oliver.sempjournal

Self Evaluation

2008-11-25T07:10:00.000-08:00

BA (Hons.) GRAPHIC DESIGN LEVEL 02
Module Title Design 4 print/colour 4 print

END OF MODULE SELF-EVALUATION
NAME Oli Semp BLOG. ADDRESS o-semp.blogspot.com

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

The first thing I have learned is how to manage my time a lot better, enabling me to produce a lot more work in a quicker amount of time. I have also learned how to be a lot quicker with my decision-makings, enabling me to become more inventive with the ideas and creativeness within my work. Print is something I have always been interested in taking further within my work. I feel from this module I have a much greater understand of not just print but also colour. I never realised how many techniques and processes were involved in print production, but the different techniques and processes of which you have to go through are extremely interesting and learning about these gave me a greater understanding that graphic design is not just designing work, but all the technical information that goes with it.

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

I firstly researched in to the word good and from there decided where I was going to go next. I started off with the idea of plastic surgery, but a week in to the brief I felt after talking to some people that it is a sensitive topic and if not handle correctly could end up being offensive. I then when away and decided to research in to what is good, and I found 10 bad things that are actually good for you proven by scientists. After researching more, I came up with the idea of doing a new campaign, like the 5 a day, which I also researched, but it would be a 7 a week campaign, meaning I would have to narrow the 10 down to 7. I then thought that primary research was necessary to work out which 7 I should use, so I put a questionnaire together. After getting responses from the questionnaires I didn’t not find them useful at all, realising I shouldn’t just do questionnaires because I feel I have to, only do research that is relevant to the brief I am working on at the time. I also researched in to print and costing, but I found his very difficult as I contacted many printers by phone and by email on several occasions and none got back to me, but after researching on the internet I came across some prices of some of the products that I would be producing and the relevant print processes.

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

I feel that my strengths are designing promotional material and print. I thoroughly enjoy designing logos, flyers, posters etc. I feel it is something I can get my teeth into and come up with some interesting ideas for. I also feel a lot more confident with Illustrator, especially over this brief, I have become a lot quicker whilst using it and constantly learning new things.

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

The weaknesses I can see are in my development. I have a habit of just jumping straight on to a computer and start designing, but not showing my idea generations. I need to start drawing thumbnail sketches showing the processes I have gone through, not just for the assessment, but also for me as a designer to look back on and understand how I got to my final products and critically analyse my work and maybe learn how to progress further. Although I have got a lot better at crafting in this module, I still feel I need to take more care when doing this. It comes to a point when I get tired and bored and rush the crafting of a product, but to get the best results I need to be more patient in order to make my carefully designed layouts, that I have produced on Illustrator look their best. Colour is something that I have learned a lot more about, but it is a process I still struggle a bit with so I feel I have a lot more to learn about.

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

1. I will start the brief when I first get it, even though my organisation and time management have improved a great amount, I sill feel the first week where I am slow to start looking at the brief would allow me to produce a greater amount of work to a much higher quality.

2. I feel that I need to start doing more thumbnail drawings to generate my ideas further, in order to help me design something to my greatest ability.

3. I have been lazy and done very little on my blog. The blog is something I don’t really like working with, but I have to understand that it will help me keep up to date with what I am doing, and once again look back and help me grow as a designer.

4. I need to stop being safe and stay with what I am good at. I know the software I am good at using but I need to start increasing my skills as a designer, allowing my self to have a better understanding of the programmes and techniques that are available.

6.How would you grade yourself on the following areas:
(please indicate using the number corresponding to the words below)

5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor

Attendance 4

Punctuality 4

Motivation 4

Commitment 4

Quantity of work produced 4

Quality of work produced 4

The evaluation of your work is an important part of the assessment criteria and represents a percentage of the overall grade. It is essential that you give yourself enough time to complete your written evaluation fully and with appropriate depth and level of self-reflection. If you have any questions relating to the self-evaluation process speak to a member of staff as soon as possible.

2008-11-20T10:00:00.000-08:00

Colour management is a process that governs how colour is translated from one piece of equipment to another. Colour management is needed to ensure accurate and predictable colour reproductions because each device responds to or produces colour differently.

Basic Terminology

A great deal of terminology is used to describe colour and its various functions.

As colour is essentially different wavelengths of light, design and colour professionals use different values of hue, saturation and brightness to describe it. Importantly for designers, there are two main colour models, on that relates to screen (RGB), and one that relates to print (CMYK).

CMYK

RGB

The above images are A3 layouts that i produced for the colour 4 print brief i was set, on RGB and CMYK.

Buzz it is not working so here are the links for what is graphic design!

2008-06-06T02:41:00.000-07:00

Typography

Adverts

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=oKV6dBvVDdA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQsZ5ZsZ3uc

The map of meetings!

2008-06-05T18:11:00.000-07:00

Here are pictures taken of my final resolution where i represented the information i gathered from the public about their favorite meeting place, worst meeting place and birth place.

DIY music is anti - commercial!

2008-06-05T18:07:00.000-07:00

For this brief i had to choose a statement from the research topic i was given from someone else on my course. I was given DIY music and decided on the topic ' DIY music is anti-commercial.'

What makes a good friend?

2008-06-05T18:06:00.000-07:00

For this brief i had to choose a statement from the research topic i was given from someone else on my course. The topic i got was friends, deciding on the question, ' what makes a good friend? '

Posters to promote book

2008-06-05T17:46:00.000-07:00

For this brief i had to make quick decisions of a poster or series of posters to promote my book of 100 toys. these are my series of 3 posters.

speaking from experience - promoting safe sex to students.

2008-06-05T17:20:00.000-07:00

For this brief i decided to work collaboratively with a friend of mine on my course. We had to decide on a topic to make aware to students coming in to the 1st year. The topic we chose was safe sex, knowing what a sensitive topic it potentially can be, we had to really think and explore different ideas. The following promotional material including flyers and posters are in our final pack we have designed. We thought that all students need stationary, so what a better way to promote an important topic with something that is constantly used, plying on the topic with the different pieces of stationary.

All the above

are development work.

The advertising poster.

The front cover of the pack.

The poster that will be in each pack.

All the below are flyers which which w

ill also have each piece of free stationary on to it.

mail shot - traffic warden

2008-06-05T17:07:00.000-07:00

For this brief we had to pick out a job from the 'randomizer' and package it using the appropriate media and promotional material. I picked a traffic warden.

Here are samples of the tax disc business card

Flyer Design.

Final product.

animal photography - tommy martin

2008-06-05T16:50:00.000-07:00

When looking at Tommy martins work, i was really inspired by how he captures the moment of these beautiful animals. This then made me startlooking in to photographing animals.

Elective Photography

2008-06-05T16:36:00.000-07:00

For this brief I had to photograph anything really, developing my photography skills. I am really content with how my photograph skills have developed, producing some of the following photos, capturing the moment, whilst considering view points and lighting.

Imanual Limas work

2008-05-26T08:58:00.000-07:00

This is a piece of Imanual Limas work, which helped me generate an idea for the brief i was set,

' Timeline. ' This particular piece of work was taken from the Graphic Magazine, where he represents information by jumbled up and confusing lines. I feel that it makes the information visually exciting rather than displaying the information in a standard pie or bar chart.

My series of 10 books of 100 toys!

2008-05-26T06:55:00.000-07:00

Book of 100 toys - Disney Title

Book of 100 toys - Disney Villains

Book of 100 toys - Villains

Book of 100 toys- Heroes

Book of 100 toys - The Index

Book of 100 toys - Disney Animals

Book of 100 toys - The Flintstones

The book of 100 toys - The Simpsons

The Book of 100 toys - Disney Heroes

The Book of 100 - Disney Classics

Richard Minsky's work

2008-05-26T06:34:00.000-07:00

Richard Minsky designed these books. His conceptual approach to book design really caught my attention. The content of the series of books were based on the rights protected by the first ten amendments to the Constitution of the United States. This book was the 8^th amendment. The idea of having the book being presented as a convict in jail is very tactile and engaging. With jail bars designed to protect the book, it has been put in a situation that suits the design. Also the choice of having the black and white strips on the cover of the book is stereotyping the image of a 'robber', I feel works well.

This books helped me generate ideas for my own book design from a brief we were given, 'book of a 100.' I decided to focus my book on 100 toys. When researching on toys, i came across Toy'2'r toys, which are toys designed by individuals to represent their feeling, each one is different. Then coming to the decision of using the silhouettes of the toys, and using the research i had taken from the public, i felt that when put together in the categories, due to the different sizes of the toys it represented a convict line, and therefor i came to the decision of using the 'robber' like stripes to represent this.

What is a book?

2008-04-25T04:56:00.000-07:00

What is a book? This is a question we will want to answer if we want to enable books to reflect the electronic age and not the ink-on-paper era, just as Gutenberg and his heirs fully exploited that once-new technology back when, well, the ink was still fresh.

I don't think a precise definition is possible, certainly not one that will clearly and unambiguously delimit books, journals, magazines, newspapers, and any other print media, and also add electronically without claiming blogs, RSS feeds, wikis, mail-lists, and website forums. Each of these are distinct entities.

Some clear examples of ' What is a book?

a written work or composition that has been published (printed on pages bound together)

physical objects consisting of a number of pages bound together; "he used a large book as a doorstop"

ledger: a record in which commercial accounts are recorded.

a number of sheets (ticket or stamps etc.) bound together on one edge.

record: a compilation of the known facts regarding something or someone.

a major division of a long written composition.

script: a written version of a play or other dramatic composition.

a collection of playing cards satisfying the rules of a card game

record a charge in a police register.

a collection of rules or prescribed standards on the basis of which decisions are made.

reserve: arrange for and reserve (something for someone else) in advance.

Koran: the sacred writings of Islam revealed by God to the prophet Muhammad during his life at Mecca and Medina.

Bible- the most bought book world wide.

TOYS....TOYS....TOYS!!!

2008-04-15T04:26:00.000-07:00

When first getting the brief 100 i sat down and thought what possible things could i collect 100 things off, but as the lsit got longer and longer i thought i need to think of a direction and then it came to me, i will see what i can collect 100 things from my loft. After finding many things such as coins, stamps, book i decided to use the toys as it was something i collected and i have hundreds of them. The next challenge was to choose the 100 that i will use. After gathering research into peoples favorite and least favorites toys, i decided i need to categories them, and not just have a random selection. The 9 categories i decided on where:
1) Villains

2) Heroes

3) Disney Villains

4) Disney Heroes

5) Disney Animals

6) Disney Classics

7) Simpsons

8) Flintstones

9) Disney Title Character

Do you always believe wat you see?

2007-10-17T10:31:00.000-07:00

It doesn’t take a marketing expert to know that the two best selling points are food and sex.
Graphic designers have never used sex to advertise so much, to extent that they have pushed the boundaries of exception that sex and sexuality are no longer taboo.

When I came across an advertisement for a restaurant called Teatro, I realised hey used both sex and food in a tandem, with the intensions of improving their image, with the advertisement using the idea of misinterpretation.

Within this advertisement, in my opinion the three messages that are put across are.......

Food- the copulating male and female cleverly made from vegetables, possibly the designers Maedche and Jonges being inspired by the artist Giuseppe Archimoldo, who used fruit and vegetables to represent human beings.

Sex- In the image, it is very obvious of what is trying to be portrayed. Sex, in some peoples opinion isn’t one of the best ways of improving ones image, but it is certainly an excellent selling point.

The theatre- the restaurant that the advertisement is for is situated next to a theatre. This is not an obvious theme but the plate is meant to represent the stage and the food is representing the actors.

Many other designers have used these concepts with their work........

Wulevu advertisement-Massimo Ambrosini (2004)- A campaign series for Principe foods.

Tillina Kutja poster-Kresimir Dukic (2002)

Eat Me book cover- 1997

How bad are you?

2007-10-17T09:40:00.000-07:00

When given the word bad i looked at many different ways of how to represent the use of numbers, asked within the brief. There are many bad things that happen, personal things to me, terrorism, world disasters and then there is the less extreme cases of bad, bad at a particular activity e.g sport, drawing, bad looking, etc.......

When researching, the way i thought was best representing bad was from a series of 0-9 starting off from good and make them get progressively bad as the number series goes on. Then i had the problem how was i going to represent this? world disasters? well in my eyes there all bad, bad at a particular activity? Well non of them are particularly bad! So then it cam to me.... key people that i consider represent good and bad.

The numbers 0 (good) - 9 (bad) are above......... can you guess who they represent?