OUGD603: Extended Practice
Emily Lodge
Evaluation Brief 1: Italian Bakery - Fonte De Vita
Individual Brief
I started this brief at the beginning of the year with the intention of completing it relatively quickly, however it ended up lasting the full duration of the year, and looking back at it, I am definitely glad it did. Working on it at various points during the year gave me the ability to continue to develop designs and make them more successful and professional. I think that the diversity of packaging and printed elements also helped in the development of the branding, and made me think about how I would apply the branding to a variety of media, for example, the glass jars and the plates. The varying sizes and shapes meant that a lot of consideration had to go into how the branding was applied and what would work well. This diversity in packaging also worked very well in the final photographs. The simplicity of the branding allowed for successful extension across a retail environment, showing how the interior of the establishment would look if it were created. This made me think about how the branding would be applied across an interior design situation, and meant that I could incorporate more than just the logo, such as photographic imagery as well. The changes made to the website following the completion of Brief 11 definitely improve the overall image of the brand and create a much more consistent approach to all aspects. The previous design did work well, however with the development made in Brief 11, it was inconsistent and obviously so. The changes made were simple and following the same structure, also with skills that I did not have at the beginning of the year when I previously made the website, so I feel that it looks much more professional. I think the project was very successful and I did what I set out to do in creating collateral which spoke to a high-end audience and was luxurious and sophisticated in appearance. The most successful part of the project was the putting together of it all, where all the elements came together to show a fully rounded brand.
Date Started: 0 6 /10/14 Date Completed: 19 /05/15 Time Scale: 7 months (Non constant)
OUGD603: Extended Practice
Emily Lodge
Evaluation Brief 2: Collaborative - Kakawa Chocolate
Collaborative with Charlie Rotherham
The initial idea for this brief was to do it at the beginning of the year, however I definitely think it is a positive that we waited until the end as both of our design skills and organisation skills are much improved and more professional. I found this brief to be very enjoyable, and as we were working in a collaborative, it was very productive as we wanted to move forward with it at a good pace and be able to put a lot of work and effort into it to create something that we are both proud of. When we initially decided on the brief, we did want to do a wide selection of elements to it and turn it into a substantial brief, however in the narrowing down and considerations we made, it definitely helped turn the brief into what it is in a thorough and well thought through concept and execution. I think that we worked well in a collaboration and played to each others strengths. Working on it over a short period of time definitely kept us moving forward with it and meant we were very productive in what we did produce, making decisions based on initial guidelines we set out when the brief commenced. Choosing this guidelines at the beginning definitely helped in the realisation of the brief as it kept us on target and kept us from moving too far away from what we wanted to achieve - a strong concept of a luxurious and sophisticated chocolatier brand. Our collaborative also allowed for ideas to be suggested and considered in a much quicker way, meaning that we chose a resolution quicker. Another plus to this collaboration was that both of us work and think in completely opposite ways, which gave us both two completely different points of view on the brief. Initially this had been a bit of a hinderance as we both had our own ideas as to what the brand should be, however through the development of the brief we did join these two points of view together and create compromise when needed for the best decisions for the brief. One thing that I would have liked to do was expand this brief to include a web-based solution and potentially a promotional solution as well. Including these elements is something I enjoy doing and would really give a fully realistic view of the brand and products. Despite this, I think that the brand vision is clear through the products and final photographs. Overall I think that the finished products are strong and do fulfil our want to do a sophisticated and luxurious brand and packaging. I enjoyed creating the packaging much more than I thought I would, and the work and effort gone into the products is clear, with the strengths from both of our working practices clear in the work as well.
Date Started: 0 2 /02/15 Date Completed: 11/05/15 Time Scale: 2 months
OUGD603: Extended Practice
Emily Lodge
Evaluation Brief 3: 30 Days
Individual Brief
This brief is definitely the brief which I have found the hardest to do in terms of keeping it consistent across thirty days. Having to set aside time every day for this has been a challenge with some of the other briefs and work I have been doing at the same time. However I do think that doing this brief was definitely beneficial and I know that my skills in hand drawn typography have vastly improved from where they were at the beginning of this brief. The best thing about this brief was that I was able to do what I wanted and experiment in a variety of different type styles and layout. With other briefs there are brands and guidelines to stick to, but in this brief, with each days effort being different, I have been able to enjoy it and do whatever I want instead of sticking to the same thing every day. It has given me a real taste for the variety of styles that are possible with hand drawn typography, and it has shown me what I really do enjoy and what I am good at. I found that I excelled in the design during the second week and was able to vary my designs a lot more. I think that this was down to confidence and the fact that I had done a first week of a variety of styles and found that while some of them didn’t work too well, I do have some skill in this area and can push myself to develop that. While I can definitely say there are a number of designs which I am unhappy with due to my lack of skill in certain styles, it was all part of a learning curve and I am glad that I experimented in all styles. As well as developing my skills in this style of design, this brief has also given me a much deeper understanding in the way which typography is formed and the principles behind it. This, with the research I have been conducting for my Cop3, I have found that the information gathered has really helped me consider the designs I have been creating and consider how the letters work together. This has overall given me a much better understanding into the typography anatomy and principles in general. This brief has also allowed me to consider the idea of being able to create my own hand drawn fonts or typography designs for other briefs/in the future. I am now much more confident in this design and want to continue to push myself in this and use it as much as possible. It will definitely help me in the initial stages of briefs in visualising solutions in a much more realistic way. Overall I have enjoyed the process and will definitely be thinking about whether I can complete it again, pushing myself again in this area to hopefully come out with some exciting and excelled pieces of hand drawn typography.
Date Started: 15 / 10/14 Date Completed: 29 /11/14 Time Scale: 30 days
OUGD603: Extended Practice
Emily Lodge
Evaluation Brief 4: Wheatless & More
Client Brief
This brief has been a bit of a surprise to me as it started as a small logo design brief and expanded to a full identity and promotional material for the client. I found the majority of the brief enjoyable, with a few things that I dislike, however I think the outcomes are of a high standard and work really well together and separately. My initial thoughts on the brief were that it was something short and quick to do, however I did find that once the client asked me to create the full identity, it took a considerably long time compared to how quickly I would have done it if it was my own generated brief. This is mainly to do with having to communicate with the client and the changes that they wanted. The client requested changes to the logo a couple of times, all after I had changed it on every piece of collateral, which was quite annoying as it meant I had to change it all on everything. Another thing I disliked about this brief was that the client asked me to create product lists, order forms and invoices. This is something that I haven’t done before, especially in that the client wanted them created in Microsoft Excel, which did make it quite hard to get a really consistent and strong design to work. I found these to be very long and tedious, but I understand for a usability point of view for the client, it was necessary to do. Overall I enjoyed the brief and think that the outcomes were some of the strongest and consistent work that I have done before. I would definitely like to work for this client again in the future as they have been happy with the designs that I create for them and given me a lot of creative control.
Date Started: 0 9 /06 /14 Date Completed: 08/12/14 Time Scale: 6 months (Non constant)
OUGD603: Extended Practice
Emily Lodge
Evaluation Brief 5: The Woodshop
Client Brief
I think that this brief never really reached the full potential of what it could have, mainly due to the lack of client response in the expansion. I did enjoy creating the logo and icons for this, but I do feel that they only go so far, and much more could have been developed and created. Initially I had been quite excited by this brief because it was something that I found enjoyable in branding a restaurant. The brief was also something very up my street in terms of the deliverables asked for in the logo design - a typographically based design with an integrated icon. Creating a bespoke icon for this is something that interested me as I had not done much work on icon to the point of the start of this brief. The lack of client response following the logo design made the brief lack direction and enthusiasm. With it being a client brief, I did not want to finish the brief the way I would have seen it because this may not have been what the client wanted, and would have ultimately meant I would be doing things twice over. Looking back at it now, and still with a lack of client response, I realise that I could have completed the brief to my vision and still got something out of it in creating work that I was proud of. I did enjoy doing the initial parts to this brief and creating the logo, however afterwards it was not enjoyable and was a lost brief as there was no direction to move in. I think that this brief has shown me that in a client brief, they may want you to complete a brief quickly, but it is their response time that is important too in creating a project as it is a two way system.
Date Started: 2 0 /10/14 Date Completed: 11/03 /14 Time Scale: 5 months (Non constant)
OUGD603: Extended Practice
Emily Lodge
Evaluation Brief 6: Typography Principles
Individual Brief
While this brief was very simple in terms of content and execution, I did find it to be enjoyable and educational for myself with the content. It is a subject which I knew quite well to begin with, and now I feel that it has taught me a lot more and has certainly helped me in considering the impacts of this content in my future briefs. Typography is always something I have enjoyed, so to finally do a brief dedicated to just this as a subject is something that I was very happy with and found to be enjoyable. This brief has also allowed me to further my book binding skills and learn an entirely new kind of binding in coptic binding. This is a style of binding I have always wanted to learn, and while it was a bit tricky to begin with, I am now very confident in my ability to replicate this style of binding whenever I want. I think that this binding was one of the strengths to the project and gave the finished publication a uniqueness and professional appearance. It was a short brief, and I am definitely considering taking it further in a secondary brief, potentially creating more content and more deliverables outside a publication. However as a single piece I do think it works well and consistently throughout the publication. I think that the simple style of the layouts and imagery worked well in putting across the information in an informative and straight to the point way. While I was initially a little worried that the design would look sparse and not very professional, when printed it works well and the simple layouts help in showing exactly what each page is about and illustrates the importance well. The use of only two colours also aids this decisiveness of the content. I enjoyed this brief and found that as I knew a lot of the content I could make informed decisions in terms of the order and layout of the information. I have always enjoyed creating publications, and now I have learnt another binding technique which I will continue to utilise in the future.
Date Started: 0 4 /11/14 Date Completed: 04 /12/14 Time Scale: 1 month
OUGD603: Extended Practice
Emily Lodge
Evaluation Brief 7: YCN Syfy
Individual Brief
After completing YCN Domino’s Pizza last year and finding it a very enjoyable experience I was looking forward to starting work on this brief as it was quite similar in terms of the deliverables in it being quite an open brief. This brief was essentially allowing me to do whatever I wanted as long as it promoted the Syfy brand. I quickly decided on a concept of creating a sci-fi convention. One of the main reasons for doing this is because it meant I could brand something. This is something I didn’t do at all last year in the competition brief, and found myself a little annoyed at the fact that other people had with their briefs. With this being an open brief, it meant I had the allowance to create a convention and brand it, while keeping inside the guides of what the brief was asking. Choosing to create a convention and do this branding was definitely the right thing to do as it meant that instead of focussing on keeping everything in line with Syfy, I could create a whole new identity and experience, while keeping within the brief and what was being asked for, which was to promote Syfy’s love and passion for the sci-fi genre in general. I really enjoyed developing the concept and brand for the convention, and think that it is quite fun and really does answer the brief. I think the development of the branding really happened at the end of the brief when I started putting everything together and adjusting colours and layouts to fit all and be consistent. I also think the use of stock played a big part in the end stages of development as the inclusion of the red stock added another layer to the identity and gave the collateral a bit more life. Before this was included, everything was very similar. The inclusion meant I had to edit everything I had done previously, however I definitely think this was for the better as it made the branding more versatile and showed how it would work realistically. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this project and am glad I chose to do this over the other competition briefs that I could have done. I think the final deliverables are strong and answer the brief, and are definitely something I am proud of.
Date Started: 0 2 /02/15 Date Completed: 19 /03 /15 Time Scale: 6 weeks
OUGD603: Extended Practice
Emily Lodge
Evaluation Brief 8: Dr Me
Collaborative with Rinesh Mistry
Overall I enjoyed this one day brief. I was a little unsure of how I would do with the workshop when it was announced that it was collaborative, however I think we worked well and created some interesting and strong designs. It would have been good to have more time on all three of the briefs, and I think that this issue was because of the speed of the scanner which took up at least an hour and a half of our time. While it was good to look for imagery in publications and not on the internet, time to do this needs to be taken into consideration in the future if another similar brief comes up. I also found it good to work with someone that I haven’t worked with a huge amount before. There were far more ideas and we were able to create something different to what I would usually design, but something that I liked. The workshop has also made me realise the different design methods there are out there. I did used to work similar to Dr Me in their way of working, however it has been a good while since I have done so, so it was great to do it again and realise that it is a valid way of working and I should do it if it works for me.
Date Started: 2 0 /10/14 Date Completed: 20/10/14 Time Scale: 1 day
OUGD603: Extended Practice
Emily Lodge
Evaluation Brief 9: Intern Magazine
Group Collaborative
As I enjoy creating publications I was looking forward to this brief. While I don’t hugely enjoy collaborative projects, I did find that doing a collaboration on this brief was enjoyable as it was only a short and conceptual one day brief where we all worked together in a very quick fashion. I think our decision to create something light hearted for the day was a good one as it meant we could have fun with it and play around with ideas a lot more than we would have if we were creating a magazine for a much more popular and refined subject. It also meant that our research was interesting and amusing at times. I enjoyed working in an environment where there was time pressure as it meant we had to make definitive decisions quickly, moving forward with the best ideas straight away instead of speaking at length about other ideas. While this is beneficial in some cases, I don’t think it was in this brief, and found that making quick decisions kept every in the group productive and on track with our concept. The kickstarter campaign addition to the brief was interesting as it was never anything I had even considered for something like this before. It showed insight into how some magazines/brands get themselves started and get a following. Overall I enjoyed this brief and think that our magazine concept was creative and fun. While it may not have been the most sophisticated magazine concept, it was light hearted and kept us all working productively and enthusiastically throughout the day.
Date Started: 2 1/ 11/14 Date Completed: 21/11/14 Time Scale: 1 day
OUGD603: Extended Practice
Emily Lodge
Evaluation Brief 10: DSM
Individual Brief
While I was not originally too enthusiastic about doing this brief with the subject I was given retirement home - I did find that running it as a one day brief was a good break from my other briefs that I was currently doing. I found that doing this as a one day brief made it more productive as I had a time restraint. I also don’t think that I needed more than one day to complete this brief. The concept I came up with wasn’t incredibly creative or original, however it was quite realistic in terms of what could actually happen, and I think I did quite a good job in terms of branding and design of the website. Overall I did enjoy doing this brief in the end, however I do think I would have engaged more and enjoyed it more if I had another subject. I found that this subject was quite limiting and was definitely the one that I did not want to do. I did find it a bit easier than I thought, however I do think I would have done a better job with another subject.
Date Started: 10 / 11/14 Date Completed: 08/12/14 Time Scale: 1 month
OUGD603: Extended Practice
Emily Lodge
Evaluation Brief 11: Fonte De Vita App
Individual Brief
This brief was originally going to be a part of brief 1, making it one large brief which spanned the year, however I definitely think I did the right thing in splitting it into its own brief. It meant I could look at it as a single element and break it down to figure out exactly what I needed to do and why I needed to do it, instead of not giving it as much attention, which would have probably happened if it were in its own brief. Another reason for breaking it down to its own brief was that I wanted to explore App design without the distraction of other elements, something I think was definitely successful in this brief. This brief really allowed me to research into App design and figure out exactly what was useful and needed for an App of this kind, as well as research into what style of App design I like and how I can apply this to already existing branding and content. I found that this brief was a good break from doing primarily print based brief as it allowed me to work in an entirely different way and use a different thought path into how the work would be interacted with. Developing the aesthetic design throughout a series of sessions really made the finished design successful. It was a long process, but I found creating all the pages and updating them all simultaneously was hugely helpful in the development of the design and development of my skills in digital design. I have always found that my App designs never look quite right and professional, however I definitely think I’m on the right tracks with this brief. The hardest bit to this brief was identifying what the user would want on the App and how they would interact with this. In particular, I found the Bakery order pages quite hard to figure out to get the most usable and professional design. Thinking about how the user would scroll or flick pages also played a huge part in the design and is something that took a lot of work to get right. The success of the design was in the decision to include white and make the design much more simple and contemporary than the original design. The white really broke everything up and made it look much cleaner. The use of green also added to the design. While I had originally wanted to stick to brand colours, the inclusion of the green definitely helped make the design more vibrant and relevant. I thoroughly enjoyed doing this brief and will definitely be looking forward to the next brief which involves an App design. It has taken a lot of work to create something I am happy with, but I definitely think it was worth it and has hugely developed my skills in this area of design. It has given me confidence in my ability to adapt my skills to design for different media, and means that I am continually broadening my range of skills.
Date Started: 0 9 /01/15 Date Completed: 06 /02/15 Time Scale: 1 month
OUGD603: Extended Practice
Emily Lodge
Evaluation Brief 12: DBA Capital North
Group Collaborative
Initially I was quite apprehensive about this brief as it was group work and a live brief. The previous live brief I did, I didn’t enjoy much at all due to the subject I was given, however I decided to keep an open mind about this as it was quite an open brief in terms of what the deliverables are and seemed like an interesting subject to work wih. I wanted to work with people I hadn’t before, and I went through with this in the group I worked in. I found that this was a really good experience as it was good to see other people’s ideas and concept approaches. I think that we worked well together as a group as we had a variety of skills and each could put in our own individual contribution. The final outcomes we produced were very different to how the brief started and to how I usually work, but I was very happy with this as this brief gave me a chance to really push my skills in vector illustrations and mocking up designs from scratch instead of using a downloadable file from the internet. This brief pushed my technical skills to a more professional level in this aspect. The biggest surprise for me in this brief was my ability to create some strong and consistent illustrations. I had initially said I didn’t want to do the illustrations as I had not ever really worked in this style before and wouldn’t want to pull the standard of the project down, however when time became an issue and I helped in this, I found that it was much easier than I thought and I was much better at it than I thought, creating some illustrations that I was proud of and matched up to the standard of the others created. Something I think we found hard as a group was creating a solid concept. Every time we thought we had one, we found the holes in it and ended up back where we started. However, when we finally did reach a certain and solid concept, it was strong and was definitely worth all of the hard work for. Once this was sorted I think we found it quite easy to create designs for it and expand this over the collateral that was asked for. In terms of our outcomes, I think what we did was good and was very different to all the other groups, something that I think we were happy and proud to do. While we necessarily didn’t have enough time to fully explore what we could have done and push this far, I do think we did a good job and can be proud of what we did. In reflection, I can say that I did enjoy the brief in terms of the design work. I think we can all agree that we found it hard up until that point, but keeping in constant communication and making time for meetings really aided in the development of this brief, which did result in a strong concept and strong visuals.
Date Started: 0 2/02/15 Date Completed: 02/03 /15 Time Scale: 1 Month
OUGD603: Extended Practice
Emily Lodge
Evaluation Brief 13: Yearbook Pitch
Collaborative with Sam Walker & Grace Buckley
While I had originally intended on doing a yearbook, I do think that after doing this pitch, I will decide not to due to time retraints. Nonetheless I did find doing this concept and pitch enjoyable as it gave me a chance to work on something a bit different with two others. Overall I think our concept was strong in trying to get the audience more involved and invested in the yearbook, however I think the execution could definitely have done with some refining. The end pitch concept was something very different from what I would usually design to in it being more interactive. Despite this I backed the concept and did my best in contributing to it and refining it as much as possible. I contributed the format and layout design, and I think that this was a strong element to the concept. I do think that what I did was strong and usable in this format of having different sizes/shapes for a variety of peoples work. While I generally find collaborative projects a bit difficult and long, I think we worked well as a group and were on the same wavelength about what we all wanted in the project and what the outcome would be. Looking back at it, I do think I should have pushed a bit more onto the design side of it and pushed our ideas further to be something more than what it was and reach the full potential of the concept. I personally find it hard to work in a brief which has interactivity as the main aspect to the concept, so in that aspect, perhaps it wasn’t the best concept for me to be working on.
Date Started: 0 3 /02/15 Date Completed: 11/02/15 Time Scale: 1 week
OUGD603: Extended Practice
Emily Lodge
Evaluation Brief 14: Visit Travel App
Individual Brief
The aim of this brief changed a fair few times from the original writing, however I think that the final outcome has proven that I made the right decision in creating an App design instead of going down the route of branding and collateral. My interest in App design has increased greatly throughout the year, and I felt confident enough to be able to do a full App brief. My skills have improved a huge amount and I think that I was able to apply these to this outcome to create a successful and professional looking App. I think the strongest part to this App is the overall layout and use of colour to indicate buttons or separate sections. The use of photographic imagery with flat design created a strong visual aesthetic and gave each page depth. Particularly, I think the illustrated iconography worked really well across the App as they were simple, but detailed enough to be bespoke. Choosing a subject like travel was a good thing to do as it is not a subject I have created work around before. It gave me a new subject area to look into and think about how the App would work in the situation where it would be needed, and what features are necessary for it to be successful and useful, not just look nice. The main thing that this brief has done is make me think about the necessary elements to an App and how necessary an App actually in for a task. An App should be created to be helpful and useful, not just because it can be created and be there. There must be a purpose to it. Another important thing that I have had to consider through this brief is the appearance and usability. Something may look good, but if it takes a long time for the user to reach a certain part of the App, they are never going to keep it. Creating a simple interface and navigation which links well and as minimal as possible is what is important, and this has been shown in the simplicity of the App’s navigation. Overall I enjoyed this brief and would have liked to extend it out to more formats and avenues, but with time restraints this was not possible. However, what I have done up to this point has been successful and I think it is a strong design with a good purpose.
Date Started: 18 /04 /15 Date Completed: 19 /05/15 Time Scale: 1 month
OUGD603: Extended Practice
Emily Lodge
Evaluation Brief 15: Typeface
Individual Brief
I found this brief to be particularly enjoyable and a learning experience. It has definitely been the brief which has pushed my exploration in typography and typeface design to a much more technical level, meaning I have had to be extremely precise and careful with every element of this brief. When I created the initial typeface in January, I had been quite convinced that it was as good as it was going to get, however through learning much more about typeface design since then I found that I was confidently able to take the original typeface and edit it to create a much more sophisticated and consistent design across all characters. This resulted in a typeface which I am actually extremely happy with in the fact that all letters work together well and it can be used for body copy. Previously my typeface designs have not been quite up to the standard of being able to use for anything other than their original intention or just laid out in A - Z, however this typeface is something that can be used. This brief has also showed me a good way to work through creating a typeface as it has shown me the right way about going about creating characters and how to create a consistent appearance instead of just thinking about how an individual character will look. Building on this and creating weight and style variations is something I enjoyed as it allowed me to push the design and consider more about the appearance than just creating one variation would. The part of this brief which I enjoyed the least was actually turning it into a useable typeface. This is a long and tedious process in inputting all the characters before having to kern each letter and numerous pairs. However this has definitely aided my skills in this area of typeface design. I was previously quite inexperienced at this, having only done it a couple of times before to a very mediocre level. As I wanted to actually use the typeface in creating the specimen book, I knew I had to spend the time to kern properly and set up the documents properly so it could be useable. Creating the typeface specimen publication was a bit more of a task than I initially thought it would be. I had to spent time considering how I wanted it all to be presented and what the key elements were. A big issue I found was that because I had three different styles and four weights, it created a lot of content that needed to be shown with twelve different variations. This made is tricky, however I am happy with how I edited this down to show the key points and aesthetic decisions in each variation. Overall I think that the specimen really does show the typeface off well. The original aim of this brief was to create a useable, readable contemporary typeface, and I do feel that I have done this. I was initially very skeptical that I could manage to do it, but through hard work and a lot of time I do think the typeface is something to be proud of. This is definitely the brief where I feel I have accomplished the most as I have learnt so much through the whole process. It has given me the confidence and skills to be able to move forward and create more typefaces, and make them fully useable.
Date Started: 0 3 /01/15 Date Completed: 01/05/15 Time Scale: 4 months (Non constant)