FMP Evaluation

This module has had some definite ups and downs for me but on the whole I feel pleased with the body of work I have produced. The biggest highlight I feel is my spatial calendar brief. I really enjoyed the process of thinking up ideas and creating the layouts for this brief. It was started as a purely experimental project and at the start I didn’t expect it to be as good as it turned out. I was also pleased the final end product looks great as well, as this has sometimes been my downfall: finishing off good ideas to high quality production. The other major success I feel is my design context book. This was another labour of love: I found researching this really interesting and enjoyed creating the page spreads for each typeface. I was also determined not to let the final production let this down, so I am pleased that quite a major effort I put into making the book paid off. The stock choice was perfect and the ring binding also worked better than I could have hoped. I wanted to create something I would like to keep and refer back too, and I achieved this… to such an extent I don’t really want to hand it over for marking!

On to things that went slightly less well, or ‘learning experiences’: A couple of briefs I wanted to do never really got going. The film posters brief fell by the wayside once I realised how much time the context book would take to design, this was purely down to bad time management, I put if off ‘till later until it was too late!  Also a few briefs I did could have been pushed further. My exhibitions brief worked fairly well, there were some good ideas behind the graphics I feel, but I found myself labouring over them for too long, and getting a bit sick of the project by the end, so it never really reached its full potential. Documenting decisions and blogging research and development has also again been something I haven’t really done enough of if I am honest with myself. I don’t enjoy writing or blogging so I never got into a good regular routine like others have for this side of the course.

I learnt a lot by tacking live briefs this module. The timeback brief was a two week live pitch which I am still pleased with, I worked in a slightly different way for this brief: I decided on a design style I wanted to use (ornamental typography) and the researched this and developed it into something more contemporary, this was very successful I feel as a design pitch. I am also pleased with my pitch for 2020, they wanted to updates the DVD packaging they use to hand over work to clients and I think I hit the right tone of creativity and professionalism that would serve the company well. (Its far, far better than the current design). I also learnt a lot from some live briefs that didn’t go quite as well; the Creative Networks flyer should have been quick and easy but wasn’t because I has to deal with a silly amount of emails cc’d all over the place and lots of revisions that I didn’t feel in a position to turn down –defiantly a learning experience: I cant let a client get in the way of the creative process to such an extent in future. The KTP brief was also a live brief that I decided to discontinue, I’m really glad I stopped this when I did because I would have been chasing my tail with this one if I had tried to take it further. The project wasn’t really at a stage where it would have been appropriate for a designer to be involved, and it didn’t really interest me.

All it all, I think the body of work produced for this module is (mostly) done to a high standard, quite a bit of this work I am happy to use in my portfolio, and I have now completely pushed out year one and year 2 work from this, proof I am defiantly still improving as a designer. My typography skills in particular have improved in this module, I think the context book layout especially is pretty tight in this regard.  

I am glad to say I am ending on a high for the degree with some work I can genuinely say I am proud of.

Paul Mitchell – 3/6/11