Extended Practice End of Module Evaluation

Overall this year has been without a doubt the hardest, most challenging year but definitely the most exciting and rewarding. Working both solo and alongside of others has meant I’ve learnt knew things off other classmates and tutors also, by picking their brain about certain topics such as photography, and traditional printing.

Collaborating with other students both internal and external to the course has definitely been the most engaging aspect of extended practice for me. Being able to socialise with, discuss and challenge other people has only developed my personal thoughts, experiences and ultimately my practice even more. I feel that I work best when in collaboration as I thrive off back and fourth discussion, with two or minds always being better than just one. It also means that we can distribute jobs between us, ultimately allowing each of us to play to our strengths.

Working alongside Jon for a few of my briefs has made us realise that we work well together, living in the same house also gives us the opportunity to constantly keep up to date, discuss and work on projects outside of university hours. This has sparked the potential of working together after university, possibly becoming a ‘creative duo’ especially after our internship together in London.

Working collaboratively isn’t always smooth running as people’s opinions and actions can clash, which I feel happened sometimes. Within our Hellmann’s project, having 4 graphic designers working together proved somewhat difficult as our direction was questioned multiple times. Plus with us all having similar skillsets, it would have been useful to have other talents such as an illustrator.

I’ve enjoyed working on research led briefs as it’s always interesting to better understand the wider context of what it is you’re designing for. It also allows for my designs to be more informed and underpinned, which helps me to create more meaningful pieces that I feel appreciative of. Writing my own self directed briefs has given me the opportunity to work on issues that I’ve been reading about prior. I prefer more substantial, research led briefs to something such as Secret 7” because it has more substance to it in terms of in depth, developed research.

Completing a multitude of briefs within extended practice has meant that I’ve learnt a lot of new skills physical, traditional techniques which has expanded my abilities within my multidisciplinary role as a designer that I’d regard myself as. Learning skills such as Adobe Premiere Pro that transferred over into other briefs e.g. Monzo and Bon Applastic which has been helpful in speeding up the production process. Along with that it’s been great working away from my screen in the traditional print room, it’s quiet and I can spend a day producing physical work that I can appreciate, all the while learning a new skill.

Overall I am very pleased with the work I’ve produced this year, I feel like I’ve adequately explored different areas of design which has helped to expand my multidisciplinary abilities and ultimately my portfolio. I feel much more confident in my abilities to produce work whether its a couple days or a couple of weeks long. Having the chance to work with other people has been crucial to my development this year and I will continue to do so in the future, with the hopes of working in a studio alongside other creatives of different disciplines.

Brief 7: Evaluation

This last brief was one to finish extended practice, with an issue that we’ve both discussed for a while. I feel that both me and Jon are similar in the ways of wanting our work to be focused around on going issues, to find ways in which to highlight, solve or just initiate discussion around the topics.

Working on this brief on it’s own was different as it meant we could put all of our time into this, which ultimately sped up the process whilst giving us more time to experiment with the production side of things. Collaborating with a photographer also allowed us to learn a lot from her wide knowledge base of cameras, lighting and setting up the equipment.

Both art directing and videography were new skills to us that we both managed to get a grasp of over the process of making this short film. It sparked an interest in the process and the effectiveness of it also. It gives us a medium to address our thoughts and ideas that we so often don’t consider producing work for due to the lack of formats we feel confident in.

Since completing our final piece, we received further feedback that suggested to refine our aim of the brief, as it seemed we tried to tackle more than one aspect which caused confusion amongst other classmates. Looking back now I feel as though we tried to address more than one issue which sparked some contrasting thoughts amongst viewers.

As a result we are set on the idea of developing this piece further for our End of Year Show by reimagining our storyboard for the video taking into account the feedback we received. Plus using our new found skills to develop something hopefully better produced than our first piece.

Brief 7: Final campaign video

Brief 7: Campaign branding

We wanted to take advantage of Tasty's currently style of branding with almost a floral reef of ingredients around their logotype. Instead we replaced the food with bits of plastic to match their style. We name the campaign 'Bon Applastic' a play on of the typical french phrase 'Bon Appetit'.

Using the chopping board as a backdrop for the logo helped keep in fitting with the theme of the video.

Brief 7: Post production editing

Feeling somewhat confident after using Premiere Pro previously for two other briefs, I worked on the editing for this campaign whilst Jon worked more on the branding and social media side of things.



We used a combination of typical above and side close up shots to keep the viewer engaged throughout. We added a simple but jazzy backing track to further the viewer's interest in the video.

We decided to drive our campaign towards campaigning for plastic-free aisles through The Plastic Planet who are already working on a strong campaign for convincing supermarkets to give us them. So by ending the video with a little bit about them, it creates a call to action for the video so that the user can get involved somehow by signing the petition for plastic-free aisles.

Brief 7: Video production

After a morning trip to IKEA, we'd collated everything we needed to start shooting the footage. Using a sleek induction hob layered on top of a wooden chopping board fitted the aesthetic we wanted to go for.



It took a few attempts at getting the height and set up right, until we eventually ended up filming on the floor which gave us more space.







We also collaborated with a photographer. I'd recently done her branding and so was in contact with her. She was more than willing to lend a hand, as we were somewhat novices filming with expensive camera equipment and lighting.













Although it took over 4 hours in total to produce and film, we were happy with the video content we managed to record. This was mine and Jon's first try at art direction, it was definitely a interesting thing to do considering how different it is to our usual style of work.

Brief 7: Idea development

We wanted to overemphasise the damaging effect of single use plastics have on our environment as this is probably one of the more commonly used plastics in day to day life. As a result we felt the idea to make this problem personal to each individual could work as a deterent. So rather than consumers understanding that these plastics damage our oceans, we found out that as a direct result microplastics contaminate the fish we eat. This sparked an idea to bring the problem full circle back to people's plates by satirically including fish in a recipe that has bits of plastic within it.





By utilising Tasty's already proven effective format, with it's millions of viewers a month, we wanted to create a cooking video with a twist. One that would appear like a typical video but would have the fish physically contaminated with plastics. Having the underlying message of the plastic we use on a regular basis ultimately affects the food that we eat.

We chose to go with a simple King Prawn Thai Green Curry as our recipe, this is a quick and easy meal, which is in fitting with Tasty's convenient style.



This was revised a couple of times to eliminate a few steps that weren't necessary.
Also it was annotated so that I had instructions on what steps to do and when to ensure the video flowed smoothly first time around.