Evaluation - Yearbook.

I found that this brief was as much about organisation as it was design and a lot of our time was spent planning different aspects that needed to be done and collaborating with people outside of each other. I feel because of this I have really improved my skills in organisation and communication as I needed to make sure tasks were done by a certain date in order for the project to progress and be completed by the final ‘send to print’ deadline. I have also greatly refined my editorial skills, I found that as this was a live briefly so closely linked to the college the level of finish and consistency of layout was very important, this led me to learn a lot in a short space of time.

We conducted research into previous yearbooks from the course, this was very beneficial as it was clear to see what did and didn’t work, we could also discuss with Duncan about this to hear his thoughts on what he wanted. It was clear that he wanted the focus to be on imagery with limited white space as well as the focus on the course as a whole rather than the individuals work. We also researched into options for a more interactive publication, the main ideas we gathered from this was coloured paper inserts and a wrap around cover that would double up as a poster.

As mentioned before I think a strength from this would definitely be organisation. On a basic level we had to organise our own time to meet all the necessary deadlines, as well as organising photo shoots in and out of the studio of the environment, work and students themselves. We were also back and forth from the Textiles office getting feedback and content from Duncan. I feel this has taught me a lot about the expectations once leaving university from the outside world.

I think a weakness of this project is that it isn't as interactive as we initially wanted it to be, for example there wasn’t the resources to be able to get the page inserts. If there had been more time I think I would have liked to think more into getting an alternative for this. However I am really pleased that we were able to get the wrap around as I think it really ties the whole publication together whilst adding an exciting additional element.