F M P E V L A L U AT I O N

EMILY FAIRBANK OUGD303

My Final Major Project was about developing my strengths and skills towards a set of briefs that focus on the design for retail. All the briefs I chose turned out really well and I was happy with the quality and range of work I have produced. My design process at the start of the FMP was a little slow, it took a couple weeks to warm into them but once I got into the briefs, the momentum picked up and I thoroughly enjoyed all of them. In my statement of intent, I wrote that my FMP would be a print based investigation with a typographic focus of branding, identity, packaging promotion, with a focus on retail and the entertainment industry. At the end of the last module I had two subject interests; design for retail, and design for the music industry. For this reason I chose a brief that focused on the branding and packaging of a music label. A few weeks into my Final Major Project I realized that my interests had turned a corner and was now completely focused on the branding, packaging and promotion of food and drink products. This made it very difficult to focus on the music brief, and subsequently resulted in it being dropped and extending my other briefs. These four briefs closely followed what I originally set out to gain from this module. My Final Major Project it is definitely the strongest body of design I have produced so far, a very rewarding project. This final term has been one of the most productive, efficient and balanced so far. I managed my time more effectively and found it much easier to make decisions regarding my design development. My time management at the start of the module was not as effective as I

would have liked it to be, but this term I refined my design work and made daily, weekly and a monthly calendars dividing my time for each of the briefs. Through this I found that I wasnt giving myself enough time to make informed decisions and continual design development, and some parts of the designing took longer than I allowed time for. This meant that at the end of each week I had to reorganize my monthly calendar and allow more time to develop the briefs. Although this helped, I discovered that the design process I go through takes a certain amount of time to achieve the best results, making it hard to pick up the pace at times. I also wanted to use my Final Major Project to capitalize on the software skills I developed last module. At the start of the year, my Photoshop and InDeisgn were weak, but after designing a range of publications that were printed professionally, I am now a lot more confident and knowledgeable about how to produce and prepare a publication for print. My briefs all had a strong focus on branding and identity, so a large portion of my time was spent ensuring that the logos were conceptually and visually strong. In comparison to the last module, my ability and speed of designing a brand identity has definitely improved. Last module I wasted a lot of time trying to make design decisions. This time around, I research design that I could take inspiration from, and went through a specific design process to help me achieve the best possible design outcome.

Brief 1 finally gave myself the opportunity to incorporate a large range of photography into my design by collaborating with Bella Rae, a third year Photography student at Manchester Art School. This brief was testing at times as there were numerous setbacks with photography shoots being postponed and cancelled. This started to cut the print turn around very finely. This brief was also the most rewarding because I was constantly gaining positive feedback from Bella and her tutors about my design, a massive confidence boost. I originally planned for this brief to be much smaller, but the more I got into it, the more the deliverables extended. Designing the publications was incredibly rewarding because they look and feel professional. The publications allowed me to develop skills in using a grid system and construct a set of layout rules the publication that had to follow. Colour is a huge focus on my design and Bellas photography is all extremely vibrant allowing my to focus on my type and layout skills instead of using colour to make a design strong. I used briefs two and three as an opportunity to have the freedom to name, brand, package and promote a product from start to finish. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole process and it helped me confirm that branding and packaging for food, drink and retail products is what I want to go into after I leave University. The yoghurt packaging brief was the strongest packaging brief I have designed so far. I paid more attention

to the brand concept, tone of voice and focused more on the target audience rather than just designing a piece of packaging that stands out. Initially I thought that Brief 5, the CQF Rebrand was going to be my strongest brief in terms of visual quality and the range of products I could apply the identity to a large body of products. Conceptually I think the identity is strong but I found the identity application to a range of packaging limiting as it needed to kept as basic as possible, to carry on the Delis low packaging, low wastage ethos. Overall am very pleased with the design outcomes for all my briefs. I feel they are a good reflection of the software skills, print skills, digital skills, and design development and production skills that I have learnt on this course, especially over the last year. My FMP has been a clear step up from my design in the last module. It is also accurate reflection of who I am as a designer; a print based designer with a love for branding, typography, colour and packaging. Adding my FMP to my portfolio means that it will now demonstrate both diversity in my design skills, and focus a in my design interests. I am now confident as a designer with a clear focus of what I want to achieve next as a designer. ATTENDANCE 4 PUNTUALITY 5 QUANTITY OF WORK 4 QUALITY OF WORK 4