As the Year 01 of Design for Graphic Communication course is inevitably heading to an end, it is time to think about all those months spent at university studying, researching and executing projects, and gather some wider reflections upon it.
First of all, I am astonished with the fact how quickly time passed by during this year! It seems like yesterday I‘ve went through the doors of LCC for the first time to start studying there. Now, when it is almost over and I’m looking at all these projects done throughout the year it feels like it all happened in no time. It makes me realize how time management is vital to successfully accomplish ones goals. I must say I was never good at it, but long time projects thoughout this year definitely helped me overcome my inabillity. But that’s not the only thing I have improved.
When I first started studying at LCC I felt a bit unprepared to undertake things I had to do in days to come. I have never experienced a group work with proper techniques (like 6 thinking men) applied to develop further ideas and make the outcome better. As a designer I feel secure when working alone, as many designers do considering the absolute position in terms of decisivness and full responsibility taken for ones work, and exercising team work at our workshops really helped me develop my abillity to compromise with somebodys input to the project and improved the ways of communication between me and other people in providing my own ideas. Also, such projects as GDF and GDA really helped me understand how essential is to make a research in order to fully understand given area I worked in.
First major project was GDF. It was about working with local, national or global client, setting particular target audience and aiming it with our outcome. I found it really helpful with providing in-depth analysis of how everyday designer’s work looks like, what things one might face, what problems one might expect and how to overcome them. Before that I never actually thought about it, the process of designing itself was the only thing what mattered before and I feel that this task gave me a full understanding of the whole spectrum of the designing progress. GDA, on the other hand, was a real experience with a real design company. It was really stressful for me at the begginning of this project as I had never worked within design industry yet. We were asked to make a research and combine it into a presentable material and then, when approved by Dalton maag, we shall design a booklet about given subject. As we weren’t accompanied by any tutor we had to figure out how to divide certain roles between us and how to plan our working schelude that it would suit everyone. It was a good thing that we haven’t been assigned to any tutor and had to figure this out on our own – it really pulled me out of my comfort zone in terms of planning and showed me how it would work in real life. It turned out wonderful as people were really devoted to the matter and willing to make an effort and by putting our minds together everything worked out really well.
Mapping, another major project of Term 02 was a bit confusing but it really helped considering working with the materials collected thoughout the time for preparation for the project. I found creating mood board crucial to designer’s work. Working on this project also taught me that it is better to collect bigger amount of data and narrow it down to the neccesary number I need instead of working the other way, by trying to expand my research during the execution of the certain project as the metioned method seems to show through its insincerity. All those PDF projects seemed to lift up my abillity to gather, document and present my work in a proper and understandable way.
Thoughout the Year 01 we also have had Visual Cultural Theory classes, something more of a theoretical approach (as the name clearly states). At the begginning I found those classes quite interesting but as the year grew on I didn’t particularly enjoyed them. It is hard to actually judge it, as the majority of the things we had on that classes I had on my cultural studies at my previous university, so I guess that’s the reason why I haven’t found them exeptionally interesting. But the curation of the exhibition task was quite enjoyable as I had never looked at the exhibition from ankle different than just a regular viewer. It was quite interesting to perceive a particular exhibition from the other side then one’s got used to.
After that year I find myself more devoted to more professional approach to the design process by applying proper methods to the particular aspects of the designing and paying attention not to overlook things I haven’t previously payed attention to. I am fully aware how things work in theory within the design industry area. Also I’ve learned to put myself out of my comfort zone to challenge myself and try to learn something new than just focusing on developing things I already know. As I came to university I was completely blue in comparison to the experience I have gained thoughout this year which I am very thankful for.
volatile experience 