End of Module Self Evaluation, OUGD405

Wayfinding and Information Design

For this brief I kept to a very tight schedule as I had felt previously I was working until a few days before the deadline which meant other areas of my work lacked my attention. I am now finding it much easier to balance my commitment to the individual projects and I am surprised by the quality of work that I am producing. Although areas of the leaflet have been highlighted that could be improved, as this is the final feedback I feel that it is important not to make these changes as I am now able to recognise where I have made mistakes and are able to overcome these within future projects. Although I worked to a tighter schedule I need to continue working on my time management at the beginning of a brief so that I have more time to experiment with ideas, before deciding on a final design to work with. My idea process is also something that I need to focus on more to provide a range of solutions/designs. I hope to be able to sketch a range of ideas for future projects and ensure that this process is beneficial to my work. 

Video Content

Wording:
As the video is to promote me as a designer and to demonstrate what I am interested in, I have made a list of the wording that would be suitable to use in the video. 

This is the plan of the video that I have sketched out for myself and the photographer. I am going to collaborate with Hilda Quick, a BA Photography Student. 

My main inspiration for the video has come from the Miranda tv programme credits. The credits stood out to me as they are unusual to what you would typically expect for a television programme as well as being more personal to Miranda herself. This level of personality and fun is something that I would like to bring into my self branding video as I don't want it to be something serious. The aim is to create something visual to send out and spark discussions between those who inspire me and tell them a little bit about me seeing as I know so much about them. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5V3gAC1Zyc

The video will be made up of a series of images, some of which I will need to digitally manipulate to create a mock up for the outcome which I have previously addressed. 

Typeface:

As I have previously highlighted the issue with spraying the sheep I have researched alternative routes to overcome this. I am going to attempt to use this typeface and recreate the images in Photoshop so that the video can be completed. This typeface is very similar to the stencil they use when spraying sheep professionally (from what I have seen in the video research). 

Self Branding

Something that is unique about me is that I have grown up on a sheep farm. This has lead to me being an adventurous individual who aspires to work with nature and be in the outdoors whenever possible. This follows the naturalistic, minimal freehand design that I work with. Taking into consideration all of these factors and talking to those who know me, I have decided to produce a short video. The video will include quick images of sheep that have been sprayed using a stencil. The video will be shown on my blog, future website and at the beginning of presentations. From this I will then go on to produce a 'business card' that works around the theme of the video. 

I have chosen to produce a video as it is an area that I have not yet worked with therefore is something that I would like to explore. This will not only produce an outcome for the brief but expand my knowledge and skills.

Kayak Travelling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3YD8ekVeE0

Think campaign: http://www.fwi.co.uk/news/video-sheep-farmer-stars-in-new-road-safety-campaign.htm

Images:

As I highlighted in my notes, there is the issue of the spray paining not being producible at the current season. To overcome this I am going to produce a mock up video of images which I will then recreate at the appropriate season and reproduce the video. This will not limit my work as it will be a true replica of what the video will be like however not with my own photography or spray paining work. The stencil style that I would produce physically can be downloaded as a font, Stencilla. This will provide a true representation of the aim of the design. Using this process to complete the video will hopefully not effect the production of the business card. 

Self Branding Ideas and Research

 I want to produce something that is out of the ordinary of your typical business card. I would like to have something that removes the awkwardness of handing over a small piece of card with my information on as it is what is expected. However as a graphic design student I want to be able to give someone something more interesting whether in the form of a gift or something that is more personal to me, or in some cases them. Working around these different areas I have wrote down a number of different ideas to explore and work with over this self branding project.

As I have come up with a number of ideas I want to gather more focused research on the individual concepts to see which ideas are producible as well as which will be the most successful. 

Sticker: 
This sticker idea came from Penny's design company 'The Girls'. They had a number of different stickers designed that were personal to them and displayed their quirkiness and added the personal touch that is highly appreciated. This would overcome having the physically hand something to a person, however if in conversation an individual did ask for my contact details, I can't hand over a sticker. Therefore this idea could be thought of in conjunction with the wider idea of self branding to produce a package that I could send out to design studious and companies I hope to work for.


Sheep:
Something unique about me is that I live on a sheep farm. I have grown up in the same place my whole life therefore this is something that is very personal to me. There is a lot in the media at current working round the creativity of sheep.  Something that I could work round with this is a video that shows me being creative with the sheep and not following the crowd. This could be with spraying the sheep with different designs or names of people/companies that inspire me, places i've been and key words about me. Something more physical that could come from this is having a sheep business card style. This idea came from the robot design (below). As well as this being something that is personal to me, it is also something that relates to who I want to work for in the future (Country Living  therefore working on the concept of having something that is personal and unique to me, as well as who I am sending or giving the 'sheep' to.