Evaluation for Design Practice 3.

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

One of the main skills I gained from this module is working for a client as I did with the Green Gigs live brief I took on. I was approached by a friend to design a logo for him as he was setting up a business called Green Gigs. At first I was told I could do whatever I wanted with the logo but as designers we know this isn't the way it works. So I went back and had a chat about the logo and received more direction in what exactly the client wanted. Which helped me a lot and I the designs I sent received positive feedback. Also from completing this brief I've found I quite like designing brand identities so this is something I'm defiantly looking in to doing for one of my FMP briefs.

Also I feel I've improved with my software skills too especially within indesign as I feel I have more confidence using the program now. From completing the faber and faber brief I think my layout skills have also improved too. Which has also made me consider taking on more briefs to do with layout for publication for FMP. Also within taking briefs on like this I really feel that it's pushed me out of my comfort zone which allowed me to experiment more.

2. What approaches to generating work and solutions to problems have you developed and how have they helped?

I've also tried to make more use of the workshops and the processes they have to offer. Such as foiling this has appeared in two of my briefs one to achieve a spot varnish effect for my book covers and then again for the Occasions brief. I found this a useful process to learn and also just finding out about the different processes that are available at college.

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

I think that within this module I've looked in to the use of different processes such as foiling which allowed me to experiment more with my designs. Especially looking into the methods of how a spot varnish can be used effectively on a book cover.

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

Within this module I've learnt that one of my weaknesses is that I don't make enough design decisions early on within my work. From doing the faber and faber book brief I realised that within layout you can spend ages just tweaking the layout. I found myself just continually developing the book covers but just producing design after design and not actually getting anywhere with it. So after realising this I stopped and got feedback on the designs I felt work. Then from doing that I could make the decision and actually produce the book covers. For the next module I really need to make sure I don't fall in to this trap again.

Also I set out to achieve more screen printing for this module but due to how time consuming the process is I didn't manage to print much. This was mainly because of things going slightly wrong when setting up the screens, such as putting the coating on the screen on too thick then having to start again because it all peels off. So after all this I made the decision to next time really think about whether its the right process to use within a brief.

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

• update my blog more and add links to my design context blog so that its easier to refer back to where I sourced the imagery from.
• be more decisive early on within a brief.
• to make sure that if we need to print presentation boards to get down to digital print early and book in advance.
• not to spend too much time developing ideas and to focus more on production.
• to try to organise my work at the start of a module and not leaving it all till the end.
  

6.How would you grade yourself on the following areas:
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

Contribution to the group - 3

Final Boards for Green Gigs.

Final Boards for Faber and Faber.

Final Crit Feedback.

After the final crit on my mock up boards it was suggested to me to change the title a bit, as it was too bold and distracting the eye away from my work.

It was also raised that I need to number my pages e.g. page 1 of 4

Mock up boards for Faber and Faber.

Final Books with Foiling.

Foiling Problems!!!

When it came to actually foiling the final book covers I had to over come afew problems first!!!
One of which is to never use masking tape on matt paper when your going to be using a heat press!!! Masking tape is OK to use on normal printing paper (as it worked fine in the mock ups) but it totally ruined one of my nicely printed book covers!!!Because the heat press had made the tape ultra sticky and would not come off !!!So I had to think up of a new way to hold down the foil before putting it in to the heat press.

Also I learnt that too many pulls of the foiling glue causes it to bleed through the screen and on to the the paper. As you can see in the photo below, how the glue bled into the 'donnie darko' bit!!!

However that is a lesson learnt and then the foiling came out perfectly...yeyy!!!Fingers crossed it works out Ok for the rest of them.

More foiling....

Here I'm just trying out different ways of using the foil to highlighting certain parts of the book...looking at just foiling the image, like in the one above.

With the trainspotting book cover I tried using a clear foil, but this proved to be quite tricky on the mock ups!!!
Again using the clear foil on the donnie book cover, I feel this one worked alot better. But I think I prefer just having the author and title of the book in foil?!?!

Foiling...

For my book covers I wanted the title and author of the book to really stand out on the cover, so I looked in to foiling to do so...

Firstly I had to make up a screen but instead of using ink to pass through the screen I used a foiling glue which I screened on to my book covers. Then after letting this glue dry I applied a black foil, using masking tape to hold it down (this was a major problem when it came to printing the actual covers...) and then to seal it altogether I used the heat press to finish the process.



Then after letting the foil cool down after been in the heat press....you peel it off to reveal the nice glossy text!!!As seen below:



After trying it out first on just a print out from the mac suites I realised that the foil will stick to anything with carbon in it too and not just the glue.As in this photo you can see part of the crow is foiled too!!!So next time I'm going to make sure I mask off what I don't want to be foiled in black.

Full colour books...

Using a full colour paper stock works well but doesn't have the impact of the white background to really show of the image, author and the title of the book. But this book series does look nice altogether because you get the impact of the brightly coloured stock!!!

Reservoir Dogs Image Devel.

I was told that the image for Reservoir Dogs was a bit plain and could relate more to the film if it were to appear more like it was a hostage chair. So I added the image of a roll of gaffer tape as this is what is used in the film to tie the hostage up. I feel that this works better than the chair on its own. I also tried adding some rope to it too but I feel this doesn't work so well.
Above is the final image I went with....

New set of Book Covers.

new crow & type.

I feel this silhouette of the crow works better than the one with open wings, plus it relates better to the film this way.
Also I've changed the font I've used too because I felt the one I used before was to uniform and plain. Prefer the grainy texture to this one and relates well to the older films.

Ear Nightmare!!!

Ok these are some of the ears I'm trying to make look like ears, but I'm having no such luck. Plus this imagery doesn't really fit with my silhouette theme so I'm thinking about changing to another image to suit the film reservoir dogs.

Series 2.

First Book Cover Series.