END OF MODULE EVALUATION

My initial thoughts going forwards from level 5 were that I wanted to try and engage with a lot of external activities, such as workshops and live briefs within my PP module. During the course of this year however, I realised the modules were a lot more fluid, and I needed to regard them as such. As a result, I have created a more organic approach to my professional presence, which has flowed and overlapped with my creative practice to form a more substantial body of work. I was still struggling a lot with the confidence I felt in my work, and I always looked at the work my peers were creating and judged myself on that standard. This year I’ve learnt to embrace my practice for it’s own value, and due to this my confidence has really increased.

One of the biggest breakthroughs this year was my process and way of working, using cut paper, turned into screen print positives through the magic paintbrush on Photoshop. This started within my Context of Practice module, but really grew and developed near the end of Extended Practice. I have been a lot more in tune with my creative practice over the past few months, and I’ve started to notice and listen to the intricacies that build me as a practitioner. I have even noticed the smaller things such as preferring my outcomes when I’m using a slightly blunt blade. I also really learnt a huge deal about my ethics and morals during Context of Practice, where I developed a strong manifesto which feeds into almost everything I make now, where I’m striving to create a balance between beautiful and sustainable design. This felt like everything I was trying to fit into my work just fell into place, and I finally understood what I have ben trying to comprehend and communicate within my practice. I had been worried that this year I would have to ‘choose’ a style to replicate near the end, but I have naturally just fallen into a process of working which really suits me at the moment. I’ve also been helped to prepare for life after graduation from all the creative professionals I’ve spoken to in person through print fairs, visiting lecturers and Hanbury Hall, which has made me very confident about next year.

One of my major successes was working on different public facing workshops, such as at ELCAF, with ANORAK and at The Hepworth. I’ve really enjoyed working creatively in this manner, testing myself with different age groups, and I feel I have enough experience and contacts to continue this line of work after Graduation. I have also found the feedback from peers really useful over the year, as it has shown me what particular areas of my practice I need to work on. I will hopefully be able to keep this feedback through my collective Ok Sure, which has been such a helpful and inspirational group to be part of. I have really enjoyed being part of a collective and have learnt a lot about collaboration and negotiation.

I feel I have also learnt what the word professional really means in relation to my work, as it doesn’t necessarily mean polished and removed from the creative practice, but in fact is the curated celebration of that process. I feel I have been able to show this through my creation of a website and print based branding, as well as continuing my online presence through Instagram. I think I have also really benefitted from the Career Track Tuesday and Start Up Wednesday workshops for this, as they have helped me understand what employers are looking for, and how best to present yourself, whilst not changing who you are or compromising your goals.

The main thing I have struggled with is time management, as I have tried to make sure I look after my mental well-being whilst still pushing my practice as much as I can. Therefore, keeping a reflective blog was a good way to build a resourceful document to reference to and ensure I kept on track. I also felt that I didn’t often do as much research as I would have liked. But when I did put in more research, the outcomes were often more impactful and were more true to how I intended. I would love to invest more time into the research and exploration of ideas at the very start now that I have more time after Graduation.

I’m overall really excited about my progression from the course, as I feel well prepared with the skills and resources to make a running start. I still have a passion for sustainable packaging, as well as creative workshops, so I will continue to work on these next year during my full time role as Student President. I think working in such a creative environment will ensure I keep my enthusiasm up for creating individual and personal work. After my term finishes, I will hopefully have some free lance opportunities lined up from my graduating year which I will be able to jump straight into. I will ensure over the next year I really keep in touch with practitioners and my peers from both illustration and different creative disciplines so that I have a really strong creative support network around me.

Design Boards

Design Boards for Self Branding over the year:

Portfolio

Presentation

Presentation:

Script:
1. Intro slide

2. Expectations for the year. I learnt a lot from 505, and how to apply my work to packaging. Really inspired by Louise Lockhart and her process. I found my confidence in pattern and design in level five.

3. Intentions for the year, I picked briefs which I thought would best test and develop my abilities. My practice is about pattern, colour, and interactive work, so I was expecting to focus on packaging a lot. I was comfortable applying patterns, but I wanted to learn more about patterns as images, and how to communicate through pattern. I started the year wanting to experiment with time scales when working, and do a mix of short and long briefs to test my working processes and see what different aesthetic outcomes I can get.

4. In Cop, I knew I wanted to explore an issue I was passionate about, and having looked at both packaging and colour in previous years, I thought to combine those with my love of sustainable packaging. In this project I intended to really find a balance between good and sustainable design, which I think I achieved.

5. Something I struggled with during the Cop module, was the daily drawing task I set myself, where I drew all of the packaging waste I produced. I have always been doubtful and not had much confidence in my drawing ability, so this was a challenging task for me, but I learned a great deal from it. It both improved my confidence in drawing, and improved my regard for how much waste I create, and made me actually reduce the amount of packaging I buy and throw away. I also struggled at how to 'finish' my designs, as I struggled to give a defined 'brand' to my project. I think If I had spent some more time on the finalising of the project, I would have been able to create a more cohesive finished set of outcomes.

6. Some of the successes of my Cop module were my final application outcomes, which addressed a real issue I wanted to solve. It also changed my whole attitude towards packaging, and helped me understand a really strong ethos of sustainable packaging. I came out of the module with a strong manifesto which I have taking forwards into my later practices.

7. When I started my Extended Practice, I wanted to ensure I worked on a variety of lengths of projects in order to develop my ability to work quickly to finish work. I also needed to ensure that I organised my time well, as this was something I struggled with during Cop, so that I would have time to take a break and rest, and not push myself mentally too far.

8. Something with I struggled with during Extended Practice was my communication during my Art Fund Collab, as I ended up having to work back into my outcomes a lot to resolve issues which came about later, due to misunderstanding what we each wanted out of it. This taught me a lot about saying no when I didn't think the project would be particularly beneficial for me. I also struggled with approaching new subject matter, but through drawing around the topics, I have been able to build a stronger visual language to apply for new projects. I also struggled by often over complicating outcomes, and I found my outcomes were a lot more successful when I used simpler alternatives.

9. One of the most successful projects from the year was my Student President Campaign, as I learnt so much about campaigning and scale. Because I had managed my time fairly well, I was able to create a lot of varying propaganda. I made a visual identity which could easily be applied in different ways, and ended up making around 100 screen printed wooden brooches, 100 mini limited edition screen prints, tshirts, 50 7"x7" square screen printed posters. Even though I went a little bit insane in the print room near the end, I was really pleased with what I'd made, and I think I successfully plastered the uni with my goods. I also thought that my second collaborative project, which was to create a repeat pattern for a Graphic Designer to use on some fruit juice packaging, was really successful. I used the skills I had learnt in my past collab, as well as my second year repeat pattern lesson to ensure I was clear from the outset what I could create. I also sent a lot of work through as tests for her to check before refining them to ensure they were the kind of thing she wanted, which made the project go really smoothly and enjoyable.

10. This year has been a big breakthrough in my process, as I found through my Eesti and WonKy projects that I find it a really useful way to gather organic shapes through using a blade to cut coloured paper, and using Photoshop to turn them into screen print positives. I even realised that I really prefer the shapes when the blade is slightly blunt, which I think made me realise I'm a lot more attuned to the intricacies of my practice this year. I also really loved how my project on bringing out the beauty of wonky produce really fit with my manifesto to work with sustainable projects, and I'd really like to continue to work on these kind of environmentally conscious projects in the future.

11. Something which I've really loved this year has has been working with my collective Ok Sure, made of members in my house, towards a stall at Jamie's Print Stuff. The actual production of the work was fun in itself, but preparing for the stall was also a really great experience. Although I did a stall there last year with Kieran, this one was a lot more about launching us as practitioners, and the whole collaborative prep, was something we all wanted to get right so that we looked like professional illustrators. The actual day was so fun and I managed to talk to a lot of different practitioners. The event made me feel a lot more like part of a community, which I'm excited to really embrace after graduation. It was also great and a bit bizarre to meet people who knew me and my collective from Instagram! With the same people, we've also had a mini exhibition at Further North in Chapel Allerton, which is still there, and great exposure

12. Last summer me and Annie ran a 'Scrap Stories' workshop at ELCAF which was based around recycling materials to create a hotdog book narrative. It was so fun to see behind the scenes and push my workshop skills to adults, when I'd mainly worked with children before. Me and Kieran are going back this summer to do a pop up book workshop which I'm really excited about, as it's a good 'launch' into professional practice. I've also been working with the Hepworth Wakefield and Anorak with kids workshops which has been so so much fun, and I still want to carry these on after graduation, even if only as a volunteer at Hepworth, as I gain so much experience from them in working with children, which is definitely something I want to consider as a future career option.

13. This year I've finally made a website! I found it a frustrating but really satisfying to make, and I think I've been able to build a website which reflects my practice well, as it's clean and organised, yet has a lot of colours within it still. I've found it a really good way to organise and showcase my work. I've also been building my Instagram presence, and I've found it a good way to keep up with other practitioners as well as really build my confidence.

14. This year has been a massive breakthrough in my practice. Even my tutorial a couple of weeks ago with Matt has changed a lot about how I think about my practice. I realised that I have really been trying to force myself into a box of what I think an illustrator should be since the very first week of the course, but actually, I can create whatever I want. I'm really happy with the process I've developed, and I'm excited about my upcoming creative opportunities, but I've realised I need to not think of graduation as the end, but in fact the beginning of my career as an illustrator. I think I've made a practice which suits me for now, and I'm just going to let it continue to progress over the next year.

15.  Next year I'm going to be staying at the uni as Student Union President, so I'll still have access to all the facilities, which is amazing, as I've really been enjoying the crafting elements of ceramics and screen printing. I'm hoping that I will have enough time to be able to devote a lot of time to developing my practice, as well as working some small free lance jobs, without worrying about needing my practice to fund my bills. I'm going to be living with one of my Collective partners, Charlotte, so I think it'll be great to still have each others feedback and support in our work as well, which we will loose from all our peers at uni.

16. I'm really excited to continue working on projects which are personal to me, and really reflect my values, through always striving to work on sustainable issues. I'm happy with where my practice is at the moment, and grateful that I can continue to play and push myself next year to create a strong foundation to my free-lance position.

17. Any questions

Manifesto

To always work with care, sensibility and purpose, striving towards creating a balance between beautiful and sustainable design.

I will make a difference with my work, whether that's through sustainable or social issues. I will also focus on creating a practice which revolves around interactivity, through both the crafting of tangible objects and the creation of prints and outcomes which engage the audience to interact with the work, and challenge their preconceptions.

Instagram presence

I feel this year I've really been using my Instagram account well.

I've been making sure I post regular updated photos and stories, and I've turned it into a business account so that I can see the analytics and post at better times.

It's not only been a confidence boost, but it has also improved my interaction skills with other practitioners, as I've been more confident in messaging people about work and promoting my own practice. I feel like it's a really hand place to direct people if they are interested in my practice.

I'm really confident with the interface of Instagram, and I'm sure I will continue to use this platform as my practice grows and develops.

EoYS Postcard production

I undertook the project management for the end of year show 'guide' because I thought it would be a really fantastic way of building my skills in communication and design, as well as helping me to understand more complex printing processes.

I have ended up working with Annie and Meg S on this, and I feel they are both really good people to work with, as they will use their initiative and get stuff done when it needs to.

In the meeting with Evolution we quickly realised that we wouldn't be able to afford a publication, and decided on a postcard pack instead, with a die-cut matchbox style band and box. We will also print some brightly coloured fold out introductions to sit in the front of the box, which will feature info about our class, the joint instagram etc.

I've thankfully not needed to chase people up too much for their submissions, as Patrick has done that a lot, so it has mainly been formatting the postcards and occasionally confirming or changing contact details. I've also accepted changes of postcards too when people have got in touch and asked to change them.

I was a little nervous as the Graphic Design students have put in a huge amount of work into their postcards, and I thought ours were very basic. However we really want the busy work to be shown off simply, and I think we've still got a really attractive finish. Also, Annie reminded me that on the Graphic Design course, they had to pitch for it against each other and it was a big project, where as we are not Graphic Designers, and aren't expected to make anything like that.

Overall I'm happy with what we've produced, and I'm excited to see the finished thing.