Over the course of the final major project i feel i have progressed and matured as a designer to a point where i feel confident to enter the professional field of design. I believe this is down to the large part of the project being self incited and managed personally, still with strong contact with tutors and peers but with myself not being completely reliant upon their guidance. By having this sense of freedom with the project it has developed my confidence to being able to manage an entire project, start to finish successfully, professionally with a high standard and quality of finished product. I do realize that i have been running briefs myself for the last two years essentially through the module, but in retrospect of the FMP i believe this project was handled with alot more professionalism and structure, coming from my own decisions, and not relying on tutors or peers to confirm or deny my already present thoughts. To clarify this, in previous modules i had a tendency to have to wait for others to either agree or disagree with certain aspects of my design process in order to move forward, however with my FMP i have taken all ideas and decision making completely to self and drove my design personally and have not been relying on others to make those crucial decisions for me. Another aspect of my design which i believe has improved dramatically is my ability to finish a product to a high quality and close to professional standard. This project has pushed me to research and experiment into new techniques and finishing which resolve my brief with a high quality of finish. As this is a large part of the interest which i have in graphic design and a major role overall in design in general i feel confident that i can take what i have built up and learnt into a professional felid and be able to resolve projects confidently. This is true of the fedrigoni and With love briefs. I feel the finishing and attention to detail on my final products are that to rival products already out in the market and would not look out of place. This beign said i cannot always rely on polythene bags and flashy envelopes to finish a product off all the time and i still need to push my research and experimentaion further in the furutre to devleop my knowldge and undersanding of packaging and finishing tecnhniques, but i do beleive this is something that will come in time and haivng a strong platofrm of knowledge and abilty at this stage in my design career is a plus and a good head start when moving from education into the professional design field.
Further more my ability to present my work in a clear and effective manner is a skill that has progressed during the course of this module, especially at the end when dealing with my final presentation boards. in past modules my presentation boards have lacked, well presentation to a high standard i in my opinion did not portray the brief clearly, in light of this in my FMP i have taken the time to photograph my products taking into consideration, detailing and showing the entire range. By having strong photography is really helps sell the product and give a feel for what tit is about, as well as it being a required standard in the professional felid, and on top of this is the layout of my boards. by taking time to think about impact and how i want to sell my product throughly it has created boards that could stand alone and explain what the brief is about clearly tot he audience. This is a valuable skill that i will take into future employment which i can utilize when pitching for a job or idea generation within the studio.
Moving on from this there is an aspect in my practice that i believe to have suffered, and in doing so had a domino effect on my entire project, and this being my ability to manage my time correctly and effectively in order to get the most out of this project and my work. I do say this at the end of most of my modules and it is something i try and address at the beginning of each, but i see myself lacking with the time i have been given and not reaching deadlines set by myself. By not properly managing my time properly and setting myself deadlines constantly my project and individual briefs run much longer than originally planned, thus resulting in my haivng to fit alot of work into a short amount of time and not having completle focus on each brief at anyone time as my head is running between. this is true for the fedrigoni brief. I completed a resolution for this brief within a month at the start of the FMP when i only originally planned a few weeks to be spent upon it, and then towards the end of the module i decided to extend the brief with two more resolutions, now if i had done this work in the time specified at the start of the module in those few weeks set for the brief i wouldn't of had to somewhat rush the project and others to get the work completed on time, as i believe it had an effect on the quality and quality of work produced. Time and project management is something i need to seriously address over the coming weeks and prepare myself for in the professional field as there would be no excuses for lack of managed time when dealing with a project in industry. i do know how to manage time effectively, it is just keeping ontop of this and organising myself constantly instead of leaving it to pile up and then having to sort out the mess.
With the constant access and time with visitng professionals i feel alot more confieent to interact and converse with a profesiosnal designer about design in general and also my own work. By haivng to discuss my work on a regular basis i feel i can now control a conversation effectively and professionally and take on criticism and act upon in in a mature and effective manor. On top of this i feel the constant interaction during crits have developed my ability to critically analyze work of others and give constructive feedback where necessary. These are both skills that have been further improved upon throughout this module and are attributes that will help me tremendously when going out into the professional design industry.
In retrospect of the FMP if i were to do the the whole project again, yes there are aspects of the project that i would redo and take more seriously, things such as my time management and organization of work, these are things i believe let my project down slightly and effected the outcome and development of my design and as i said earlier, these are things that i have to seriously address immediately. aswell as time management i believe i played it slightly safe with my designs and the final resolutions produced with some of my briefs. I know i have the ability to extend a brief and exhaust the possibilities, this is something that is not beyond me and is an aspect that would really push my design practice and enhance my portfolio, this may be blamed upon my poor time management and organization leading to not enough time to extend the brief or just lack of thought during my design process, either or it is something that i ma aware of and will be addressed when tackling further briefs. A brief is never finished, there is always more you can do to it, and push further, it is just a matte rof making the most of the brief in the time you have available.
Before i started this project i was slightly unsure of my abilities within design and slightly doubting myself, but through this project and seeing the final results i have produced this feelings have subsided. Overall i believe it has been an very successful project, one that i have taken alot from and learnt and developed valuable skills that have developed my understanding of design and also developed and matured myself as a designer, these are skills that are invaluable not only for the next step into professional employment but for the rest of my career. I believe this project thats developed work for my portfolio that are really strong pieces that portray myself as a designer in a professional manner, showing my range of skills and what i can offer to potential employers. The project has really established myself as a designer from getting my work noticed and published to just the skills which i have developed to a standard where i feel i can hold my own going into future employment.
