Friday 17 January 2014

OUGD601 // Dissertation // Practical // Evaluation

This module has been really interesting for me, from the start I was nervous about writing the dissertation as this isn't my strongest point. In knowing this I started researching very earlier and started to write my dissertation early from the start. By doing this I felt that I could take my time in writing it and make sure that it was as good as it could be. It also helped that the subject area that I choose, I was really interesting in and by doing the research and looking into the subject further it made me more interested in it. This definitely surged me on to write the dissertation more and the further I got into writing it, the better it became.

I feel that the dissertation was managed well and by doing this it left me a lot of time in order to create the practical side of the module. Along with the dissertation I conducted many interviews, these were a mixture of emails and face to face. This was great for me to do and get professional designers thoughts on the subject which I could use within my dissertation as primary research and to make it a stronger argument.

By writing the dissertation on the subject that I choose, it was directly linked to my own practice and this has influenced my own practice from researching and developing techniques I have discussed throughout it. I feel that in doing this, it will improve the practical side of the module, but also improve my whole practice in future.

The practical side of the module was harder for me to start off with, getting an idea that opened the same inquiry that my dissertation did was key to creating a synthesised project. After finally coming up with the idea, I could get on with it and start to create the brief. I was pretty excited to get involved in this project as again it was focussed on the area of design that I most interested in - print and editorial design. Along with this, I also included web design, which is something that I enjoy doing, but felt that I needed to improve on it. By designing the website first and quite early on, again I could take more time over it and produce a website that I am happy with. Throughout designing this I focussed on creating the website in a manor so it could transferred to a publication and print design. This needed to happen as it was the main concept and communication of the whole project.

Once the website had been created, I was back into my comfort zone and creating the publication. To push this further I focussed on the design layout and how I could make it more interactive for the user, these were all topic that were covered within my dissertation and needed to be put into practice for this project. The final aesthetic of the publication is how I imagined it and what I wanted to achieve with it, by using high quality stock in different weights and colour the publication is much more engaging. The use of the trace throughout makes it more interesting when reading through, but also improves the communication of the product as this shows the design of the website, which overlays the coding on the page below. This shows the direct correlation of the website design and the print design showing how digital can be turned into a piece of print. This was the essence of the project and the publication delivers on this aspect well.

The publication was the main communication of the project and put everything discussed within my dissertation into practice. The only thing I could do, was print it in the way I wanted to. Originally I wanted to screen print the whole publication, as this would physically show the website as true print. As I choose to use a large format for the publication, this would of incurred a high cost to print the publication. As this was only a one off publication, it wasn't worth the amount of money and time it would of taken me to print it, in this way. As this was the way in which the project was being communicated as print and showing the idea of print vs digital, I still wanted to have some of printed product to show this. I needed to come up with another idea of what I could screen-print and still be of value to the project and work alongside the publication. Deciding on creating a book sleeve / poster was the best thing for this. The book sleeve slides over the front cover of publication and directly shows the difference between print and digital print of the publication. When this is removed from the publication and unfolded, it reveals a poster. The content of the poster is the same as the publication, so this is showing how the same content can be put into different contexts, but communicate the same idea. The poster works in way of advertising the publication and communicating the idea of what the publication is. The same colours and stock are used to create a consistent design throughout the two products and make them be seen as a set of products that work together.

Overall I am very happy with this module. By taking my time in both the written element and the practical I feel that I have produced high quality work that is presented well. I think the two elements to this project are directly synthesised and this was a result of researching early and being focussed on a subject matter that I was interested in. I think this module has shown me that I can write a piece of theorised work and also link it to a practical project, which is probably the strongest project I have designed so far this year. The concept, execution and communication of the practical element, I believe is the best I have achieved so far and this is because the idea was there from the beginning, it just took time to realise how to design it and communicate it in the right format.

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