APP: The Overall Brief and Learning Outcomes Analysis

Project: Advanced Professional Practice
Level: Honours
Date Set: 30.09.2013
Date Due: Part 1: 16.12.13 and full submission 23.01.14

Preamble
This module is designed to encourage and enable students to use graphic design and the 'client' to expand and develop their professional style and to produce bodies of work for public scrutiny and evaluation. The module will enable students to synthesise theoretical, conceptual and technical skills gained during the programme to manage projects in a variety of areas of design practice and produce appropriate practical solutions.

The brief is designed in such a way as to allow open interpretation within the given theme and allow flexibility within chosen pathways. To ensure clear direction and intent from the outset of the course, you will need to determine and agree with the teach staff, your chosen pathway, i.e. typography, illustration, etc.

The Brief
The 'weight' of the dissertation that you have chosen will determine how many of the themes you will have to cover. The following indicates how many themes you are to choose:

Title
Pathway Option A -
Dissertation - 15 credits (3000-4000 words)
Advance Professional Practice - 60 credits (4 projects)
Major Project - 45 credits

Pathway Option B
Dissertation - 30 credits (5000-6000 words)
Advanced Professional Practice - 45 credits (3 themes)
Major Project - 45 credits

Pathway Option C
Dissertation - 45 credits (7000-8000 words)
Advanced Professional Practice - 30 credits (2 themes)
Major Project - 45 credits

Choose theme(s) from the following:

Arrival
Identity
Words
Conflict
Adventure
Home

Conclusion:
With all of this in mind, I will now need to decide which of the themes to choose which I shall do by creating mind maps of each one. Luckily the brief is allows for open interpretation so that I could create something that I'm interested in.


Learning Outcomes
Here are the learning outcomes for the APP, and I have analysed each one just beneath it.

[1] Gain an understanding of the needs and requirements of professional practice.

I am doing this by analysing the design brief and learning outcomes so that I aim to meet each point made. I know that it might be impossible to cover absolutely everything but I shall try my best! I would also like to look at existing products to see how other designers tackled similar briefs.

[2] Develop effective communication skills through the medium of [specialist] graphic design.

This is quite new to me as I haven't had this learning outcome before, so I'm assuming what they mean by "effective communication skills" is asking for feedback from both my classmates and the public and to write them down so that I can show how they have helped me through my designing process.

FMP: The Brief & Learning Outcomes Analysis

The Brief

Unlike all of my previous projects I came up with my own brief, and so I picked out a few points that I thought were very important to achieve a successful design.

• Fairy tale themed wedding
• Wedding invitation – possibly R.S.V.P, dinner cards & directions card as well
• Consistent theme

Okay so I would definitely need to research into different fairy tales by reading books such as Grimm fairy tales, and possibly look at Disney films as well. I would also need to look at how invitations are designed, what words they used, and what I would need to include in it.

Conclusion:

This brief isn’t as demanding as my other ones although I do feel that it has a strong structure, which is helpful as it ensures that I do relevant research. I would definitely have to design a wedding invitation but I’m going to aim to do all of the other counterparts as well.

Learning Outcomes

These learning outcomes are slightly different to those of my previous projects, so I am going to analyse them further so I know exactly what I’m going to do. I shall do this by listing the bullet points from the learning outcomes and then write how I am going to overcome each point below.

• Developed their awareness of the needs and requirements of professional practice, manifested in the ability to produce practical work of good technical quality.

There is a lot of emphasis on the final product in this learning outcome, as it asks that I “produce practical work of good technical quality”. This means that I might have to spend more time creating my product as well as designing it to ensure that everything turns out alright e.g. the printing is at it’s highest quality.

For this I might take a look at paper suppliers to see if I could use a material other than Lustre (something I always use in my projects) as well as printing companies to see how much they’ll charge. This then links in with another learning outcome further on.