#Y2U2

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D&AD Tutorial

We presented our developed idea to Mark and the rest of the students in the tutorial, but I could tell as soon as we mentioned Dungeons and Dragons there was an uncomfortable or awkward atmosphere in the room. It was suggested to try different themes instead as might be more appealing to the target audience such as clubbing, Grand Theft Auto, or Call of Duty inspired. But I’m still keen on the idea and challenging people’s perceptions as feel its a game that everyone can enjoy so just need to try and communicate that.

It was also suggested to use a different name but keep the abbreviation which I quite like. D&D. Dungeons and Dancing. D&FD. Dungeons and Fucking Dragons. D&DA. Dungeons and Dicking About. Will explore the idea a bit further and come up with better ones.

[carlfeilner]

Menu Research

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Personal Identity: Social Media

One of my personal identity goals is to end up with a strong online presence, so I’ve just started registering on social media with it. Registering on the main sites first, and need to upload my portfolio and some content.

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This is one of the spreadsheets where we came up with all the ideas, mechanics, and cards for the game. 

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D&AD: Visual Research

Looking at card designs to understand how they communicate their information intuitively.

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D&AD Evaluation

What informed and motivated my design decisions

It was mostly the brief and research that informed and motivated our design decisions. Having to keep in mind that if whatever we were doing was meeting the brief, and maximising our intentions. Such as wanting the game to feel like its inspired by Dungeons and Dragons, so thinking of mechanics and designs that’d give that impression. The research into game design helped a lot as well. Learning from successful designs and publishers working in the industry, giving advice from what they’ve learnt throughout their careers in TED Talks and videos. And listening to podcasts of developers and publishers talking about game design theories and practises. I took a lot of notes from this research and then tried to apply them whilst designing. 

What changes/developments has it gone through?

We went through a lot of changes and developments. We redesigned the visuals of our cards about 3 times. Trying to make the design as intuitive as possible whilst being appropriate for the theme of our game or intentions. The mechanics of the game changed vastly as well. Trying to balance everything and think of new ideas that were more in-line with our objectives. Such as maximising player fun or co-operation. The tone of voice for the game was considered and changed a few times as well. Trying to decide if we should make it more whimsical hopefully appealing to casual audiences more, or more serious and in-line with D&D for narrative and role playing.

Did I manage my time well throughout the unit?

About 80% of the project was spent on the game design as it needed to be at a certain point before we could start meeting the deliverables. So I feel that our ideas were ambitious for the time we had. This meant that the deliverables aren’t to the standard we’d like as well. But we needed to make sure the theme, mechanics and visuals of the game was ready before we could start working on the deliverables. From my research, a card game usually takes up to a year of development as well due to how much is involved in the process. 

How did I respond to feedback?

As we were working on the game design for most of the unit, there wasn’t much visuals to show. So at tutorials and crits the visuals we did have were more concepts or part way through development. This meant there wasn’t a lot of feefback received. But whenever there was we would reflect on it and try out the suggestions. Such as in a tutorial Laura Walker suggested we could try making the card design being more narrative than illustrative since it was a narrative driven game, and creating or finding visuals for every card would take too much time. So we ended up making that implementation.

Areas of my design process that need more practice?

Whilst working on this D&AD project I realised, as with the other project, I need to improve my workflow as a designer. Taking a long time with my current process of working and not having as much work to show by the end of it. Partly due to not prioritising whilst working so spending too much time on little things like details or new ideas. 

What have I learnt from this unit of study?

I learnt a lot from this D&AD project as well. Learning about game design through my research. New technical skills and knowledge such as data merging in Indesign which can save a lot of time and effort, or how to work more efficiently in After Effects when creating animations or Illustrator for designing. I learnt more about the process of designing too. Understanding more how important it is to have a well thought out structure or idea before designing. Such as when working on the promotional video. Planning and story boarding until we knew what we wanted to do helped massively and believe saved a lot of time and effort.

On reflection, are there any improvements that I would make to my final outcomes?

I feel that the quality of the final outcomes could be improved a lot and that’s mostly due to the time spent on the game design. We needed the theme, mechanics and visuals of the game to be at a certain point, before we could meet the deliverables such as the promotional video or how to play. We plan to continue working on it until submition for D&AD however so will hopefully get it a point we’re happy with.

I also bought some decent paper for the A3 Boards for hand in, but some of the ink got messed up whilst printing and I annoyingly didn’t have time to re-print.

[carlfeilner]

Personal Identity Evaluation

What informed and motivated my design decisions

The design decisions for my personal identity was based on the breadth of my research into my career aspirations, target audience and the local competition. 

Career Aspirations I first identified what my career aspirations were by thinking about what I’d love to end up doing, or would like achieved career-wise. I was unsure for quite a long time as I had so many different subject interests, but I managed to come up with the 3 aspirations below: 

1. Employable to local agencies 2. Successfully start freelancing 3. Owner of a design company

Number 3 being my biggest goal for down the road, so the first aspiration is what I’ll be focusing on now. Identifying my career aspirations helped with the rest of my personal identity process as it placed everything into a framework. I then thought about how to achieve those aspirations and decided it’d be best to start out small and work my way up through an agency. Learning as much as I can. And develop my skills and learning, and portfolio in the mean-time. Going into freelance once I’m experienced enough to.

Target Audience I then started researching how to become more employable to potential agencies, viewing job applications relating to my career aspirations and identifying what skills, knowledge, and characteristics they’re looking for. I discovered that most applications were asking for previous work experience and technical skills. Including skills I wasn’t familiar with yet or hadn’t learnt such as Adobe XD, Invision, Sketch, Premiere, and Cinema 4D. These skills were mostly relating to UI/UX Design and Video Editing. From this research I concluded I needed to narrow down my interests to 3 key areas to focus on. Branding, UI/UX Design, and Web Design. I decided these 3 as felt they were the most relevant to my career aspirations and the most interesting to me. I concluded I needed more of these skills in my portfolio as well.

Local Competition After looking into my career aspirations and target audience, I researched the local competition: designers and agencies living in my area. I saw them as competition as whilst studying there’s the potential of freelancing, and local designers could end up submitting for the same job applications as well. It was also an opportunity for case studies and to analyse their brands, websites and online presence. I discovered a lot of local creative agencies and designers actually have work or websites that look quite outdated, or a bit visually underwhelming. The tone of voice for several of them felt insincere and ungenuine as well. So I concluded from the research into my target audience and competition I should try to position myself as genuine, having contemporary knowledge and technical skills. And aim for a strong local online presence.

What changes/developments has it gone through?

I discovered a logo design and identity I liked quite quickly whilst developing, and felt it met my brand objectives, so I didn’t have a lot of development or changes with it. I changed my look quite a lot though exploring business card ideas though. I struggled finding an idea I really liked so created a design whenever a thought came to mind and ended up with 36 variations of business cards. I believe my final design represents my brand well but its not as impactful or as impressive as I’d like. It could look more technical as well which was one of my identity goals.

Did I manage my time well throughout the unit?

I could have definitely managed my time better as I was so focused on the D&AD project instead, which left me not having as much time as I would have liked to spend on development. I feel if I had more time, or managed my time better, my quality of work for everything would be better, and I would have kept working until I had a more impressive business card. 

How did I respond to feedback?

I responded to feedback well and always asked for a lot of it throughout the process. Especially when I first started experimenting with the look of my identity and business cards. I received positive feedback from everyone on my logo, but my first few business card designs were hit and miss. Some people liked it whilst others said it looked too simple or primary school which I understood from the use of shapes and colours. I then made alterations reflecting upon their feedback and receiving more afterwards if the changes were an improvement or not. The feedback from tutors were helpful as well giving constructive input into my typography or layouts etc. So my general response to feedback was to reflect on it, apply their suggestions, reflect again, and ask for more feedback.

Areas of my design process that need more practice?

Throughout this unit I realised I really need to improve my workflow. I take quite a long time with my current process of working and it means I have less work to show by the end of it. Its partly due to not prioritising whilst working. So I spend too much time on the little things like details. 

Prioritising is another area in general I need to improve on. Focusing on tasks or projects that are more important and not get side-tracked with new ideas. 

What have I learnt from this unit of study? 

I’ve learnt a lot from this unit. From my research into branding and logo design I feel more confident and familiar with the process, and industry-used practises and terminology. I feel that my layout skills have improved a lot as well whilst working on my portfolio and business cards. Having more consideration for white space and balance. My digital process has improved as well. Learning more about the software I use on a regular basis such as Illustrator, Indesign and Photoshop so am able to use them more efficiently. Saving time and effort from learning or discovering little bits of knowledge or techniques.

On reflection, are there any improvements that I would make to my final outcomes?

I feel that my final business card could be more impressive and look more technical which was one of my identity goals. I do like how it looks and feel it meets some of my goals: being genuine and contemporary, but its not as good as I know it could be. And as it represents me I’d like it to look as good as possible. The quality of images I used throughout my portfolio and process book could be a lot better as well. I’m happy with my CV because I believe it looks well considered through my typesetting, hierarchy and layout, but I could have explored designs more and tried to be more creative with it. 

I also bought some decent paper for my portfolio for hand in, but some of the ink got messed up whilst printing and I annoyingly didn’t have time to re-print.

[carlfeilner]

For Personal Identity project. I’m not happy with the quality of images but I kinda like the layout. I got the file size down to 1.5MB through changing the resolution to 72. And instead of embedding videos into the PDF, I used images with hyperlinks instead. To keep the file size low. And to make it more appropriate for a digital format I increased the font sizes of all text.

[carlfeilner]

Process Book: Visual Research

Did some research into editorial layouts and really liked the spreads above

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D&AD: Data Merging

There’s around 180 cards for our game. To save time editing the text and imagery for each one, we used a process called data merging in Indesign. Data merging uses the information in a spreadsheet to display text and imagery across pages. You can then create a merged document to display all pages for printing as shown in the images above. 

This allowed us to create templates where all cards of the same size can be data merged. Using images as part of the data allowed us to change the background and icons on the cards automatically as well.

[carlfeilner]

Personal Identity: Research

https://www.creativebloq.com/career/become-junior-designer-7133617

https://www.creativebloq.com/advice/how-to-be-the-designer-every-agency-wants-to-hire

https://www.bourncreative.com/get-hired-at-a-creative-agency/

https://www.theguardian.com/careers/careers-blog/branding-design-agency-insiders-guide

http://millo.co/design-agency-looking-to-hire-freelance-designer

NETWORKING / ONLINE PRESENCE I’ve always felt like I wasn’t ready yet, developed enough as designer, to start building my personal identity and getting out there. But after my research I’ve started seeing it more as a journey and that it’ll only help how much I grow. 

AGENCY V IN-HOUSE After looking into agency v in-house more I believe it’d be more beneficial for me to work for an agency. I believe this would help develop my portfolio and skills more so I can achieve my career aspirations faster.

WORK EXPERIENCE I noticed that even a lot of junior designer applications were looking for previous work experience. This made me realise how much I should start doing an internship or commission work soon.

JOB APPLICATION Another thing I learnt through my research was to talk about why you want to work for that company. What it is about them that makes you really want to the job, and why you’re passionate about what you do, and why you think you’d be a good fit.

3 KEY AREAS There’s a lot of areas I’m interested in but as branding covers most of them, I wanted to specialise  in that direction. However whilst looking at job applications I realised most jobs are focused on key areas such as ui design, video editing, editorial etc. So I believe it’d best to pick 3 key areas I’d be happy working in and then explore them through work placements or internships. I believe this would make me more desirable as a designer as well since I’d have broader experiences and technical skills that I’d bring to companies.

[carlfeilner]

Personal Identity: Research

I’d like to go into branding as it involves most of the subjects I’m interested in, so had a look at what jobs were available, and what employers are looking for when recruiting. I looked at several job applications for this and took notes which can be found below as well as a summary of my research.

JUNIOR UI / UX DESIGNER  Skills - Adobe XD, Axure, Balsamiq, Invision, Sketch. Knowledge - search engine optimisation.

JUNIOR WEB DESIGNER - http://thework-shop.co.uk/ Skills - Dreamweaver, Photoshop and WordPress. Knowledge - CSS, HTML, JavaScript (but not essential) and PHP.

JUNIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNER - https://www.weareaspire.com/ Skills - Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign. Knowledge - print processes

JUNIOR INTEGRATED DESIGNER - https://vitamintalent.co.uk/ Skills: Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Word, Powerpoint, Excel. Knowledge: Infographics / Iconography / Illustrations, Web Banners, Editorial.

JUNIOR INTEGRATED DESIGNER - http://edenmarsh.co.uk/ Skills: Adobe Creative Suite, UI designs that align with UX actualities. Knowledge: Wire-framing and prototyping experience advantageous. User research and mapping analysis experience advantageous.

A portfolio showcasing online art direction and multi-platform digital design execution, including mood boards, rough sketches and mock ups, image manipulation, typography, animated GIFS.

JUNIOR INTEGRATED DESIGNER - https://vitamintalent.co.uk/ Skills: Premiere Pro, Audition, After Affects, Media Encoder,  Speed Grade, Photoshop & Illustrator, Cinema 4D is a bonus. Knowledge: Editing videos, motion design, Colour grading, music and VO editing,  manage media server and workflow. How to use a DSLR and video camera and 360 camera is a bonus.

JUNIOR MIDWEIGHT DESIGNER - https://vitamintalent.co.uk/  Skills - Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign. Knowledge - Experience in setting up and sending print ready artwork, Good working knowledge of design best practices (i.e. composition, colour theory, layout, branding, typography etc.)

GENERAL QUALITIES attention to detail, innovative idea generation, passion for all things design, ability to work on own or part of team, able to work under pressure

RESEARCH SUMMARY It was difficult finding jobs that involved branding. Most of the jobs I found focused on key areas such as editorial, UI/UX design, video editing etc. So I feel it might be best to start with one of these jobs to build upon my skills and portfolio more before going into branding as a freelancer. 

Some of the applications wanted to see printed work within portfolios as well which was good to find out. And It helped me think about the kind of technical skills and knowledge I want to portray in my portfolio to improve my chances. 

[carlfeilner]

Tutorial: 09/02/18

BUSINESS CARD  get rid of icons increase size of details move logo up a bit

CURRICULUM VITAE try non-italic remove icons line in both CV and BC or none increase body size “references on request” doesn't like bullet points still remove locations from education swap subheader and headers in education bold subheaders in software 

PORTFOLIO work in insitu as looks rushed commercialise work more / text more professional first page should be work not title shouldn't include first uni project  too much text still type size should be similar to CV couldn't tell what the business cards were cause not insitu

NOTES talk as if projects are a real life thing not fake fine to include work from other people as long as its mentioned 6 pages / 3-4 projects for portfolio and can include D&AD portfolio deliverable 

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Essay: Tutorial

IMAGERY image section optional, references at back should include imagery if describing something visual imagery can be placed next to text analyse your imagery to tell reader what to see in relation to essay aim

REFERENCING bibliography list at end is articles, books, essays we’ve looked at for essay a reference list is everything that’s quoted in the list

SYMBOLIC SIGNS symbolic signs are essentially abstract, and only have meaning cause everyone agrees it means something. Such as the Cross or smoke indicates fire.

NOTES ibid means refer to the previous reference bibliography in alphabetical order