Evaluation

BA (Hons.) GRAPHIC DESIGN

LEVEL

05

 Module Code 

OUGD202                      

 Module Title

DESIGN PRODUCTION - DIGITAL

END OF MODULE SELF-EVALUATION

NAME

Sadie Thompson

1.  What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

I have developed my skills on After Effects. Previous to this module I had only worked very briefly with Flash, even then I didn’t feel like I had learnt a substantial amount about the software. I now feel comfortable enough to get on with using After Effects on my own, and can either work out what I want to do or work from relevant tutorials. The thought of starting a new After Effects project is no longer daunting to me and I am much more comfortable using this programme.

I have also improved on my ability to storyboard and realised the benefit of doing so. It has definitely made animating my sequence a lot easier in the end and also allowed me to realise some faults before I started to animate.

2. What approaches to/methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

Storyboarding has helped me to get my ideas down quickly, without having to work out how to animate them. This would waste time and would make it more likely for me to forget some of the details of my ideas. Storyboarding has been beneficial to me developing my ideas in detail and for predetermining what could possibly go wrong. They have also helped me to consider time, giving me a solid frame to start with. Title and actions safe zones are also something that storyboarding has helped with.

I also found that the format of the workspace was a tricky one to work with, as most of my artwork would probably work better in a square format. However I had to consider that it could be viewed on either a widescreen or classic framed T.V.

3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?

The strongest feedback I have received time and time again in my crits is that both my idents and my title sequence reflect the theme of my chosen channel, E4 and stays true to its style. I have used my ability to work in Illustrator relatively quickly to my advantage, and vectored all of my artwork to be used in my final sequences. I feel that vectoring these images has kept the style consistent added to the general feel of my animations.

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?

I feel like I could have come up with more initial ideas. I seem to have come up with one general idea and developed and changed it as I progressed and worked on more storyboards. I feel that I could have worked on sound more. I am happy with the music track that I have used for my title sequence, and all feedback that I have got in crits have said that it works well. However I have just used the ending of the song in the ident, which also works well and ties them to the title sequence, but I feel I should have added some sound effects. I did try this initially but they sounded tacky, so I should have either recorded the sounds myself or searched further for some better quality sound effects.

5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

1.    Do more contextual research to influence my style.

2.    Look at more tutorials online, and ask for more help to find the most efficient ways to animate on After Effects, rather than trying to work out on my own.

3.    Do more initial ideas.

4.    Consider recording my own sound effects rather than just looking online.

5.    Manage my time more effectively so that I can get both my final designs and blogging to a good standard by hand in.