Design Strategy Presentation

The main thing I have learnt so far is the importance of research, before the course the only research I really did was look at other artists doing a similar thing to me and took inspiration from the work they had done. However now I realise the most important research to do is primary and to look into the history of the project I am doing where possible.



For the current project I am looking at the victory parade that came through Leeds after WW2. To get a feel of the actual celebration I visited the town hall as this was the main focal point of the parade. It was weird to be in the same location were the event happened 70 years ago. I had looked online at pictures taken there at the time and I stood in the exact same place that other people did all this time ago.







My favourite project I have done so far is the type specimen I created for my typeface, I like it because it was one of the first things I created that actually had reasoning for every design decision made. I chose the word satisfying and when I thought of satisfying in relation to text I thought about how nice it is when you write a word by hand and its continuous and you don't have to take your hand off the page. I chose the colour green as this is a satisfying colour and is often used in hospitals to be calming. As for the shape I chose a square because shapes with equal sides are seen as satisfying.





One of my favourite things about living in Leeds is the fact that there is always something going one. Whenever I need a bit of inspiration I can find an event happening soon and attend it. One of my favourites so far is the light night that happened in October last year. It was nice to walk around Leeds, to places I hadn't really been to before and look at the installations and performers. Plus it was free so was worth attending.

Another event I attended which I loved was the Hidden Christmas Market at Kirkstall Abbey. It was such an eventful experience. To enter we had to walk through a wardrobe as though we were entering Narnia or something. Then when we finally got in there was a huge snow machine covering us in fake snow. All the performers were dressed as woodland animals and everything was in keeping with this whimsical theme. It was such a cool and weird experience.




For inspiration I often look outside of Graphic Design as I think it gives me a nice break from the work I see everyday at uni. I like to look at interior design related accounts and follow a lot of them on instagram. One of my favourite accounts is Farrow and Ball, a paint company I like to go on their website to help me choose a good colour for my work. I also really like the names of the paints.




I also really love house of hackney and the patterns they create. I think its nice to see how far a design can go. They print on everything from wallpaper, to lampshades to chairs! I really love seeing the room layouts they do and the patterns they use together.




I think its nice to look at interior design and see how similar disciplines that I apply to my work as a graphic designer are also applied to other areas of design. Grid systems and symmetry is used a lot which I think relates well to GD.



I have really enjoyed using the print room so far, it wasn't something I used much on foundation and kept to more digital work however I'm starting to appreciate it more and like the fact it is a method of producing work without having to sit looking at a screen all day. It is something I want to explore more next year.



Another thing I love outside of GD is baking! I hope one day it will become part of my work but in the meantime I want to be able to make more time to actually bake and hope that next year I can find time to bake more!



THE PRESENTATION EXPERIENCE

Overall I am pleased with how confident I was throughout the presentation, I didn't feel as nervous as I had done previously. However because I had a lecture right before my presentation I didnt have time to have a final run through. Because of this it hindered my performance, I ended up been 2 minutes under time which was a little disappointing. I had practiced roughly 10 times the night before and every time I was on or just under 7 minutes!

In future I need to make sure I have time to run through the presentation a few times before actually doing it so I am on time.