#fmpe

Starting my Final Major Project was daunting. At first I found myself juggling a array of concepts, ideas and trying to link them to my own personal interests. I began this project with the intention of looking at light pollution after holding a conversation with my younger cousin who was completely oblivious to what she was missing as shes not being able to see the night sky as we live in an inner-city area. I conducted both academically sourced and general research to begin to brainstorm on paper deliverables possible for my FMP. Starting with an interest in data, I eventually found myself instead looking into how children consume data and form habits through gaming platforms. This evolution of ideas is what lead to me to critical, refined research throughout my project.

As mentioned above, research was crucial to my concept development. I not only wanted to create a piece of design that I would be proud to put in my portfolio, but wanted to try and push my concept building, storytelling and research practice further than I have in previous projects. Because of this, I found specific pieces of research to be game-changing (excuse the pun) to the development of the app. For example, when I conducted the small amount of primary research I was able to do due to COVID, I found a gap in the market for an app which encourages learning through games – specifically and environmental based learning app. I explored academic journals detailing how habits are formed and remembered, which encouraged me to add a narrative to the app “missions” as-well as a character for children to associate specific habits.

Visual research helped me stay creative during lockdown, as I wasn’t able to be inspired or critiqued as much by my peers. However, I did reach out to external sources such as the company I work for to gain this crucial feedback I had relied on in the past to get a pair of fresh eyes on my project. This was all documented within my blog. Because of access to an array of visual sources, I managed to create a, what in my opinion, is a clean yet child-friendly UI & UX suitable for all generations. I aimed to not make the design too childish yet still appeal to the younger audience, and I feel like I achieved my own goal.

I wasn’t short of changes within my project. Although frustrating at the time, I’m glad I continued to push and refine my project. This is something I feel like I need to work on and not put too much emotion into feeling like I failed at attempts as confidence within my work is something I need to work on as a personal goal for the future. However, I think that the past three years at university has aided me on that journey and I am now able to continue with it alone and hopefully, one day achieve a sense of consistent pride within my practice.

My learning agreements really aided me within my FMP, I felt like setting myself a brief and mini deadlines really helped with time tracking, and despite Coronavirus, as-well as being ill myself, I am proud that I’ve managed to hand in on the date I planned before becoming ill. This date also happens to be my 21st birthday (woo)

I feel like my strengths have been highlighted within this project and I’m content knowing I’m leaving university knowing I have a string interest in digital design, and this is what I intend on persuing within my career. I am also grateful of the skills I’ve gained throughout my time to be able to work on print and motion design as-well.

As previously stated, my weaknesses are a work in progress to improve. I feel like confidence is my number 1 issue, and this will be something I hope to gain with age and experience. However, If I was to have more time on this project I would have loved to be able to attempt to build (code) the personal website I designed, but this is something I can work on after my hand in.

Overall, My FMP has left me pleased with my education as it comes to a wrap, and I am happy with both my, print and online portfolio, as-well as being able to move directly into a full time job starting in June.