I then decided I couldn't continue with a subject matter like that so I broadened it to social issues and did the Ctrl.Alt.Shift brief based around 'conflict.' This brief took a while to get sorted and I lost my way but what I learned from it was that I need a really clear message to work with and simplicity is key. After I narrowed down my message and chose a direction it was so much easier and I was quite pleased with it.
However after this I still wasn't happy with my subject matter because I didn’t want to do really serious work which I was going to end up doing if I just chose issues as my content. I decided that what I actually was interested in was work that can be considered socially responsible, and what this means. I learned along the way that just doing issue based design was a very restricted view of social responsibility.
I also thought for a while that I only wanted to do work for communities and local organisations and I changed my statement of intent subject to community and did the support your local shops brief. By this time my time management had got quite bad so I rushed this brief and didn’t try out many different layouts or designs and I regret this now.
Through more research I learned that socially responsible design does not just mean working for clients who are local, non-profit, charities etc. and it can encompass a lot of things. I realised that corporate work can still be socially responsible through the messages you promote, the way you work and the values of the client. Because of this I did a brief from Dove, who are quite a big profit making company owned by Unilever so do not seem to fit in with my subject, but the specific brief I did was promoting a good cause and values which I felt personally close to. I learned that it is all down to the designer’s personal discretion and decisions about what work they want to do and who for, or whether there is any responsibility involved at all.
For my design context I originally stated I was going to investigate illustration vs design and designers/illustrators who were blurring the line between the two. I did continue to look at work like this and asked people like Nous Vous and David Bailey for their opinion on this, but my research became more geared towards work that I saw as being socially responsible and what it actually means to be socially responsible. I think I had a good mix of visual and theoretical research, but I think the amount of it was small and I should have evidenced more reading. Also the range of sources I looked at was small as I didn't have any articles from journals. I concentrated on illustration within this and I also read a lot of books about ethics and responsibility in design. My resolution for this was a bit short I think I could have had more examples of work in and explanations why I thought it was responsible but I think I rushed this because I started it quite late and didn’t take into account the production time at the end. Also I would have like to have had some development work for the layout and design of the book, but again my time management was a bit poor.
The designers/companies/illustrators that influenced me the most through the FMP were Evening Tweed, Johnson Banks, Studio mikmik, Luba Lukova and New Future Graphic/Marcus Walters. These were all people who I consider to work responsibly because of the messages they promote, the subject matter they work with, the clients they have or the values of their studio/company.
I think I could have done more research into print as an area and could have used more processes in my design practice such as screen printing. I also wasn't very experimental with my resolutions; they were mostly A size prints and I didn't have any sort of crafted product, which I wanted to have when I wrote my rationale.
I didn't actually do that much illustration and drawing in any of the projects, which was also something in my original statement, however I feel I have developed a way of working that works for me, using both hand drawn elements and computer. I think my colour selection has improved a lot since the beginning of the module. The horrible careers brief did help me to realise that I needed to be better at colour and for the end brief, The river, this is the aspect I was most pleased with.
I don't think I exploited this brief as much as I could because I didn't do a large range of outcomes and I didn't try out many designs. However I think I improved it a lot in the last two weeks, after the final crit.
The presentation of my work is never very good but I do think after the final crit I realised that I should have more confidence to display my work better so I did boards for all my briefs and this made me feel a lot better about it.
Overall I feel like I could have done better and put more effort into the FMP but I am OK with the work I produced and I am aware that I will still be learning for ages yet when I am working so I should not be too disappointed.
I aim to keep investigating socially responsible design as I have decided I want this to be something I can continue into a career.
