OUGD406- Speaking from experience end of project evaluation

Speaking from Experience - Evaluation

1. What skills have you learnt throughout this project and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

During this project I have learnt about book binding, and screen printing more independently. I have applied them by making my own book and making a screen for the cover.

2. What approaches to/methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

I have learnt to work a lot quicker by working with Danielle Harrison. Her pace of working is a lot faster than my usual one and so it has made me speed up a lot more and work more efficiently. I have also been more keen to get primary research and trying new mediums. I have considered stock more. Working with someone else helps to enlighten you on what they think about when they design and vice versa. It's very refreshing. 

3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?

I have discovered that I am not half bad at designing freehand typography, I will continue to practice this in projects to come, even over summer. Might set a little taskette every day to draw a letter or something. I am also good at sewing a book together and making the hardback, I might continue this and design notebooks over summer.

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these for the future?

Weaknesses I have identified is that I am not being disciplined enough to keep up to date on daily blog posts. I have also discovered that although I have sped up, I am still pretty slow at working, and learning to care a little less will be good for me and will help me move quicker and more efficiently through my work.

5. Identify 5 things you will do differently next time and what you expect to gain from doing these:

• Blog everything as I go so it doesn't mount up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Leave room for things to go wrong - always ask about digital files and printing methods before designing something.
• Do a little bit of work everyday rather than drag it out for hours at night to keep concentration levels up and keep an equal balance between work and social time rather than just work.
• Learn about colour codes in more depth on illustrator so I actually understand warning signs! It was all mumbo jumbo and I started to panic! It turned out fine but could have been something a lot more serious!

• Experiment more with different materials and mediums to add diversity to my designs as opposed to the pen tool on illustrator all the time, although I do love it...

6. How well do you think you've done/5?

Attendance   

4.99

Punctuality   

4.9

Motivation    

5

Commitment 

5

Quantity of work produced

5

Quality of work produced

5

Contribution to the group

5

OUGD406 - Communication is a virus Evaluation

Communication is a virus Evaluation

As a group, we identified that the problem with tea is it is hard to advertise it for what it is or it's physical properties because most people already know. It is a widely favoured drink across all ages except perhaps children because they simply don't like the taste. We figured that, as a group, our market would need a fresh, new motive to drink tea other than the fact that it has health benefits and it's quite patriotic, as this had been done before.

We decided to tie in our tea challenge with Red Nose Day, the motive being that you would drink tea perhaps instead of the can of coke you were going to pick because the money is going to a good cause.

Research

Primary
We didn't really carry out any formal primary research in the form of surveys etc and I wish that we had done because we would know exactly what our audience wants from their own mouths!
Secondary
We looked at several tea adverts that appealed to families such as the Heinz advert and Red Nose day campaign. We found this the most useful as we wanted to appeal to a mass market of all ages and learnt what would appeal to them. 
Qualitative
Because we didn't really do much primary research, I feel like that we didn't have anything qualitative about our research although we found that looking at advertising campaigns and collecting adverts and leaflets handing to us to see how others appeal to the public.
Quantitative
We found that the cafe downstairs charged 70p for a cup of tea so we decided to sell ours for 50p to appeal to those who were interested in value, not necessarily charity.

If I were to do this again, I think I would definitely make sure that more primary research was carried out because it is essential for knowing what your audience wants - and we didn't do that formally.

In my opinion, the way we managed the workload in our group was largely imbalanced. I felt like I didn't have enough work to do, and that I could have easily taken on more jobs to assist with the group - had there been any. If I were to do this again, I would have created more tasks for me to contribute to the group because I also think that in the end, although everything looked great and was of high quality, there were more opportunities for design than we took advantage of and our collection was quite scarce.

I think our group dynamic, although friendly, was kind of dysfunctional in that, we all have leadership personalities and it was hard to manage a project with too many people all wanting to do the same thing.

Overall though, I thought we achieved the task of getting people to drink tea - the £65 shows it!