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Assignment requirements: This first assignment is about introducing yourself so that your tutor can get to know you, your interests and your work better. This assignment is not submitted for formal assessment. Design a series of at least three postcards (final size A6) that say something about who you are, your interests in graphic design and your wider cultural influences or interests. You can use any medium or materials you want to. You may want to work much larger and reduce your artwork to submit it. Don’t forget if you do this that details may get lost. Use the front of the card to present your designs while on the back of the card say something about what this image means to you or why you chose it. Keep notes to accompany the making of the cards in your learning log. These notes could cover why you decided to portray what you did, what you included and what you omitted. It is not your tutor’s job to formally assess your work at any time, but to give you constructive feedback to help you develop your skills.
Response to assignment: As I set out on my mission to express who I am, my background, the things that inspire me and why i’m here studying this degree, all in the space of 3 postcards, it dawned upon me how crazy life had really been. I found myself writing a mini-bio so that I was able to fully connect with myself to get across the deep message I was being asked to share. I had all these ideas running wild in my head. I started with the basics, the facts, and began typing up a simple bullet point profile which you will find below.
After that I began work on the postcards. I opted for 4 (because I didn’t want to seem lazy and do only the minimum required). I got thinking about how I could cram all this information and detail into the postcards. Life’s been a bit crazy, I guess I should go crazy with my designs? Hmmm…
In my mind I was testing the boundaries, especially in the first design. It was upfront and honest and was intended to shock and get the viewer thinking…Maybe having to think a little too hard.
While not all the designs were as busy as the first, and might be slightly easier to understand, I wish I had known then what I know now. There are so many elements to Graphic Design that should be considered to reach an intended outcome. Without these considerations a design will ultimately fail its function. I considered none of these elements.
I have included feedback on my postcards which you can find here, as well as my response to it and how I intend to use it to move forward.
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About me – Profile
- Name: Rhys Alexandra Jade Wylie
- Sex: Female
- Born: 1992
- Nationality: British
- From: West Yorkshire
- Height: 5ft.2
- Employment: Banking Consultant
- Star sign: Virgo
About Me – Personality
- Inspired by Arts, nature, photography, music, fashion, positive people, random crap (Hoarder-alert).
- Mixed working background – Advertisement sales, Stationary sales, IT/Hardware support sales, Banking.
- Hobbies – Photography, music production, hiking/climbing, cooking.
- Likes – Music, cats, the outdoors, documentaries, abandoned buildings, mountains, tattoos, Vietnamese food (Pho in particular), singing, people watching, storytelling, seabass.
- Dislikes – Modern buildings, Donald Trump, racism, fascism, bullies, Ugg boots, cleaning, sloths, and the smell of malt.
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A6 Postcard 1 – An apple in their eyes
I used this deign to demonstrate my chaotic start in life and how my parent’s lives had such an impact on me from a young age. My teenage Mother, who had not had a great upbringing herself, would become a single parent aged 19. My even younger Father went astray for the most part. Things were tough growing up, but its that same chaos that would open-up my mind forever and make me who I am today. Hence the quote “You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche. (Found here: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/chaos).
I took inspiration from a Damien Hirst sculpture called ‘The Virgin Mother’ which is currently displayed at The Yorkshire Sculpture park. This design shows the anatomy of a pregnant Virgin Mary, and foetus in the womb. I transformed a photograph of the statue into a vector, keeping the foetus and womb in colour to focus attention to that area. The foetus represents Me and the beginning of my life.
As with the Virgin Mary my birth wasn’t planned, but through determination my life would give my Mother the strength and reason to become the woman she is today. The figure stands proud, head held high, with a grasp on her soon-to-be child.
I have always been inspired by my Mother and her interests in music, design, fashion and photography. Whilst Dad wasn’t around, I was always taught he was an amazing artist/illustrator. His illustrations were dark and subliminal with twists of illusionism, mostly black and white in colour. The spiral in my postcard is a replica of this style and appears to be spiralling out of control through all of us.
I felt it was important to be open and honest with my design, so I incorporated references to psychedelic drugs and bombs to demonstrate my parents’ malfunctioning, self-destructive lifestyles at the time.
The male vector to the right of the postcard shows a man taking an acid tab. If you look closely you will find my name and date of birth on that tab. In the constricted pupil of his eye you will also see an apple in the eye, as the spiral falls away gradually. Hence the name – An apple in their eyes.
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A6 Postcard 2 – My Inspired mind
In this design I wanted to showcase an array of subjects and interests that inspire me.
In my research I found an image of a male silhouette, who’s head had a lid and brain exposed, giving the viewer the impression of an open mind. Using this as my inspiration, I created my own version using a female side-profile vector that I found on pixabay.com. I achieved this by cutting a lid from the head and adding a cartoon style brain image that I found on the same site, which I felt complimented the overall style. For the background colour I used a Jade hue. Despite the irony, I liked the contrast between the brain and the colour Jade.
Using a simple spider diagram-like design using arrows pointing outwards towards logo’s I have created that depict my most influential hobbies. (From left to right but in no particular order – Hiking/climbing, music, cooking, black cats, modelling, photography, and weight training).
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A6 Postcard 3 – Square peg in a round hole
Here you’ll begin to understand how I ended up here, Studying a Graphic Design degree with no experience what-so-ever.
This image shows the confusion I have felt growing up and becoming a working adult, in a declining economy with little to no education, let-alone GCSE’s. Though I lacked direction in my younger years, over time I managed to form a long-lasting career in sales. While I have worked in various industries, Sales has always played a dominant role in my career. I’ve had ups and downs in sales, mostly downs, and an underlying urge to get ‘more’ out of myself has forever burdened me. I’ve spent my career trying to find something that fits. Hence the reason I named this postcard ‘Square peg in a round hole’.
This idea inspired me to search for a quote I could incorporate into the deign that represented my working life. On my mission I found Farrah Gray’s – “Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs”. (Please see link: https://medium.com/career-relaunch/30-inspirational-career-quotes-2c26662adb99).
In my design I used a suited female worker vector image to describe myself as a standard corporate saleswoman, with a question mark for a head, with a female side profile cut into the design for added meaning. I felt orange worked well with the design and incorporated the word ‘LIFE’, into the background, which when observed closely can be seen as a maze, adding more emphasis to the confused, uninspired career I have been living, up to now.
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A6 Postcard 5 – When her inner self became free
In this image I demonstrate my vision for the future.
I used a female vector image of a woman working on a Mac as an example of my future in Graphic design. The bleeding love heart that surrounds the female sat within a birdcage, suggests a tough journey, but a journey worth-while, that will safeguard the longevity of this dream come true.
I used a birdcage to describe how I have always felt trapped within myself and my sales career. In this image the birdcage has been opened, the door to the cage placed close to the heart for significance, and bird’s flying free. This is an example of my inner self becoming free, which in-turn gave birth to the title of this postcard – When her inner self became free.
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Assignment feedback:
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Jade, great to see such enthusiasm to get started. Don’t lose this capacity for hard work and the desire to get involved, but try and leave some space in the process for thinking and learning.
Shame we didn’t talk first so that I could stress one or two important aspects of learning on this course. I need to point out that this first core is about understanding how graphic design works. This means picking it all to pieces and examining each component part, so that you know exactly what each bit does and where it goes. This takes time, patience and the asking of lots of questions. How many questions did you ask during the development of these cards and what did you learn from this assignment? Reflections like these are a vital part of learning.
I can see from this simple exercise that you have a real desire to communicate deep-felt messages. I particularly liked the image of the girl in the cage. There is a story there, which can easily be understood. Remember this; all good design tells a story. Why does this image work better than the others?
In the next assignment, I want you to spend some time on the various exercises. Through investigating the problems and processes that these set out, you will acquire new ways of looking at what graphic design is and how it works. What you learn from this you can apply to the assignment. This whole process of research, idea development, experimentation with style and materials must be documented in your blog. Before you choose a final solution, try out as many ideas as you can in rough form.
Ask yourself, where do ideas come from? The first assignment was easy for you; you already had many insights and ideas about yourself. What happens when the brief is something you don’t know about? How do you get started? Designers all use a ‘design process’ I want you to do some research into what this process is. Much has been written about it and designers talk about it a lot. Visit some top design agency web sites and read what they say about their process.
From this point on, immerse yourself in the current world of graphic design. You like to collect things, well start collecting examples of great typography, dynamic colour, and beautiful composition. Analyse it, learn from it, emulate it. Look outside your personal interests and find something new.
Sketchbooks:
Keeping sketchbooks and a learning log is an integral part of this and every other OCA course, not only because they constitute 20% of your marks if you choose to have your work formally assessed but they are also an excellent way to document and reflect on your development. For each assignment, show a variety of compositions, type experimentation and use of materials and techniques.
Learning Logs or Blogs / Critical essays:
Your learning blog should show a strong scholarly approach to research and idea development. Use it to show the process behind the development of ideas. Also use it for talking about what you have learned through feedback and through self-reflection, then set yourself goals and reflect on how you might achieve them. Also use the blog to share thought about design, show examples of ‘good stuff’ or records of visits and experiences.
Suggested viewing/reading:
If you haven’t already done so you may want to look at the WeAreOCA blog at http://www.weareoca.com/ or browse through other students work on the OCA Student Site http://oca-student.com/. You may want to post your own work for critique or join some of the forum debates that often contain links to relevant reading and viewing.
Pointers for the next assignment:
The next part of the course focuses on the creative process of problem solving.
For your next assignment I would like you to do some research into demographics. What is a demographic, and how do designers, advertisers and marketing practitioners use knowledge of demographics to guide their choices? Consider this; is it easier to communicate with a stranger or with a friend? Designers need to get to know their target audience, so that they can create the right tone of voice, the best mood, the simplest message.
To recap, here are some pointers for making progress
• Get into the habit of visual experimentation. Research and try out new and interesting techniques to broaden your repertoire. Show in your blog
• Make a point of looking at what contemporary designers are doing. Collect and record inspirational examples. Consider how ‘mood’ is created. Include examples in your blog
• Avoid a stop-start approach with projects, by always analysing what you have done and taking what you have learned forward. Set goals for improvement. Projects are simply an opportunity for learning and not an end in themselves.
• Show a range of possible solutions and explain how you made a final choice.
• Learn how to quickly and simply visualise your ideas. Whenever possible, don’t describe, show and never edit in your head.
• Through experimentation with ideas, define a single clear message for your projects.
• Check out the relevance of demographics to design research.
Tutor: Peter Lester
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Feedback response and reflection:
After receiving the feedback I focused on the key elements and principles that make Graphic Design what it really is. I researched successful Graphic designers and their styles. I looked further into demographics and began understanding how all these aspects these are vital to any design I will ever create. I spent time sifting through Google and Youtube, documenting anything I had learned in my learning logs which can be viewed here.
Initially I was feeling quite down about the feedback and viewed it as if I was doing everything wrong. After some reflection I could see exactly where Peter was coming from and know that in this industry I am going to have to develop a tough skin and accept constructive feedback to succeed.
Did I ask myself any questions during the process? Did I even have a process to follow? Did I experiment? Did I consider the viewers interpretation? The honest answer is, no. I rushed in to the postcards without considering the viewer or any processes I should follow to achieve a positive end result. I added colours and shapes for fun rather than for its functionality and benefit to the overall design. I took for granted the level of research that was required and utilised none of the key elements of Graphic Design required to achieve a successfully received message by the audience.
I think the fact the subject was about me didn’t really help – Life’s been pretty scatty. I guess learning how to fine tune the mess to deliver a more simplified, easy to understand message was really the expectation, and admittedly I failed to achieve that.
Peters’ feedback has really helped clarify a few things and I am now working on my approach. Taking my time to research, which I am documenting in my learning logs and referring back to them when needed. Rather than jumping the gun and trying to find a solution without fully understanding the problem/brief.
I have ordered some sketchbooks in response to address the feedback that they constitute 20% of my marks and will begin uploading these to support my learning logs in the near future.
Graphic Design - Core Concepts: A log by Jade Wylie 