During this year I feel I have learnt many new skills, and how to be more independent as a designer. I felt that last year I was relying on tutors to help me constantly, I was just being lazy and not helping myself, where as this year I have been working much more independently by coming up with my own ideas, working out solutions for myself etc. Its a good feeling when you are proud of the work that you produce, even better when you know you've done it all by yourself.  

This is going to play a huge part in my professional project, well it already has because I have had to decide on an idea. Don't get me wrong I found this to be probably one of the hardest decisions of my life, but I did it in the end, and I feel that I have made the correct one. Anyway the professional project is really going to test what I have learnt throughout this course and I feel will defiantly show throughout this project. 

All there is to say now is that I intend to hand in PPRD with a huge smile on my face, and to keep cracking on with my professional project and of course the essay to successfully complete the course. 

Day Out

Today was a really productive day, I decided to get on with my FMP straight away by waking up at the crack of dawn and going into town. My day led me to taking photographs of shops that I felt appeal to the same target audience as whom I will be appealing to. The shops that I decided to take photographs of where Animal, Fat Face, Quicksilver and Free spirit, which all sell snow, surf and skate clothing. During my day I also picked up some useful bmx, surf, skate and snowboard magazines that I intend to create a mood board from.

Above I have included some of the photographs that I took.

After my talk with Neil I have made some slight changes to the slides of my portfolio. By applying the RBL poster to the bus stop ad-shell and the t-section onto the bus, I also decided to change the layout of this slide from landscape to portrait which I think looks a lot more professional as there is more room for each image. I also decided to change the type on each page, I decided to change the font, size of the font and also the colour of the font. The changed the typeface from Myriad Pro to Georgia, I chose this font because I have used the typeface in a lot of my work so by using this type face in my portfolio relates to my work. I also decided to reduce the size of the font because the type was too close to the images on my slides. Finally I changed the colour of the font to a light grey which I feel looks a lot less subtle than the black that I was using before, I think this change has worked well because I want the viewer to be focused on my work rather than the text.  These changes have made my portfolio look a lot more professional than it did before and I am pleased with the final outcomes of the slides.

I have included one of my final slides that I have changed since the last post.

Research/development critique

Today was a really good day, I started the day by getting my portfolio up to scratch to show Neil later on, which went really well. I then had my critique with Mike Ryan which couldn't of gone any better, purely because I have done the work. There wasn't much to be said really because I explained exactly what I have done, exactly what I intend to do and how I am going to do it. 

I explained my next steps of what I intend to do, the first being to gain some primary research, I then went on to explain how I intend to do this (by going out to different shops that appeal to a similar target audience as whom I am aiming at and take photographs and gather any relevant information). Mike agreed that this would be a very good way of gathering primary research.  I was told by my peers and Mike to come up with a name for the company, I agreed that this is a priority and will be met by next week. 

I feel that this project is going really well and I am very much enjoying it, at the start I got my self into a bit of a pickle with what idea to chose and after all what I have learnt throughout this course I know for a fact that I have chosen the correct one.

Above I have included some of the work that I presented in the critique.

Today I got a chance to show Neil what I have produced so far for my portfolio and curriculum vitae, I was told that everything is in order which I was pleased to hear. I was told that there are a few slight aspects of my portfolio that I may want to consider. The first being that the text on a few of the pages are too close to the images, and the second was to consider putting the Royal British Legion poster on a bus ad-shell and also the t-section on a bus. Other than that I was told that the layout I was using is fine and my work is professionally presented. 

Its getting closer to the deadline for PPRD now and all the work is building up. I have noticed a change in myself this year, and this blog has been a part of it. Its helped me reflect on myself and my own work, and kept me organised. Its a great change from last year, now I realise how unorganised I was throughout last year. 

Throughout my design career I intend to use this blog because its helps me keep a record of what I have done, how I could improve and mainly keeps me organised. I feel this blog has improved my time management skills and I find so useful for being a designer. 

D&AD/PJ Smoothies

Due to the amount of work we have at the moment and deadlines that are required to be met, (Myself, Alistair, Rob, and Chris) have decided to not enter the competition and leave it as far as we got to. Its a shame because we put a lot of time into this brief but never decided on a final outcome, we would start one idea and then move onto the next, the group simply wasn't working. 

Our ideas were strong and were aimed at the correct target audience, we met the brief as well as we could. The first idea we had was to use sexual innuendo, with a strong tag line which was aimed directly at innocent smoothies (Being innocent is ok but being naughty is more fun). I felt this was a strong idea we just didn't push it further. The main reason being is because we had a look at some of the D&AD entries online and someone had used the same idea and executed it really well. This really put us off pursuing this idea any further. So this is where the mess started, after decided we would change the idea we met up constantly to have group discussions and we simply were not moving forward with this project. 

But after a few group discussions we finally decided on a new idea, which then changed again during the working process, I will go on to explain. We started with the idea of using bottle of Pj smoothies in full colour combined with human models which would be featured in the background of the image in black and white to create an advert which would ask the intended viewer a rhetorical question, how do you cure your hangover? how do you relax?

This then changed slightly by replacing the human model with the Pj smoothie bottle, basically using the bottle as a human.  Due to the fact that we could never decide on what one to produce we only ended up with two incomplete visualizations. 

I have included the two images which we felt were closet to completion, but as I said there incomplete.

  

Tutorial with Anna

Today I had a tutorial with Anna about my essay, I felt that I have progressed a lot further since the last time we spoke as I now know exactly what I am writing about and also have a series of books related to my topic. I have decided on a title for my essay which is (An anaylisis of three contempory brands with reference to post modernism) I have also decided that I will be discussing the following brands Levis, Coca Cola and Howies. I will be comparing and looking at the differences between each of the brands but also be looking at the comparisment betweeen Howies and the much larger brands that I have chosen to look at Coca Cola and Levis. 

The tutorial went really well and I was told that I am approaching this essay well, I presented the research that I have done so far into the companies and what adverts/logos I will be discussing. I was told to manly focus on anaylising the brands and look at as many relevent books as possible.

I never thought I would say this but I feel that I am quite looking foward to writing this now and have suddenly got a boost of confidence which is what I really need.