OUGD502 - Study task 01

For this study task I had to identify and evaluate my experiences on the course to date

5 things that I have learned so far on the programme ?

• Graphic Design terminology, before first year I had no previous knowledge of Graphic Design at all, so learning key terminology has been a big learning curve for me.
• Indesign is a software which I'd never used before university, Photoshop, Illustrator and Cinema 4D are all softwares I was comfortable with at college but I never got the chance to experiment with Indesign at that level. Now I'm in second year I feel at ease with Indesign, as I consider it my favourite piece of Adobe software.
• Skills in time management has been a part of my learning here at LCA, being able to juggle numerous briefs at the same time is a skill I believe.
• Graphic Design theory, as I was totally new to Graphic Design I only ever considered the practical side. The theory behind it never crossed my mind but thanks to context of practice I've been able to look at Graphic Design in a different scope to form my own opinions which is a skill.
• One of the best and most enjoyable things I've learnt is traditional print methods such as screen printing. Once I grasped the process I was able to include this printing method into my university work alongside personal work.

5 things I want to learn more about ?

• Editorial Design is something I'm incredibly interested in so I want to learn even more about this while on the course. Whether or not I see myself specialising in this within the field of Graphic Design is to be seen, but at this stage of my practice I'd like to learn more. 
• To extend my theory of Graphic Design, through context of practice I'm hoping to form a question for my essay and relate it to my personal interests, but with it having a strong link to Graphic Design theory.
• The current industry, while I'm on the course I want to learn about the current Graphic Design world out there, so once I graduate I'll be prepared.
• At this stage in the course I have not undertaken much work in Branding, this is something I wouldn't mind trying my hand at. 
• Exploring other methods of Graphic Design that I'm not entirely interested in such as packaging.

5 skills that are my strengths ?

• Illustrator is definitely a skill of mine I believe is a strength, I've been using the software for nearly four years now but still learning new stuff, so it is a skill I'm only getting better at.
• I like to keep very much up to date with current Graphic Design through blogs etc, through this I'm able to adapt which I consider a skill.
• I consider myself versatile in terms of work I can produce
• Idea generation
• Editorial design  

5 things I want to improve ?

• I want to improve on presentations
• Speaking about my work in confidence 
• One aim for this year is to improve in context of practice, through more engagement I believe I can improve in this module.
• Collaboration 
• Networking

5 practitioners that demonstrate my interest in Graphic Design ?

• Number04
• Yasseen Feik
• Studio Spgd
• The Designers Foundry
• Fabian Fohrer

5 websites I look at regularly ?

• ItsNiceThat (cliche)
• Resident Advisor 
• Kiosk
• Grafik
• Bloggerrrrrrrrrrr 

OUGD502 - Studio brief 01

In the first PPP session of the year I've been asked to analyse what I struggled with in first year of the course, especially things I highlighted as a struggle in the PPP presentation at the end of the module. When looking back to first year and the challenging points I encountered, what comes to mind is managing my time and presentations. To start with time management, I really struggled at the start of first year with juggling various modules at the same time and due to this certain modules such as context of practice was affected. I prioritised studio practice modules over context of practice which led to me being less interested in the theory of graphic design, I felt I never engaged during the sessions which led to a poor overall context of practice grade which brought my end of year overall grade down. This is disappointing and regretful on my behalf but now I look, I seen what I done wrong and can hopefully improve my time management in second year to accommodate all the modules. A way in which I can do this, is delegating individual days to solely work on a particular module. By doing this I won't be distracted by other work and the module wont feel fragmented to me as it did last year when I was too quickly interchanging between modules on a daily basis. 

My other challenging point of last year was presentations, I'm not the only one as nearly everyone gets nervous before public speaking but what I seem to struggle on is talking about my work in confidence. I understand my own ideas and concepts but sometimes find it hard to present them to people who are totally oblivious to them. This can be annoying for a number of reasons because I don't receive the feedback I need, plus it makes me doubt my ideas at points. I feel when I'm presenting something other than my ideas, I'm fine and feel confident in front of people.

Ive already started a way of helping myself talk about my work this year, I simply note down key words or sentences about my work rather than a talking about the overarching concept as a whole. I feel like people use the key words and piece together the idea themselves, I find this technique helpful because it makes the audience ask more questions as sometimes I find myself sat in presentations and the idea goes over my head, due to an intricate description of the idea that sometimes is unneeded.