Design Practice: OUGD504

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.

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.