CONTEXT OF PRACTICE 2 - BRIEF 1 - PLAN

After my progress tutorial with Richard I made a list of tasks to complete to help me progress with the module;

• Write final essay question.
• Develop concept (relates to physical outcome).
• Create detailed essay plan.

Once I have complete each of the above criteria I will be in a position where I can start writing my essay. Furthermore, when self-assessing my project last year I noted that producing a detailed essay plan, with a selection of supporting quotes, will help me complete the essays production quickly and without problem. Last year I only created a very basic essay plan, and I believe that this severely affected the timescale of the essays completion. 

ESSAY QUESTION

I started creating the question by defining a list of aspects that I want to review in my essay, the aspects relate directly to the subject matter that I want to review when writing my essay; 

• The conditioning of young children to create consumers.
• Is creating young consumers key to the success of consumerism/capitalist culture? 
• Born to buy.
• The integration of children into consumerist culture and the benefits for companies.
• Children's lack of ambition with regards to success (always focused on earning more money - related to class?)
• Child related commodities (what is marketed? Is it beneficial to them?)

Link

ANALYSING THE POINTS

Next, I analysed the points displayed above to help me define a point of focus for the essay question, this is an important step as it will dictate how the question is written. 

When I reviewed the points listed above I realised that, due to their similarities, they could be combined to create a singular point that covers all mentioned aspects. Although not all of the points are initially referenced they will be definitive subjects covered within the essay.

MAIN FOCUS;

• The conditioning of young children to create a generation of consumers and the importance of doing so for the successful perpetuation of capitalist culture. 

WRITING THE QUESTION

After defining the main of the essay I felt that I was in an informed enough position to start creating my essay question. 

QUESTION

How does the capitalist system condition young children into becoming compliant consumers? 

AIMS & OBJECTIVES 

I have further expressed the primary focus of my essay through the specifics of my aims and objectives;

AIMS;

• Firstly, by outlining how children are conditioned into becoming brainless consumers, I hope to show how the capitalist system purposefully manipulates the youth to perpetuate consumerist ideology.

OBJECTIVES;

• Goals or a step on the way to meeting the aim; how will it be achieved?

EXAMPLES & SUPPORTING MEDIA.

Once the question had been created and I evidenced the specifics of the project I started collecting a selection of quotes and data that can be applied to support the points made in my essay. 

ESSAY PLAN

After creating a list of quotes that can be used to support the points made by my essay I started writing a detailed essay plan. 

DESIGN PROCESS 2 - COLLABORATIVE - SESSION 1

CHOOSING A PARTNER

The first task of the collaborative brief is to choose a partner. However, before choosing who to work with I made a list of things to take into consideration when selecting a work partner;

• What skills do they have that will complement my skill set?
• Will they stay organised and on top of the workload?
• Will they be easy to work and communicate with?

Before I approached anyone I was asked by Joe if I wanted to work with him. I accepted on the terms that he has an applicable skill set that allows him to create effective solutions for a range of different design areas such as packaging and editorial design. Furthermore, me and Joe have a good relationship and similar aesthetic taste, therefore communicating about ideas and design decisions will be an easy yet productive process. 

CHOOSING A BRIEF

After defining Joe as my work partner we had to choose a brief from the D&AD or YCN websites. Before we started looking at the various briefs I had to communicate the fact that I did not want to produce work for a large corporation, as an ethically driven designer I do not want to support large corporations as I see them as responsible for many of the problems in the world. Communicating this aspect before choosing a brief allowed us to quickly narrow the choice and helped speed up the process of selection. 

We arranged to spend a few hours at my house reviewing and selecting an appropriate brief that plays to our strengths as designers. Therefore, before outlining our selections we listed our individual strengths as designers.

MY SKILLS;

• Craft - Production process.
• Ideas generation - Thinking of functional concepts.
• Concept development - Developing ideas and outcomes.
• Project management.
• Layout.

JOE SKILLS;

• Typography 
• Ideas generation - Thinking of functional concepts.
• Colour - Strong knowledge of colour theory.
• Craft - Production process.

After outlining our individual skills as designers we chose three briefs relevant to the skills outlined above. Choosing briefs that apply to our strengths will ensure that the work is relevant to our individual design practice and will allow us to create an effective outcome. 


CHOSEN THREE BRIEFS;

• Bear (cereal) - YCN
• Fedrigoni - YCN 
• Monotype - D&AD

BEAR BRIEF -

WHY CHOSEN;

• Ethical - Brief promotes health cereal to kids while provoking them to learn.
• Illustrative - plays to our design strengths. 
• Typographic - Plays to Joe's strengths. 
• Creatively open - Can be creative when forming outcome. 

FEDRIGONI BRIEF -

WHY CHOSEN;

• Creatively open - Can be creative when creating outcome.
• Ethical - promotes recycled paper range.
• Can directly relate to target audience.
• Craft drive - plays to both mine and Joe's strengths as designers.

MONOTYPE BRIEF - D&AD

WHY CHOSEN;

• Typographic - plays to Joe's strengths.
• Typographic - allowed me to further develop me understanding of type. 
• Large workload - plenty of work for both me and Joe.
• Substantial room for development.

FINAL BRIEF CHOICE;

FEDRIGONI

CREATIVE PARTNERSHIP FORM

Finally, after outlining a brief I completed the creative partnership form ready for our next collaborative session with Fred.

DESIGN PROCESS - RESPONSIVE - FINAL CRITIQUE

Today I participated in the final critique for our chosen responsive brief.

After initially choosing a brief that did not offer me enough scope for substantial development I decided to outline a new brief from the D&AD website.

As previously mentioned I selected the national trust brief from the D&AD website. As I selected the brief fairly late on through the module I only managed to get the bare bones of a concept and some research together in time for the first criticism. Furthermore, due to some bad time management I was left focusing on finishing work in time for the 'Design Production' module deadline. As a result, I unfortunately did not have much progress and develop my ideas for the brief, as was left presenting a very vague start to the brief.

We started the session by choosing a space in the room to lay out our design boards. Instead of presenting work to a group like we usually would in a critique, we relied on the effective communication of our design boards to deliver information regarding the project. Completing the session in this way was useful as it gave us the chance to review the effectiveness of our design boards as well as the progression of our project.


DESIGN BOARDS


Below are the design boards that I presented.

FEEDBACK 

Feedback was written onto sheets that outlined the individual sections of the project and boards that should be critiqued.

The sheets I received are displayed below.

• Love the images.
• Strong concept.
• Good guilt trip on the adults. How will you address the children directly?
• I like the concept but it would be good to see a variety of ideas.
• Consider distribution methods, display through design boards.
• Clear that child is watching nature on TV.
• Use 'refine edge' on photoshop to sort out edges of hair.
• Work at a higher resolution to avoid pixelation of image & logo.
• Quote is effective.
• Design boards are lacking direction - I was unsure which sheets to read first.
• Would be good to see variety of ideas.
• How else can the concept be developed into an entire campaign, not just one poster.

• Attracts everyone into the countryside. Digital/indoors is bad.
• From what has been introduced it relates well, just needs more development/variations.
• Include a version on the brief/re-written brief.
• Campaign targets adults and calls them out by guilt tripping them.
• More variations are needed.
• What other slogans/variations will there be?
• How will the advertisements be communicated? Billboards? Digitally?
• Although the background image is unfocused you can clearly see that it is a TV and the message it is conveying.
• Refine edges of hair.
• Resolve pixelated text and logos.
• Strong introduction and proposal, needs a brief to relate response.
• Lacking in direction, needs a variety of ideas to help pull the project together.
• The slogan works well in content being aimed at adults to guilt trip them.

ANALYSIS 

Firstly, I started analysing the feedback received during the criticism by highlighting the strengths outlined;

• The concept works well at attracting people to the countryside/outdoors and highlights to the audience that overly interacting with technology and digital media is bad.
• By guilt-tripping the adult audience it will help provoke a reaction and evoke them to interact with the campaign.
• Initial response clearly communicates the intended message.
• The quote/slogan featured is effective and relevant. 
• The introduction and proposal featured on the boards is clear and effectively communicates the information needed to understand the concept.

Moreover, I also analysed the feedback from both sheets and highlighted areas of the project that could be improved to help make the project more relevant and effective;

• There needs to be a variety of ideas displayed, not just a singular poster.
• Consider the distribution methods, how and where will the campaign be displayed? and how will the choice of distribution reflect and relate to the target audience?
• When creating the posters ensure that they are produced to a high standard.
• Design boards are currently lacking direction, consider adding elements such as an attention grabbing title to help users navigate through the boards.
• Consider how the campaign can be developed into a whole, integrated campaign. 
• Include a design board outlining the re-written brief to give work further context.

RESPONSES

After analysing the feedback received from the brief I formulated responses to improve the weaker areas of the project that were outlined.

• As mentioned above, the reason my project is lacking a variety of ideas and poster variations is because of some unorganised project management in another module. Unfortunatly, as I was focusing on preparing work for another module submission I was unable to full develop aspects of the project in time for the final critique.  However, now that the module has been submitted I have taken steps to ensure that my time management stays organised, allowing me to keep on top of the workload. In response to the first point, I will develop a range of posters as part of the campaign each displaying a different slogan aimed at evoking a reaction from the target audience.
• Furthermore, I will also take time to consider the methods of distribution and how these reflect my outlined target audience. The chosen distribution methods will then be displayed and explained on one of my final design boards.
• The production of the poster displayed on the final design board presented was rushed, which is why the quality of the outcome is so poor. When creating the designs for my final set of posters I will ensure that the correct techniques are applied to ensure a quality outcome. 
• My design boards currently contain numbers indicating their order and a small titles at the top of each board. However, it is apparent that people are still struggling with their navigation. In response to this feedback I will consider adding a larger title to each board to help communicate the content and order of each board.
• Finally, a design board displaying the brief is needed to give the project context and help members of my class understand my concept and design choices. However, when submitting to D&AD this is simply not needed, they wrote the brief and understand the details thoroughly, so to add a design board communicating the ins and outs of the brief is a waste of a board that could be utilised to further communicate aspects of the outcome. 

DESIGN PROCESS - RESPONSIVE - CHOSEN BRIEF CRITIQUE

Today I participated in a criticism for the brief outlined as our focus for the responsive module. 

I initially was focusing on a brief named 'Embracing Our Differences' which was an ethical brief that tasked students with creating a singular piece of artwork that communicated a message of diversity. However, after assessing the brief against its possible range of development I decided to highlight a new brief.

After dropping the 'Embracing Our Differences' brief I looked at the choice of D&AD briefs. I reviewed the choices and outlined the 'National trust brief' as my new brief of choice. Unfortunatly, this decision was made only a week before the criticism, and therefore I only had the early development stages of the project to present.

The session was started by getting into small critique groups consisting of around five members. We then had around 7 minutes each to present our project progression.

DESIGN BOARDS

For the session I created some design boards that helped communicate the direction the project is taking.

I also presented a design board displaying some aesthetic research, however the board and file were unfortunately lost. Therefore, I have featured the images it displayed below to give the feedback context.

    

Link

FEEDBACK 

After I had finished presenting the design boards members of the group gave me feedback regarding the projects progression, appropriateness and audience relevance and possible directions.

• It is good that the campaign addresses both the parents and children.
• Solution successfully answers the brief.
• Collect further research with regards to the stock that the posters will be printed on. (sustainable/biodegradable paper?)
• Proposed poster aesthetic will grab kids attention and evoke them to want to venture into the wild.
• Methods of distribution are well considered, but how could they be pushed further?
• Consider how the campaign could be integrated into schools and kids clubs.
• Consider proposing a website redesign (the redesign should apply to both children and adults like the visual campaign).
• The audience is well considered.

ANALYSIS

Firstly, the strengths of the current project that were outlined during the criticism consist of;

• Effective campaign that addresses both adults and children.
• Proposed kids poster concept is effective and will engage the audience.
• The audience is well considered, initial campaign is appropriate to them.

Furthermore, feedback received during the criticism also helped to highlight areas of improvement, these areas consist of;

• Further research needs to be collected into possible stock choices, the stock should reflect the natural/green ethos of the featured company.
• The current methods of distribution are well considered, but need to be pushed further to have more impact.
• I should consider how the campaign could be integrated with schools and kids clubs. Children form a large part of my target audience and therefore a focus on distributing the campaign into their environment is important.
• Consider creating a website redesign of the current national trust website. The redesign will create a more consistent company identity and extend the reaches of the campaign.

RESPONSES 

After analysing the feedback and highlighting the strengths and areas of improvement for the project I outlined the responses I will engage with to help the project progress.

• I will research into sustainable and biodegradable stocks that the posters of the campaign could possibly be printed onto.
• With regards to the distribution of information I want to create a spider diagram exploring further areas that the campaign could be distributed to reach the desired target audience. 
• I will consider how the campaign could integrate with schools and kids clubs to further engage the child part of my outlined audiences.
• Finally, I considered creating a website re-design as part of my proposed campaign, however re-designing the website and focusing it on my primary target audience could make the website unsuitable for the other users of the website. Therefore, I will create a spider diagram exploring ideas and concepts regarding the digital aspect of the campaign and how this could integrate with the current national trust identity.

DESIGN PRODUCTION - SELF EVALUATION

DESIGN PRODUCTION - MODULE EVALUATION

PRINT EVALUATION 

Firstly, I believe that my outcome successfully solves the problem of providing users with supporting information about the six stages of the print process. The guide divides information into easy to navigate sections that cover each stage of the print process in fine detail. Users can then refer to the specific area they are having a problem with to find the information key to the success of that specific stage of the process. 

Looking back, an aspect of the project that I would improve would specifically relate to the amount of time spent on the project. As the outcome is very content heavy creating a balance of informed information and supporting visuals consumed a huge amount of my time, and consequently affected my time management for other projects. In the future, I will make sure that I plan my project timescale better, and create solutions when I notice that areas of a project are taking too long to produce. Doing so will enable me to identify when I am falling behind with work and provide me with the means to create a solution.

WEB EVALUATION

Firstly, I believe that the project was an overall success, the outcome effectively achieves the aesthetic profile that I wanted to create, making the website appealing to the target audience outlined earlier in the project. Additionally, the organisation and presentation of information was also successful.  It was mentioned in one of the critiques that to completely engage the young audience outlined the content of the site would have to be image heavy, and to a certain extent rely on the images/illustrations to communicate the content. Once I had finished organising the content for the book, I immediately outlined important aspects of skateboardings history and created a hand-rendered illustration to support the snippet of information. The process was very time consuming and later, combined with an under-estimation of timescale for another project, came to seriously affect the time management of the project.

Areas of improvement relate specifically to the coding aspects of the website and time management. I found the coding side of the project very challenging, and consequently could not create the website to anywhere near an acceptable functional standard. Additionally, the problem was not helped by that fact that I under-estimated the timescale it would take to complete certain aspects of the project, leaving me in a position where I had a huge task I couldn’t comprehend to complete in a short timescale. The results obviously reflect my failure to understand the basics of coding combined with a lack of time to devote to learning the coding process in more detail.

In response to the project’s completion I am going to devise a time management plan that enabled me to organise my projects much more effectively, leaving time aside to deal with problems like the one mentioned above. A quote from Fred Bates reads; “On this course we drown you with work, it’s your job to learn how to swim”. For me, I think that this statement reads true, specifically for this module, I set myself three substantial projects and unfortunately could not organise my time effectively enough to complete them in the timescale set. 

PRINT & WEB EVALUATION

Firstly, I believe that the project successfully solves the problem of providing the target audience with a solution to the lack of space for growing plants in an urban environment, where usually there is a lack of space to grow. By providing users with an information pack that directs the construction of a Windowfarm growing system, I have given users the answer to the problem of quick, health and accessible city growing.

Early on in the project I decided to brand an already existing company after discovering that they had produced and designed a product similar to one of my initial concepts, but had developed it to a much higher, informed standard that would have taken me months of product development to achieve. Therefore, in re-branding the non-commercial aspect of their company provided me with a platform of information as to which I could then apply to successfully solve the problem set by the brief.

The aesthetics of the integrated outcomes revolve around a natural theme, the colour scheme reflects the colours that the viewer will encounter when growing their own food and the illustrations replicate detailed, etching style illustrations to create textured, engaging visual props to grab the audience’s attention. I believe that the projects overall aesthetic appearance is successful because of its consistency across all proposed platforms. This consistency was achieved through the application of the same colour scheme, typefaces, illustrations and stock across all outcomes, and helps to form the strong and professional aesthetic appearance viewers perceive.

Overall, I believe that the project was a success. The outcome clearly solves the problem outlined by the brief and successfully applies a consistent, engaging aesthetic to support information communicated to the audience. One area that I would like to have improved once again was my time management, although the project ran relatively smoothly, due to the poor management of other projects I was unable to propose an advertising campaign. The proposed campaign would have rounded the project off perfectly, supporting the other platforms of the project by raising awareness of the cause and direct members of the target audience to the re-designed website. Other than this, I would have liked to develop some of the page compositions in more detail, as I personally believe that’s some of the page layouts in the information guides could be applied to create a more successful, balanced composition.  

DESIGN PRODUCTION - BRIEF 3 - FINAL IMAGES

To showcase the outcome I decided to take some photographs of the information pack that users would receive after purchasing the item from the online platform. 

DESIGN PRODUCTION - BRIEF 3 - WEB PROPOSAL

Below are images displaying my final web proposal for the integrated Windowfarms campaign. 

HOMEPAGE

• Introduces what a windowfarm is.
• Displays windowfarm imagery.

ABOUT

•  Provides users with detailed information about the product, company and the company ethos. 
• Simple navigation allows users to easily browse through content.

ONLINE COMMUNITY

• Community welcome page introduces users to the community and its uses and features a fixed login/sign up window.

•  Once logged in users are directed to the community homepage.
• Here the users account details are displayed along with a selection of categories which when selected brings up information in the bottom window.
• Page also features a live updating number showing the communities continually growing member count.

GROWING

•  The growing information page allows users to scroll through a range of the growable vegetables and provides users with the individual plants growing information. 

STORE 

•  Finally, the store acts as a platform from which users can buy the print pack.
• The page has a simple layout with the content being divided up into categories so users can quickly navigate to the items needed.
• Additionally, there is also the option to download the booklets to save buying the pack, this option is available as some users may not have enough money to spend on the pack. Moreover, it also helps reduce the amount of materials used to distribute information.