My final major Project I have learnt an incredible
amount and feel like I am a much more confidant designer. It has been a taste
of professionalism as I have done things that I never thought I would do. I
have been calling printers and getting quotes and ordering quality stocks and
working with a number of clients. Also I feel my design work has drastically
improved as I have learnt to work quicker and gain more ideas and also my
layout work I feel much more confident as I haven’t just been sticking to the basic
layouts I have actually worked from grids and creatively laid out text and
images.
I have really enjoyed working with a client as for
my fashion brief it was a challenge as I had 2 fashion students to brand and we
worked very closely together so that each of us knew where we stood at all
times and if something went wrong which it did on many occasions I would make a
decision and put it to my client and we resolved it together. I once read a
book that said as a designer you should never show a client a finished product,
as it is very difficult for them to see any other solution so this is why I
have been producing range of things for them to decide and so they can be
involved in their own branding.
Keeping on the subject of fashion, the
difficulties we came across was the unfortunate decision of choosing Lead Print
to print Sophie’s business cards. They have only just arrived today (Monday 28th
May) after taking almost a month. They said the design would take 10 days to be
with us and it wasn’t cheap and after 15 days we called them to find out the
printer was broke and would be with us the next week, when they weren’t, we
called again to be threatened and he said if we called again then they would
not send them at all, even though we had paid and confirmed long before.
Although, working with Hannah and Sophie has been
a pleasure as it has kept me to deadlines and I feel as though I am much more
organized and my time management has improved a lot since last module. The
fashion girls are setting up their own label after we graduate in London and
have asked me to brand them calling themselves ‘Elle Ford.’ I said I was
delighted to and this is a wonderful opportunity to do some freelance work. It
arrived from the fashion shoot we had in London which I was the creative
director and this was a first time experience for me and I was professional and
prepared and I told the photographer exactly how we wanted the shots to be like
and I spoke to some 3rd year photographers beforehand so they could
give me some tips on the best lighting as I didn’t want to sound like an amateur.
However, it was a very relaxed atmosphere and we were very happy with the
results.
The small brief I carried out designing the album
cover for my brother turned out to be a lot bigger than expected. In the crit I
had with Fred he told me to print out just 1 but my brother was paying me £80
and he wanted 20, so I listened to the money and printed 20. I had to design
the layout for the booklet and then printing and binding which took a sufficient
amount of time, however, I was pleased with the results and more importantly so
was the client.
I feel as though I have worked the most this
module then I have for anything else in my life. Especially to the end of this
module I have been physically and mentally drained as I have been coming into
college at 8 and leaving at 9 every day then going home sleeping and doing
exactly the same the next day. I am not complaining as I have been working to a
goal and John Watters said we probably wont work this much or this hard again
in our lives which defiantly influenced me to work even harder.
I have unquestionably enjoyed working on my FMP
and editorial publications looking at type and layout is defiantly something I
want to work on in my career as a designer.
