To Conclude...

As the first project of the course, this project was always going to be a daunting time. I set out with the determination to do the best I could with the brief given.

In the first few weeks I was intimidated, to say the least, by the abilities of my course peers, slightly disheartened I was hesitant to feel confident with my own work. As the project progressed, I began to receive positive feedback from the very peers I initially feared and my confidence in myself was fast on the increase.

A major milestone in this project for me was our group activity day of Type and Tape. Having the opportunity to interact with classmates who I usually wouldn’t, gave me a chance to understand that everyone else was feeling the same way as I am, and my initial fear was replaced with a steely determination to push my work forward and not get left behind.

The way this unit has been set out helped me first get to grips with what was expected of me, and second, complete said work in the allocated time. I kept a time plan of what I needed to do and when it needed to be done by, which I found very helpful in my personal time management.

At the time, my least favourite part of this topic was our experimentation with paper illustration. Becoming frustrated and embarrassed by my outcome, I was quick to settle into a negative mindset which I had to work to overcome. After looking at other’s work I realised I had been approaching the brief in the entirely wrong way and after gaining more understanding though research and peer guidance, I was able to produce a piece of paper illustration that I am proud to call my own.

The group trip to London inspired a lot of my work this project and by happy coincidence, spawned my character Howard. This trip helped my to think about the project differently; taking my sketchbook to an unfamiliar environment inspires very dissimilar feelings to sitting in Poole Quay where I feel comfortable and close to home. I think a fair deal of my work this project has been inspired by a feeling of threat, be it fear of my peers abilities, or fear of a new environment.

I can gladly say that since the beginning of this term, I have become a lot more confident in my work and myself. I would say my greatest achievement was familiarising myself with Quark and managing to produce a book by myself, where two weeks ago I thought Quark was a type of cheese.

The weak point of my project, in my eyes, is the lack of digital fonts. A lot of my work contains hand rendered typography, or abstract methods of creating text with tape or paper cut outs, but I think my work could benefit from deeper research into digital font design.

Overall, I feel this project, considering it to be the first of the year, has been a great success. Having produced a full sketchbook that I am more than proud of is more that I could have ever hoped to achieve in my first two months here. Hopefully, the rest of the year will be just as successful.