Overall I think responsive has been a very useful and enjoyable module with moments of hellishness. It's been a valuable exercise to actually put my work in the outside world into real competitions and answering real briefs because it's really quite different to working to college briefs. There's more freedom of choice but tighter restrictions with formats and deadlines and concepts and colours and it has to appeal to a whole new set of people each time. The audience is actually an audience of real people instead of an abstract audience I made up for my hypothetical project. The people seeing this work are real and it has to appeal to them or it will be unsuccessful, which was something very daunting at first and I think I learnt that most at Thoughtbubble. It doesn't matter if you think the work you produced is good or not, it matters if the people who it's made for actually like it, and thats a difficult balance to achieve, making something I'm happy with, in the time available that meets the brief and appeals to the actual existing audience. I think I failed to do this most at Thoughtbubble but following that I started to get the hang of it with subsequent briefs. Looking back at the work I actually exhibited at Thoughtbubble I can hardly believe I allowed myself to sell such scrappy unfinished work because I definitely wouldn't now, so at least my own standards for my finished work have improved. Also it's a new experience to have a running dialogue with somebody who the work is being made for because they can ask for changes to be made and I have to make them or they won't want the work, unlike college where advice about changes is at my discretion.
It has been satisfying though to see the tangible product of my efforts on websites and in print and through receiving payment of some kind for doing work. It's very stressful and confusing to have to consider so many different deadlines at one time so it's meant this module had multiple times the stress of a normal one because I've had the mad deadline rush about eight times. I have improved slightly at meeting deadlines as a result, but only slightly It also has made me more accustomed to the pressure and showed me that I can make work for a tight deadline in a small amount of time, which was another positive attribute of this module. It made me churn out work faster than I'd like to so I got results faster and it was nice to build up a body of work over a relatively short space of time. The tightness of time also made me try a few different working processes to get the work done quickly and to a good standard, so I think I've done sone useful experimentation with the way I make images and now I have more options to choose from when drawing.
I think my most successful submission was my Save the Children YCN brief, probably because I spent the most time on it but I'm almost entirely happy with how it turned out, except for the cover where the illustration is rushed and the mandatory font is hideously ugly. This was where I got very into drawing digitally which has been quite a strong aspect of this module for me. I made over half of my entries entirely in Photoshop and the rest were drawn by hand and completed in Photoshop. As a result of this I think my Photoshop skills have improved a lot and I've learnt many a new trick that's helped me refine my process and increase my productivity. I had a brief digital backlash around Easter when I realised I was putting so much effort into making my digital images look natural and handmade when I could just cut out the middleman and actually draw. This is when I made most of the watercolour painted briefs but after doing too much painting I decided neither option was to be chosen over the other and I should refine the way I use both processes together harmoniously, which is what I was really trying to do with the Film Doo posters. I think I'm at a stage now where I can start to combine all of my processes to make work that looks how I want it to, with both the slickness of a digital drawing and the craft and textural gestural nature of an analogue drawing.
My biggest failing in this module was probably, as always, my time keeping. There were countless competitions I wanted to enter where I would look back at the website to reread the brief and realise the deadline had already passed, or was in two hours. This meant I didn't get to respond to all of the briefs I would've liked to, particularly the RSA Animate brief, among many others. I think I've still improved at this though because prior to now having so many deadlines across the module would have been disastrous for me as I struggle to keep track of a lot of events happening in quick succession and I don't always prioritise my tasks wisely. I managed to keep on top of it enough to complete the required amount of briefs within the allotted time and I did this entirely through list making.
This module has also made it apparent how lacking my skills at anything vaguely graphic design related are. I struggled to place text on posters and format my images with features they needed that weren't part of the design and I am quite poor at making boards. Learning and practising making boards was useful because it's a concise way to present work without hauling around a pile of paper and sketchbooks. It makes the work I have in development stages easier to evaluate because its all together, as often in the early stages of a project the work seems so abstract like it isn't heading anywhere because it's all sketches and lose ideas, but having to format all of that progress into physical boards makes work easier to consider. I am still bad at making boards though, I find I don't know where to put anything and it ends up cluttered and confused looking, but I'm sure it's something I'll get more practise at.
If we were to do this module again I would definitely start working on it earlier in the year so I could get to enter all of the competitions I wanted to and as a result easter would not be such mad rush of trying to complete briefs on time. I would also spend more time on my entires so I could feel like I stand a chance at winning something, but I think this is probably just the beginning of this kind of work for me as I definitely want to continue submitting work to things over summer when I have the time to complete things to a standard I can be satisfied with.
