The Visual Communication in Context 2 Unit was made up of 4 different but related projects, these projects allowed me to develop my design skills and knowledge whilst giving me a range of outcomes to create. These projects being Why, Collection = Interpretation, Intervention + Interpretation and 15-Minute City offered very different outcomes thus allowing me to grow as a designer by looking into the different aspects of design. The first project ‘Why’ had us thinking up a Why? Question which we then answered that question within an outcome of our choosing. The second ‘Collection = Interpretation’ was a group project that required us to go out and gather specific data of our choosing and display this data within a collection of posters. The third Intervention + Interpretation was to create letterforms for each of the letters in the word ‘adhesion’ and to use this to create assets for Instagram and a poster – along with this we were assigned a letter, mine being ‘Y’, to do for the 36 Days of Type design trend. The fourth and final project for this unit 15-Minute City we needed to create a visual identity for a brand or service that would be found within a 15-Minute City.
Why was the first project back in the second year of university, this worried me a little as the project was heavily focused on our individual creativity as be pretty much do whatever we can think of, I thought that I would really struggle with this due to just getting back into doing the work however I found this project to be really enjoyable. The time constraint of a week was very bearable, and it allowed me to work quick and get a strong outcome that I am very happy with. My why question was Why can’t I be Prime minister of the UK? I looked towards American political campaign websites for inspiration and using Adobe XD I created a wire frame of a website. This website was built like a campaigning website where I parodied different aspects that would be seen by politicians. Also, within this website I compared myself to three previous PMs Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and David Cameron pointing out bad things that they have done and saying how I could do better. Overall, I am happy with this one-week project I believe that I created very strong work despite having a limited time.
Collection = Interpretation is a project that I did not enjoy, I found the group aspect of the project to be okay and I think that my group and I worked well together. I don’t think that designing for data is really what I am interested in, I struggled to think of good ideas / layouts for the poster which dampened the entire project with me. In the end I really didn’t like the outcomes that we had created so a suggested changing it, this change was absolutely needed as it was lacking massively but even then, I wasn’t impressed with the design. After the project had finished, we came back to it whenever we had the free time to improve it which I think we did in the end. I really didn’t enjoy this project but going through it I was able to develop my skills and learn what designing for data really is.
Intervention + Interpretation was such a great project I enjoyed every aspect of it, even though I did find it tricky working with the Glyphs software as it was the first time I had created with it going through that to have my own typeface is very rewarding. Most of my time I had put into Glyphs as I tried to create my letter forms within Adobe Illustrator first but that was very frustrating, I struggled with the thinner parts of my letter form. For the project I decided on creating a serif typeface as I thought it would be interesting to work on the serifs themselves, this made it a little trickier however I am very happy with the outcome and I would love to do something within this nature again.
The Last project for the Unit 15-Minute City was at first a really exciting project as I am very interested in branding and the creation of visual identity, however right at the beginning of the project I got really sick this lasted up until the end of it, which really gave me a very short amount of time to get the project done, this also messed with my motivation for the unit as I was really disappointed with what I had created for the project, even now after implementing the changes to the design I found that since I was unable to put the time in at the beginning of the project it was hard to develop it. This is absolutely the most disappointed I have been with myself within a project. I really did like my idea it’s that I found it hard to get the design correct.
In conclusion this unit was full of ups and downs for me, it’s unfortunate that the downs happened at the end of the unit as it has thrown me off with my process book and the outcomes, but I have full trust that I am able to do this in time of the hand in. I was very luckily able to get an extension on the unit which will support this too. The units ups though were very fun and I enjoyed the time that I had to create them. By next unit I hope that I can recover and put my all into it.