FMP Evaluation

My experiences over the duration of my Final Major Project have clarified an exceptional amount of things that I have been uncertain about for almost the past year.

Quite significantly it has come to my attention that the work I enjoy producing is very much suited to the cultural/creative sector and finally I feel as if I understand the types of brief I like to work on and the types of client I prefer to work with. I think the latitude you are given to do something a little bit different or a little bit more experimental is the aspect that appeals to me the most and this can be seen through the resolved work for the Fine Art Yearbook and Garry Barker briefs.

On the subject of clients, this has perhaps been the most overwhelming factor that has shaped the outcome of my module. The End of Year Show promotion, Garry Barker publication(s), Leeds Festival Fringe promotion, Fine Art Yearbook and Creative Networks flyer have all been driven by client needs/expectations and naturally they have all had their combined benefits and disadvantages.

To start with the former, I feel that the pressure of live clients, specific deadlines, print budget and real contexts to consider have all helped me work to a much more professional level with a significant amount of focus. I have been able to manage my time a lot better and I think this can be partially attributed to taking a project manager/client liaison role within three of my major briefs*.

*End of Year Show / Fine Art Yearbook / Garry Barker.

Overall, what this means is that I have been able to achieve a more structured routine as intended within my initial statement of intent and, in this context, is something that I can positively evaluate against.

However, as is often the case, I believe it would be true to say that my interaction with live clients has simultaneously grown into what I would consider my most significant downfall. In essence, a rather large sword of the double-edged variety.

As discussed with my peers, I have for the best part of this module been irritated at just how much time meetings, consultations and emails to clients have taken up and impacted upon my workflow. As such, taking on the amount of responsibilty I have done throughout the past four to five months is probably the biggest mistake I have made and in retrospect I should have taken a backseat role at times in order to balance my duties.

I guess I can now appreciate why the role of a studio/project manager is so important to the dynamic of a company...

To flip back to the positives though, one aspect of this entanglement that I am grateful for is the extent to which I have been able to maintain a consistent dialogue with professional printers; all of whom have had their differing requirements. Whether it is supplying print specifications for estimates or press quality artwork that needs to be blown-up to X-amount of metres, I have quite quickly learned that having a good relationship with whoever is producing your work is invaluable; and this was one aspect underlined within my Design Context Publication research interview with Spin.

At this point though, there are probably two key briefs that I would like to discuss that could almost have evaluations of their own as they have had a massive influence over how my module has progressed, and subsequently concluded. They have been steep learning curves to say the least.

For the sake of clarity I will keep everything in this post...

Garry Barker

This brief for me on many levels has been a success, although at the same time a quite drastic failure.

I believe that the final deliverables produced by the group and I were relatively successful given the nature of our experience, although I cannot help but think that this brief could have been resolved at a far more efficient pace had it not been for indecision on the client's part and the merging together of two separate collaborations with two separate ways of working... this isn't to say that we didn't work well as a four, but I think I have to be honest and say that David and I worked much quicker as an independant pair; as did Vickie and Charlotte before we were asked to work alongside one another.

As for the client, I am (in the politest way possible and with the greatest of respect) quite confident that the discovery of online publishing (Lulu and co.) altered the course of this brief; and not for the better.

This, in conjunction with an unquantifiable budget, uncertainty on time frames and general indecision on concrete deliverables meant that the group and I found it a re-occuring battle to obtain the relevant information we needed to make informed decisions, and ultimately... progress. Perhaps we just haven't developed this enough as a skill?

To culminate, what this brief has taught me is that it is extremely important to clarify details such as this with precision before work on the brief even begins. I feel as if I have walked away from this brief educated for the better, but without a piece that I would want to include in my portfolio... just a set of well executed deliverables that are now (for the most part) fictitious in their content.

It's not the end of the world, but it is a great shame that the latitude for creativity here was what could have ultimately made this brief a killer brief. In the end, it destroyed it and I am quite grateful that it didn't spiral out of control more than it did.

End of Year Show

To end on a high, the End of Year Show promotion brief has been the highlight of my education at Leeds College of Art. Yes, the brief has had it's negative aspects and has been the most significant undertaking Ollie and I could ever have dreamed of (at least for now), but on the whole it has educated and prepared me for life within the industry far more than anything else has thus far.

Shifting the negative aspects out of the way immediately, many mistakes and changed minds wasted a considerable amount of time and made me realise that even clients are human and that sometimes they aren't sure on what they want anymore than you are... even if they tell you that they are.

Secondly, the volume of client contact and the preparation for such meant that Ollie and I lost a lot of routine to our workflow - not just for this brief, but the entire module as a whole... In a sentence, this brief took over my Final Major Project more than I anticipated that it would.

But as I said, the experience was far more positive than negative.

And here's why...

01. The brief allowed me produce a body of work than spanned an enormous range of distribution methods and helped me to understand just how important cross platform design skills are; especially between digital and print based mediums.

02. I was forced to be in constant dialogue with industry standard printers, which can only be a good thing for the future.

03. It gave me the experience of working to a fixed budget that required a set of deliverables; each with a specific purpose.

04. There was absolutely no room for 'fudging it' and saying "that'll do". Every deliverable has needed to be bang-on and therefore my attention to detail has been almost over the top.

05. It has made Ollie and I realise that we do in fact work extremely well together and collaborations can be successful if the balance is right.

06. I now have a flagship brief for my portfolio.

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To round off my evaluation of this module in a setence...

There are plenty of things I would have done different, but I don't regret for a second what I have managed to achieve.