I have used this module mainly to improve my practical and production skills. Over the last two years I feel that my design process and research methods have improved dramatically and in some briefs I have found that my ideas/designs have been let down by the execution. In preparation for FMP I wanted to improve these skills so that the overall design process was stronger.
I'm disappointed at how many briefs I was unable to complete during this module all of which made use of skills that I wanted to improve on. Although 2 of these smaller briefs couldn't be completed due to unfortunate circumstances the 2 other briefs I didn't do came down to bad time management and underestimating the amount of time spent on other briefs. Initially the film infographic brief was supposed to be a total of 5 2 day briefs but instead turned into 1 big brief which took over almost all of my time for the first few weeks of the module. I don't mind that this developed in this way, but I wish I had been stricter on setting deadlines for briefs to be finished and I should have action planned more thoroughly in terms of time dedicated to certain briefs. I found that this larger brief had a knock on effect to all my other briefs which could have potentially been avoided.
In terms of things I wanted to achieve this module, I have managed to achieve some but not others. Research driven information design has been the focus throughout all my briefs however I would have liked more to exploit working across 3D and to collaborate with someone who specialised in this. I have gained some knowledge to do with lighting and materials but this doesn't meet the expectations I had at the beginning of the module. This therefor is a priority for my FMP and have now began talking to people about possible collaborations in the new year. With regards to designing for different audiences I don't think I have explored this enough. A lot of the work I have been doing has become very technical and this perhaps makes things less accessible. It may be worth looking at a short brief and exploring how the designs could be altered to suit different audiences.
I still don't think I have managed to produce 'immediately understood visuals' but rather my work has become even more intricate so this is something that I possibly need to address. I definitely think that over the module my skills with image and type have improved and I have more confidence in them now, however I sort of feel that while trying to improve these and make quicker decisions some of the thoughts about function and usability got lost. It was only through feedback from others that I realised that some of the designs weren't as accessible as I thought. Proving that user testing is going to be so important for my work, and I need to get into the habit of doing it.
By attending the workshops in web and motion I definitely learnt a lot more about the whole process and more technical skills. However, because of time it seemed like a better idea to not code the website for submission and so I'm sure I will learn more about the technicalities once I start coding the site.
Working with a client was a very interesting process for me, in particular the negotiation between what they think will work and what I think would work. Also just the way of communicating between the client was quite a learning curve. The majority of communication was through email/phone and we used a dropbox to send/receive files. However it was only through meeting with the client and having a proper discussion that their priorities became more clear. At this point I was preparing to have the artwork signed off but it then surfaced that one of the big needs was for a jump builder, which was going to involve complex coding and also production of all the images to go into it. For the sake of this module I decided to treat that as a separate job, to ensure that the brief didn't start taking over other briefs but I have learnt that before actually starting the designs/layouts that priorities need to be made clear.
I think by using subject I'm interested in personally kept the briefs interesting to me. Spending that amount of time researching information could have become very tedious but since I wanted to learn about it in the first place I didn't mind as much. This is something that I need to consider when writing FMP briefs.
Overall I am happy with the progress I have made during this module. I think my strengths this time have often been my weaknesses in previous modules. Although I do think I neglected certain parts of the design process and I need to ensure my briefs are much more specific in terms of audience and context to make the work viable in the real world.
