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.