Design Skills Evaluation - First Look

These are my initial answers to the evaluation forms. I'll be looking back at these towards the end of summer to see if my opinions on my skills have changed. While I'll be doing a lot of research over the summer, I won't have access to software so skills like this won't be improved until I'm back at college unfortunately!

New Business Card

Research



I noticed these barcodes on a few business cards from the degree shows so used this website to create my own, which links back to my homepage, c-griffin1013.blogspot.com. I'm going to try and incorporate it into a business card re-make. My previous business card was only one sided, but after looking at business cards of other students I think a double sided one would be more interesting.

Here are some business cards that I think are successful:

Degree Shows

I visited all three Leeds degree shows and was impressed with a lot of students work. It was very inspiring and beneficial looking around all the work, I have made some notes on my PPD blog about useful things from these shows.

Leeds Met...

Here is some of my favourite work from their degree show. Their course is Graphic Art and Design so its a lot more arty than ours, however, there was lots of nice print work and examples of bookmaking. Although most of the work produced is quite different to the work produced on out course, I still enjoyed looking around this exhibition. 

Leeds Uni...   leedsschoolofdesign.co.uk

At Leeds University degree show, as well as enjoying looking around the graphic design work, I had a good look round the printed pattern shows, as I found there to be a lot of illustrators. The set out of the graphic design show was very unusual, which makes it stand out, especially the fake grass! I liked that there was a graduate show catalogue newspaper, containing all of the names of the graphic design students, so you could find out more about the designers afterwards.

  

Photographs of work

Leeds College of Art...

So much inspiring work from very talented students, makes me feel slightly intimated but hopeful that my show will be this good in my third year!

Business Cards

Yearbook and Degree Show Promotional Material/ Signage

Something that really made Leeds college of art stand out was the quality of the signage up and around college, by a third year graphic student. It was obvious that there was a degree show on, and was easy for everyone to get around, unlike at other shows which were slightly more confusing. 

I also attended last years degree show, and saved the flyer and map for this. 

I have a copy of each third year class' yearbook, and hope that I am in with the chance of working on ours when the time comes.

PPD Presentation

Brief: Produce and deliver a 5-7 minute presentation that communicates a reflective summary of your experiences on the course to date. You should aim to identify who you are as a learner and a designer as well as how the things you have experienced over the past nine months have affected your current aims and ambitions. You should also attempt to communicate your ambitions for next year.

Ideas

To start with, I had a look through my PPD blog for evaluations and targets I'd made throughout the year. Things such as the interim self-evaluation and end of module evaluations proved very useful when reflecting on my year. I decided that in my presentation I would write about: who I am as a designer; who I want to be; how changes outside graphic design have affected me; work that inspires me; work of my own that I like and dislike and my plans for the summer.

Illustrations

As what I think I want to be is an illustrator, I thought it would be fitting to produce some drawings to decorate pages, rather than using stock images. 

 

First Draft

I initially had 35 slides, mainly only images. I decided that a few pointers for what to say would be good, especially if I got nervous when presenting. I also thought I should cut out some slides which weren't as interesting to make sure I wouldn't be in danger of going over the 7 minutes. 

Final Slides

I've tried to keep these slides as simple as possible to stop me from just reading off the slides. I think what I will be saying is more important than what is on the slides.