Ryan Dutch
EXAM EVALUATION I started my exam by looking into many topics, which was then narrowed down to one, Conspiracy, Corruption, Money & Power. I then looked into images relating to this topic and decided on my first photoshoot, Dublin. I got images of certain landmarks and places that related to the topic, such as churches and other important buildings. I then took more photos in a photoshoot in London. The photos in London were more defined on the subject. Some of the subjects I chose were; Old Bailey, Houses Of Parliament and New Scotland Yard. The reasons for these subject choices is I had researched further into my topic and found out that there was a lot of corruption surrounding these important buildings. I am pleased with the initial photographs I took for my prep work because I feel I composted them very well and thought about the pages that they could be used within in my final pieces and in the style of the artists. One issue with the photographs that I noticed is that there was no people within the images, if there was they were within the images that I didn’t use. This disappointed me as I feel that all my images are based on buildings and it would have been good for me to involve some people as I would be able to play on the emotions that are portrayed by people. However in all I feel that my pictures were effective as they were produced at a high quality and were based on subjects relevant to my topic, such as the New Scotland Yard. I used the images throughout my exam prep and final as there was such a range of Images I was able to use them in both the build up and final. I believe that I did push my creative boundaries within my work, however this was les evident within the start of my exam preparation as my ideas were not focused as clearly on my topic and lead up to my final exam. This was shortly changed when I changed my ideas from being extremely abstract to becoming a flat design. I looked into abstract art that related to my topic, such as that of Monika Traikov, and developed some of my own ideas that related to the artists and linked to my topic well. I then decided to look into the client that I was going to use, this ended up changing everything. Looking into the topic and more refined into corruption, I found Transparency International UK, who are a global movement sharing one vision: a world in which government politics, resources-resources-business, civil society and the daily lives of people are free of corruption. Transparency International UK (TI-UK) is the UK national chapter of this movement. They fit my brief perfectly, however their work and overall feel had a flat design to everything. This sparked my idea to create an editorial for them that includes infographics that followed a flat design. This forced me to look into other artists that I could use within my final piece, this is where I stumbled across Brad Sloan. I produced pieces that related to his style and the topic which my exam was following. I was hoping to use some of his influence within my final piece. After changing my idea from abstract to a flat design I looked deeper into editorials and what made them, which I found house styles and a lot of typography. So I decided to look into typography further, I then produced many pieces relating to typography that could be used within my final exam editorial. I then noticed that the data used within my piece was mainly based on statistics, this moved me to look into infographics. I then looked at examples of infographics and decided I was going to involve typography and infographics together with images and design to make a perfect mix to make an informational editorial that could be used by Transparency International UK. I then started to design my layout for my final piece.
Ryan Dutch I feel that the artists that I chose for my designs were well chosen towards the end, however towards the start of the preparation the choice of Monika Traikov was a poor selection. The reason for this is that she produces abstract pieces and at the end of my project I produced the complete opposite of this and made flat designs that focused mainly on typography and line work. However I did learn from the choice of Traikov. I learnt that you do not need to make abstract pieces to make an effective piece, you can focus purely on design and not just on image manipulation. The choice of Monika Traikov was not good for my project but did shape the final editorial that I produced. On the other hand I am happy with the other artist I looked into, Brad Sloan. I am happy with this selection as his work helped me to design pages within my artwork, not just through his reflection style but also through his positioning of his camera and how he thinks about composition within his images and artwork, this helped me throughout my final artwork and through the design stages of the editorial. I used his artwork and composition as I considered where I was placing images etc. throughout the design period. There is one main page within the editorial that focuses on Brad Sloan’s artwork. I also looked into typography, not particularly from artists but in general, designers that had produced flat design san serif typefaces that I considered within my designs. This influenced me in my final design as I was mainly focusing on the typography and layout of the words, I was constantly thinking about how readable the words were and how they looked, this helped as I was not just caught up on the images used within the final piece. Overall I am happy with the outcomes I have produced in the exam, I feel that these outcomes are effective as they portray information very well without overpowering the viewer with bunches of text. I am happy that this has been portrayed this way as it was what I was aiming for before the exam took place. I am pleased that my layouts work within the design as I decided to focus on pure design and layout within my exam idea. The downfall of my exams is some of the text positioning, I think this was due to the time element. I needed to focus more on the text that was being included within the bodies of text as there was unneeded returns and spaces. I feel like my ideas were not too adventitious but this was due to the topic I chose and the flat design route I decided to go down, however within the flat design area I have been adventurous within the typography and the image manipulation I used in my designs. I managed to maintain a consistent standard of work throughout my final piece, I feel this was drilled into the work by using a house style and colour scheme and keeping some elements in the same place throughout different pages. In my final editorial it is very clear who the client is, this is emphasized by the use of logos throughout the piece. I also made the front and back page using the logos colours and also made the contents page follow this style, I did this to emphasize who the client is within my topic. I didn’t want to use the logo within every page, which I did experiment with, as it looked to overdone, I felt that this was not needed as much as that and that being located on the front, back and contents page was enough. The overall idea of my final piece was that the viewer, once read, would be able to tell you some facts on corruption within the UK. I also added the social networks and website where you can find the company if they wanted to research further into the topics and the organisation.
Ryan Dutch The final outcome has been focused on anyone over the age of 16. The age group would be lower however some of the wording within the piece is specialist that only a few young people would understand. The main audience is anyone who would like to learn some more about their country and corruption within the UK. I have done this by using a flat design that is de cluttered. This has lead to me producing a professional style design that could be used anywhere.
If I had more time on the project I would have like to designed a new website for the company, as I feel their current website is too full with information and too cluttered. I would also have liked to produce a series of posters to promote the company, as many people are un aware of the problems within the UK and the world within corruption.