Extended Practice

I found this entire module very intimidating - it was the first time I was left to my own devices and asked to come up with a large quantity of briefs by myself. Although it's good to have your independence and learn how to work on your own, I think that I personally would have definitely benefitted from a bit more guidance.

I found that the workshops that were organised over this module were extremely inspiring and helpful for me. I really enjoyed being able to speak to creatives and work with people who have years of experience in the industry.

Looking back over this module made me realise that I had actually produced a good amount of work. After my last couple of tutorials, I left feeling really worried and like I hadn't done enough work, but it was just because I had forgotten about all the stuff I had done as some briefs were completed months ago! I have improved upon a wide range of my design skills and gained more of an insight into various areas of design that I never knew that I was so interested in - for example I absolutely loved working on the Lunasol brief and could happily be an art director for photoshoots or something similar in the future! I think that I'd like to get some experience within the fashion industry in the near future.

I think that this module was a complete rollercoaster of emotions and motivation for me. I was going through a lot of personal things for a few months during this module, which definitely effected my work ethic and made me feel demotivated leading me to engaging less with my work and the course. However, in the last couple of months my motivation started to regain and I found myself working harder than I ever have worked in the last couple of weeks leading up to submission, which I never would have seen myself doing a couple of months ago.

I have learnt a lot about myself and my passions over this year, and have come to find that I no longer want to work in a Graphic Design studio. I am keen to see what working in set design and interactive installations would be like, as I want to get my hands dirty and do something conceptual. I actually have an internship coming up this summer in this sector with Isabel and Helen in London. I can't wait for this internship as I'd like to get out of the typical Graphic Design environment, because I've studied the subject for 5 years now and feel as though I need a change and need to get off of my computer and work to my strengths, which are within crafts and using my hands.

I'm not going to lie, I've definitely enjoyed this year the least and found it more difficult than I ever thought uni could be. But it has been a huge learning experience and I have finally started to come to terms with what I want to do when I leave! I can't wait to work on the final show and produce something that I really love that doesn't have to fit into any learning criteria or ISOs. It will be really nice to let my creative passions run free without any limitations.

I definitely struggled with this brief for a long time. I think that the idea of working on a brief that was so open to interpretation made it a really difficult brief to work on. It took me weeks to think of an idea that I thought represented me that, at the same time, had to meet all of the critera of the brief set.

Once I figured out how to tackle the brief, I actually really enjoyed what I was working on. I decided to take a different approach to designing my publication, and thought that I would be a bit risky with my layout and choices, which definitely pulled off. I love what I produced and think that a lot of different readers would also really enjoy looking through my publication, as it’s so aesthetically pleasing due to the flow of colours.

I think that the publication that I produced reflects my personal research methodology entirely and I think that through the vast amount of imagery, you really get an insight into my personal interests and passions, without having to read loads of text explaining what I love.

The main thing that I learnt from this brief is to not let my head get the better of me. I was so indecisive with concepts for so long that it ate away at my time and meant that I had less time to work on the final publication and the finishing of the final product. I also noticed myself comparing my ideas to other peers, when that was completely the wrong thing to do as each publication was designed around your own personal research methodology, so obviously my publication was going to be entirely different to someone else’s.





I am really pleased with my design publication and I definitely surprised myself with how well I can manage my time when I have short time constraints. I think that if I were to revisit this brief I would get the book professionally printed and bound so as to save myself time and hassle in the long run.

I set this 3 day brief so that I could take some time out of my busy schedule and work on something that I really love that makes me feel relaxed. I have loved hand-rendering typography on the side-lines, so thought that incorporating this love into a brief would be a nice little addition to my body of work and my portfolio.

Working on a short term brief was experiential as well as stress reducing. I find that I work a lot better in shorter periods of time and am often happier with what I’ve produced when I’ve had less time to work on them. This is because I get a lot more involved and dedicated to the brief when the deadline is shorter and tend to find that longer briefs can be disregarded slightly as you start to get bored of working on them for so long.

I developed a variety of skills through working on this brief. My lettering skills have progressed and I am starting to feel really confident with how my hand-rendered designs are coming along. I’ve even decided to set up my own design Instagram because of this brief, as I wanted to have another platform to showcase my personal and lettering work on.

I really enjoyed working on this brief as it made a change from all the other briefs that I had going on at the time. I will definitely continue to pursue my love for lettering and typography after university and may even revisit this brief to extend upon it and turn it into a daily thing over the summer or something similar.

I was really excited to start working on this brief with James as we had collaborated in second year and I’m still so proud of the brief that we produced. However, a few weeks into the brief James decided to drop out as he didn’t feel as though he had the time to work on it with all of his other commitments. Although James decided to stop working on the brief, I had done quite a bit of work and research for it already and wasn’t prepared to drop it all, so set out to finish the brief on my own.

Working on the large brief on my own was quite daunting, so I trimmed the brief slightly to suit more of my strengths and capabilities. I decided to turn the brief into a concept brief so that I could improve upon my Photoshop skills and wanted to teach myself how to produce my own mockups from scratch.

I think that incorporating photos of flowers that I had taken myself added to the design and made the concept a lot stronger and I am extremely pleased with how this brief developed. I think that the designs are strong and the mockups that I created are actually quite professional! I’m definitely impressed by myself and surprised myself quite a lot during this brief.

I furthered a variety of software skills, as well as personal and time management skills through working on this brief alone. I think that I will like to revisit this brief after submission to see what I can add to it to make it stronger and a bit more substantial for my portfolio.

However, I am definitely really pleased with how the final outcomes turned out and it has definitely become a proud addition to my portfolio.

I found the Peter and Paul brief enjoyable but very challenging. I was excited to get to work on this brief as I had loads of ideas to contribute and was working with Sarah Heal, who I hadn’t managed to work with before. Deciding to collaborate with Sarah was a really good idea, as we both share common interests and passions for lettering, as well as being able to come up with fun and crazy ideas together.

What I found challenging about this brief was being able to meet up with Sarah regularly to work on it. We were both very busy with COP work and other commitments at the time and the type of design that we were producing required dedication and a lot of sitting there for hours fiddling around on Illustrator. Illustrator was another challenge for me. I’m not that confident when using the software for vectorising hand rendered sketches, so when it came to bringing our typography into the software I definitely felt out of depth. Sarah is such a wizz kid when it comes to Illustrator so was happily working away on loads of complex parts of the design, whilst I sat there struggling to create realistic leaves, vines and grapes!

This brief was extremely time consuming, but I learnt a lot from Sarah about Adobe software and feel so much more confident with Illustrator because of this brief. I think that if I hadn’t felt so out of my comfort zone when it came to vectorising the artwork, then I would have been able to contribute to the final design a lot more. However, a lot of the time I would try to tackle a part of the design and Sarah would just redo it for me as I hadn’t done it properly.

I think that me and Sarah work well together, but if we collaborate again in the future, I would like to try and do something that is less software based and more to do with both of our drawing skills, as I think we could create a really exciting piece without Adobe!

I think that this was definitely my favourite brief of the year. Although it was completely different to anything I usually do or have done, the concept for the work reflected some of my own passions and interests which made the brief so much more enjoyable.

Collaborating with J’nae was really fun, as we both have a lot of interests in common and I think that we worked well as a team. J’nae worked really hard on the brief and pushed me to exceed my expectations and experiment with a variety of different materials and techniques that I wouldn’t usually consider. For example, I have never used the lasercutter for any of my briefs before, but realised how useful that machine is and how many things I could have done in the past with it.

I haven’t ever organised or held a photoshoot before and although it was stressful, the end result was really worthwhile and I had a lot of fun on the day of the shoot. Working with professionals and models was very experiential and made me a lot more confident when talking to other creatives. I developed upon my professional and organisational skills through the planning of the shoot and learnt a lot about the fashion industry and possibilities for future endeavours in terms of creative briefs and possible career paths.

I developed upon a variety of skillsets from working on this brief. I learnt how to use some new tools on Illustrator and how to use lasercutting and vinyl properly. I also learnt a lot about managing my time and how easily you can run out of time.

The only real issue we had with this brief was working with Joe Pickering, the photographer. Although he was really fun to work with and had loads of ideas for the shoot, he promised us a quick turn around time for the photos so that we could get to work with our lookbook and get it printed in time for submission. However, it took Joe roughly two weeks to get the photos back to us, so we were just left waiting for them and had to put the rest of the designing on hold as the lookbook needed these photographs in order to figure out layout, colour, typography, etc. This was extremely stressful and both J’nae and me had a hard time not telling him off about it and staying professional. Fortunately, we kept our cool and he pulled through in the end. However, he hadn’t done much editing to the photos, which meant that I had to spend a day editing them on Photoshop, which ate out of our time even more.

Although we didn’t entirely finish our lookbook due to time constraints, we have both agreed to revisit this brief after hand in and complete the lookbook. We also plan to extend upon the brief and incorporate web design and social media in order to make the brand feel more complete and well rounded for our portfolios.

Overall this brief was definitely something to look back on and be proud of. I would love to work with J’nae again in the future, as I think that our different design styles and skills compliment one another and we can pull off a lot of exciting work together!