Study Task One - Why am I here? What do I want to learn?

Five Reasons I chose this programme:

1. Constant communication with tutors.
2. Good resources.
3. Great reputation.
4. Good studio space.
5. Strong industry links.

Five things I want to learn:

1. Better presentation skills.
2. Improve critical writing, essays etc.
3. More skills and better end results using InDesign.
4. More contextual knowledge.
5. Become more knowledgeable on the professional environment.

Five Skills I think are my strengths:

1. Good visual presentation.
2. Meeting deadlines.
3. Creating images in Illustrator.
4. Punctuality.
5. Annotation.

Five things I want to improve:

1. Layout skills.
2. Time management.
3. Idea generation/design sheets.
4. Essay writing.
5. More experimental work.

Five ways to evaluate my progress:

1. Blog posts.
2. Tutorials.
3. Crits.
4. Evaluations.
5. Peer/tutor feedback.

Five questions I want to find the answer to:

1. How do you write a good essay?
2. How do you organise placements or studio visits?
3. Where will I be in the next five years?
4. How do I get my work 'out there'?
5. How do I promote myself?

Ten questions from the whole group:

1. How did the course gain a good reputation?
2. How can I improve my time management/punctuality?
3. How do I improve essay writing skills?
4. How do we learn web and general software skills?
5. What rates do we charge?
6. Will I make it?
7. How can I evaluate/reflect on my progress?
8. How can I gain more confidence with presenting?
9. What do I want to specialise in?
10. How do I become better informed in what's going on in the industry?

Ten problems from the whole group:

1. Getting overloaded with work and getting behind.
2. Worrying about placements.
3. Being scared about not succeeding.
4. Money for printing.
5. Balancing workload with social life.
6. Being to shy to show our work.
7. Having an idea but not having the software skills to put it in motion.
8. Low/lack of confidence in own skills.
9. Going so stressed you don't enjoy the course as much.
10. Standard of other peoples work being a lot higher, intimidating.

Five things that inspire you:

1. Seeing a piece of work that I wish I'd designed myself.
2. My grandma, she's 75 still travelling the world, still goes dancing two times a week and has a better social life than I do.
3. Getting positive feedback.
4. Pushing myself to do something I didn't think I'd be able too and succeeding.
5. "Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake." Henry David Thoreau.

Ten Examples of design that illustrate your fields of interest:

1. I am very interested in improving my style of layout design. I would like to develop it further to be a lot more experimental and creative. I have chosen this example because of its simplicity and consistent took. I like how shape and image have been combined.

2. I would also like to look into more three dimensional, textured work. All my work so far has been flat so I think this would be something really exciting to experiment with. It could take some getting used to but the end results could be interesting and worthwhile. I find this style interesting because it steps away from the conventions of print.

3. Another aspect I am interested in is creating my own typefaces and making new and interesting letterforms. This is something we started last year and I would like to develop it further as I progress on. I like this particular example because it seems really creative and I like how the composition of the piece, including colour, fits together.

4. Continuing with the theme of type I also love the hand rendered style of typography. I feel it has a really quirky look and a style that appeals to me a lot. The book I have chosen to represent this is beautiful, each page is full of intricate designs and sometimes small hand drawn illustrations that I find really inspiring.

5. Something that I have been interested in for a while now is letterpress. As soon as I first came into contact with it a few years ago I instantly became intrigued with it. I love the textural nature and also the fact that a lot of thought has gone into creating it and going through the lengthy technique. I experimented for the first time with letterpress last year in my design context module and hopefully this year I can develop it further.

6. Since improving my skills last year on Adobe Illustrator have a new found interest in vector illustrations. Because my abilities have now improved I have found I'm getting a lot more adventurous and therefore gaining better finished results. The style of the illustrations below really appeal to me, I love the bright vibrant colour and how the different tones help to create a three dimensional effect. The subject matter is also really cute!

7. Pattern design is also very interesting I think it can be used in certain ways t really enhance a project. They are also very versatile from detailed and intricate to simple and striking like the image below. The use of colour within them can also be very intriguing.

8. The collage effect really appeals to me and I'd love to include more of it within my own work. The piece below is by Eduardo Recife who is a designer that I constantly refer back to as I'm a huge fan of his work. I love the integration of lots of different aspects such as vintage imagery, type, textures samples and hand drawn shapes and doodles. How he incorporates it is also very interesting as it has an unusual, edgy look.

9. Innovative and creative packaging is also an interest of mine. I find it interesting because it seems quite difficult to me. For example creating the nets and making sure each piece fits together correctly. I think working on this in the future will help me come to terms with it more.

10. I have always thought that branding and identity had too much of a corporate style for me to be interested in it. But since researching it more recently I have found that there is a lot more to it than just creating rectangular business cards. For example I find the piece below very exciting and innovative, which gives me a great deal more enthusiasm for the topic.