PPD Evaluation

Reflect on your relationship between your portfolio of work and your creative ambitions as a designer.

Within my practice I feel that I am an all rounder, although the core of my practice does lie in illustrative design. I have shown in my portfolio that I am versitile enough to work on a very commerical compaign, shown in my Kleenex,, lastminute.com and Grazia projects, but also that I can work in quite an artistic manner as more of a pure illustrator, which is shown in my don't panic brief aswell as in the projects I have done for clients outside of the modules including gig flyers and exhibition poster.

Relate your own work to specific areas of contemporary design.

Some of my illustrative work, including my gig flyers can definately be realted to the fluid and freehand style of many contemporary illustrators, most notably illustrators from the big active agency and also designers based in the music industry such as clouds appear, lined with ghost and european artists such as so:me and turbokrapfen. I have also started to be really interested in very geometrical design, shown in my dont panic postcards, this could likened to the work of designers such as diego quintana and Pablo Alfieri. With my more commercial projects my aim to show how fashionable illustration like this can be really effective in a more corperate environment.

Evaluate your strengths and weaknesses against identified intentions and areas of contemporary practice.

I think that my biggest strength and weakness could be the same thing. I do feel that I am somewhat an all-rounder, I can go into most areas of design and work effectively to produce good resolutions to problems, I think that this is something that will really help me if I choose to work in a studio environment with a big variety of different projects coming in to be worked on. However this is also my weakness as being an all rounder stops me really concentrating on any one area of design, becoming a specialist and really excelling in that one area, which is something I would really like to do and I feel would help me more if i chose to become a freelance designer.

Clarify areas of design, skills development and professional concerns you aim to investigate further from this point forward.

I definately aim to keep designing for music as much as possible next year, doing just a handful of projects this year has opened doors for me which I want to explore through the summer and into next year. I also want to keep investigating geometrical design as maths is something I am very interested in and has always been one of my academic strengths. I feel that with more exploration and practice I could become I really good geometrical designer. This could help in not just in illustration but also in areas such as layout. Next year I also want to work more with actual printers to get more experience in professional print runs, I definately see myself as a designer for print not digital so I need to be an expert in the whole spectrum of the print process.

Briefly clarify the relationship between your creative practice and your proposed dissertation.

I first got into graphic design through the music industry, I spent a lot of time before my degree organizing and promoting gigs and doing the design for these events was something I really enjoyed, during my degree I have stayed very involved with the local music scene and it has become an important part of my design practice. I believe that many trends in design are started in the design for music industry. This is why I have chosen to concentrate my dissertation around the local hardcore scene and to look at whether design for the hardcore scene still has a punk ethic, or whether it has become a much more commercial industry.