MAY Throughout the past few weeks I have created the work I feel most proud of over this year. I think this is down to really carefully considering the idea behind each project before starting it, and being strict with the amount of time I allow to each aspect of my practice. The project which I struggled with most, I actually really enjoyed, as I found my plant project quite enjoyable and since I was working towards a poster outcome, it didn’t take much mental space. However, there was a miscommunication, and I didn’t need to make the posters in the end. I felt a bit disappointed that I had wasted my time on these outcomes, and struggled to find another outlet for them. In the end I put them into some album artwork, and sold the originals at a print fair, which was a good lesson in how to rework my outcomes. However, I did have a really good experience of collaborative work recently, where I created a pattern for a Graphic Designer to use on some juice packaging. I was really pleased with my time management, communication and visual outcome for this. I think it was very beneficial for me to not start the work until I had clarified what we were aiming for, then not investing too much time into refining them until I had ensured they were along the right lines. I also found it useful to set deadlines by telling her when I would send work to her, so that I would have to stick to it and actually work to get it done in time.
Be bold and confident in design decisions I did end up doing a few revisions for my collaborative project, but since I had managed my time well, this was simple and worked well with my images. Overall, I definitely took on board the suggestion to say no when I need to, and ensured that it wouldn’t be too big a project for me, and that my partner would be happy with what I could provide before starting. The most fun I have had recently is my ‘wonky’ project, based on imperfect fruit and veg, and celebrating the beauty they hold. I really found researching other practitioners really useful (See blog post Wonky- We Are Out Of Office/ Josef Frank), as I could take aspects and theories from their work to push my practice further and create successful outcomes. I also undertook a lot of first hand research for this project, and it really helped me to immerse in the whole world of wonky produce, and assured my thoughts that it was individual and beautiful in it’s own right.
I also continued to use my process from the Eesti prints to create free, characterful positives to print from. I struggled initially with the creation of bigger prints in this way, as I was over complicating things, but through really useful feedback from peers and tutors, I really simplified them and came up with far more bold and successful outcomes. This is something I need to remember so that I don’t overcomplicate my work in the future. However I should not let that make me afraid of adding elements of pattern making, as I feel the current outcomes from ‘Wonky’ would be improved through the addition of pattern in the background block colour to help add individuality and interest.