OUIL406 end of module evaluation

1.  What have you learn about visual communication during this module and how effectively do you think you have applied these ideas?
When making the gifs I though a lot about how character is used to communicate and how expression in the face can work with a certain gesture to show a feeling or emotion. And how a moving image in general can be a really effective way of communicating an idea. When communicating a specific person, I learnt that taking simple facts about them and focusing on how they can work together in imagery is an effective way to represent them visually. I feel like I applied this well in the Persons of Note brief and found good things about her person to work with and develop into composed designs. It was good to see how using vector shapes is can give a different effect to our designs. They are much bolder and give a blatant shape of the image you are communicating. This whole project has made me think more about what I’m saying in my designs and how that comes through in the final production. In the gifs we where able to do anything and communicate any message, this made me spend time considering what my designs would say to people, instead of making ones that I felt looked good or interesting. It was fun to work with more than just visual quality, and start playing around with a short little message/emotion in the image.
2. What approaches to/ methods of image making have you developed and how have they informed your concept development process?
Screen-printing was a process I’ve learnt a lot about during this project. I feel like I understand the process more and also how it could be used as a good way to produce final outcomes. It really benefited the final design of my poster. It made me focus on the compositions and colour schemes in the roughs before produce the final. It made me take more time in adjusting the image in a different way to usual, not just focusing on quality of line work. Making the digital products to this brief was also beneficial and I took time consider the colours and how they would match my screen print, rather than finding a colour combination that just looks good on screen. And also experimented with adding noise filters to the colour to give a better printed appearance. I think composition in general is something I played around with much more during this project. Looking at how the slight variations in the arrangement could enhance the designs greatly.
3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?
I’m pleased with how my Persons of Note worked as a set. I took time to figure out how it could be done, especially because they are produced in 2 different ways. I’m pleased with my frame work for the gifs and how I used the light boxing process to help create the animation. I think I did a lot of character designs and really tried to come up with ones I felt happy with and would work nicely as gifs, and also stayed away from tribal looking characters (sort of). I’m also pleased with how I produced lots of roughs and mini trail gifs from sketches to help figure out how the finished ones would look. I like how my sasquatch character turned out, I really tried to bring him to life and give him a personality suited to his appearance; I found this fun putting more meaning and detail into the concept of my characters. I feel like the outcome for the 3D gif was unique and had an interesting idea behind it. I like the transformation and morphing involved with building gif, although it doesn’t communicate emotion or expression as much as the Sasquatch. It gives a cool visual and shows how the features of building can turn into a face which is what I intended to achieve with the design.
4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?
I don’t think I engaged with the city postcard briefs as well as the others, I didn’t research deep enough into the themes. I feel like I could of got better and more original result if I had spent more time and thought in the early research stages. I think I focused too much on the aesthetic of the finished products rather than what was being communicated in the imagery. They work nicely a set of design but I don’t feel the communicate anything about they’re specific cities or the character of the hip-hop artists. I used the light box to outline over photos of the faces, this could have been a bad decision and I feel lost some characteristic of my work, but I was interesting to see how the process can be used to translate the photos of the faces into something totally new. The 3D gif was as interesting idea and way of producing, but I just feel doesn’t have a very professional final appearance. I think if the quality of photographing and lighting had been better it would have improved the final outcome greatly.
5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?
If I was going to make the gifs again I think I would maybe focus on one character rather than 3 different ones. I could have made the sasquatch character doing 3 different actions. This would have been interesting to see how you can take the same character and make it give different messages and emotions. I would have taken a different approach to the city postcards brief, and maybe looked at it in the same way as I did with persons of note. Researched more into the cities and found key images I could work with and spend time on the compositions and ways of representing them. Or even just been loser with the way I produced the outlines for the vectors, I think I got to picky with how the faces looked and was overthinking the vector process. Simpler characterful interpretations of the faces would have worked fine for the vector designs. After the screen-printing process going so well, I think I could have screen-printed all of the outcomes for persons of note, and it would have work as an even better co-ordinated set. But this is something I can think about in future work.
6.How would you grade yourself on the following areas: (please indicate using an ‘x’)  5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor
	1	2	3	4	5
Attendance		x
Punctuality		x
Motivation			x
Commitment			x
Quantity of work produced
Quality of work produced			x
Contribution to the group		x
The evaluation of your work is an important part of the assessment criteria and represents a percentage of the overall grade. It is essential that you give yourself enough time to complete your written evaluation fully and with appropriate depth and level of self-reflection. If you have any questions relating to the self-evaluation process speak to a member of staff as soon as possible.

Person of note - Final designs

Stamps:

Postcards (combined):

Final printed designs:

Final poster screen print:

Person of note - Final Production

Screen Print

• I sketched out an A2 design the same as id been roughing in my sketchbook. It took a few attempts to get the proportions right but I managed to get it right by sectioning up the page.

• I got three bits of coda trace one for each colour to make the screens, I could then lay them over each other and draw the layers onto them.
• I though the paint pens I had would go onto the coda trace well but it didn't cover them very well and started flaking off.
• I thought light would get through some go the solid black sections so I decided to scan them into photoshop and darken it all and print it out onto A2 printer paper.

• After having to do all that it would have been easier for me to light box over the design straight onto printer paper and make the screens out of that. At least I know for next time.
• But think scanning and darkening the layers does help give a better solid quality to them.

• The screen printing process went well, it took longer than I anticipated but I'm glad I took my time with it and I tried to get the best results.
• Im pleased with how I managed line up the layers, I was worried the circles would be impossible to line up but it worked well.
• I like how the dark grey contains all the colours and white. Its made me think about how effective screen printing can be for certain things.
• The colours have come out well and much more vibrant than I thought. I like the turquoise blue.
• It gives a much different quality to a digital print, and I think benefits this type of design a lot. I want to consider it much more in the future as a way of making final products.
• I was ment to colour the inside of her helmet in black but id forgot during the stress of the pens not covering the coda trace. Looking at it now it would have been a nice touch to the design.

Stamps and postcards:

• These are the final outlines for the stamps and postcards.
• I scanned them into photoshop and coloured them, I originally chose the colours on photoshop myself before I had made the screen print. The colours on the screen print came out much lighter and vibrant so I decided to scan in a section and match the colours. Which made them stand out much more against the dark grey.
• I also a bit of noise to the colour which makes them slightly less flat and smooth, especially when printed.
• I really like how the stamps work as a set, i think working to small scale has made me think in a different way. And go forward with a simple idea and take time making it work.
• Making the spaceship design that goes across all 3 postcards meant I had to measure out the size on the print out and then cut it up my self.
• I like how the space ship is positioned across the postcards, the middle one is chunkier parts and then the edge 2 have the satellites and antenna filling the space.

Person of note - Postcard designs

Postcard Designs:

• Id had an idea earlier on for the stamps to draw the space craft across all 4 of them so it had a section on each.
• I think a similar approach might be really effective for the postcards.

• I drew the space craft out a few times and tried to be playful with shapes involved.
• I quite liked the symmetricalness going on and wanted to give it a fairly complex structure.
• I started to draw the satellites and rods coming of it in a way of my own which I like.

• I had some quick rough ideas of having another orbiting scene similar to the poster that spread across the similar to the poster.
• I think it would be to similar. I prefer the idea of having the ship across all three cards.
• And I'm enjoying working with the spaceship on its own.

• I made a tester at the exact dimensions to see how it work when split up.
• I really like how it looks, when coloured in digitally it will fit nicely with other designs.
• I like how each of the sections look on there own but also fit together as one image.
• More work could be done on filling the space evenly and more in the centre.
• I will draw the outline larger than dimensions so the detail is condensed slightly.

Person of note- Stamp designs

Stamp Designs:

• In a tutorial I discussed making each stamp with circular object on it to make them all match, and also link in nicely with the the circular composition of the poster.
• I wanted to include the four key components that made my poster. Valentina in her helmet, the circular part of the space craft, The moon and The earth orbit.
• All these thing could work as a nice simple circular form on the stamp.

• I think these will work nicely as a set. I like the earth being orbited by the space craft. It look more interesting that having just circles going round.
• I like the look of them floating in the frame. In the finals I will make exactly the same size and sit in the same place in each frame.

• I will colour the stamps the same colour pallet as the poster. With white images on a dark background. 
• I think I want to colour these digitally rather than screen printed because of the size. 
• I want to create drawings at a slightly bigger size then reduce them down to keep the detail in the lines.
• I will colour the postcards digitally as well and should make a nice set with screen printed poster.
• I will aim to make the screen print first and then match the colours from my screen print on my digital designs.

Person of Note - Poster designs

Poster Designs:

• I decided to make my poster first, Its the biggest size and the ideas I've come up with so far are most suited to a poster.
• I wanted to decide on the best composition that emphasises the circular shapes and they work well with each other. That sort of suggest an orbit of the objects around the earth.

• My favourite composition is the bottom left. I like it all being symmetrical but then her head from an angle.
• The moon looks good plain with no detail and helps to maintain the space craft whilst the larger circle contains the head. These work well together and the line that shows the orbit fits well and breaks up the surroundings nicely. It also helps to show symmetry.
• Ive been thinking about a good way of producing the poster and screen printing seems to be the best I can think of for this type of design.
• It will give nice bold solid shapes and I will be able to get good quality colour and fill big sections of space.
• Also some of the un controllable effects like fuzziness and overlapping from screen printing might give a nice effect to the poster.

• I changed up the design a bit and made almost the whole of the large circle visible rather than just half.
• I think this looks better and the circular theme more obvious.
• I roughed out in pencil and pen how the light and dark colours could work together.
• I wanted the poster to be orange, black and grey. Or orange, blue and grey. Or just grey and orange or grey and blue. All would have white to from the paper colour.

• I used paint pens on simple pencil roughs to figure out the best colour scheme for the poster.
• I think both the orange and blue with the black background work best. The dark background adds to the spiciness and would look nice if a white margin is left on the design.
• I was surprised how well the light blue, dark blue and black work together. But I think the orange is needed to communicate her character and the Russian space suite style.
• In the final screen print I think I will make the black a dark grey instead of black and find a nice spacey blue maybe more turquoise, against a bright vibrant orange.

Persons of note - Roughs

Roughs:

• I did some quick loose sketches of her and the ship. I wanted to get a feel for them and make sense of the shapes I'm going to be working with.

• I had an idea to make the spaceship spread across all 4 stamps. If the intricate bits of detail was spread evenly across them, it might look nice having random sections of the ship on each stamp.

• I tried some different ways of visualising the moon, I thought the moon is another good circle shape to include in the designs. It our closest planet and orbits the earth like she did.

• I like how the circles are starting to work together in the compositions. 
• The large circle represents the earth, I put the ring going round as a sort of path showing her orbit.
• The moon fits in nicely and helps create the scene of here being up in space.

• I really like this sideways composition. The black shape around the head contains it nicely.
• I think the detail in the moon gets confused with details on the space ship slightly.
• I think I should maybe simplify the moon or space them out more.

• I kept sketching the individual objects to get better at drawing them. And get used to how they form.
• It also help me to produce better and faster roughs because I have better idea of there size and proportions.
• I added some yellow felt tip to experiment with sections that could be a highlight colour.