End of Module Student Evaluation BA (Hons) Illustration Module Code: OUIL503 Responsive Name: Ben Farr Student ID: BF259382 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, Storyboards, Development Sheets etc. (No more than 75 words)
Your grade Using words: > poor, satisfactory, good, very good, excellent
5A4: Make appropriate use of a range of research methods to investigate a topic and produce work relating to the critical, cultural or social context of art and design. (Knowledge & Understanding - Research and Critical Awareness)
This is evidenced on my blog, also on my design boards. Especially within the two YCN briefs. For the Roald Dahl brief, I read the character descriptions from the books to form my own interpretations of them. As research for the Royal Opera House brief I looked at previous ballet poster campaigns as well as film and gig posters. As a group we created a survey to gather information which we based our campaign around.
Good
5B3: Generate ideas, concepts, proposals, solutions and/or arguments using the language, materials, processes and techniques of a designated discipline. (Cognitive Skills - Problem Analysis, Problem Solving)
Evidence of my sketchbook development and roughs are on my blog, with key ideas and experiments also on my design boards. This is most evident for the Roald Dahl brief, where I had to generate lots of character sketches in order to find my own tone of voice for the outcomes. Short deadlines for Illustration Friday gave me the focus to generate ideas quickly but also the opportunity to explore different approaches to image making.
Very Good
5C3: Respond to set briefs or proposals in a professional context. (Practical Skills - Visual Quality and Conceptual Development)
I responded to a range of different sized briefs evidencing my final outcomes on my blog and design boards. I feel my outcomes look considered well-crafted and professional. For the Collaborative brief I feel we thought in detail about the application and context of our final outcomes. Also I received positive feedback on my work from Gerry Brakus form the New Statesman, and the team at Glory Magazine.
Very Good
5D3: Exercise selfmanagement skills in managing their workloads and meeting deadlines/apply interpersonal and social skills to interact with others. (Key Transferable Skills,
I met all the deadlines for the briefs. I could have managed my time slightly better as some deadlines were met closer to the deadline than I’d have liked. I responded well to shorter briefs, I could focus and work more intensely. The Communication between everyone on the collaborative brief was good. We were a bit slow getting going, but once we found
Good
Organisation, Communication and Evaluation)
our direction we were organised and everyone knew their role.
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 and post the PDF as your final post on your OUIL503 blog. Also, please cut and paste the text from this box into the final page(s) of your OUIL503 Project Report.
Before Starting The responsive module I had done commissions and posted work on social media, but the professionalism required for the briefs for YCN or D&AD especially seemed daunting, submitting work to big brand and companies. It was good at the start of the module to learn how to deconstruct the briefs, break down some of the jargon and re-write them to make them seem more understandable and approachable. This will be a good skill to carry forward and tackle briefs and commissions in the future. Illustration Friday was one of the first briefs I did because it was weekly and only a small brief I felt I could tackle it whilst still focusing on my 504 work. Throughout the module Illustration Friday gave me the opportunity to try out a few different approaches, colour schemes and more shape based images. The quickturnaround of only a week coupled with my tendency to leave things to the last minute meant I had to work intensely on a couple of Thursday nights. Although I now know that I can produce a reasonable outcome in a short space of time. Other briefs with quite quick deadlines were the Glory Magazine commission and the brief from the New Statesman. I wasn’t particularly happy with either outcome as I felt the end results did look rushed. For Glory Mag I felt the illustrations were a bit safe and could have been more playful and experimental. For the New Statesman I wasn’t happy with composition and feel with more time roughing I could have achieved a more balanced end result. Despite my reservations over both of these outcomes they were well received my Gerry Brakus from the New Statesman and the Glory Magazine team. Since Gerry came into the collage we’ve been emailing about potentially doing for some sports based editorial work in the future. Doing the New Statesman brief as well as listening and speaking to Gerry has increased my interest in editorial illustration. Also I'm now considering how my current portfolio would look in respects to getting editorial work in the future, I’m going to challenge myself to try and respond to some sports news stories, to build up example pieces for my portfolio, so that in the future I have work to show clients and I can get the briefs that I want to do. I'm really pleased with the final outcomes for the Roald Dahl brief. I think I've captured the magic and excitement of the Road Dahl world. I was a bit apprehensive about whether I would be able to re-create the iconic characters in my own voice. I hope that I've managed to put my own stamp on the characters and scenes. I really had to think about how I wanted my work to look and consider what does my work look like? In order to find a way of making the images in my own aesthetic, that didn't look derivative. Considering what processes and media and tone of voice felt like my own. I'm most pleased with the cinematic look of the BFG illustration, this was something I wanted to achieve in the work to appeal to today's digital generation. I feel my character development really improved during this brief and this is something I’ve taken forward into the 505 module. If I had left more time on this brief I would have liked to look at potential applications for my illustrations like online, or apps, I think this would have made my submission to YCN a lot stronger. Collaborating on a brief was not something I was looking forward to. I like to be in control of my visual output
and have final say on things, so handing over any power in the image making process was difficult for me. Despite this I think I was a good collaborative team member and managed to relinquish control! I appreciate that I may end up collaborating in the future so this was a good learning experience. I think as a team we communicated well which meant we could divide up roles and everyone knew what they were working on individually. We had a group chat and met up fairly regularly so we were always communicating on the project. We organized a trip to Manchester to photograph ballet dancers – I’ve helped my Dad (who’s an artist) on photoshoots in the past, but trying to choreograph three dancers was a new experience for all of us with very limited knowledge of ballet! We also conducted a survey to find out young peoples opinions on ballet to help focus our campaign, I think this was a really useful bit of research and became the basis for our work. In the group we did all have slightly different skill sets so we were able to divide tasks between graphic design, short animations, film editing and poster design to produce a cohesive campaign. Creating a campaign was again a new consideration for me. In the future I’m interested in working in advertising so thinking about the context and communicating a message in my work was a good to challenge. I wish I had worked more on responsive earlier in the year, this would have given me more time for experimentation and more research. Think the one main area I could have improved on was experimentation with media, The majority of my outcomes were digital, this is the way of working I feel most comfortable with, so In the future I’m going to try and push my comfort zone a little, I would like to be using more scanned in hand-made textures in my work. I love using the mono-print textures that I made in 504, so I’d like to have a bigger collection of textures at my disposal.