I just thought I'd sum up the last 15 weeks before I hand my work in.
I've really enjoyed this module on the whole. I remember sitting at Christmas with Steve and Alex reading the module guide and we read about the business cards and started to come up with ideas before the module had even began!
I really enjoyed the personal branding part. I think it was a really useful task that will definitely help me in the future. A lot of the modules here don't seem to focus on things that we can use when we leave, but this one did. I have become a lot better in photoshop in the last 12 weeks and I have proved to myself that I can be creative when I want to be. It was useful to sort out my cv as well as my one before this module was a bit rubbish. It's certainly helped me become more confident in selling myself.
On the most part I enjoyed the exhibition as well. I was really pleased when I saw the other people in graphics team because I was friends with most of them and they were all on my course which meant I saw most of them regularly. I think on the whole we worked well together. I think we did waste a few weeks at the start coming up with different ideas for the same thing, ie we redid the same designs for the posters a few times and it would have helped to just make a decision straight away. Saying that, it did mean everything was well thought out and continuity was the same across all our designs. From my blog it may appear that I didn't have a huge amount of input into the designs. Unfortunately, being a less good designer in the team, I was unable to come up with as good designs as some of the others which meant I didn't get many ideas used. I did do a lot of work for other areas however, including setting up people's boards and reworking posters so that they fit for screen images. I always attended classes and always asked if there was anything I could do for the team.
I think as a class we did quite well. Our team worked well with the exhibition team (in particular Steve and Helen). It did seem that there was often a case of too many conflicting opinions from their group. I think at times someone just needed to put their foot down and make a decision, regardless of what the minority thought. At times it felt like there was opposition to any decision that was made. I suppose this is a problem with any group with lots of people in, but some people vanish as well and become unreliable, especially when they are left with important tasks.
When we were setting up yesterday, the graphics and web teams combined to set up the board stands and boards. This took absolutely ages because they all had to be taped together etc but we all worked hard and we can be pleased with the results. It was a shame that a few people didn't turn up to help but that was expected I suppose! I thought that the exhibition went well last night, it would have been nice to see a few more people there, but those that did come enjoyed themselves and stayed for most of the time. The lecturers I spoke to (Phil, Tom, Richard, Tony) said they were impressed compared to other years so that's a good sign! My only gripe about the exhibition is the scheduling, the rota listed me all day for Tuesday which means I've been there all day for the last two days and I'm now incredibly tired!
All in all i've enjoyed this module lots, I've worked hard and put in a lot of hours for both my personal branding and the exhibition. It was good to see how we all worked as a team to pull this exhibition together as well and I think we can all be proud of it. Thank you very much for your support and guidance throughout this module and in the last three years. It doesn't seem like nearly three years since we were starting out with Design Principles!
