnt for me it is very important to write down everything learnt on the day so that I have something always to go back to.  This has proven particularly important in this project.  

When directly analysing the work I have produced this module I feel this learning curve previously explained is very apparent.  In the silent movie brief I was quite scared to get the solution wrong which meant the work therefore was hindered and kept very basic.  Similarly, at the start of the title sequence project, I wanted to work everything out on after effects and make sure I could actually do it which therefore stopped me from being a designer (story boarding, working through a process, playing with ideas on paper).  After a very helpful crit I pin pointed where I was going wrong and started from scratch and realised the design potential for motion graphics.  Even if I couldn't make it move, the design and ideas are more important for a Graphic design.  This then eased me into after effects again with anticipation as opposed to fear.  

The final title sequence and i-dents produced have been tried and tested, they are an outcome of a large thought process which means they are more appropriate and seem to work a lot better than any original thoughts/work produced on the software.  Although there are many things to improve on I feel satisfied that I have found some life long skills and a better working routine.  

2. What approaches to methods of research have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

I Feel I have faltered in this field of my work.  Although I did a lot of contextual research into other sequences produced and ideas for packaging different style, I have a lack of work/ research into the actually subject of my project.  I feel this is due to my need to learn after effects over my need to have all the info possible on sea creatures.  Of course I have some, and this is documented on through my context/practice blogs but I could have benefitted visually from a lot more of this.  

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

I think my work is suitable for its audience (11-14's, those who watch cbbc.) I feel I have not over complicated the sequence and i-dents, kept them simple and not added too many assets so they don't seem too busy. 

I think my work has benefited from my improved time management as I have made sure I have been in Uni until work has been completed.  

I feel I did well in the packaging design and again it suits the audience and is consistent with the sequence design.  

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully?

Eventually I managed to start producing workable story boards but this was a struggle initially. I feel I get anxious and want to start designing immediately on the software rather than thinking through exactly what I want to design. 

Although I did a lot of work on type and working out which was most appropriate, I don't feel I used this as effectively as possible through the animated sequences.  of course there is always more to work on and I feel this is something I would put more consideration into.  

I have been constantly uploading to my blog but I have not been constantly Analysing everything I have been putting on my practice and context blogs.  This is fine for me but of course is not obvious what my direction is if I don't write about it.  I will have to improve on this for my next module and should imagine writing up what I want to say as soon as I post a blog will help a lot with this process. 

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

1.Do what I am told... initial ideas, design process and experimenting on paper is very important and not to be forgotten. 

2. Blogging -  although improved from my last project I feel I could definitely work on the analysis of work  through out a project on my blog.

3. Don't be afraid to design. I need to realise that it is not about the software but ideas and creating something I like the look of is a good thing. 

4. more experimentation with ideas. I feel I stuck with a similar concept throughout and need to learn the importance of trying and testing and failing so trying something completely different.  If I do this earlier on in a project I will only benefit from it.

5. Visually experimentation.  Similar to no. 4. I don't think I full explored the depths of visuals I could and this is something to realise for next time.  

All in all I feel I learnt a lot, Worked to a good pace (eventually) and feel relaxed on the day of hand in which has never happened before.  There are always improvements to be made but I feel I have realised where I went wrong and can only get better.  An interesting module.