Unit X - Evaluation
For unit X I chose the Placement and professional work module, this was due to the fact I thought it would look good on my CV to show I have done professional work outside of university and also to give myself a better idea on how working for an employer will work and to also help me choose the path I want to go down for my final year. I had to find my placements myself so I attended Manchester’s Digital Talents Day where I spoke to many design agencies located in Manchester. The was a few that mentioned they do placements but a lot of the placements tended to be arranged around summer time, I still managed to email around 15 different agencies and even applied for a number within Liverpool, but unfortunately didn’t find a placement in a workplace. This was a shame because I really wanted to experience being in the workspace however I still managed to do professional work and probably ended up doing more work overall than I would have done in a design agency.
I done five professional areas of work these where, Applying and training as an Adobe Student Rep, running a children’s workshop for Bury Art Museum, designing a salon app for Beauty Wonderland, Projection mapping for MMU Degree show and designing a website for Andrea Zapp. Two of these tasks I had to cut short due to the more demanding workload from the other bigger projects, this was unfortunate as I would of liked to have finished on all but I think it has taught me not to take on too many different projects that all run along the same time period.
Bury Workshop
I was asked to organise a workshop for the children that visit Bury Art Museum this opportunity came to me when Susan who runs the gallery space asked me to take part after working with her on a previous project. The workshop was around creating a circuit using the Arduinos and to demonstrate to the children how the circuit could light up LED lights and also the ability to break and reconnect circuits using conductible materials. Due to the fact that I hadn’t used Arduino before I had to research into some tutorials on correctly putting together the parts and also how to code in to make the circuit work, I picked up the method quite easy and the was a lot of help online to demonstrate different types of circuits. This task also really helped my confidence level as I had to take lead running the workshop to make sure all the children where included and taking part. The was also a lot of organisation and planning so that the was enough content for the children in the 90minute long session, overall I really enjoyed this task and would be interested to take part in other workshops as it showed me how enjoyable it can be to introduce new ideas and technology to people.
Adobe Student Rep
To apply for the position of adobe student rep I was required to send my blog as well as a short video explaining how I use adobe software as a designer, I created the video in After Effects and Premier Pro so I ended up learning some new techniques with making animations such as having speech bubbles appear with scrolling type. I was given the position as adobe student rep for the term and took my training where I had to attend an online lecture about the role and ways of setting up workshops for other students while being the rep. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to continue my role as the student rep due to the fact I wasn’t on site of university a lot for this term so I found it difficult to organise workshops for when I would be around the university campus. I contacted Adobe and explained to them that I would happily continue with the role for the start of third year but overall I still had a taster for the responsibility’s as a student rep and also how to use adobe software more efficiently such as creating the video in after effects and premier pro.
Beauty Wonderland Salon App
Beauty Wonderland is a salon I’m familiar with in Liverpool, I thought it would be a good idea to contact them enquiring for any design work that they might need doing so I sent an email to the manager explaining the current unit. The manager explained that they wanted to include an Ipad app for the customers in store of the salon as they had two Ipads in store and thought it would be a great idea to have a somewhat digital catalogue. I approached this task from a more UX design point of view so I wrote a questionnaire to be given to the customers of the salon ask questions related to their usage of apps and how they feel about a digital archive for a salon. I used this feedback to mock up ideas that I then presented to the salon manager through a meeting. This task introduced me into a new method of displaying design ideas for pitches by creating A3 idea boards. It’s a method that I found really helpful when explaining the style of design and features I wanted to use. After meeting with the manager I used her feedback to mock up an interactive prototype on marvelapp.com that I sent to her and was hoping to also user test with. Although the unit is ending I will continue with my process on this salon app as I think it will look good for my portfolio and will be beneficial for me to learn how to get past the point of prototyping an app to making it live online. Â
Projection Mapping for Degree show
I was asked to create a projection mapping display for the film making students space at the degree show, the original space was at the top of Oxford Road where I took photographs and marked out possible spaces for the projection. I created a story board that I found was helpful when explaining the idea behind the projection I wanted to do. I found that creating a prototype on an A3 printed page worked well with showing the details on the different steps and was also plenty of room to annotate it. Unfortunately the space had changed to the university campus due to this I decided it would be better to concentrate on the other tasks I has set as they felt more on depth and I could take them much further than I could with this one.
Andrea Zapp Website
Andrea is a fashion designer who has a unique style of using photographed prints as dress patterns. She approached my course leader enquiring for some students to work on re designing her website for her design label. When meeting with Andrea she explained the type of simplistic style she has in mind that would best suit her images as well as requiring an easily editable site so she could keep the content fresh. I took the information from the meeting and started researching into other designer websites and mocking up rough ideas, I followed the same technique of creating idea board so they could be easily presented and annotated over. I met with Andrea a good few times through the task as well as keeping communication with her via email this proved to help have both of us on the same speed of where the design process is at. I managed to get the website to prototype stage using again Marvelapp.com but unfortunately didn’t manage to go into coding a site and getting it online, this was mostly due to the fact that the was a lack of co-operation from the other students that were meant to be part of a creative team working on the project with me, however due to this I found myself taking the lead with the project as a solo designer and it has definitely increased my confident levels with presenting to a professional client. Another issue that has slowed down the process was the fact we didn’t have a web domain to use however from my last meeting with Andrea and her Web Officer we have decided to start with the site template Weebly.com as this allows code to be edited. Overall I have enjoyed this task, it is the first time I have tried website design and definitely have learnt things from it such as the use of web domains and editing template codes to manipulate the style to best fit your style, I have also decided that it would be a good idea for me to look into more coding for website over the summer ready for my final year as I think this is a big learning curve that can unlock so much more outcomes.
Reflection on unit X
Overall I’ve enjoyed my time working on this unit x module, it’s definitely given me a more insight into professional work and working for a client. It’s made me realise the importance of managing multiple briefs that run alongside each other as well as introducing me into new ways of presenting my ideas and properly explaining in design terms the routes to go down for the tasks. It’s built up my confidence with working for a client and communicating with people in the design industry, also a lot of what I have done for this unit can be carried over to my CV to show as experience and help me get a job at the end of my degree.









