EXTENDED PRACTICE MODULE BRIEF COVER SHEET
Student Name: Will Jeffrey
Module Code: OUGD603
Module Title: Extended Practice
Level: 6
BRIEF TITLE: Live Brief 5_ DBA
Brief: Brand the ‘Northern Powerhouse’ and create awareness of it’s many and varied attributes to the rest of the world. The four cities that head up the ‘Powerhouse’ will be Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Hull, which creates a nice neat line across ‘the North’. The name ‘Capital North’ has been selected, combining purpose and place. Positives and Learning Curves Initial positive thing about this brief was the fact we were working with, and pitching to, industry professionals. Definitely good practice. As well as this, the brief related to more serious, strategy based design and branding. I felt this was really good for me, as it is not something I have really done before, and is more than likely something I am going to be faced with when I get a job. I do find this sort of work relatively off-putting normally, as I have quite a negative outlook towards strategy based creativity, but nevertheless I embraced the brief and eventually became really motivated by it. It was a also a good brief to pursue because it was in fact really challenging – the idea of encapsulating all these things into 1 big idea and 1 vision meant we really had to think. Throughout the development of the project, I really spent a lot of time visualising ideas, sketching and crafting different logos. This was great practice for me as I normally just rush onto the computer when it comes to logo design, but instead I allowed myself to take time, think and develop ideas before perfecting them digitally. I suppose another positive aspect of the brief is the fact that it was collaboration – this is how it is going to be in a real studio so its good to get used to working in a team.
Negatives and difficulties Initial negatives of this brief was that I didn’t go out my way to find a group to work with – I was really wary of asking people in case they didn’t want me, so stupidly left it until it was too late and everyone was already in groups. I really regret this, as there are so many people on the course I would absolutely love to work with, and this would have been the perfect opportunity. We managed to put a group together with the remaining people who hadn’t attended the briefing, but it took a while until we all met together for the first time. I was really keen to start and do a good job, but nobody else really seemed motivated about the brief and didn’t seem to understand it – no matter how many times it was explained. When we met for a second time, things did go a lot better as we worked really well as a team to develop the idea and the direction for it. I spent the next few weeks solely working on this and sacrificed all of my other projects because I really wanted us to win and nobody else seemed to be doing anything. When the rest of the group finally decided to get involved in the design work, everything I had been working on was pushed to the side. This knocked me down, as I was actually really happy with where I had taken the idea and saw a lot of potential in it. From here, things just seemed to get worse as certain people began taking control and made decisions that others weren’t happy with – me especially. This almost led to me, and someone else, leaving the group as all motivation and enthusiasm for the project was lost. I felt I had no say in the final outcome of this brief and was pretty embarrassed to have to present it in front of industry professionals.
What would I do differently next time If I were in the same group I would have definitely spoken up more at the beginning, attempted to organize everyone and made sure we were all pulling our weight equally. If I had a choice though I think I would have been much more selective when finding a group to work with – people who I know I would benefit from working with and people whom I feel could benefit from working with me. I also would have pushed the brief as far as I could – wowing the DBA guys with a slick animated logo, an identity system that works throughout every aspect of the North and a much stronger, solid idea behind it all.
Ratings (1 Very Bad – 5 Very Good) Quality of work - 2 Quantity of work - 2 Attendance - 5 Punctuality - 4 Motivation - 4