Evaluation

End of Module Student Evaluation

BA (Hons) Illustration

Module Code: OUIL505 Illustration 2: Applied Illustration

Name: Wilf Dessent

Student ID: 252989

Please identify where the evidence for each of the learning outcomes is within your submission and how well you feel you have met the learning outcomes. Please also grade yourself in relation to the learning outcomes using terms: poor, satisfactory, good, very good, excellent (Note- This is so that the team have an understanding of how well you feel you have done. It is not an indication of the actual grade you may receive.)

Learning Outcome	Evidenced where? Blog, Visual Journal, Roughs, Final Illustrations, Stings, storyboards, development sheets etc.  (No more than 75 words)	Your grade Using words: > poor, satisfactory, good, very good, excellent
5A7:  Demonstrate an informed understanding of issues relating to media, communication, audience and context through the delivery of solutions to brief led problems or clearly identified creative concerns. (Knowledge & Understanding -  Critical Awareness)	This can be evidence in the reflection and evaluation of medias throughout my blog. Also where I have researched how I can use my character designs themselves as a tool for communication.
5A8: Understand the potential and limitations of technologies and processes used in the production of illustration for 2d, 3d and/or 4d distribution. (Knowledge & Understanding -  Research)	This can be evidence in the development/refinement of my designs as I applied them to labels suitable for my products. It can be found through reflecting on my work and discussing how lino print media translates onto products/3D objects. It can be evidence where I have affected the imagery differently to make it suitable for the different product shapes, eg. Cropping the designs for the skateboard decks.
5B5: Analyse and critically evaluate the impact of social, cultural, technological and/or ethical concerns on the development of solutions to problems relevant to individual creative concerns. Cognitive Skills - Problem Analysis, Problem Solving)	This can be evidenced within my research – looking into animal worship and other forms of sacred animals from different cultures and people’s relationship with animals. It can be evidenced in my first proposal where I looked into how cruelty free, ethical products could be potentially be an appropriate route to take my project. It can be evidenced in my research into product designs - how they use appropriate imagery to speak about their theme/content/context.
5C6: Explore and apply a range of appropriate practical and conceptual approaches to self-determined ideas, concepts, solutions/proposals in response to own identified intentions and relevant practices. (Practical Skills - Practical and Conceptual Development)	This can be evidence in the way that I applied my concept/theme suitably to create a range of beers. How I kept the designs as a consistent set and tried to tie them together professionally like real life products and branding would be. This can be evidenced in my approach to the lino prints, and applying the self-determined idea of making animals hybrids to my character designs.
5C7: Produce technically competent and conceptually appropriate outcomes to identified problems through the selection and application of visual skills. (Practical Skills - Visual Quality and Technical Competence)	This can be evidenced where I experiment how the lino prints can develop into the final labels. Reflecting and refining on how the linos work as labels. It can be evidence through my extensive roughing and repetition of my character designs to make the images work – and also work as a consistent set. It can be evidence in my use of mock up product designs, demonstrated the illustrations in their appropriate context.
5D5: Demonstrate the ability to plan and carry out a period of increasingly self-directed study through the appropriate use of workshop areas, studio activities and project management skills. (Key Transferable Skills - Presentation and Evaluation)	This can be evidenced in the structure of my project where I have complete the tasks in different stages, and aimed towards different outcomes throughout the brief.

Summative Evaluation (See Evaluation Guidance on next page for more information)

You are required to write a 750 word Summative Evaluation of this module.

Please type up your Summative Evaluation in the box below. Make a PDF of the document, print out a copy to submit with your portfolio of work. Also please cut and paste the text from this box into the final page(s) of your OUIL505 Project Report.

Before this modular I had no idea how to approach illustrations that where to be applied to products, I have learnt a lot of beneficial skills and techniques across this brief. I have learnt how to research into a theme for visual content and then develop the ideas and apply it to the branding and packing for a series of products. I learnt valuable Photoshop skills – editing imagery and applying them to mock up templates to demonstrate how the products would look, this is a useful skill that I will continue to use un future projects – as a way of demonstrating potential outcomes. From researching into product and packaging that uses illustration – and applying similar ideas to my own designs, I learnt valuable skills and process of how to make my designs suitable for the products – composition, colour variations, making them into labels, adding information type to the products. I learnt some more practical lino skills and gained more confidence in the print room, I enjoyed working lino with different character deigns and some different shapes/figures, I feel like in general the outcomes for this project have been slightly different to what I usually produce. I have learnt some valuable skills in developing and refining character designs, I really enjoyed figuring out the animal hybrids and how to combine them, I tested my technical sketching and thinking skills. Although I have learnt valuable skills within the project – I’m not that happy with finished aesthetic itself in the final products. Looking back at the outcomes now I’m not sure that lino printing was the most effective media to use for creating product illustrations especially for beer packaging. I found that they were difficult to manipulate and twist around new shapes like the labels – I felt I was limited to what I could achieve visually when applying the print to 3D objects. I wanted to work with lino because it was a media that I was enjoying developing at the time. Before creating the linos I imagined that they could be combined with some other imagery – but through development I realized that I was much more limited to what could be done with them – it looked more effective to have them on simpler graphic logos/labels with no details. Seeing the finished beer products, I don’t think that lino printing was essential to the visual qualities, the same sort of effects could have been achieved through other (easier to work with) medias - If I was to do this project again I would take a totally different approach to the image making. I would try and make more refined designs in relation to the actual products themselves – and look at how I can develop the deigns appropriately to the application of products. I would have like to have a more hand illustrated feel to my products, and looked further into the extent my product labels and packaging could be personalized with my designs. Rather than the minimal and graphic printed approach – take a more personalized hand drawn detailed approach, like some of the products I researched. I would have really liked to see how some of my hand drawn qualities can work being applied to 3D objects. Across this brief I don’t feel like I had a solid route of research, I think this effected by project quite a lot. I was unsure on the direction that it was going a lot of the time and I was developing character designs without really knowing properly what was going to be done with them. For a better outcome I should have fixated on specific research points at early stages, I feel like I have been indecisive with my research and done a lot of un necessary research that didn’t really benefit the project – there are some lessons to be learnt in finding the appropriate research, and also finding research that I find valuable to my work. I think I got too caught up in trying to force communication into my characters at early stages, I think it could have been beneficial to produce some more rough idea sketches in response to some of the themes, more researching through rough ideas at early stages – I think I jumped straight into the character designs, I was looking for too many facts and research before just starting experimenting. I think more consistent blogging would be a good way to help me understand my research more and give myself a more focused route – I could reflect more on what has been useful for the development. My designs drifted away from some of its initial research intentions – I stopped focusing on how to portray the characteristic and powers of the animals through the designs, and they became focused mainly on the hybrid idea, I think more reflection throughout early development stages could be beneficial. I think more general research into the beer industry could have been beneficial to my project – look further into with examples of all the ways illustration is used in the beer industry.

Project Report

Skateboard Designs

I had a go at applying my characters to some skateboard designs, although it is very off the topic of beer, it could be part of the merchandise alongside T shirts. There could be some limited edition skateboards that are released with the beers. And because the products are aiming towards a slightly younger generation of people - people that are more likely to try new types of beers and stray from the tradition beers - then skateboarder could be part of that audience.

• This was my first attempt at arranging them onto a deck, theres something un easy about having them all on the deck at once - they work much better individually, having them all together arranged in this way doesn't look right. 

• They work well enlarged and cropped onto the boards. These two above work really well, I didn't think much about cropping my designs to apply them to products because initially I would want all the details showing, but they work much better cropped in these because of the shape of the deck.
• I like how the space of the board is filled and there is a good part of the character showing on the main body of the board.  

• I dont feel these bottom three work quite as well at the other two, it was harder to fill the spaces and show a good part  of the characters - because the features are more spread out and complex it is harder to crop them into a strip.
• I like seeing how the linos could be applied to boards - its a different approach to how I would usually figure out a skateboard design - working with an existing image and seeing how it can be cropped around the shape is an interesting way to do it.  

T Shirts

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• I thought that T shirts would be a good piece of merchandise to go with the beers. Having a different T shirt for each of the types of beer, you could get the t shirt of your favourite beer or just your favourite animal totem character.
• I had previously experimented with screen printing lino designs onto t shirts in 504 - so i was keen to see how I could make these designs work for t shirts.
• Although I didn't get the chance to actually screen print them myself - it has been beneficial t experiment with how I can display the imagery digitally.
• Using the digital templates is a good way to see how the designs look before actually printing, and lets you experiment with the arrangements/composition of the T shirts. I will consider doing this in future before screen printing my t shirts to get a feel for how they will look.
• I found the shapes of the characters where to random and inconsistent to put on the front of the Ts, I preferred the larger image on the back, then circle badge logos on the front. Some of the characters could have worked on the front like the bat because of its symmetry - but I wanted to create a consistent set of Ts where the imagery has been applied in the way. 

Tote Bags

• I applied my designs to some digital tote bag templates. I like seeing how the lino looks on the tote bags, the solid shape works well on the grainy texture. I think these make nice products - it is a good way to sell the beer, you could carry the beers in it, you could get a free tote bag with your first purchase?. It is also good promotion for the beers, having people using tote bags with the designs on is like advertisement.
• I like seeing my designs on tote bags, i would like to experiment further with how I could screen print on tote bags to make products of their own.

Beer Mats

I looked at how my designs worked on beer mats, its good to see how other beer related products can be branded with illustrations. This could be good to have in pubs and bars that are selling the product, and could also be sold as a product on their own with other totem merchandise.

Finished Beer Bottles

LAND TOTEM

AIR TOTEM

This is easily my favourite bottle design. The symmetry of the character and the colour combinations, looking at the products aesthetically it is easily the most effective 

WATER TOTEM

REPTILE TOTEM


INSECT TOTEM


Bottle variations...

• I considered having green bottles for the bitter and stout, but looking at them as a set they work better with brown bottles.

Im pleased with how they look, I think the colour bend effect looks really good applied to a product, and the way the colour scheme changes across the products - is much more obvious when seeing them like this. Its interesting to see how the lino prints work applied to products. Some work better than others, the shark character doesnt sit very central in the circle which looks unusual when seeing it on the front of 3D object. The more symetrical and less complicated images work better for this kind of design.

I looked at how the image could work as a billboard advert, It works well I think its a good way of displaying the bottles - it demonstrates the variety well which is a key selling point to the products. To make it better it could have some text or a strap line like 'Whats your totem?" or "Find your totem...". If I was to take the idea of billboard advertising further I would look at how I could create some illustrated poster designs with the characters as well as just photos of the products.

Final Beer Labels

• I found this bottle template that I though would be really good to demonstrate my designs on.
• I like the shape and the unusual bottle top - it will work well with my branding because its not the traditional style of beer branding and looks quite unique.
• I liked the strip label on the neck of the bottle and wanted to see how I could apply my designs to it.

• I refined the circle badges and tampered with the colours. I made matching labels for the neck and applied simple text explaining the totem and type of beer. I thought about applying text to the circle badge as well/instead but I couldn't figure how it could be placed consistently on all of them because of the different character shapes. I thought it would more effective having it subtly on the top label - leaving the badges more simple and iconic - text could have made them look over crowded and un organised.
• I like the simplicity of the labels with the character within a white circle, the font is simple and explanatory - I didn't want anything to distracting from the imagery.

Beer Bottle Test

• This is the first mock up bottle template I experimented with, something messed up with the effects on the main label. I didn't want to fix it because I was unsure about about this bottle anyway, the label was to small and I don't like the gold tin foil at the top, it doesnt work at all with badge. I want to design a slightly different label to go at the top, a different colour blend shape.