Brandon Hadley (14109324)
Negotiated Study Evaluation:
I have mixed emotions when evaluating this project. There are times where I feel proud of the work I have produced, and other times where I feel that I certainly should have produced more. One example of the former feeling is the work that I completed for the Glasshouse Brewery Agency brief. I feel that my concept may have stepped slightly away from the brief, but I am still proud of this work and would feel happy to place it on my portfolio. Whether my concept is selected, I certainly intend to carry this brief on further, producing further branding. One example from this module where I am personally disappointed is my personal brief. This is a project I had great interest in, I felt confident with my primary research, and began to feel confident with my concepts going forward. However, as my live brief (in particular) became a more attractive prospect to work on, I feel I shunned the project a little and it got left behind. I definitely want to carry on with this project and perhaps take it into ‘Major Study’, in order to properly do the brief justice.
The Dissertation study that was introduced at the end of second year, certainly challenged me in the way that I expected. It is because of this, that I am rather disappointed in myself that I wasn’t better prepared for the final weeks, when I began collating my thoughts into the final written piece. The stress that the written aspect of this module placed on me removed my focus from my design work and so over this time my productivity dropped far lower than I would have ever wanted. This, leading into the Christmas period meant my projects had not seen the attention I would have wanted. I must stress at this stage that I am not making excuses for my own slow work rate, I just know I should have prepared better for these factors myself given the importance of this year.
Besides my work rate, I feel proud of the research I have conducted over this project and especially how (in the case of the Ansells branding) I could blend this into my Dissertation research, and conduct an additional study from this. Given the later addition of my live brief (Glasshouse Brewery) which then meant I had two brewery/beer themed briefs. The research process became easier allowing me to take inspiration for both projects, although as often mentioned in my blog, some examples were far more relevant to one brief or the other. The Glasshouse brief had minimalist characteristics and my Ansells brief left me seeking more illustrative examples, although when I progress with the brief I may look to take a minimalistic approach as well, given that it is something I am more comfortable with.
So, while I was happy with the research conducted for two of the tree briefs, I feel that the research conducted for my competition brief (RSA Agile Ageing) could have been more in depth given that it is one of the big focus’ for RSA briefs. I would add however that my direction with the brief took it away from the RSA guidelines, which I have mixed feelings about. Of course I wanted to meet the briefs criteria exactly, but I also enjoyed the direction that I took it and feel that I could have been left unsatisfied had I followed the strict RSA guidelines.
When I think about other competition briefs, I would have liked to have had a serious look at the YCN briefs before Christmas, and perhaps forced myself to increase my work rate by setting one as a Festive project. I should have also forced myself to complete some personal mini-briefs over Christmas, as an addition to the (Lubalin Graph) Toronto mini-brief, and personal branding work that I did during this project.
So in conclusion, I am happy with my outputs for this project, but not with the number of outputs that I have produced, again given the importance of this year. I am proud of my research methodology and hope that I am able to improve it even further and carry it into Major Study. I am feeling confident and happy leading into Major Study, as I am aware that the major written component of this year is now behind me. I just hope that I can leave my slow work rate behind me also, and go into Major Study with a fresh, more positive outlook.
Blog Addresses:
•bh-designblog.tumblr.com (first part of blog)
•bhdesignblog.tumblr.com (second part of blog)