Overall, I was proud of the outcomes I created for the Size of Wales, however, as always, once everyones work from the group is put together, I feel mine is inferior. This always seems to be the way, that I get my work to a place where I am happy with it and feel it is a success whilst in my own world of working process but instantly change my opinions when I see other peoples amazing work.
Something slightly different about this project was that no two people created the same thing. This was surely thanks to the tutors encouraging us to go above and beyond what the client asked for. The brief specified infographics, though when we spoke to Claire she made it clear that anything else would be great too, as they are a young charity and do not currently have many resources. Whilst I liked my infographic, there was far better infographics within the group that Claire and Hannah rightly chose to go with for this brief. They commented that my infographic concept would work well in schools with younger children, as the charity does a lot of work with primary age children. For this reason, I have now gone on to translate my infographic into Welsh. Claire and Hannah particularly liked my Annual Report style booklet using the positive Size of Wales facts they provided us with on the brief. I designed it as a resource which could be sent to contributors or fundraisers to show them how their money has been spent, and the positive facts they have generate as a result of their contribution to the charity. I wanted to present this in an interested and vibrant way, as though long and wordy Annual Reports are necessary, more succinct and easily readable facts were much more suitable for the target audience here.
Some things I felt went well in my final design outcomes were:
- The hand written type came out well and the clients liked it a lot. I enjoy hand rendered work and so it was great for me that this style of work fit into this project.
- I think there was a clear visual theme throughout my outcomes, whilst being a definite part of the Size of Wales brand. I wanted to create a separate and more vibrant campaign to what has gone before, whilst being loyal to Size of Wales.
- I feel that I successfully made use of negative space and the white page, as it is sometimes easier to think all of the white needs to be covered with colour or text. I think I used an appropriate amount of text on each page and a strong grid and layout system.
Some things which could’ve been better:
- My infographic could have been more adventurous with colour and texture. I knew I wanted to keep my illustrations simple, however I think a textured background possibly would’ve given the infographic more movement and made it more interesting to look at. It looks very 2D with the simple white background and line drawings.
- Some of the pages in the Annual Report I am still not completely happy with. I wish I had begun this element earlier in the project to have more time to work on it, as I first worked on my infographic to answer the brief before moving on. I also wasted time working on and drawing 300 frames for an animation, which went on to not work out as I had wanted and was discarded.
- I think sometimes I need to simplify my ideas down. Emily designed some posters with simple illustrations that demonstrated a clear message and theme. I have a habit of overloading the layout in order to get a message across when I think in future I need to strip it way back and simplify it down.
What was good about our presentation?
- Overall I think our presentation was a success. We all introduced ourselves as though our client and classmates already know us, other clients in the room did not.
- Everyones work was presented well, showing full final outcomes and then zooming in and focusing on specific elements, in order to maximise use of the landscape screen whilst displaying portrait work.
- I gave our client a mockup I had put together of my booklet to look through whilst I presented, as the spreads would have been too small to see anything on the screen. Instead, I chose my 3 favourite spreads to display on the screen and gave Claire the binded mockup to look through.
What was not so good?
- We had some issues embedding Sarah’s video into the presentation and perhaps with more time to create the presentation we could have sorted this. However, I do not regret our decision because we wanted to have as long as possible to complete our work. We also sorted the matter and played Sarah’s video at the end without too much trouble.
- Perhaps we should’ve practised exactly what we were going to say so that we knew when to transition the slides and also to avoid rambling.
- Another group in our session had their individual contact details on their slides – though our client already has that information I think this was a nice touch and a professional thing to do for future presentations to clients.
Katherine Crean 