OUGD603 - Module Evaluation

Module Evaluation

Particular themes and subject matters have been important within my practice over the last year. Many of my projects have been self initiated which has given me the freedom to write breifs that are of interest to me.Across the year I have been able to specifically explore themes of nature, arts and heritage and sustainability / the reuse of materials. These are all areas of interest for me and things that I enjoy learning about which has made the work I create more meaningful for me and led to some interesting outcomes. 

Research has been important within my work for this module and has heavily influenced the outcomes that I have produced. Both secondary and primary research have been used across my briefs with physical testing and mock ups also important in the development of many of the outcomes.

The aim since January was to complete five projects between January and the beginning of March and the same again between March and May. I achieved this in the between January and March however between March and May I only managed to get four briefs done. This was in part due to the fact some of the final briefs took longer to produce than anticipated and PPP needed to be worked on more towards the end of the year. In terms of time management throughout the year I kept a daily to do list as well as breaking the day down into tasks on a digital calendar. By doing this it set mini deadlines for tasks to be done which encouraged me to work through these tasks within the day. This system was trial and error as often things would take longer than anticipated.

Despite not getting ten briefs done the projects that I managed to do were well developed and explored lots of processes and production methods which I am happy with.

During some of my projects I have found that their were limitations to what I could produce in terms of processes available and the time span it would take to do these. For some of my projects I perhaps didn't know how much time it would take to produce the final outcomes and hadn't planned for this meaning that these projects took longer than anticipated. Also for a few of my projects I learnt and worked with new processes which also took time.

Within this module collaborating was a more positive experience then I have had before. Working both in a group and as a pair was effective when roles were delegated to people. Having frequent meet ups also meant that ideas could be bounced off one another which made the design process easier.

Towards the end of the year my projects started to move into more product design type outcomes (bird boxes, planters, notebook) with graphical elements which I particularly enjoyed working on. The physicality of the final outcomes, the materials they were made from and there functionality became important within these designs. I hope to continue this type of work forward and explore different processes and materials along the way.