Final Evaluation

My rationale has remained the same throughout this module; I have continued to focus on branding and promotion across print and motion. However, my statement of intent has changed, in particular the briefs I intended to do at the start. I had to drop the Fashion Branding due to the client being slow in getting back to me, which has been an issue across a lot of the live briefs I’ve worked on.

The Yearbook and St Martin’s brief have been the most stressful, which is down to the clients. For example, the St Martins brief was extremely slow due to the client not being able to pick who she wants to work on the branding, resulting in re-pitching several times. Even when she picked Maya and I, we still had to pitch one more time, in the end; we have had to produce some of the other deliverables outside of the FMP due to it holding up our schedule and individual deadlines we had. Thankfully, this did not affect the working relationship between Maya and I. This is a slightly different situation with the Yearbook brief as there were group tensions from the start, but we have ended on a positive note and can look back and learn from errors.

I have learnt a new program this module also, for Brief 04 – E4 and Brief 03 – ITV2, as the kind of visuals I had in my head were not possible to produce in After Effects so I started to learn Cinema 4D end of February, beginning of March. At first, I was wondering if this would mean my ideas would be inhibited slightly due to a lack of knowledge, but it actually set me free. I was able to produce whatever ideas I had written down, and I am really pleased with the colours and quality of the finished pieces. Especially the E4 deliverables, I think the music really refines it and makes it more final than my ITV2 idents where I would have liked to have had a narrator talking over the top, but finding somebody without a strong accent, who would be willing to record audio may be more hassle than its worth.

I am glad I did the E4 and ITV2 brief, as it was a chance for me to do what I wanted to do and enjoy, and it is something I would be proud to have in my portfolio, plus it gives me more content for a showreel. I am equally as glad I did the other briefs as they were a chance to work with clients, one on my own, one with Maya and one with Nick Morgan, Natalie Jackson and Kirsty Hair, so it gave me an all round experience.

As always, I think time management has been a weak point, writing this evaluation now, I can think of many things I should have done, which unfortunately at this time is tough, as I can’t have another go.

Relating to the issue of time is the motion graphics work itself, as much as I have a real passion and spark for creating this kind of work, especially in Cinema 4D where it has that high quality, glossy look, this is disadvantaged by the time taken to render and work with it. For example, to render my Discoball Ident for ITV2 with a duration of 10 seconds, it took 2 hours to render.

In terms of my boards, I am pleased with the way they are, they show what I have done for each brief, and I am actually surprised at how well the motion briefs turned out as the images came straight from Cinema 4D which is RGB, as when I changed them in Photoshop to CMYK, they became murky. An error with the printer and paper stocks has resulted in me having 3 different stocks for my boards.

With respect to my final products, some of my St Martins work was water damaged when I wasn’t in the studio, so reluctantly I have handed some in. This was the same for the Indiependent brief, a few deliverables were ruined but they have been photographed, although they all needed reshooting after advice from the Final Crit.

Without the chances to work on live briefs this module, I don’t feel I would have been ready to work with clients straight after university. The learning experience from these briefs have prepared me in a way I wouldn’t have achieved without the Final Major Project on this course.

Looking back over my work, from the past three years, I am shocked at how my work has developed, and how my pathway within Graphics has changed. I started the course interested in type and layout for campaigns and posters, and now I am more image based interested in motion graphics, for branding and promotion.

My blogging has really let me down this module, there is a lot of development work missing for Briefs 3 and 4, and I am worried this will have a huge effect on my marks.

I feel I have worked to the best of my ability, with the exception of poor time management, and I have learnt a lot about myself personally and professionally. I walked in to the course, naïve and unconfident, and now I feel my confidence has built up and I know what I want to do next. Touch wood, this is a positive end to the year, and the course.

Brief 05 - Final Boards

Evaluation: The Indiependent brief has been rewarding to work on, mainly because of how much the chairman of the charity was desperate to find someone to work on giving the logo and identity a refresh and I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. The brief was slow to start as I was communicating the client through email and I didn’t really get a feel for what the charity was about or what their values and attitudes were. The logo they were using at the time was very uninspiring and dull and I didn’t feel excited for the brief. The research into other existing charity logos also proved uninspiring; there were very few logos that I actually liked, so the research didn’t have a great deal of influence to my design. I did look into different kinds of charities too as well as youth charities, and on the whole I found the designs to be very corporate, whereas we wanted to step away from this and make it more about the young people. After a brainstorming session and a face to face meeting with the chairman I was beginning to feel happy with the brief and this reflected in the pace and quality of my work from that point forward. The main focus was on the logo, it needed to be loud, proud and edgy. The black and yellow conveys this idea well and the dfdMiliciana font reinforces this further. I am pleased with how the idea of transmission has tied in with the logo, as this was another key aspect. It took a while to deciding on a logo after a few changes of directions from the client, but this is bound to happen, one minute the specification was a purple logo, the next minute black and yellow. I feel the deliverables could have been pushed further especially with the idea of the Coffee House/Live Music venue, but it had got to the point where it felt like the logo was just being stuck on to lots of different products and it became more about commodity than design. I like the web proposal I came up with, it’s simple, navigable and modern. It would be good to build that after the hand in as I will be continuing to work with David the chairman on another project he has. Seeing the client so happy with the work, which is evidenced in emails in my project file was fantastic. It was good to do work that makes a difference, and with the new look it may make the name better known and definitely more noticeable. The work isn’t quite how I would have done it, however I am happy, as it was a joint effort, and it shows I can work to a client specification.

Product Shots

Photos for Brief 5:
(Before editing)

Final Plectrum

This is the design selected by the client for the plectrums. These will be printed on one side only.

Final Apron

This is the apron design the client selected this is due to the practicality of the colour black in a food environment and the size of the logo. The central positioning reflects the alignment on the business card.

Final Business Card (Front)

The client has selected this design for the front of the business card - he said it was simple but classy. To be fair this was the design I preferred - it stands out more, and reinforces the concept of independence.

Final Invoice

Using the letterhead I have been able to draw up an invoice for the client, based on the information they provided me. This looks a lot more professional than the first one.

Final Letterheads

This is the letterhead chosen by the client, as it is neater than the traditional address format. I have also included the registered charity number information at the bottom at the client's request. I have made this into an editable Word Template so the client can easily write into the format.

Microphone Designs

As the coffee house will be a live music venue - it would be good to have the logo on the microphone - the bigger the better, especially for when the events may be photographed for publicity.

Open publication - Free publishing

Business Card Designs 2

This is the second batch of business cards I have come up with - I prefer the first set of black cards on the previous business cards, they fit better with the brand.

Open publication - Free publishing

T-Shirt Designs

These t-shirts could be used for anything related to Indiependent, and not just the coffee house.

Open publication - Free publishing

Apron Designs

For the coffee house:

Open publication - Free publishing - More design

I think black will be the more suitable colour choice, not just because of the brand colours but for practical matters as well - stains and marks will be less visible.

Plectrum Designs

Open publication - Free publishing - More design

This idea has come to light after a recent chat about the deliverables I am to produce - the charity would like to run a coffee house run by young volunteers - it is to have a arts/music theme to display/show emerging local talent. The plectrum designs and colours have stuck strictly by the logo palette. The name has varied throughout as I often hear my client refer to the charity as Indie - but I equally like the I variations too.


I have sourced a company to print these professionally:
http://www.razmerch.com/musical/index.html

Tea Towel Ideas

This was a deliverable I came up with, I have sent the ideas to the client and I am awaiting feedback. I thought it would be another way to expose the name. I will be most likely to stick with a black unless the client says different for practical reasons.

Open publication - Free publishing

Business Card Designs 1

This is the first batch of business card designs I have come up with:

Open publication - Free publishing

Coaster Designs

These are a set of coaster designs - I would hope the client may like to go down the route of making the coaster look like a mini vinyl in order to reinforce the concept of the music venue/coffee house.

Open publication - Free publishing

Indiependent: Deliverables

Just to make it clear to myself - I wanted to outline the deliverables:

- Logo
- Animated logo
- Badges - to distinguish volunteers from public.
- Sign - to distinguish the office from Let There Be Light Productions office (often confused).
- Letterhead
- Business Card
- With Compliments
- Invoice Template
- Donation Tub
- Pen
- Rubber Stamp
- Bag (Mocked Up)

Coffee House:
- Mug
- Towel - mocked up
- Apron - mocked up
- Microphone
- Plectrum
- Plectrum Holder
- Coaster
- T-Shirt

Final Letterheads

I sent the letterheads to Indiependent and received the following feedback:

This is what I will send back...

Crit Feedback

Today's crit was with Robyn R, Will Skane, Pav, Josh, Richard and Charlotte. Most of the feedback I received was from Pav and Robyn.

- They advised me, at this point in the game to forget the Fashion Branding brief, it's too late on for a brief with absolutely nothing. My client has missed 2 meetings with me, and not delivered the required work. Major time lost.

- Storyboards and initial ideas for ITV and E4 brief - as it was hard for people with a non motion background to understand.

- Indiependent work - good to have live charity work.

- St Martins - not a lot to say, client driven, well under way.

- Yearbook - same with that.

* Blogs - I didn't receive any blog feedback, as this wasn't the focus of the discussion.

Content for letterhead

Using the VANL template, David has adapted the content so that it is correct for Indiependent.