This module has been a massive learning curve for me in regards to new skills. Due to the nature of the brief and the deliverables specified it would have been too ambitious in the time allowed to try and produce many of my designs to the desired scale and still be able to explore and exploit the different opportunities within the brief. Because of this it was necessary for me to propose the majority of my designs, positioning software skills as a very important skill to have. Until this brief I had barely touched any software and was completely intimidated by the thought of using it. I have had to work through this and now feel that I can work within both Photoshop and Illustrator comfortably and produce the imagery I need to without having to compromise the visuals due to my own ability within the software. Aims I had at the beginning of the Natural History Museum brief were to strengthen my visualising skills and to be able to create design which has impact and clarity. Dealing with the delivery of information these skills have naturally come into play and so I'm pleased that I have had the chance to develop this way of designing.
What approaches to/methods of research have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?
Dealing with a specific subject matter a lot of the research I did was based around collecting information about the Natural History Museum and it's contents through various sources. Other than that the main type of research I undertook was contextual research. Information graphics has always seemed like a very dry topic with not much scope for being creative, but I completely disagree with that now. The more I have researched it the more I have discovered that this area of design offers a real opportunity to think laterally and one set of information can be delivered in a whole array of ways.
Designing for a specific space was something that I hadn't really done on this scale before, and so it was important for me to actually visit these sorts of spaces so I could get a sense of atmosphere and it's structure. Photographing Leeds Uni and giving myself a real space to work with was an extremely important step. Otherwise I would have been 'designing blind' not knowing how to approach the design or how much impact was possible. I've really enjoyed the challenge of designing for an environment and so I think it will be useful to continue photographing interesting spaces/structures for future work.
My research suffered when it came to audience research, a lot of my designs were based on assumptions. I didn't make any attempt to ask people who had been to the Natural History Museum anything about their visit or anything about my designs. I think that the success of my work could have been furthered by asking people whether the new way I had categorised the museum made sense and whether it worked. For my information leaflet I devised a fold which made use of tabs either side of the leaflet. I spent a long time working out the structure for this and the interpolation but that time might have been spent better by actually doing some user testing to see how people unfolded the leaflet.
3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?
Strengths that I have developed over this brief are the ability to visualise ideas. During the Ted Baker brief previously, I believe our idea and concept were strong but it became very difficult to communicate the actual idea. This became more apparent while putting together presentation boards and considering work for my portfolio. This is something that I had addressed before the NHM brief and so was determined to work on over the course of this latest brief.
One strength that has been noted by others that I hadn't really considered before was my ability to think spacially. I have always believed myself to have quite poor spacial awareness but I think that perhaps there is a difference between directional thinking and thinking in 3D. Considering how design works in combination with a 3D object or space is something I have touched on during my design practice on Level 05 and the print module on Level 06. I can now see that this is something I am able to do and want to use this skill more and really push it.
As already mentioned a skill that has improved this module is my ability to use software. I'm not sure whether it is actually a strength of mine but I don't consider it a weakness anymore either. I plan to continue to use this software to help my visualise my ideas in a more professional way.
4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully?
I really struggle with type and layout still. I was hoping that doing the type module that I would have improved more than I have. Although I can now apply the technical rules to things I am designing I still struggle coming up with layouts that aren't bland. To help improve this I intend to collect more examples of layout that I like so that I can refer back to examples and I'm not facing a 'blank canvas'. Presentation boards have been one of the most dreaded tasks of mine throughout the module purely because I don't know how to present my work in a concise way that makes sense. To try and combat this I've had to really rely on discussing it with other people. Using timetabled crits but also arranging crit sessions with one or two other students so that we can help each other produce work that makes sense. This has been a really good way to improve on my layout and I hope to continue to do this.
Up until now I considered my product photography to be of a high standard, but I now realise how much it needs improving. A lot of the documentation of my work is let down by poor product photography. When trying to use photographs for presentation boards or for my portfolio I was dissatisfied at how they looked and lacked a professional edge. Using the lighting available improved a lot of the shots, especially the colours but there are many things I need to improve until I'll be happy with my ability. For example the arrangement of products, angles of photography and the focus.
My knowledge of the print processes is still not satisfactory. I rarely test with different stocks and still haven't explored print finishes. At the end of my second year this is not a good position to be in and I am planning to use the time between now and September to correct this.
A professional finish to my work is still lacking. There are small mistakes on my presentation boards where I haven't corrected a photograph properly or not noticed that there is a line missing from my images. These oversights could have been stopped by going through things more thoroughly. Also one major problem I have encountered this brief is the difference in print quality between the laser printers and the ink jets printers. Sometimes the colours are preferable on the laser and then sometimes colours are more vibrant from the ink jet. This has been one of the things that has caused my product photography to be a lower quality than I wanted. The biggest problem I have had when it comes to printing is the amount the ink bleeds when using the ink jet printer. I did several tests using the laser printer to makesure everything was legible but when it came to printing my final maps the strokes on some of the icons almost completely disappeared because they were too thin. I was really disappointed with this, and if I had actually done a test print downstairs earlier on in the process this problem may have been resolved, and the same can be said for the printed photographs.
5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?
The first 2 weeks of this brief I completely wasted because I didn't really know what I was doing. My brief was too vague when it came to deliverables and I'd chosen to do something that wasn't completely what I wanted to do or appropriate. Because of this, this had a real knock on to what I was able to produce for this brief. I needed to spend a lot of time developing the icons/maps as this defined my design direction. This then meant that I wasn't able to spend as much time exploiting the different things I could produce. By the time I got to designing stuff for screen I had thought about providing an audio guide service within the iPhone application which correlated with numbers for the areas. These numbers were just one thing that I could have started to think about if I hadn't wasted so much time to begin with.
Wasting this time initially also meant that when Graham was around the studio to help with design, I hadn't even began designing the type and layout for my information leaflets and so couldn't seek the advice with what I'd done that I desperately needed later on.
Another thing I need to do, as I have already discussed it to test print things. Not just on the laser printer but on the ink jet as well. I can then use these tests to make decisions on how to improve the design, whether I need to change imagery and what the best method of printing will be.
Looking at my deliverables there are a couple of things that have changed. Although I did begin designing information kiosks I never resolved these ideas into anything substantial that I was happy with and so didn't provide a solution. This was purely down to lack of time and indecisiveness. I only produced 1 of the 5 leaflets I had initially specified I would and just designed the covers for the others. This is because I spent far too much time coming up with a complex structure and also I really didn't enjoy doing the type and layout for the information leaflets. I didn't want to spend anymore time producing stuff that I didn't enjoy doing and not have time to start the way finding that was initially the whole point of me doing the brief.
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