Monday, 19 January 2015

OUGD 405 Evaluation

What went wrong?
*Started the brief wrong when looking at actual frames and not the smaller images that go inside them.
*I believe my designs are different because they are done by hand and not on any sort of Adobe illustrator or Photoshop. This has its positives and negatives points.
*Having to decide on a main idea to base studio brief 2 was hard.
*I believe I wasted a lot of my time by taking so long on deciding what I was going to base my research on.
*Deciding how to show my research was also another problem; I did not know how to show the idea of love in the 20 pictures research.
*Another problem I had was when designing my collages, I had many problems due to the difference in colour of the actual images I was using and the backgrounds I was trying to combine them too.
The size of these were also a problem because on some of the combinations I was left with negative corners or blank spaces where the background had not covered the image due to its size.
*I did not present my PowerPoint during our periods of crit in class, but I did present it to some of my classmates to gain feedback. I would have gained more feedback if I had presented it during class. I have to be more sure about my work and confident when showing my work.
*During studio Brief 3 I had the same problems as the last module brief, I did not know how to use InDesign, I took my first lessons taking notes of every step to take (which wasted my time in a way given that everyone else was using this time to start their book layout, when I had done this by hand).
*I do not have the program myself on my Mac, which was a problem because I was not capable to finish my book on time to give it in next to all my other work. (The deadline is still for Wednesday, which gives me some more time to go over my work and improve a few things before handing it in).
*I wasn’t sure about the message I was trying to send with my final products, but after some meditation I came across a few issues that helped when answering them finding the purpose of my work.
*Another issue I had was that I was not capable of finding 20 opinions to show, some of the answers I received where inappropriate and negative so I rather not show or have on my blog, research or any work.
*I’ve left my blog for one of the last things which I know to never do again.
I have to learn how to work and blog! Because if not I forget main things I have done or forget to mention important facts/details that could be helpful when being assessed.

What went well?
*On studio brief 1, what I most liked is that I kept loyal to my self and did my designs by hand instead than doing it on InDesign or Photoshop like everyone else did.
*On studio brief 2, what I most liked about my work was my dedication to try making my idea original, personal and maintain the idea of love throughout my work and research.
*I researched a lot and always tried to find more than 20 examples to each section to have a wider range of opinions/facts/statistics…
*When creating the collages, I tried using pictures that meant something to me, of people I love and combine them with some of my own background pictures from trips I’ve done in the past.
*I like how I’ve been able to keep this brief personal, which has made me want to create and show the best outcomes possible.
*It was my first time using InDesign, which is good because I learn something new with every module.
*Studio brief 4 would be my favourite part of this module because of the time and dedication I’ve put in to my designs and combinations, how just by using my family and friends on this project has made them happy because they’ve felt I still think about them and how I miss them. I will like to send my final products to those who are in the pictures. This will show me how my product works and how it makes people feel.

*I like my work because I believe that no one has done a similar thing and that my message is good and clear with a good intention.

What did I do best?
Learning new things
Worked hard and learnt from mistakes
Produced a decent outcome
Followed feedback to improve
Considered peoples opinions
Sent a clear message

What did I do wrong?
Not blog enough or left it for the last minute
My work can always be better
I need to get myself the adobe programs on to my own personal use computer to learn how to use them and make improvements outside class.

How could I improve?

Developing my knowledge, not missing any class days, blogging more and being more confident about my work.



Sunday, 18 January 2015

Studio brief 4 OUGD405

You are required to include design development, solutions and contextualisation.
Photographic documentation of the product, interaction or event will need to be included.

The making of the product:
First I had to decide what pictures I could use to represent and show what was my main idea, ‘love’.
Going over my documents and social media I came across many pictures that I believed to show this idea of love but not only between lovers but also the love and affection of friends and family members.
I then moved to asking permission to those who were in the pictures, to use them in this brief.






These are a few of the combinations I made, next to the real picture and the background I added to create them
Once they are printed I will then decide which ones I will like to have as an actual product and which ones I will keep as examples of my work.
The feedback I got when showing these combinations at class and from friends and family were that they were nice, pretty, made the original picture change completely (an example of this are the black and whites pictures) and that they would love to receive a product like this one, made specially for them on a special occasion or day.

The aim of this brief is to identify a problem from our individual research and provide an answer to it within the creation of a final product.
I began to resolve these problems by answering the following questions:
Who needs to know?
What and why do they need to know?
How will I tell them?
What is it I’M trying to do – Explain/Inform/instruct or Educate?
What will the respond be?
Where will they look?
How will I know its working?
What will it be – Collection of/ presentation of or instructions to?
What will be the use of tone of voice?


I then moved to researching and identifying the problems people have when it comes to love.
A few example of this, are;

What is love today?
People around the world deem love as essential to being happy and look for it in many different places and ways. Television and movies tell us what “real love” should look like but somehow something has been lost in the definition.”

What are the different ways to show and feel love?
When researching I came across an interesting fact; in Greek, there’s different words used to describe different types of love.

“PHILEO” is used to describe friendship that is strengthened by shared experiences

“EROS” describes sensual love that is stimulated by our senses

“AGAPE” describes the pure love that is unconditionally expressed as an act of the will

Do we change our definition of love depending on what we believe?

Looking at a fragment of the bible, God gives us a clear description of what love really is;
“Love never gives up. Love cares for others more than for self. Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut, doesn’t have a swelled head, doesn’t force itself on others, it isn’t always “me first,” doesn’t fly off the handle, doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, doesn’t revel when others grovel, takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, puts up with anything, trusts God always, always looks for the best, never looks back, but keeps going to the end. Love never dies” (1 Corinthians 13, The Message).

Have we forgotten how to show our love and affection to those we love?

I believe times have changed, if we were to look back 100 years from now and how people expressed their love, we can see a clear difference if we were to compare them and us today.
Love letters, songs, flowers, poems, romantic walks, and dances…
Do we see this today?
I don’t believe so…
The majority of couples today express their love through phones, liking someone’s picture over instagram or Facebook, sending private messages, a long talk over Whatsapp or sending nudes to someone over Snapchat.
What is there romantic about all of these examples?
I believe we’ve forgotten how to treat our lovers, families and friends with affection and making them feel special.

The goal I have by the creation of my cards is to make my target audience use 20 minutes maximum of their time to produce a card to a special someone in their lives. It doesn’t need to be a boyfriend or a girlfriend, I’m sure their mums would love to have a small detail from their sons or daughters every now and then, or even their grandparents or friends that have moved away and that they miss.
I would like to educate teenagers today to respect themselves and to think before doing anything stupid; to give them the opportunity to be creative and unique by creating a personal card to someone, instead of what is happening today around the world. Young girls and boys believe that they will get the attention of that person they like by taking nudes or recording themselves.
I believe kids today are growing to the wrong idea of love, and I would like to change this.

This is the format I will be printing and sticking to the back of every of my combinations.
I will have a small box to stick the stamp depending to where the person is sending it around the world.
A few lines to insert the address and then an empty space at the left of the paper; to add the text.

I could help my target audience by explaining how to create the collage, print it and then use the right format to write their messages at the back.