Speaking from Experience - notes

 

five W's and an H

 

i.e. less time and money wasted.

 

Basically, no flyers. I got sick of them very quickly, and found very few of any use...

 

The essential outlines of this project.

Speaking from experience, Concept/Content/Method of Delivery.

Concept boards for the first crit, click to enlarge. I'm aware that they are a bit of an essay but to be honest sometimes when I start writing I can't really tell where to stop. Anyway they outline the basic details of the task. Briefly summarised, I'm going to create a guide which enables students to avoid wasting too much money in the first few weeks of term due to going out on nights out to places which are often less than favorable to a large quantity of people. 

I'm aiming to create a guide specific to first year Graphics students on where to go for a good night out, which hopefully will stand as a successful solution to the brief. The method of delivery is subject to change with no notice whatsoever.

To get the ball rolling, I'm going to research into what sort of people might enroll on a Graphic Design degree in Leeds, and see what ticks their boxes on a night out.
 

Speaking from Experience.......the new brief

The final brief for this year, I think. Will upload a copy of the brief shortly, but in the meantime, here's some information required to get started...

5 Problems experienced this year:

- Money. A problem for most people as always....A total lack of. Dry cereals for breakfast, two sausage rolls for a quid at lunch, and cookin up pasta and ketchup for dinner. Tea with no milk, water with no tea, freeze your reduced 35 pence loaf of bread and make it last a month etc. 

- Getting up in the morning. I've conquered this one in a big way however, wake up at half 7, leave at half 8, get into college for 9, leaving me a convenient half hour to have a fag and a cup of tea. 

- Keeping on top of work. I've not yet conquered this one, but I'm doing better than I did in school, that's for sure. 

- Hangovers. Nothing worse than waking up steaming when you have to be in college for half 9, nahhh I stopped doing that very quickly after freshers week. It's often excusable if everyone else is in the same boat. 

- Cooking. It's true, I can't cook to save my life, apart from the basic stuff. Hence I often end up wasting money on nice food in nice places like Bar Burrito, yes mate.

5 Things I want to make:

- Money. And enough of it, so I can always eat nice food.

- Shockingly effective work. Sometimes I come up with ideas and I think, jesus, that one would work nicely. Trouble is I'm not so good at carrying out these ideas just yet. I'm working on that. 

- Nice posters. There's not a lot nicer than a nice poster. It's the kind of thing that seems like an easy task, but apparently it isn't. Everyone's so opinionated on what makes a nice poster, as well. 

- Valuable work. Work that can earn me some kind of money, something that is desired by someone. Work that means I don't have to work in a supermarket. 

- More money. 

5 Subject I want to work with:

- Life. Other peoples' lives are so very interesting, a friend of mine's boyfriend is an undertaker for example. Very interesting. Another friend of mine is in rehab. Sad, but interesting. 

- Skateboarding, everything about it is just so sick. I can't skate that well myself, but videoing, photographing, deck designing, branding, clothing, everything, is just brilliant. 

- Other subcultural stuff, cause normal stuff just bores me to tears, like literally. I hate Jessie J more than you could imagine. But I love all the stuff that is ever so slightly frowned upon by your average joe. I'd say if I ever had one regret, it would be not doing even more of the stuff that people told me not to do. 

- Physics and stuff. I love physics, space, time, engineering, waves, dark matter, particle physics, LHC's, black holes, electronics, mate you name it, I love it......I just have a fair amount of difficulty with the mathematical side of things......but I love it anyway. 

- Other people. I don't really do this that well at the moment, maybe it's because I haven't found the people I really want to work with yet. 

OUGD104 End of Module Evaluation

OUGD104 End of Module Evaluation

BA (Hons.) GRAPHIC DESIGN - LEVEL 4 

Module Code - OUGD104

Module Title – Visual Language

End of Module Self Evaluation

Name - Michael Mooney

Blog - you're on it

1.  What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

I feel that whilst I may not have completed as much work as I wish I had done, I have developed skills in terms of generating ideas and keeping things simple. Whereas before I felt almost unable to obtain one solid idea, I feel a great deal more confident in selecting one concept and idea and continuing with it. I have also realised that I am able to draw - I was under the impression that my drawing skills were not up to standard, but I have gained a great deal of confidence in this area.

2. What approaches to/methods of research have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?  

I enjoyed studying the work of other artists and designers who have also created sequential artwork, this process inspired me greatly and left me with a large number of ideas. I do however wish I had taken out more time to study other work.

3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?  

I have realised that I do have a strength in terms of drawing and illustrating, a skill I had not realised I possessed. Unfortunately due to certain circumstances through the Easter holidays I did not draw as much as I could have done, which I am quite upset about. I definitely wish to pursue this activity further however in future briefs.

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully?

My persistent lack of organisation and time management, and due to this, I was less able to identify weaknesses in my work. Generally my software skills leave something to be desired, and so I will practise further when I have a Mac of my own. 

5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these? 

1 - Start immediately, and do not stop until I have reached the stage I was aiming for
2 - Manage my time better, and not land a job just before the Easter holidays
3 - Get my work out in the open, show people, publicise myself and my work, as I am wasting my time otherwise
4 - Get more involved with photography, as it provides a bank of imagery for me to work with, which I do not have at the present stage.
5 - KISS - 'Keep it simple stupid'........can't remember who thought that one up but it works.

6.How would you grade yourself on the following areas:

(please indicate using an ‘x’) 

5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor

	1	2	3	4	5
Attendance			x
Punctuality			x
Motivation	x
Commitment			x
Quantity of work produced		x
Quality of work produced					x
Contribution to the group		x

type and grid

 Work from a visual language session some time ago. Essentially we were asked to select a page from a magazine or newspaper, analyse the grid and then re-arrange how we saw fit. Unfortunately I was unable to find the original magazine image, I'm sure it's about so I'll get that in here very soon. The image below shows some layout ideas based around grids and stuff. Grids are actually wicked, more fun than I imagined previously, but then again I had a lot of fun with the grids in maths exercise books when I was younger, perhaps because I couldn't really do the maths that well but I could conjure up neat patterns, I wish I still had those books.

 

So then after that I chose one of the ideas and drew it up nice and neat. I like the look of centering the main body of text and image, I feel that this gives the elements a little room to breathe rather than cramping it all the way up to the edges like I see in a lot of publications. Perhaps at some point I'll get more to grips with InDesign and try and knock out a proper professional version.  

 

 

another nice idea.

I stripped it all down a bit further to create these two images above. I get the feeling that these are actually the most effective of all designs, it would be refreshing to see some stark contrast black and white cover sat in between a load of other colourful comics. It would be nice to some proper screen prints, or perhaps reverse it and screen print with some chrome ink onto some black paper, something I've wanted to do for a while. 

A refinement of a previous image.

front cover continuation

A couple of dark murky images I sourced from an NY photography book.....I will reference these asap....I figured I could use them as some kind of backdrop for the front cover. I really enjoy the way they look, it reminds me a bit of the style of photography on Burial's first LP which is grim and holds a sense of tragic realism. This would work quite well for the comic, as the story depicts the similar sense of youthful realism, growing up to realise that the world is in fact a very unfair place and that not a lot works out how it was originally expected. 

 

 

Overlaying the drawing onto the photograph and adding some type. Obviously there's plenty of room for improvement but I'm quite liking the general feel of it.

These two shown above take a slightly different approach, I used the textural feel of the second photograph combined with the drawing to create quite a harsh, cold image, still retaining that graphic-novel style. I'd honestly quite like to create a whole comic in this style. I kept the type a little more basic and serious, as for some reason I felt the bubbly comic-type used in the previous images was in fact a little too playful and suits the super-hero themes a lot more.