Evaluation

The strengths of the brief are that it showcases a variety of techniques and approaches to poster design. The weaknesses are that I don’t have as much development in the posters as I could have done. This is partly due to not having access to resources due to lockdown and also partly because I initially had started designing a zine instead of posters.

What I did differently from previous modules is I choose not to go for a uniform look to all 5 of my posters, which I think previously is what I would have done. Instead I pushed my comfort zone by trying new techniques, some of which were unfamiliar to me.

The stage of the design process that I found easiest was creating the posters in the Adobe suite and also partly hand drawing some of them. I think the most difficult part for this was idea generation because I'm stuck at home and it's a lot harder to get inspired when you’re just sat in the house and looking at screens all day and don't have your peers or tutors around to help you. 

I don't feel like I've achieved my full potential in this module and I don't want to blame it completely on the lockdown, but it has had an impact on my mental well-being and motivation. Lack of access to resources in the uni has impacted the outcome, but I think the main issue was that I overthink things a lot and get stressed about them. Before when this has happened I can talk to my peers or tutors but this is a lot more difficult to do over email/ text messages.

However, I have been getting some feedback from peers which has been useful. It's nice to get encouragement and reassurance as well as criticism and advice on what to change.

The workload wasn't too much for this project, but I do find it difficult to manage my time when I'm by myself. This is partly why I'm struggling in the lockdown, because I don't have a set timetable that I have to stick to.

Something I'm going to enforce for the remainder of OUGD406 is setting myself a timetable and being more organised.

Overall I'm satisfied with the work that I created. I think some posters are definitely better than others but I'm glad that I chose to do a variety and to experiment rather than just sticking with what I know looks good, which is kind of what I was doing with the zine to start with. Whilst the practical work in this module isn’t my absolute best, I feel like I learnt a lot about myself during this module and know what my strengths and weaknesses are, which gives me a clear idea of what I need to improve on in the future.