A Journal for a Graphic Design Student

Week 6 Mon 1  The Meeting this week spoke about how we should have consolidated our brand identity and should be moving to refining our visual language and choosing touchpoints. I knew that my brand would be presented in the form of an app but what additional elements did I want to add to support it? Tues 2 This week in my learning team, I presented some of my starting brand identity ideas to see if my visuals and written ideas linked up properly. Some agreed that I had built a good foundation but that I should start on some touchpoints to get the visual design rolling - it's something I always struggle to start even if it's something that I'm confident with.   Thurs 4 The lecture today discussed 'Feminism and the Visual Art'. This topic was particularly interesting for me because I'm thinking of researching feminism and design for my dissertation. The representation of women was very heavily discussed during this discussion and I really made me wonder why we on

Week 5 Mon 22  The Stage 2 Meeting this week was about us getting on and developing our chosen brief - I have chosen to go forward with my idea for a recycling app so I need to start collecting some visualisations to build its identity. Tues 23 The learning team feedback this week helped me to realise gaps in my 'brand identity especially for things that weren't getting across clearly. It was useful though, to present current 'sustainability' apps available on smartphones to see what their style, colour scheme and layouts are like. Additionally, someone else in my team is also covering recycling so it was interesting to see her work and the more detailed approach she has taken to the topic. Thurs 25 The textworks lecture today looked at "Truth and the Media'. It's a very deep topic and really makes you think about what you take in without questioning, whenever you're alone, on your phone, in a park etc. What is always being forced upon us, what do we wa

Week 4 Mon 15 The Stage 2 Meeting today introduced that we would be progressing with our brief ideas this week, in hopes that we would start forming a proposal for them by the end of the week. I had formed a couple of brief ideas from the workshop last week but I'm still not set on one idea. Tues 16 I had the first feedback session today with the rest of my learning team. We all presented some ideas for our self-initiated brief and got some thoughts back about what we presented. Out of my two ideas, lots of people liked the sound of the recycling app so I think I will be pressing forward with that one.  Thurs 18 The lecture today discussed the idea 'Design and Humour', two things that I generally never look for together. It was interesting to see that humour can fit pretty much anywhere into a design, whether it's trying to be direct or not - like how in the movie Shrek, it actually includes many adult jokes that we didn't truly appreciate until we were older.  Fri

Week 3 Mon 8  After the usual Stage 2 Meeting this morning, we learned that the designer Jack Hardiker would be giving us a mini live brief. The premise of this brief is to take this opportunity to break away from the screen and devise something more experimental involving sounds, household items, created objects, mobile phones, light, paint etc.  In the afternoon, I had a quick meeting with my groups to start brainstorming ideas for this brief and what routes could be potentially good. We really liked the idea of involving the senses. Tues 9 Continued on with the development of the live brief which was due at 1:30pm. We had sorted the foundation of the idea yesterday with wanting to focus on task/experiences that involve the senses so we made a variety of mood boards which presents those experiences.  During the review in the afternoon, Jack really liked our idea but found there were a few things for us to work on to make it more presentable.  Wed 10 Had quite a work-focused day today

Week 2 Mon 1  I had our usual Stage 2 Meeting this morning with Matt. We found out that we would be presenting the initial ideas for our self-initiated brief next week, so I decided to focus on consolidating what ideas I wanted to focus on so I could clearly choose the best course of direction next week. Later on today, I had Tim's lettering workshop: it was very interesting to do over Teams and play around with the parallel pen again. Tues 2 I had the workshop 'Creative Catalyst' today, and we got to work in pairs which made the workshop really engaging. Having someone to talk to really helped with the fast development for each activity as well as pin-out certain problems or queries we had with our current brief ideas. Wed 3 I continued to review the work that I had done in the workshop on Tuesdays because I had generated lots of ideas but wanted to work more on the actual foundations of these mini briefs by either rewriting them or explaining them further. Thurs 4 This we