OUGD502 - Study Task 01 - Reflection

5 Things you've learned on the programme:

• How to design a typeface
• How to use Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop to an intermediate standard
• How to use a grid and lay out a publication 
• How to book bind 
• How to screen print 

5 Things that you want to know more about

• Vector Graphics
• Coding
• App Design and Web Design
• Lighting products properly and photographing them
• Embossing, foiling, flocking and debossing

5 Skills that you think are your strengths

• Illustration
• Time management and organization
• Idea Generation 
• Approaching people about projects and work
• Completing work to a high standard

5 Things that you want to improve

• Adobe Suite skills 
• Ability to collaborate and work with others
• Research and involvement with creative industries
• knowledge on design principles such as grids and layouts etc. 
• Ability to read and understand academic research 

5 Practitioners that demonstrate my interest in Graphic Design

• Corina Nika
• Hannah Hart 
• Gwyn M. Lewis
• Irma Boom 
• Matt Willey 

5 website resources that demonstrate your interest in the creative industries

• Ted Talks
• Booooooooom
• The Die Line 
• The Creators Project 
• It's nice that

OUGD502 - Studio Brief 01- Cool Hunting Interview: Polly Nor

Today I found an interview on Cool Hunting featuring the illustrator Polly Norton. 'Polly Nor' has become one of my favourite illustrators ever since I discovered her instagram about a year ago. Many of Polly's illustrations show the inner anxieties of the female characters minds with a devil character that takes over the female body. This is something I particularly like about Polly's work, the way she highlights social issues going on within young women, especially in regards to image. 

In the interview she talked about how she wanted to change the relationship people have with sex and sexuality:

'Kids are learning how to be sexual from an industry that is created almost entirely by men, for male pleasure alone. Through this very warped representation of sex and relationships, young girls are being taught that they are submissive, sexual objects for men to leer over, use and control, and led to believe that their value lies wholly in how sexy they are. But then, to make things even more confusing, our society also teaches females that being too sexual is shameful and vulgar. We should look available, but not too easy; we should be flirty, but not too forward; we should have sex, but not with too many people and so on. I'm interested in discussing and reacting to these conflicting pressures from a female perspective for a young female audience.'

I think the issues she addresses with her illustrations are very important in today's society. The empowerment of women and girls, particularly female creatives is something I feel very strongly about, particularly in an industry dominated by men. Through my work and research this year I want to build more of an understanding of women in design and try and promote them as much as possible. 

OUGD502 - Studio Brief 01 - TED talk - Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

I just watched the 'most watched' TED talk on how the education system is killing our creativity, favouring subjects such as maths and science in schools and only preparing children for university degrees in those subjects and subjects similar. Telling children from a young age to pick academic subjects as they will never get a job doing subjects they love. This really struck a chord with me as this is something I have heard countless times in my life but have never let it deter me in pursuing a creative career path. It is something that I have had sleepless nights over before and this TED talk reassured me and made me proud of the choices I have made. Here were the most important points from the talk:

• Children starting school this year will be retiring in 2076 and nobody will have a clue what the world will look like then, yet we are meant to be educating children to prepare them for that.
• Children have a huge capacity for education and talent. 
• We squander children's talents and creativity.
• Creativity is as important in education as literacy and we should treat it that way. 
• Kids will take a chance, if they don't know they'll have a go. They're not frightened of being wrong.
• If you're not prepared to be wrong you will never come up with anything original.
• Society stigmatises mistakes, and after university people are afraid to be wrong. 
• Mistakes are viewed as the worst thing you can make. 
• This is educating people out of their creative capacities.
• Picasso once said: all children are born artists, the problem is to remain an artist once we grow up. We get educated out of this.
• Every education system on earth has the same hierarchy of subjects, with arts at the bottom. 
• No education system teaches dance as a compulsory subject like maths, yet we all have bodies tat move. 
• If you explained education to an alien then the purpose of it would be to produce 'university professors'. 
• Our education system is predicated on the idea of academic ability to meet the needs of industrialism.
• We are steered away from things we like when we're young as 'you will never get a job doing that.'
• Academic ability is designed based on university entrants. 
• Highly talented creative individuals think they're not academic as the thing they were good at in school wasn't valued as worthy or was actually stigmatised.
• Degrees are now not worth anything. you now need an MA where the previous job needed an BA.
• We need to radically change our views of intelligence. 
• Intelligence is 3 things: Diverse, dynamic and distinct.
• Creativity is the process of having original ideas that have value. 
• Our only hope for the future is to reconstitute our conception of the richness of human capacity, changing our education system to stop favouring a particular commodity. 
• What TED celebrates is the gift of the human imagination. 
• We must see our creative capacities for the richness they are and seeing our children for the hope that they are.
• We must educate our whole beings for the future that is in store for us. 

OUGD502 - Studio Brief 01 - Personal and Professional Practice Reflection

This year in PPP I would like to build my confidence designing and working with other creatives.

One of the things I struggled with last year was believing in my own work as I felt I was fairly new to the world of graphic design and that other people were much more advanced than me. 

I would also like to rediscover my flare for creating as recently I have found myself worrying too much about the grades and the outcome than actually exploring different techniques, exploring multiple ideas and building my skill set. 

I struggled to come up with multiple ideas and still feel like I don't know what I want to specialise in after university. 

I want to find a way to get noticed by design studios and make the most of my time here to make myself into as good a designer as I possibly can be. 

I need to research into design studios that interest me and also what practices interest me.

I also have to learn to combat my nerves when presenting and talking about myself.