OUGD 601 - Evaluation

Evaluation

Essay
My essay question was "Is there a future for printed crafts in this digital dominant world?" Printed crafts are a big interest to be as I seem to hold a value to those that are handmade and in the physical, so I thought this would be the perfect topic to look at. Upon starting my research, I was very confident that craft was in a decline thanks to the digital age. With digital design been a quicker and more efficient alternative. With research into the topic, i discovered I was proved entirely wrong. Digital cannot achieve the same level of aura as printed crafts; people don't hold as much value to it. Printed crafts and digital aren't something that should be pitted against each other, it isn't an either-or situation, they are two different things with two entirely different functions and purposes. Digital is a tool to craft like any other, acts as an aid in the creative process. Digital means are not a better format replacing an inferior one; they offer a whole different experience. The best way to work is to bring together both the strengths of digital and of print.

Overall I am very pleased with how the essay has turned out; I enjoyed the writing and researching process and feel I have come away with a much deeper understanding of the topic. As I have struggled with writing in the past, so, this time, I put a lot of time and effort into planning my essay, deciding what should go where and to ensure it flows well.
I think that that was one of the main strengths of my written work, just structuring and planning it well.  Another strength of my essay way that I did all of the research before I even started to write it to make sure that I have a good understanding of the topic first. In my level 4 essay I was researching and writing at the same time, and because of this, I didn't fully understand my topic and what I was writing, and my essay struggled because of this. Another strength would be tone of voice, one of the central issues of my Level 5 essay was casual tone of voice (mentioned in as a weakness in my 501 evaluation.) This time, I put a lot of effort in to try and avoid this, although it might not be perfect, it is still an improvement on last year's essay. One of the main weaknesses was the word count, I was just over 6,100 words, and ideally, I would have liked to have been at least in the 7,000, not sitting so close to the minimum work limit. In future to prevent this, I will spend more time researching and finding more arguments to include in the written work.

Practical
My practical work was a response to show how digital is a tool to craft, and how digital poses no threat to printed crafts, it is only a benefit to it. I created a website "Persistent" which was a platform that celebrated printed crafts, including images of artwork that people could share on social media. It was aimed at skilled craftspeople as well as just lovers of craft and the handmade.

On a whole, I am happy with how the website has turned I set out to create something education, which I think I have fulfilled to my best ability. My brief stated how the designs should be simple, and I think I achieved this by keeping colours and type to a minimal and let the images be the focal point. One of the main strengths of this project was my concept, I felt I had a really strong concept that informed my design decisions and because of this, it allowed be to push my designs further. In the past, I have been focused more on what it athletically looked like. This time, I tried to balance out how it looked as well as having a concept of my design decisions. One of the main weaknesses was time management. I spent too much time focusing on the written work instead of the practical. But from this, I have learnt how I need to juggle my time better and can't prioritise one over the other. Creating a plan off all my time, would be a way to make sure each part was given the required time it needed. Another weakness was that I couldn't screen print, I left it too late and the print room was full or booked out during the few days I tried to go down. Again this is due to poor time management and putting my essay first. To avoid this in the future, i will check to see when the print room is booked out before I go down, and will plan my time around this. Another disadvantage of the practical work was that it was just a mock-up, due to my poor coding knowledge. It would have been much better to see the website up and running. To prevent this issue again, I want to try and learn at least some basic coding skills and hope that I will one day be able to code my own wedsite.