FMP Evalution

Evaluation for FMP

For the length of the project I had, I think that I could have managed my time better for my sketchbook. As over the first two weeks for the project we had a holiday from college and as I have a young son, I wasn’t able to get much of my sketchbook done. Then once we got back in college I had to start on my project proposal for the project. If I could do it all again I would make sure I tried to finish at least one page every night for the duration of the project to make sure I had enough pages and research.

My theme for this FMP was “Wooden Toys”. I chose this theme as I have a young child and he is the most important person in my life, so I wanted to make my final piece for him to use once it has been in my show. The other themes I looked at on my mind map at the start of the project were; Leo, belong, family, party, games, time, midnight, war, light, peace, and finally death. I chose the theme of wooden toys as I can use Leo’s own toys as my research as he has a lot of wooden toys himself from his 1^st birthday and Christmas.

For my primary research I looked at wooden toys that Leo and a few other children I know have as well as wooden toys I found in shops like BnM, Argos and Tesco’s. I took photos of the toys in the shops so that I could draw and finish them at home. I used techniques in my sketchbook such as; drawing from observation, painting with both acrylics and gouache, drawing on a wall paper background with coloured pencils, painting with water colours on a collage background, sticking pictures down in my sketchbook that I have made on a programme called “GoogleSketchUp”, painting with water colours on black paper, painting with acrylic on black paper and finally coloured pencils on black paper. I also made a questionnaire for people to fill in to help me find out more information about the type of toy I should make and if people would buy it for their children or young family members.

My secondary research I looked at three artist called; Enzo Mari, Maris Peics and Erzi Toy World. Enzo Mari was the inspiration for my first artist sheet. Maris Peics was the motivation for my second artist sheet and the Erzi Toy World Company was the muse for my third and final artist sheet. I also did research into the history into Lego as that company began making wooden toys. Furthermore I did some wood research because not all wooden toys are made from all the same wood. Although I didn’t explain it much in my sketchbook I am making my final piece out of a MDF. This is why I chose to do all my samples and creative business card out of MDF.

From my artist and primary research I developed my work into initial designs, then into design ideas, after this I was able to come up with design development sheets, a mini 3d model, and final designs.

From my research I took forward a few elements into my designs. Some of these include techniques such as; pyrography even something as simple as using acrylic paint on MDF shows that making samples first help to see what work and what doesn’t. I chose to take the pyrography forward into something other than my final piece, this was my creative business cards. I tried using a compass to scratch my information onto it and I couldn’t see anything so I chose not to use this design. Then I tried just using pen on my MDF cards and although you can now see the information on them, I didn’t like how simple they looked. So finally I tried pyrography and I love how the finish looks on the MDF cards so use this for all of my creative business cards. I used samples to try if acrylics worked on MDF. I did this because I know that not all paint works on every type of wood. So to make sure that it did work I made a sample of it first.

I got my influences for my development from the toys I looked at. I found four toys to make my initial ideas from then chose two of them to develop further and finally chose one to develop even more by making a final design for them. The eight toys I chose to look at for my initial ideas were; a letter block, a pull along duck, a doll, a doll house, a domino, a play till, a pull along train & a kitchen. I chose to develop the letter block and the kitchen. I chose these two as I thought they might be more challenging for me. On my development sheet I did 6 samples to support my work and thoughts. These were 5 for my letter block and one for my kitchen. The 5 samples I did for my letter block were for how I would add the detail. These techniques included; pyrography, painting with acrylic with black and dark blue paint, and carving using two different sized carving tools. The sample I made for my kitchen was just using hinges to show how I would made the cupboard hang on the frame. I really like how all of my samples turned out and wouldn’t do anything different if I was to do this sheet again.

The constrains in which my design was affected by were as follows; I had to keep in my all the results I got from my questionnaire as this was a big part of my research, my time was another big constraint in which I faced as we only had a small window to do everything for this project, my son’s age and size affected my designs as it had to be small enough for him to use now and to use as he grows as well as being aimed at his age too and make sure that it’s age appropriate as he gets older. I also had to change my idea at the last minute as my tutors didn’t think that I would have time to make one from scratch so I had to buy a cabinet and make more design for this new idea.

Moreover from all the other samples I have already talked about, I have made a sheet after my moodbaords to show that I have thought about other types of wood, how I would carve into MDF and also tried to recreate an already existing wooden kitchen. If I had more time I think that I would have done more of these sheets to try more techniques on all the different types of wood I looked at.

The problems in which I had to overcome were; time management at home as I have a small child, changing my design at the last minute, and also adding my information to my creative business cards. I asphyxiated my time management difficulty by making sure that I had some free time to do all my computer work whist someone else had Leo for me. I overcame my changing the design at the last minute problem by making sure I had extra time to make other designs and make the changes to my final piece. Finally I incapacitated my last issue by using a technique I practiced on my development sheets called pyrography to add all my information to my business cards.

If I had no time constrictions I would have done a lot of things differently. The first would be to make sure I had my sketchbook all finished before I moved on to my sheet work. The next thing I would change would have been my research, if I had more time I would have made more time to find out more about all my artist and my chosen toy in more detail. After this I might have changed my design development to try and see what techniques would be like on more than just MDF. Finally I would have diffidently made my kitchen from scratch then I could have I made the design to how I wanted it in the first place.

My chosen artist linked to my work as I only looked into 3D wooden toy/ furniture artist because my theme was wooden toys. For example; Enzo Mari is a modernist artist and furniture designer. Maris Peics designed the Varis construction sets and Erzi Toy World designs wooden food and toy shop items. These all relate as they all work with wood and two of them are toy based.

I chose my final design from looking at my original final design and try to incorporate it into my new recycled cabinet so that it would have a similar look to it. Although the cabinet I now had to work with was a fraction of the size to what I was planning on making in the first place I was determined to keep the look as close to the original as possible. As long as I can the look managed then I think that it’ll look good and people will be able to see where I went with it from my original design.

I think that I could have used my blog a lot more effectively throughout the duration of this project as on deadline date I didn’t have anything published although I had a few drafts that needed a bit more adding then I published them in time for exhibition. The titles of my posts so far are; Sketchbook annotation, FMP SheetWork Annotation & FMP Evaluation. The post called sketchbook annotation is explaining all of my sheets in detail and also illustrating my pages in my sketchbook too. The post called FMP SheetWork Annotation is pictures and annotation for every single sheet I have done for this FMP. Finally the post called FMP Evaluation is this evaluation.

 

Overall I have this project to be more stressful than anything I have encounter in college before. I didn’t think that I had enough time as I had to do everything in college as I have to be with my son when I’m not in college as because of his age I can’t do any work.     

Evaluation

Evaluation for Unit 12: Working for an audience

For the unit 12 project I undertook 4 briefs which were; the Shawlands primary school, the Civic Knitwear day brief, the Cooper gallery app design day brief and also the summer school Barnsley College website design day brief. For each one of these brief I had to do some primary research, secondary research and also drawing from observation for the Shawlands brief. The research I did for the Shawlands brief were; look at the primary school, at display boards & at library walls. For the Civic, the primary research I did was going to the Knitwear exhibition. The Cooper gallery was hard to do primary research for as we got asked to see what are the most popular apps out there today and what makes them really popular with student’s, visitor and also artist around the local area. This was repeated when we was asked the similar question for the Barnsley College website; “what websites are popular and how do you keep connected whilst using these websites?” Now for all of the secondary research; again we had to do this for most of the briefs. For the Shawlands brief, I looked at illustrators and children’s books aimed at the age range of 5 to 11. Also I looked at what a children’s customer would like and how I could base my research around that customer I have created on my customer board. On behalf of the Civic Knitwear brief, I had to look at different materials I could use to make my 30cm by 30cm square like bin bags, fake leather, fabric and also cotton, all black so they fit the brief. For the Cooper gallery app we had to research into the layout of the apps we used the most to gain ideas of how to layout our own design for the app. For the Barnsley College website we again looked at the layout of other websites to help influence use how to layout a website. I only really had to use my drawing from observation skills during one of the briefs; the Shawlands primary school brief. I did this during the one and two point perspective drawing tutorial we had with Adam and Lewis. It helped drawing from observation during this task as you can see in real life perspective how it should look from your personal perspective. Also this makes it easier to get the correct measurements first time.

I was able to develop my research with all four briefs but in different ways. For the Shawlands brief, I was able to take the research I did and create ideas for my designs inspired by my primary, secondary research and observational drawings. For the Civic Knitwear brief, I was able to take my research forward by being able to go to the exhibition and know what kind of clothing items are in the exhibition currently. This abled me to make my 30cm by 30cm square for the brief. For the Cooper gallery app brief I developed my research from both my primary and secondary to designing a layout for the app for both a phone and a tablet. I was able to know what colours, links to other apps and fonts people what to make an app appealing to the target audience. For the Barnsley College website brief I was able to do a similar thing with this as I did for the Cooper gallery app; know what colours, links to other apps and fonts people what to make an app appealing to the target audience. The only difference is that the target audience for the Cooper app is artist and visitors to the gallery whereas the target audience for the Barnsley College website are visitors to the website, inspectors of the college, parents and people who are looking for employment at the college.

During the Shawlands project, the client influences did affect my design and gave me guidance for what they would like for each area. For example the client told us that we had to change the colour of the library wall from just plain blue, the display boards have to encourage reading just the same as the library wall has too, and the sensory room has to keep the lights and the items in the draws. Apart from that we has free reign of our designs. On the day of the Civic Knitwear day brief, the client told us that the only limitation we have was that it had to be black and measure 30cm by 30cm square. For both the Cooper gallery app and the Barnsley College website, we was told by the clients that they had to be interesting, relevant, linked to other website/apps and also very colourful but make sure it’s aimed at the correct audience.

The constraints that the client gave us for the Shawlands project were; a time limit, a £100 budget for each area, and also we had to consider children with autistic spectrum disorder. The budget was the most constraints that affected my designs, as I needed make accosting sheet. There is one for each design I created so this means there are 9 costing sheets for 9 designs. Some of the designs I created didn’t turn out like the client asked as they wasn’t clear on how they encouraged reading like the client asked for, but some of them did. I don’t think that any of my designs for the library wall encouraged reading but some if not most of the designs for Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 did encourage reading like the client asked for. The limits that the Civic Knitwear client gave me was; the measurements of the square, the time limit and the colour that the square had to be in. The client for the Cooper app and the Barnsley College website were again the same as each other really, as they were that they had to be colourful and aimed at their target audience using all the relevant information that is needed for either the app of the website.

The problems I encountered during all the briefs were very different but I believe I was able to manage them well and solve them quickly and efficiently. The problems I faced during the Shawlands brief were; the costing sheets and the maths behind the costing sheets. I was able to finally figure out the maths once I retried to figure out it over again and then I was able to work out the costing sheets with ease. So both of my problems were solved quickly and easily after I tried it again, I solved both problems together. The complications I faced in the Civic Knitwear brief were as follows; finding out how the square will all join together, what materials to use and also trying to put all of the information about the day onto blog. By the end of the day I was able to create my square using four types of materials, all of them being black so that they fit the brief. The last problem I faced for this brief was when I was trying to add all the photos of my work to the post on my blog from when I visited the exhibition at the Civic. When I came to do both of the day briefs for the Cooper app and the Barnsley College I found that I faced the same problems and was able to solve them in the same ways. For example I confronted the problem of both the app and the website not having a clear set age target audience or colour scheme to go with.

If for all the briefs, I didn’t have any client constrictions I think I might have done some things differently. For the Shawlands brief I wouldn’t have based the display boards on encouraging reading, but instead I would have made them more curriculum based so that the children had a knowledge about what kind of work they could be expecting to do in the academic year. As I didn’t attend the visit to the Shawlands primary school myself, I’m unsure about where in the school the display boards are located so this is why I would change the theme of them from the encoring reading theme I was given by the client. For the Civic Knitwear project I think that the only thing I would have done differently would have been making the square either 5cm bigger or smaller. I would have done this because I think that 30cm by 30cm was a bit overwhelming for myself as it was difficult to make my materials fit to that size and keep it in a square shape. For the Cooper app I would have made the app more about the artist rather than the gallery itself because without the artist’s work in the gallery there wouldn’t be any galleries out there for art. For the Barnsley College website I don’t think I would really change anything because I think that all the information that was requested is all relevant and needed for the website. I also thing that the colour scheme that is really asked for was red, so because read and black are really the only main colours in the College logo, I think this colour scheme works well for the website.

For the Shawlands project, from my research I was able to find plenty of illustrators to base my designs on. For example I chose these following illustrators; Tony Ross, Quentin Blake, Pauline Baynes, Charles Roger Hargreaves, Nick Sharratt, Michael Emberley & Lucy Cousins. I created 9 designs in total which consist of 3 for the library wall, 3 for the KS1 display board and 3 for the KS2 display board. I based my designs for the KS1 display boards on; Charles Roger Hargreaves, Michael Emberley & Lucy Cousins. Them I chose to focus my designs for the KS2 display board on the work from these artists; Pauline Baynes, Quentin Blake & Nick Sharratt. I have also use Charles Roger Hargreaves and Pauline Baynes as inspirational artist for my library wall designs as well as Tony Ross. I have chosen all of these artist as they are either have been a big part of my childhood or are currently a big part in other children’s childhood during their time a primary school.

For the Shawlands project I had an impact from my customer board that influenced my designs were that Leo likes Math’s. I tried to add a bit of Math’s and interaction on to my display board designs so that the teachers could change thing, may be have mini competition or awards for the children. I linked Math’s into my designs my trying different items around the display board that are relevant to the design and then adding numbers in them so that you can learn to count. For the Quentin Blake display board design I had Mrs. Twit’s balloon around the edge with numbers one to ten in them. To make this design more interactive I had Matilda with a speech bubble saying “Matilda’s Word of the Week”. I also has BFG with a thought bubble thinking, “BFG’s dream of the month”. I tried this idea on my Charles Roger Hargreaves display board too by having the Mr. Men and Little Miss’s with speech, thought bubbles or signs with sayings in them. For example; Mr. Loud is saying “Join in the fun by reading the Mr. Men and Little Miss collection”, Little Miss Neat holding a piece of paper reading “Little Miss Neat of the week ________”, & Mr. Messy with a sign saying “Mr. Messy of the Month _______”.

I think that I have done quite well in this project as I like children’s books, I have a younger brother who has only just moved up put out primary school and also I have had experience in making display boards from when I was in primary and secondary school. I think that the only thing that went wrong was really when it came to writing this evaluation. I tried to finish it before the dead line on Friday 5^th February at 9am, but unfortunately as I have a young son only aged 1, I couldn’t finish this evaluation the day before the deadline. So I think that if I was to change anything about this project it would be to start the evaluation at college and have an end of the day deadline not a 9am deadline.

I was able to manage my time well by using my blog, time management sheets and target setting to help me plan what I am doing each session, how long I have till it must be complete, what could stop me achieving the targets I set so I could have a backup plan till I’m able to continue with my original plan, reflection of session, how I can improve for the next session and also what do I need to do to prepare for the next session. I kept a detailed time management log on sheets and then once that week was over I would make sure it was completed and them type it up and print it off. By the end of the project I had 10 weeks of time management sheets which is the correct amount I should have had considering we had roughly 10 weeks on this project from start to presentation. I used my blog to annotate my work so that I didn’t have to write it all on the back of each sheets and then type it up again on to my blog, I just skipped a step but made sure it was up to date as often as possible.

I believe I did a really good job at preparing for my presentation as my tutor let us have practice presentations within a small group of my peers. This gave me the opportunity to have a trail run of how I could tell the audience about my work and get some feedback from them about what I did well and also areas for improvement. This is a really useful thing to do as it will give you other’s points of views and help you understand what it’s like presenting to a group of people talking about your own work. I also made myself a PowerPoint presentation to have on the board behind me so that the clients could see my annotation visually and not just hear it verbally. I consider myself to have done really well during the final presentation as I have a huge fear of public speaking, especially about my own work. So that fact I was able to get up, plow through it with the help of Kat (clicking the presentation behind me as I referenced to my sheets) and finish with including all the facts, costing and initial ideas about my designs makes me very proud of myself no matter what grade I get for the sheet work. The only thing I could have done better about my final presentation would have been to slow down, not to panic and maybe have practice a bit more about the content of each slide right before it was my opportunity to present my work.

I really liked the fact that all of the 4 project were real live projects and that they all went on to create something in the real world and not just for college that will sit in a classroom until we leave. I loved the Shawlands project due to the fact that it was aimed at children to encourage them to read more and that the library wall piece along with all the other area will really be in the school for hopefully a long time to come. For the Civic Knitwear project our work was all put together to create an amazing piece of clothing for the exhibition. I like this idea as it gave everyone something to say about them being in a live exhibition for a real company like the Civic gallery. For the Cooper app, I liked that they tried to ask us to help them design an app for the gallery as they thought that most young adults our age (17+) where all about apps on our phones, tables and other devices. For me I don’t think this was a type of art industry that I want to take forward into the world of work. I am more about 3D wood art rather than app designer. I enjoyed working outside of the college building it’s self as it gave me the sense of what it’ll be like to be in the big bad world of employment. For the Barnsley College website I didn’t really enjoy this day brief as it was not a very long brief and all they really did was ask us question about what we liked about the current website and how we would make it better. Again like for the Cooper app this is not a trade I’m interested in.

Overall I really enjoyed this unit as it gave me the opportunity to try new things, give me experience in other aspect of art and design in the employment domain and working to a specific audience.

One and Two point Perspective Drawing

One and Two point Perspective Drawing. 

Key Terms:

• Perspective; One & Two Point
• Observation 
• Horizon Line/ Eye Line
• Floor/ Ground Line
• Vanishing Point 

Equipment:

• T-Square
• Pencil 
• 45 Degree Set Square
• A2 Drawing Board
• Masking Tape
• Rubber & Ruler (30cm & 1m)

One Point Perspective Drawing

1) First you need to get your board set up ready to draw. To do this you get your board in a landscape format and use masking tape to keep it in place. The best places to place the masking tape are at the top, on the left, on the right and also at the bottom. This picture below illustrates where to put the making tape.  

2) The next step is to find your vanishing point. To do this you will need to get your meter ruler and put one end in the top left corner and the other end in the bottom right corner. You can either use your pencil to mark the line from corner to corner or just mark a line near the centre. Once you have done this; do the same with your ruler but put it from the top right corner to the bottom left corner.     

3) Now you need to find the horizon line. To do this you have to keep your vanishing point by using your rubber take away the diagonal lines but keep your vanishing point. Next take your T-square and but the top of the T to the left side of your board horizontally. Now you can use your pencil to draw the horizon line like this shown below.      

4) Now you can add in your back wall. This is done by you drawing a box using the T-Square to assist you in drawing the horizontal lines and the T-Square and the 45 degree set square for the vertical lines. You can make this wall as big as you need it but below is a quick example of a finished back wall.  

5) After step 4 you are ready to add in the ceiling lines and the ground lines. This is accomplished by using your 30 cm or your 1 meter ruler. You need to draw a line from a corner of the back wall you have already drawn, to the corner of your A2 paper. You will need to repeat this for each corner of the back wall. Once complete you should have something like this below.    

6) Finally you can add in extra sections of the room you are doing. For my example I am going to add another wall coming out from the back wall. To do this I used the T-Square for the horizontal lines and the vertical lines as well as the 45 degree set square. I first drew the square in the for ground and then joined the left corners to the ceiling line to make the impression of the second wall coming out.    

Two Point Perspective Drawing

1) To begin this two point perspective drawing you will need to follow step 1 to 3 from the one point perspective drawing guide. 

2) Next you have to plan where the corner of your wall is going to be. Once you have an idea you need to get your T-Square and your 45 degree set square to draw the line of your wall corner. Like the one below. 

3) Now from your horizon line you have to mark out your 2 vanishing points like the black dots on the image below. 

4) Now anything on the right of your wall corner from the wall corner will join up to the right vanishing point. Like is shown in the image below.

5) everything on the left of the wall corner from the wall corner will join up to the left vanishing point. Again as shown in the image below. 

6) now you can add other lines to your image to make it like the room you are drawing. All the horizontal lines are always horizontal, all the vertical lines are always vertical, all the diagonal lines pointing towards the right should always be in-line with the vanishing point on the right, all the diagonal lines pointing towards the left should always be in-line with the vanishing point on the left. All of this is displayed below. 

Report For Manchester Convention Complex Trip (500 words min)

On Monday 23^rd November 2015, there was an exhibition in Manchester Convention Complex Centre. Although I didn’t go to the exhibition myself, I did a lot of research about it all from the visitor guide that I got from my tutor on Facebook. I downloaded and printed this off so I could still have a look at what the exhibition included. I looked at the list of Universities and colleges that were being exhibited, and then I made a list of the ones which are on the UCAS website. Also on the same list I noted down some potential courses that I might consider taking a closer look at. After this I made a second list from the first of all of the Uni’s and Colleges I’ve looked at on the website, linked the hyperlink to each one, and also narrowed it down to one course I like of each Uni or College.  On the second list after all this; I have made a quick note about the top 9 Universities or Colleges I really like. One I had had a full examination of the top 9 Universities and Colleges website for each course I made another list for all the key information for each Uni or College I like. In this list it consist of; the name of University or College, the name of the course, the UCAS code, the duration of each course, the study period the course is listed as (part or full time), the location of the course on campus’, the qualification that I could achieve at the end of the course, and also the fees per year of the course.

These are the top 9 Uni’s and Colleges that I have mainly researched from the visitor guide; Bath Spa University, Leeds College of Art, University of Derby, University of Cumbria, University of Lincoln, University of East London, University of Huddersfield, Manchester College and Ravensbourne. Now here is the information for each Uni/College I have researched.

University / College	Bath Spa University
Course	Creative Computing (Software Development)
UCAS Code	8GD3
Duration	3 Years
Study Time	Full Time
Location	Newton Park
Qualification	BSc (Hons)
Fees per Year	£9,000.00
University / College	Leeds College Of Art
Course	Graphic Design
UCAS Code	W214
Duration	3 Years
Study Time	Full Time
Location	Leeds College Of Art
Qualification	BA (Hons)
Fees per Year	£9,000.00
University / College	University Of Derby
Course	Animation
UCAS Code	W615
Duration	3 – 4 Years
Study Time	Full Time
Location	Markeaton Street Site
Qualification	BA (Hons)
Fees per Year	£9,000.00
University / College	University Of Cumbria
Course	Graphic Design
UCAS Code	W215
Duration	4 Years
Study Time	Full Time
Location	Brampton Road Campus
Qualification	BA (Hons)
Fees per Year	£9,000.00
University / College	University Of Lincoln
Course	Creative Advertising
UCAS Code	W213
Duration	3 Years
Study Time	Full Time
Location	Lincoln Campus
Qualification	BA (Hons)
Fees per Year	£9,000.00
University / College	University Of East London
Course	Architectural Design Technology
UCAS Code	K101
Duration	3 Years
Study Time	Full Time
Location	Architecture, Computing and Engineering Site
Qualification	BSc (Hons)
Fees per Year	£9,000.00
University / College	University Of Huddersfield
Course	Architecture (RIBA Part 1)
UCAS Code	K100
Duration	3 Years
Study Time	Full Time
Location	Queen’s Street Studio
Qualification	BA (Hons)
Fees per Year	£9,000.00
University / College	Manchester College
Course	Fashion, Costume & Textiles
UCAS Code	WW43
Duration	2 Years
Study Time	Full Time
Location	Shena Simon Campus
Qualification	HND
Fees per Year	£9,000.00
University / College	Ravensbourne
Course	Graphic Design
UCAS Code	W210
Duration	3 Years
Study Time	Full Time
Location	Ravensbourne Campus
Qualification	BA (Hons)
Fees per Year	£9,000.00