Evaluation

Project Evaluation for Social Cultural Context

For this entry I will be writing an evaluation for the project Socail Cultural Context, which consists the summer project, making a newspaper and a campaign. 

For starters, I had to work on the summer project, I had to create posters about Covid 19 along with some videos that are about COVID 19, such as the 1 second everyday video, the animation where I summarise Lockdown in my experiences as I wanted to try and make this project personal to my own learning and to my own experiences so I would enjoy it more and so I can relate to the project on a moral level but the majority of this summer project contains posters  that I have created and I wanted to speak briefly about that before I make a start about evaluating my work overall for Social Cultural Context, which was the Newspaper and the Campaign aspect of this project which is the majority of what I will be evaluating for this project as I already wrote an evaluation for my summer project on the Summer Project Blog. 

For the first part of the Social Cultural Context consisted of making a newspaper about the COVID 19 Pandemic where this had to counteract with the work we created from the summer project we had to do earlier in the year and before we start year two.  This newspaper we had to create is supposed to be aimed for the Future Generation to explain it in the past tense as if this happened years ago like how the older generations have explained the World War One and Two and how we learnt this as a key of history, and COVID 19 is global pandemic that will be written in the history books and is a big event that has effected many people and is a good story to tell to the future generations to come.  

The newspaper consisted of posters some of the posters I designed from my summer project, which were my designs that best suited the content of my newspaper, along with some video clips I put together for my Summer Project which was the one of them was an animation, summarising COVID 19 in its time along with another animation that I did earlier in the year which was to support the NHS when it was in the duration of when the Thursday clap happened as well as the video I made with my friends the paper chain messages went into the newspaper. I also had photographs taken from my fashion shoot I did with a couple of my friends in the uni who were kind enough to let me steal some of their time for that along with some illustrations and cartoon art and emojis went in this newspaper, as well as visual elements of motion graphics and audio that best suits the newspaper I created. I have also added some personal elements to this newspaper as I thought it would be a good idea to add some autobiography into the newspaper by asking my friend and peers about their views and experiences of Lockdown as well as writing about my own experiences as well as I wanted to put In some personal stories into this newspaper so the future generation for people can see this newspaper as a digital time capsule and wanted it to be a meaningful newspaper so the readers can relate to the content that they're reading. 

This subject of COVID 19 seeing as I have lived it, and currently still experiencing today, this subject to create art for is meaningful but is also quite a depressing one to keep bringing up as we are still living through the COVID 19 lifestyle now but I think the newspaper summarises what the subject means to me quite well and explains my journey and how I have coped through and what it is like to live this way and the subject is meaningful as I said because It is a topic that is newly introduced and one that people in my generation can memorise it'll be the generation where we could say "Do you remember the times of the world fell into Lockdown" and it can be stories people in our generation can tell to their children in years to come and will most probably be a new thing being taught in history lessons in schools.  

The things I think went well for this part of the project is the artwork I put into the newspaper was very COVID 19 related and i think the fact it went well with the fact I added some personal elements to my newspaper asking peers and some friends about their experiences of lockdown as well as write about my own, I think the fact I engaged other people and see what they had to say for A different perspective went well, I think the Photoshoot element went very well,  the photos taken were exquisite and were precisely what I was looking for for the newspaper, to show images of people’s outfits and uniforms during lockdown. 

As well as the fact it was different to what I usually do with my artwork and walked out of my comfort zone. I think some of the illustrations I created worked very well, with the content of the newspaper I put together. Generally, I think I worked very resourcefully with what I had around me due to Covid reasons I have been working from home very regularly as I have somehow managed to complete all my work for Social Cultural Context within the timeframe set by my tutors and to the brief! I think the newspaper works for the brief it does aim for the future generation and has some futuristic traits I think the motion graphics to the imagery went well and makes the newspaper look more exciting and I think with the front page for instance after learning how to make type move as an animation, I think that worked very well and the chosen sound effects I picked due to certain pages of the newspaper works well and I didn’t over stain the welcome and didn’t over do it with the sound and with the motion graphics I think it was the right amount. I think the imagery works with the content of the newspaper.   I also think the arrangement of the columns in the majority of the newspaper is consistent and precise to 4-5 column consistency in as many pages as I could.  I like the fact the newspaper is very truthful and factual as well as adding some playful art works and playful elements in the Newspaper.  Finally I will also mention the fact I managed to do so much work for the summer project it enabled me to recycle my poster designs and was able to use them in my newspaper as well. So I think the fact I could Economise and combine work from the summer project and to this project went very well because it enables me to work on this segment of the project faster and more efficiently so I would have a realistic amount of time remaining so I can complete the essay segment of this project as well as the Campign.

The things I’d say didn’t go so well with the newspaper is the fact that in some of the pages this was something I recently learnt and will learn from for the future is the fact that I had Widows and Orphans, which are words on their own in a block of text in the beginning and ending of the article which isn’t good as it isn’t what you’d normally see in a newspaper but this is always something I will learn and recognise for next time I make the newspaper.  As well as the fact that I wish some of the work was more cleaner with the type I admit and I do think I could of experimented further with the format and structure and to not be afraid to bend the rules and maybe use the more asymmetric approach as well to be more playful with the layout, not only that but it would of been better also if I explored more with other aesthetics on how I could create the newspaper.  Finally would also say about the fact that when I finished downloading the newspaper it didn’t save on the PDF which was a pain as it meant I had to reinsert the files and ended up using PowerPoint in the end to put it altogether and then saving that as a MP4 despite that not going so well it was a good thing as it meant I could learn from my mistakes and can find ways to economise to achieve the same thing as I was hoping to on Adobe Acrobat!  I think there is always room for improvement nothing is ever perfect or set in stone, as I say on the previous paragraph, that I think I could of cleaned some of the type more, cleaned up some of the filming I put together for the animation as well as getting rid of all of the Widows and Orphans in the newspaper and if I experimented more with some of the layouts maybe add a couple more pages consisting of negative space and asymmetric layouts as well as consistent and strictly concise, but I would say that is all due to the Graphic Design Student OCD.

The things that I enjoyed were actually Creating the newspaper itself, I enjoyed taking part in the fashion shoot both modelling and taking the photographs as well, it was a lot of fun, I liked creating the newspaper and creating images and designs for it also. I think overall I enjoyed this aspect of the project, the only thing that I didn't enjoy for this part of the project was uploading my work onto a PDF, this is because it closed down and despite the fact I kept saving it and then the computer crashed on me, after working all night on corrections on spellings and adding sound and motion elements on Adobe Acrobat, it then meant the file completely shut down, deleted everything and had to start over.  Which did annoy me but things happen for a reason as I then discovered I could rectify this faster on Microsoft Powerpoint to add sound and motion graphics and so I can save that as an MP4 file.

The aspects I found challenging with the newspaper I was actually making the newspaper because there's a lot of things you had to consider like the rules of the grid how many words you can fit into each grid compartment knowing what images to put in and what would best suit the articles that are in the newspaper how to try and encourage it to be more fun for the younger generations to read and to get them interested. I also found the moving animation work very challenging to that as I struggled with comprehending what it was that she had to do and it wasn't something I learnt straight away and it took quite a while for me to grasp how to do it and how I can blend into my newspaper. 

I think I defiantly learnt new skills I learnt how to make moving image and moving text as animation as a moving image piece, I learnt how to formulate and structuring newspaper I learnt the basics of how it can be arranged and how it's all formatted and how it's constructed that there's a systematic way a newspaper should look in the basic structures which was interesting and with that, it  involved learn about widows and orphans in newspaper Il formats as well and texts and typography.   I've learnt a lot about how I can take different photographs I've learnt how to use the limelight of the lighting was in the photography studio and I learnt the terminology for different types of lighting for photography and how it operates and how it works for using a photography studio I learnt as well with that that you can take photos of different perspectives you can have fun with it and it doesn't have to be such a serious saying you can pull off so many poses for it to work with a video creating it isn't just one photo that will work it can be varied or it can be only a few photos out of 100 that can work. Sometimes when you can create work there is always a quicker solution for it and I think I've learnt so sometimes things are meant to happen for a reason and maybe that's to see if there is a quicker approach to get around it I've learnt that there is more than one road to get to point B for me to be have learnt that you know there's different tracks and you can go on different journeys of this project that you do and I'm doing thatSometimes when you can create work there's always a quicker solution for it and I think I've learnt so sometimes things are meant to happen for a reason and maybe that's to see if there is a quicker approach to get around it I've learnt that there's  more than one road to get to point B and that sometimes there is the most more basic things you can do to get to the same point but quicker. Is my point I'm trying to make is that I have  learnt to economise on some task from doing hand and event that I can recycle work I've done for previous projects as such and blend them into this project especially if they're meant to be like a combining project I've learnt ways and different solutions on how I can go from making one thing into another using different programs and how I can differentiate and how I can compromise with the programs I'm using just to be resourceful and to help you manage my time for the project. 

I would like to do this project again in the perspective where COVID 19 Pandemic is over and if I did do this project again, I would of rectified all the things I didn't feel went tremendously well and I would probably add more moving type into perhaps some of the titles of the newspaper, but having said that I think if I did that It would ruin the concept I think it works fine for just the name of the newspaper to be the moving text. I would generally like to create a newspaper concept again but perhaps about a different subject matter also.

For the final part of the project and to conclude Social Cultural Context was to make a campaign out of the choice of 5 subjects, Black Lives Matter, Mental Health, Poverty, Climate and Equality and I picked the subject Period Poverty. As it was unique and completely out of my comfort-zone as It was n't something I knew much about also which is something I wanted to try and do is learn about something different to my comfort-zone,  I didn't want to pick mental health as much as a psychologically like mental health as a subject, for me i felt alot of people were going to pick this subject and there for it put me off as I didn't want to follow the crowd, I wanted to go on my own way with this project rather than follow the flock. 

Period Poverty has a significant meaning to me as I am female myself and I know what it is like to not have the sanitary products in you at the time and so I can only imagine what it is like for those who can't afford these things and that they don't have other family or friends to help them buy the sanitary products that we need and how they should be essential. The motives I bought to the campaign project was printing out my poster designs I picked together, sticking them on display putting dressing up as one of my designs like sanitary pad which was fun, made a petition and I tried making a C card for making sanitary products free of charge, I also like the idea of perhaps by promoting the girl who decided to make to buy loads of sanitary products and give them to women across the UK would like to have promoted that as well and I would've liked to have promoted the man who invented a machine that makes sanitary products all women in India.

For this section of the project I think designing the posters went well I think some of them turned out better than others in fairness and I think when they came out to print they were they come out really well and was very happy with the result I think making the petition went well as well it went better than I hoped it would because of this being an exercise for this project I didn't think I'd get so many people to help support this campaign and I think making the motion graphic video went well as well which you may say it's apprising because this video is controversial and this is why I like it because there are people inside I don't like the idea because it's very graphic it's very is quite gruesome at points and it would put you off your dinner for a week so in that sense it can be controversial at the same time because it's very graphic I think people like that because it's different from what I normally create and it was completely out of my comfort zone and I think because it's a matter of trying to educate men about what women go through when they go on their period I think where it is so graphic it's a good idea so they're aware and imagine what their lives are like without a sanitary products. I think just putting the campaign together went better than I thought it would because I was able to be resourceful and put it together as if I was fighting for it even though I didn't necessarily go out in public with it which I think if I did this again I probably would've tried that at least or at least in the uni grounds.  

For me the things that didn't go so well with the campaign was the fact that some of the designs I wanted to create I wanted some of them to be sticker designs and I will need to try and make some of them out on much as well so not being able to do that was a bit of a letdown and I think as well what didn't go so well was the fact that I didn't quite successfully do the petition I don't know maybe I wrote the petition to the wrong audience maybe I should've said make sanitary products free at the Uni or something like that maybe I should've change the subject matter. I would've also have liked to have done some work to try and promote those people who have said above the ones who have already done something about it period poverty and what they've done to help but then again at the same time I want to try make a difference as well which is why I didn't really talk about that very much on my poster designs. 

The things I enjoyed about this section of the project was taking a leaf out of my comfort zone and trying out things I've never tried before I enjoyed doing the screen printing from home as well just because it was very different to what I normally do and it's not my every day sort of thing I'd create and I think as well this project has enabled me to have some more confidence in myself as a graphic designer as one of the studio Daisy had to pitch an idea which I've said about before and because I was able to do that in front of my peers and everyone in the studio it was quite a thing for me because my confidence been up-and-down this year and it's not always been at its best so doing that especially as a graphic design student I felt good for stepping forward as well which is another thing I could say it went well for me which I didn't mention above but it was something I wanted to mention because I enjoyed being able to speak out and I enjoyed developing as a person and a graphic designer and I enjoyed doing the project in the hall really because it's his subjects I wouldn't normally create create work for and it's really made me learn a lot and I really enjoyed it.           I also I enjoyed trying to fight for something I felt strongly for and didn't realise how strongly I felt for this subject until I learnt more about it and I like I enjoyed wearing the design I created as a poster which has a sanitary products which has some humour in it at the same time but enjoy doing that because it was very different and it isn't only something I would do so it was fun to try different things and experiment, I enjoyed this project as a whole.

The Things I didn't enjoy so much about this project is part of the research not because of the task that self it's more when I saw the statistics on period property just because it was such a concerning thing and it wasn't something I enjoyed reading because as a woman myself I just think if Ieave uni after 3 years, I am very lucky and privileged enough to live at home with family who help me in situations like this  but if I wasn't and say I I am homeless due to taxes and then not being able to afford the essential "Luxuries as they call it, I would be in the same shoes as these women who go through poverty so really it was not so much fun and enjoyment looking at these sort of statistics as they were very concerning.

For this part of the project, the thing I found this challenging was being able to try and get people on my side for this campaign and try and get support for the petition I found some of the research quite hard to take in I found making their motion graphic video do I have was quite challenging as well because it was completely different to how I normally work and to how my design processes work.  I also found very challenging to displaying my campaign and I found very challenging to speak and pitch my dear to my peers in the class this year because as I said my confidence hasn't been brilliant and to be able to do that it was quite a big thing and the thing that was because it was about a deep subject as well which is why I didn't think I'd be able to do that. As I also didn't think people would like this idea as a subject matter I thought it will cause a lot of arguments a lot of issues in the studio and I didn't think I'd get the responses that I did and I am glad that I spoke out because if I didn't I wouldn't of ever known and it was nice to hear from other people what they thought and it's allowed me to grow as a person.

I most definitely learnt a lot of this section of the project because I learnt more about period poverty I learnt a lot about the statistics which are absolutely concerning about how many women go through period poverty and about it getting worse in 2020 due to current reasons and I learnt how to make a petition on change I learnt how to make a graphic video using other props another materials and I learnt more about the subject matter and how strong and how deep of a project it is and it is something that needs to end.  I would definitely do this project again because I felt like it was a good brief and I enjoyed doing the research for it as well in a way because it enabled me to learn something new but the statistics were the part I didn't enjoy so much but I will definitely do it again because I would've liked to have gone further into it by promoting the people who have done something about this situation and to giving it praise and saying do something like this and to pay to use the facility so if you haven't got a sanitary products with you. As well as that if I did do this again I would've got more into making the merchandising may be making more stickers designs and actually printing them making actual placard so would've tried doing that as well maybe T-shirts and I would've tried again more with the screen printing from home and other techniques like that also just to experiment and learn.