Project report by Naomi Smith

Project Report OUIL503 Responsive Studio Brief 3 Naomi Smith

Contents YCN Fever Tree

LCA Christmas Card

Illustration Friday

Secret Seven

YCN Orchard Pig

YCN Fever Tree Substantial Brief

My initial sketches were detailed using pencil and fine liners but I worked with inks, paper cut, gouache and dip pens before arriving at my final outcomes. I think research was a strong point in this project; understanding similar products and learning about the charity and themes of the countries I was working with helped the development of my work.

I chose this brief because it asked for a focus on visual outcomes and I was keen to make something well crafted and sophisticated which was what the brief required. Working in partnership with a charity also drew me to this brief as I like the idea of my work supporting a good cause. The brief asked for a set of limited edition bottle wraps for their 500ml tonic water bottles based on countries affected by malaria.

I did face a few problems with this brief, one of the main ones being confusion about whether the design was to be on the existing label or whether it should cover the whole bottle and leave the existing label unaffected. I decided to go with the latter but it meant adapting my ideas half way through the development stage. My initial concept of the cinchona bark maps was lost through the process of this change and I regret not doing more to keep this element.

Time management was a real problem for me during this brief, even though I had made plans and numerous lists of what and when I needed to do things, I was just lacking the motivation to stick to it. This meant leaving a lot of things to the last minute and not being able to make my outcomes as high quality as I wanted them to be. I was really disappointed by this because I had such high hopes at the beginning of the brief that I was going to make something I could be really proud of. From doing this brief I have learnt that I should allow myself more time to produce something well crafted

and to be more strict on myself with sticking to time plans. I have also learnt that maybe time pressures donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t drive me as much as I thought they did. I have really enjoyed working with pattern and I think it is something I want to bring into my practice more. My pattern making skills have improved since completing this brief and I want to continue to learn more about this process. I need to be more organised with my workload and get my priorities right when it comes to how big a brief is and how much time I allow myself to spend on it.

LCA Christmas Card Small Brief I chose this brief because I have an interest in greetings card design and it is something I haven't explored to a large extent aside from in my personal practice. The brief was to design a Christmas card to be sent out to college contacts as a seasonal greeting from the institution.

and focussed on graphic shapes.

I took a risk with this brief and decided to work digitally from start to finish which is not what I usually do at all. I had a few drawings in my sketchbook but the making of the actual imagery was entirely done on screen, on Photoshop, using a mousepad.

I think the final design does fulfil the brief but I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t say it is to my taste. I am also unsure about the choice of type because this is something I am not confident with and have a limited knowledge of.

I found that I was overcomplicating my designs in my sketchbook to the point where it was unnecessary and I was setting standards too high for this small brief. I simplified it down

During the making process, I found that I struggled to see the technical merit in what I was doing. Because it was entirely digital, I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see any traits of my own skills in there and I felt quite distanced from the design process.

From completing this brief, I have learnt that it is best for me to stick to analogue processes as a starting point with the option of using digital media at a later stage. I prefer to be able to see some hand crafted influence in the design.

Illustration Friday Small Brief I chose this brief because I thought it would give me a chance to do something different each week and experience numerous quickturnaround deadlines. The weekly briefs were just one word so there were no technical constraints or specific audience to target, I liked how open this was because I

thought it would give me the chance to find out what I enjoy doing for myself. During this brief I used numerous forms of media such as fine liners, digital media, ink, analogue printing, paper cutting, wacom tablets, brush pens, gouache paints and pencil crayons. I can see a progression in my work as the weeks went on. There have been a few slip ups where time constraints or media choices were detrimental to the quality of my outcome but I have also made some work I am actually proud of. Time was an issue for this brief, I sometimes found myself completing an image quite last minute. On the other hand, I got carried away with a few of my images and I spent a lot more time on them than I should have done. This is one of the reasons why I feel my substantial brief suffered.

Although I liked how open the brief was, I don’t think this has given me much experience of working to a professional brief with more strict requirements. I can’t imagine that many briefs would be so open as this one. I have learnt not to get carried away with something just because I am enjoying it; the time spent on a brief needs to be proportional to the size of it in comparison to others. I think I have learnt that it is important to give myself more freedom with a brief, sometimes the best results come from thinking outside the box and venturing out of the direct theme at the beginning, yet still having an underlying concept in mind. As long as the final outcome answers the brief, it doesn’t matter what you’ve done in order to get there. I think Illustration Friday is something that I will continue to do to take a break from other longer running briefs. It was refreshing to have something new to tackle each week and there wasn't time to get bored of it.

Secret Seven Small Brief

Admittedly, it was a last minute choice to do this brief, it was my way of trying to kickstart my working momentum as I felt like I was flagging a little. I enjoyed working to a musical theme in last year’s ‘person of note’ brief and I thought this brief would give me the chance to experiment with something more abstract which is out of my comfort zone. I chose to create artwork for three of the songs, the image was not allowed to state the name of the song or artist.

I chose ink as my medium for this, I just needed to get stuck into this considering the time constraints, so regrettably I didn’t do much experimentation. I also found myself being quite reliant on Photoshop which is something I am finding more common in my work now. My research into album covers didn’t really help me in any way because it was just too broad, it would probably have been a better use of time to research into each of the genres of the songs I was working to. For the time I gave myself to do this, I feel I have done well to produce what I did. However, because I don’t know a lot about abstract imagery or album artwork, I have been struggling to decide whether they are successful or not. The brief is

very broad because songs can be interpreted in different ways, I suppose my outcomes do answer the brief but this does not necessarily make them a success in my eyes. This is not my style at all so it is good that I have tried to do something different, but I have learnt that this isn’t an area of illustration I would want to work in, unless I developed a style that was somehow already appropriate for a certain genre or artist. Saying this, I probably would enter this competition again, there’s nothing to lose by having a go at it. I would try to stay with a style or process that I am more comfortable with though for the purpose of recognising the merit of what I am producing in the designing process and having a more personal connection with the artwork.

YCN Orchard Pig Collaborative Brief This was the brief I wanted to work on the most because I thought it had a fun tone of voice and it would therefore be a good brief to work on with other people. I wanted to experience working with a graphic designer to make some quality 2D

and paper based 3D products and packaging and I felt that this brief provided the opportunity to do that. The brief was to produce a campaign to promote Orchard Pig as the cider equivalent to a contemporary craft beer.

The methods of production of our final outcomes weren't exactly what I had initially hoped for as we were working with 3D model making, stop motion animation and photography, all of which I have very limited skills in. As the process continued and we realised that the 3D models were rather farfetched, I did get the chance to do some drawing and I think this has been my strongest contribution to the project as a whole.

I think we faced some problems as a collaborative group. Being unable to stick to our initial time plan and not having work completed for when we met up to discuss the development of the project was detrimental to our final outcomes in my opinion. I think

communication was also an issue for us, it would have been helpful for us all to have had an idea of the visuals that each of us were producing in the time that we werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t together because then our final outcomes might have been more cohesive.

I have learnt that working as a collaborative group is difficult and compromises have to be made. This brief has confirmed that I much prefer working alone. Admittedly, I like things to be done a certain way and I deliberately made myself conscious of this throughout the process as I wanted to be a good team player. I tried my best to be reliable with delivering work on time and also making a fair contribution to the workload as a whole. 3D animation is something I know little about and this project has made me realise that it is something I really have very little interest in at all and find it hard to appreciate the outcomes when it is not of a professional standard.