#148dva

Today was the presentation.

Today was the day I got no sleep.

Today was the day I spent comforting Victoria.

But there was no need to panic really, everything went to plan. I forgot a lot of what I was saying and remembered after we had finished, which I kicked myself for as a bit of it was important but I’ll blame the no sleep. I think we did okay, maybe not great but definitely okay. We got our points across and seemed not mention everything that was asked, pretty much. Even though lately we had forgotten to be team mates, we worked together well in the presentation and helped each other. Unfortunately, an image on the front page of our website didn’t work which is a shame as that let us down slightly. I think it must have got lost when we moved the folders around or a browser issue, it worked on my computer when I checked the previous evening.

Honestly, I think we’ll be glad to be out of each others hair. I’m quite excited for the next 4 days, as it’ll pretty much be spent in the library working on my sketchbook. My table always have the most fun when we head to the library! It’s also a lot easier to work in there than the studio. We have a laugh and end up writing on the white boards, which is always a bonus. 

An afterthought came to me and I did wonder why I worried so damn much. I’ll try to remember this next presentation, it was over what felt like a few minutes (but in reality had been about 20 minutes) and it felt fine once I started talking. I do need to learn to stop stammering though and being generally awkward. I kept suddenly becoming aware I was being watched and it made me momentarily forget what I was saying. 

I would say this module is pretty much over for us, as it’s just sketchbook work left. What I’ll take from this module is that I dislike group work (kind of!) - I mean I have to do it and I will and I’ll take it in my stride, but I don’t like depending on others for work, especially if that person is a last minute person. That’s just not how I work and I don’t like being under pressure. I would rather get stuff done with days in advance just for my own comfort. Although, when I did the RSA project a few weeks back, we got to pick our groups and that went so smoothly and I would happily work with those again, they were a dream to work with - so I guess it’s who you work with really and if you get along with them. I enjoyed having a friend on the team, I think I would have been lost without Victoria and vice versa. 

I have done some research regarding poster advertising and here are some of the things I wrote down on my notebook:

Posters usually have to communicate your message within a matter of seconds to an audience of busy passers-by.  The success of a poster campaign depends not only the quality of the creative idea and its ability to engage within the target audience, but also on the appropriate of the media planning and buying.

Spreading posters around the city can have its ups and downs. Posters can be produced in various sizes and shapes, they can be 3D, and the audience passing by the site where you chose to present your poster may read the message again and again on a daily basis. On the other hand some sites can be vanishd or your posters might be sprayed with graffiti. Site rental can also be expensive in some cases, and it might also be difficult to reach a national audience, especially when you compare posters with other media such as national press and consumer magazines.

In order to create an effective poster you must keep in mind that

your poster must be memorable and convey the message effectively 

it must be visible above the street clutter

rememer the passer-by only has a few seconds to register the message before going past it (the poster has to be eye-catching)

keep the visual simple

don’t write a headline with more than 7-8 words

make the type as legible as possible

cut out the clutter in your layout

make the branding strong (the advertisement should evoke the brand)

As for the magazine and newspaper advertisements I learned that you must persuade your audience to notice and then read your advertisement (keeping in mind that, unlike posters, the reader will be sitting at home/on the bus/ on the train reading the newspaper/magazine). The visual is really important, as many campaigns nowadays rely almost solely on the power of an imaginative and impactful visual to communicate the brand message.

I never liked working in groups, unless I got to choose who I will be working with. Mostly because there is always at least one person who does nothing or just refuses to listen to anyone else. And I think this only makes other people feel stressed and it can sometimes affect the work you do in a negative way.

Unfortunately, for our 148DVA module, we had the bad luck of having someone like that in our group. This person never showed up to University and nearly never replied to our messages. She only sent us a message last week, asking for the logo we made and other things she’d need for her homepage, saying that she is only working on them now because she had “personal issues” that she needed to fix first. While I am aware that sometimes people have personal issues that don’t allow them to work as much as they would want to, I think it is irresponsible not to let people know about it. It was a long module but during all these months, she never said anything about it. Of course that we didn’t expect details about the nature of her issues, but I think she could have at least told us that she has problems that prevent her from being present at our meetings, and yet, she did not. I think it is very irresponsible and rude to turn up one week before the deadline and expect to be accepted in the group and allowed to take credit for things you did not work on. It bothers me even more because I am quite happy with how we designed the logo and I wouldn’t like the idea of someone taking credit for it when they didn’t work on it at all.

...websites are annoying and groups are unreliable. 

There are about 2 weeks left until our 148DVA deadline and I am still a bit stressed because of the HTML part of this module. As I said before, I feel like Pete’s sessions didn’t help us too much and didn’t provide enough information for us to make a good website. I do realise that we are still at the beginning and we are not expected to make a formidable website (especially since some of us might be good at HTML but others might not be). However, I still feel a bit upset because of my lack of knowledge regarding HTML. I have various problems with my web pages right now and I still can’t find a way of solving them. I do hope I will find a solution as soon as possible.

I don’t want to submit something I don’t find at least decent. I’ve always been like this. I never submitted any work I wasn’t at least a bit confident about. I think this is good and bad in the same time. It is good because like this, I put more pressure on myself and I try to exceed my limits. It is bad because I sometimes I might be too self-conscious when it comes to my work and I might find myself not submitting my work to contests because I’m not satisfied with it.

For my previous projects I asked some of my friends for feedback, but not as much as I should have. I usually asked friends who were also studying an arts and design subject, but while working on the 148DVA logo, I found out that the feedback you receive from people who are studying completely different subjects (or people who are not even students) can also be helpful. The feedback you get from people who study art and design is important because it helps you see possible mistakes or they can even come up with some good suggestions. But truth is that, as a graphic designer, you work for people who, most of the time, don’t really know what you are doing. I often have to reply to the question “what is graphic design?” when talking to people from different questions. It isn’t exactly a compact, easy to explain subject, so I usually take a few moments to think of the best words to describe what I’m doing. So, I think it is important to get the opinion of people who are not so familiar with design because, in the end, these are the people you are designing for. Things that make sense to designers might not make sense to people who are not familiar with design.