Context of Practice Module Evaluation
1. What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?
In this module, as opposed to last year's module, in terms of lectures and seminars, we have been invited to explore different viewpoints of different cultures, such as the idea of the Gaze from a female point of view and consumerism from a non-consumerist point of view, as opposed to just facts. I have explored different aspects of consumerism, and how it correlates with capitalism. Through this I have learnt a lot of different ways of triangulating discussions and juggling different sources of information in essay format. I would say that my essay writing skills are the skills I have strengthened the most in this module, which I know would still need work for my third year dissertation, as I only got an average mark, which I would like to improve. I realise this is because I had a limited amount of sources and more were desired. I have also learnt to convey an opinion without using first person, which is actually a lot more difficult than first thought!
2. What approaches to/methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?
As for my practical piece, I have never completely used stickers as a main source of design work, and when designing packaging I usually create everything myself. I was originally going to just use cut black vinyl, but my design developed a little too elaborately for that! I still really want to try using cut vinyl in the future.
3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?
My strengths in my practical piece are definitely the graphics on the tin, and I have never worked in this style before so that was pretty refreshing. The style was a contemporary twist on traditional Fleischer Studios styles. This style is very much in trend at the moment, so to demonstrate the idea of consumerism being driven by trends, I chose to work in this style. I had a lot of fun going through the old cartoons for visuals and possible typefaces to use. I ended up hand drawing most of the text myself, as I couldn’t find a suitable typeface to what I was after. The logo was the most complicated part of the design and I ended up doing two variations but overall it was fairly straight forward.
4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?
The weaknesses I would say are quantity, as I fear that I may have not have produced enough to labour my opinions and points I portrayed in my essay, and get my messages across. Looking back at the project now, I wish I had used the pneumatic vacuum canister I tried so hard to obtain but was talked out of it because it had such an unusual shape, meaning people couldn’t take it seriously! But I think that the context behind that choice was really strong, and regret my weaker decision of using the tin, so I will learn to go with my gut next time!
As a whole, as much as I really love Context of Practice as a subject, I feel like I fall down when it comes to proving my love of it through submission pieces and keeping up to date with blogging my lecture notes. I think this is because I still struggle with my time management and don’t commit to an idea quick enough. I also always end up ditching my stronger ideas and so pull my piece down.
5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?
Next time I will capitalise on my strengths, but try something new for the sake of a strong idea and go with my best judgement. I am really looking forward to the third’s year extensive writing piece as I have a really clear idea of what I would like to explore and a great interest in the subject, and so I am confident I will be able to achieve my goals.
- Go with my gut instinct on an idea
- Leave myself more time to fully explore and develop an idea
- try something I have never done before in preparation for use on my final submission piece.
- Take the opportunity to really have fun with this 'blank brief' opportunity and steer it towards something I know I will have the attention span to fully stay motivated until the end.
- Take the opportunity to steer the 'blank brief' towards something that will greatly benefit my career.
