Graphic Design is about doing: Crit

Today's crit was again a very different one to all the others, this time we got together in our groups, my group consisted of: Me, Grace, Ant, Emily and Anna. There should have been Joe, but he was absent. (Group 5). We went around the table and discussed our work and finals to decide on the one we were to submit for Secret 7". It was interesting too because everyone had chosen a different band from the 7 to do so all the work varied from one another alot. 

The feedback I received for mine was that the sleeve with the band on was hard to understand/ make out. However they preferred the wine bottle and high-heel ones over the rest due to them been alot more effective. Also to straighten the lines on the shoe as it was a bit rough from drawing it with the Wacom tablet. Overall I'm happy with the decision because It made me realise they are probably the better ones out of the lot, I liked the crit as well as It felt alot more of our own shove and allowed us to explore the work naturally from conversation rather than going by a checklist given to us.

Where am I now? (As a Designer)

This is a list of the ten things I have learned about my self as a designer since the start of the first semester:

I use central alot, even though I don't intentionally mean too. I purposefully try and do designs in right and left  just to keep me out of the habit. I think this really comes down from working on screen and I'm looking at the middle of it so I want to see things in the middle, I have to zoom out far and make multiple different copies in different arrangements as-well as in my notebook as thumbnails to get myself away from it.

I need to practice better time management as from the first semester I didn't quite keep my self up to date and I'm paying the price for that once all the other work has started mounting up as well. 

I work really well in a group and I think it's one of the places I excel personally. Not for the work that I create, but how I work when I'm in one, it makes me alot more motivated then individual projects. I think the reason is down to knowing I have to perform my part, a working cog and I enjoy that aspect to it.

I feel my self been pulled towards Adobe Illustrator time and time again because I feel most comfortable in it, I think this is because of just how much control I have over the elements I'm creating, I can modify a stroke how I want, size up and down a image how I want without pixelation. It feels like a safety net, but I can also bring all the elements into Indesign. I can use Photoshop and Lightroom for Image editing, and I'm competent in that It's just I always feel like I'm risking the outcome if something goes wrong during that. 

Futura and Georgia are two typefaces that seem to be developing to be my favorites  not as a combination although I think they work well as a couple. I really like the sturdiness Futura, how as bold it's like big iron girders forming characters while Georgia appears educated but pulled back, in comparison to Times. 

I gained alot of appreciation for the Constructivists work and the Russian Civil war artists, for what they stood for and what they aimed to achieve in the work they creating. It blew my mind on some of the work of just how up to date it would look if It was created today, It'd blend straight in. Mostly because alot of the work today draws down on what was created in that era of creation.

I really enjoy doing things that are completely different from anything I've attempted before, creating the app was something I really enjoyed because It was a scene I've never thought about. I came to the conclusion off creating it due to it's relevancy. I think It's something I need to encourage my self to do more often rather then stick to the safest option. 

I've discovered I really don't enjoy packaging however, an example been the mailshot, I struggle to be creative with packaging I find it alot harder to imagine solutions when it's 3D rather than an image I can aim to achieve. I think I need a new way of thinking when it comes to creating packaging to get around this.

Where am I now? (Personal)

This is a list of the ten things I have learned about my self since the start of the first semester:

I started without really know how to cook. Having to cook for my self now however I realised It wasn't that hard to cook anything because cookbooks + internet tells you how anyway, making it feel not so bad. Treating my self with a fry-up became my favorite thing. 

Wearing footwear with good grip is more than essential in the elements, having slipped over more times than enough, I realised It was about time I got some shoes that would actually let me get past the top of the road without falling over.

I really needed something to keep looking forward to at the end of the week/day or things became quite dull, day in, day out. Having a new movie too see, or ordering something cheap off Amazon brightened it up at least a little bit.

Once you've moved away from your friends and no longer in contact with them day to day, you realise who your true friends are, that in it's self makes them more precious.

Nothing picks it's self up when it's on the floor in my room, only me. This rule applying to everything from cleaning to washing up.

It's hard to get much done when the internet is down, you realise just how much you depend on it. For me, a lot.

I realised I don't particularly enjoy going out to much, to clubs or bars. The guilt on spending money on drink is too much for me, however I really do enjoy going to music gigs and to the cinema instead. I feel like I get a lot more out of it because I enjoy it.

It really helps to be cheap, I have more money to spend on things I want when I'm smarter with my money, this particularly applies to when I'm buying food. I really can't tell the difference between Morrison's own spaghetti and some Italian brand. However there is somethings you really do need to spend more on.

Drinking water on a morning really helps, especially with a 20 minute walk every morning up hill. As well as this, having breakfast to kill the morning stomach grumbles.

Bins also digest food, the resulting bin juice dissolves the bin bags. Remembering to double them over is more than essential, especially when it comes to getting them down to the skips in the court yard. I reckon it'd make great fertilizer though.