I have really enjoyed 'Image'. Although, I have definitely preferred certain aspects to others.
- COLOUR
- IMAGE AS TYPE
I managed to get very involved with the 'type as image' brief, it seemed quite an open brief, and there was room to experiment across a wide range of design ideas and production methods. I also have always been interested in combining literature with design. My design context is full of work that has been produced with literature&creativity in mind.
As for colour, it has played a large role in the work I have produced, I feel it can change a piece of design dramatically. It's also a chance for me to include choose colours that are appropriate, but also make something look better and more visually appealing.
2D to 3D to 2D, was fun to play around with, the initial process was exciting and was a chance to be really creative, I liked the illustrative part of it at the beginning. I always find, that when I try to make something, it doesn't really look worth the time and effort I put into it? BUT when I see other work that has been hand crafted it is inspiring. Maybe I need to spend more time doing it? Not be so impatient.
I felt the eye chart and the images that accompanied the articles were good briefs to progress through. They weren't the ones I enjoyed the most though, although I didn't see myself putting them off, or not wanting to do them. I was still motivated to design, even draw images. Especially with the images to support the article, I saw it as a way to explore the ways I like to produce/design work, seeing as I used drawing, painting and graphically produced image. I still haven't pinned down a specific area of interest, which sometimes I am glad of but sometimes, I feel it can get in the way of making quick design decisions.
BOOK BRIEF, was unnecessarily hectic. I am disappointed with the books I have produced, I made the wrong decision at the start which made me continue producing something I didn't really like and didn't get involved with. Because of this, I changed my idea completely last minute, which I thought I liked... when I printed the pages, I printed them wrong, I also had to use a cheap stock because I was poor at the time, which meant the prints looked rubbish, and didn't fold right. So then I went back to the original idea I had because I felt it was better than the one I had come up with! So I basically wasted 3 days. I had a laser cutting slot booked for the friday, which I wanted to use effectively, I felt the fish shapes were a little more interesting then just circles (which I was going to use for the new idea). All in all, I made a lot of bad decisions, wasted a lot of time, and was disappointed in the work I produced!
For the final part of this module, I produced a series of prints that would either promote/design a selection of poems I have written. I based this new brief on the previous 'type as image' brief we had done. I really enjoyed this, I found it tough at first because there were hardly any restrictions with what direction I could take it. I found myself wondering whether I should be keeping each design consistent in one way or another, however, I wanted the brief to be a chance to really explore a range of ideas. I printed all of the ideas onto the same stock, because I thought it kept them relatively similar to a sense that they wouldn't look completely different which might put across that they weren't all linked to my poetry. I wanted to produce images that were visually engaging, that also had specific use of literature/type. I really like using the two. I had also thought about whether I should use my own poems or others, after speaking with Amber, we thought it might be more involving to use my own poetry, and something that, for me, is more personal and purposeful. I am quite happy with the final prints, obviously some I prefer to others. When I have got feedback on them, people have liked others that I wasn't too keen on, so I guess it's all down to opinion in the end, but I think the ones I selected to print are the ones that communicate the extract of poem in a visually interesting way. I was also thinking about how they could be on my website that would show design elements, so I tried to use a variety of skills, including the idea, layout, choice of type and the choice of image.
Overall, Image has been a good module! I am glad I chose it over Type, I feel the contents of the module had a lot more I could engage with, and express the type of design I like to produce/research. If I were to do the module again, I would definitely approach the Book brief differently, I feel I could've produced something better than I did. However, some aspects where I am disappointed I feel are learning curves, the images to support an article weren't that strong alone, but I was given the chance to explore that area of design.
CREATIVITY.
