BA (Hons.) GRAPHIC DESIGN
LEVEL
05
Module Code
OUGD202
Module Title
DESIGN PRODUCTION - DIGITAL
END OF MODULE SELF-EVALUATION NAME
Olivia Chapman
1. What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them? I have definitely learnt many skills that I never though ide be able to learn throughout this module. At the beginning of the module my research went well, I was happy with my subject, however after many critical discussion with peers and Lorraine I discovered that some of my research was lacking key elements e.g. audience, background and depth. This began to take its toll as I found it hard to bring my research together and figure out what I needed to produce and for whom. After further research I was happy with my narrowed down title, Space moments of 2011. This module has improved my research skills; it has also improved my decision-making. Another skill that I have developed is motion graphics, at first I found it extremely hard to work Adobe After effects, but once I got into the swing of it and committed myself to the software it become much easier and even begun to teach myself different effects and edits on the programme. Storyboarding is another skill that I have gained during this module. I have a totally different view on what a storyboard actually is, more than just pictures. I Have discovered that time, pace, position and scale are all very important when planning for Adobe After effects. One key quote that I will remember is ʻA minute is so much longer than you think!ʼ The last skill that I have learnt is all the different ways to render and download video and audio files. Lorraine and Mike helped me with downloading and rending my files to the appropriate size and formats so that they would work in the software, when uploaded online or to a cd. After different programmes I used for this were ʻQuick timeʼ , ʻsavevid.comʼ , ʻVimeoʼ and ʻItunesʼ.
2. What approaches to/methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design development process? I digitally produced my timelines and storyboards so that it was easier to work from when creating the sequence in After Effects as oppose to just illustrations. I then uploaded screen shots of my storyboards onto glikr , a website that makes youʼre images into a digital flipbook so that I could see the potential movement of my sequences. This helped a lot as I found quite a few mistakes within my timelines. I was also impressed with my packaging, unlike before I researched into the concept of my packaging and made it to suit the theme of my subject matter, space. I made a DIY vacuum packaged cd case using acetate and an iron, due to time and money constraints I could not make an actual vacuum pack, but I was pleased with my version of it. This had definitely made me think about trying harder with my concepts behind my designs instead of just designing for just the visuals.
3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?
Due to mitigating circumstances I strongly feel that there are not as many strengths in my work as I hoped for at the beginning of this module. Although once I got into the process of motion graphic I taught myself quite a few skills within After Effects. Ide say the visuals of my background in my title sequence is the biggest strength within my work. It look me a while to generate a 3D moving spacial atmosphere to use as a base for my sequence, without my skills within this effect my sequence would not look half as good. Another strength was the thought and concept behind my CD packaging, I put quite abit of time into the design production of this.
4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?
My weaknesses are very apparent to me and I have stated this throughout my blog posts. My timelines within my storyboards were not to time and pace, I couldn't seem to illustrate the movement of my idea sufficiently, and I preferred to work from digital storyboards and edit my time and pace in the process of generating my sequence. Another weakness is my audio! I had quite a few variations of sound effects to use within my title sequence, however I did not use these due to knowledge and skills within this process. I found it hard to work with audio in After Effects, maybe planning and creating my audio before producing the graphics would have improved this. Also the information within my sequences cold have been a lot clearer and I should have used more quotes and information about what I was advertising for. This was due to me being too caught up in the technical visuals and effects of my sequences. As I mentioned before, my struggle in narrowing down my audience and style left me with less time to produce my idents and sequences. I Also feel that my five title sequences are too similar, although a lot of time was put into my first ident , I could have made the other four more divers instead of creating variations of just one. Again I could have thought more about different audio sounds. My last weakness has got to be the ending of my Title sequence. I found it hard to think of ideas to fill the 10-second gap at the end, so I resorted to a minimalistic text edit to finish the sequence off. This could have been improved by developing my storyboards more to generate more visual ideas for the final.
5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these? Take more time – Next time, when working with after effects, I am not going to rush and give myself plenty of time to generate my moving sequence, thinking about my ideas before moving them a reality is what I will do, instead of jumping form one idea to the other in a rush. I will think about “QUALITY NOT QUANTITY!” Storyboarding – next time I will created more storyboards to generate a wide range of visual ideas as I lacked these towards the end of the brief, when I really needed them!
Time organisation – always the obvious one but yet again I left a few important thing until the last minute!
Prioritising my current brief – I guess I focused too much on other tasks such as CTS , Image and Enterprise when I should have been putting more effort into this module.
Communication with staff – After a few discussion with Lorraine, Fred and Mike, I felt much better and more knowledgeable on the brief and its requirements, it's a shame I didn't do this earlier!
6.How would you grade yourself on the following areas: (please indicate using an ʻxʼ) 5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor 1
2 x x x
3
4
5
Attendance Punctuality Motivation x Commitment x Quantity of work produced x Quality of work produced x Contribution to the group 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.