FMP (BA): You Are You Annotations

After I was done experimenting with my "You Are You" design I went along to print it out and make annotations. I always find little things to adjust when it's been printed out and in front of me, so I wasn't surprised to pick up a few things that I hadn't noticed before. I also asked my classmates and lecturer to see if they see anything I hadn't noticed. 

I quickly wrote these notes down before going back to the computer and making those adjustments. I then repeated my annotation process until I was 90% satisfied with my design. I've included a breakdown of my thoughts beneath each photo.

For my first test print I just wanted to see if all of the letters were okay within the outline of the hat. I did notice a few things here and there such as I forgot to thicken some strokes and forgot to make the comma the same blue as the rest of the text, but so far I didn't see anything else to change. So I printed out an improve version and then took a break for a bit so that I could see it again with fresh eyes.

This was my second test print, and there were a few things I wanted to change for example make some words bolder than others to emphasise the flow of the piece. When I asked around to see if others could figure out what it said they mentioned that they got a bit stuck at the beginning, so I needed to change the "that is" part. Other than that, the colours worked pretty well but I noticed that the blue was a bit darker than I thought when printed. 

Here I have used different colours as well as different stroke thicknesses in order to balance the design out a bit and to also make it more exciting to look at. I chose yellow because it's normally associated with happiness, and works really well with red and white. I also changed the way I drew "that is" by using the same line-grid technique as I did the first time, but here I made it so that it was straight rather than at a curve. I must say that I much prefer this version, as I did it so that the words angled towards "truer" for flow. 

Reflective Learning - Summary:

Here I mainly focused on designing and making changes according to the feedback I received. I am glad that I was able to gather feedback at an earlier stage so that I could work on it.
Taking notes as I go along on my blog actually makes me think of things that I had missed before when annotating. However my hand-written annotations proved to help me out a lot; I was able to respond immediately to my feedback as I jotted the notes down as I was talking to my lecturers and classmates.

I'm also glad that I carried out my research and had a brief look at Dr. Seuss and his illustrations, because when I showed it to my lecturers and classmates they instantly recognised it was by him (one of them said, "I thought I recognises Seuss' blue colour!). It makes me really happy to hear such things because it just shows that research is definitely important. The only downside to gathering feedback is that I would have to keep going back and improving which is slightly time-consuming but hey, if it helps, then I won't complain anymore!

I shall continuously gather feedback in future and perhaps I should do a blog post later on of all of my work so far to gather feedback on it, just so I could work on what I had instead of rushing new ideas and not producing a good design.

For now, I think I shall leave this design for now and start working on a new one as I'm still unsure of what I'll use in the final piece. It might also help if I took a break from this for a while because I might pick up something the next time I see it. 

Learning Outcomes:

[5] Developed skills of independent study, resource utilisation, problem-solving and decision-taking.

[6] Developed skills of critical thinking, analysis and evaluation.