When first briefed on this module, I was quite excited. It was a chance for all of us to showcase our work to the creative world. It’s also a great opportunity to use it as a method of deciding what industry that we would be interested in working in, as you can pick and choose what kind of briefs you would like to tackle. I also was looking forward to the collaboration sector of the module, working with people from other courses, learning new skills that I can take into my own practice.
Again it’s also a way of experiencing what it will be like in the real creative world, as it is most likely that we would be working with others such as graphic designers.
After finishing the module, I feel relieved and slightly deflated. I struggled a lot with making my work look professional and coming up with unique ideas relatively quickly. I think I would have enjoyed this module more if it was the only one that I had to work on, so I could focus all my effort into it.
But it was not all doom and gloom, I did learn that I have talents in quite a range of different illustrative areas, realising that I am quite versatile. I also gained new skills from collaborating with graphic designers, being introduced with the importance of type and how to create mock ups of your work online. I also learnt that it is also important to not go into a brief with something in mind straight away as I quickly learnt that that way creates generic and usually all round terrible outcomes. The use of development and roughs is key.
I think my strengths that I showed throughout this module was my approach to time management. I made sure that I chose briefs that weren’t due until March so I had enough time in my first term to focus mainly on 504. This worked really well for me, as it meant I had a comfortable amount of time in January to February to do my small briefs. This also reduced my stress levels which is always a bonus. Another strength I think I showed during this module is my willingness to try new things, in terms of material as well as the type of brief. I think it is the most evident in my fashion illustration brief, as the brief and style I was given was completely out of my comfort zone. But instead of giving up, I tackled it heads first and ended up producing something that I’m actually quite proud of. This made me realise that living in a creative bubble and being stubborn doesn’t really get you anywhere.
Although, if I were to do this module again, I would have spent more time on the development of each of my outcomes. Even though I did rough out a few different ideas, I think that I should have taken it a bit further, really pushing out every possibility I could have produced. As I previously stated, I would have also liked my work to look slightly more professional, as I think some of my designs weren’t clear enough and some were messy. I think that because of this my secret 7 designs were not as successful as what they could have been. But I’ll definitely take these factors into account for my next modules so I can improve.
Overall, I think this module is very important. You learn more about your practice as well as other people’s, as well as finding yourself producing work to a professional level that you may have never thought you could do. Most importantly, it has given me a lot of confidence for the future. Also I think due the nature of the module, it being such a different structure to the others, breaks the same old routine of sketchbook, blog, evaluation. In a weird way, the difference brings something new and interesting which for me, made the module more enjoyable.
