OUGD201 - What is Good?

What is good?
Good is ‘The combination of the visual aesthetic of infinity & the branding and promotions of consumable emotions’

This entire module was interesting from beginning to end; the researching personal views of good obviously led me into areas of interest, but also into new areas which I have since become fascinated with> The main example of this being geometry and more specifically fractals. This in turn led me on to the topic of the visual aesthetic of infinity. The only downfall of this new found fascination was the amount of time i spent researching before I actually moved on to any concept based design work; however a crit just in time led me onto the path of branding infinite emotions. Although selling anything infinite can only mean a company would not lat very long, so the emotions would only be allowed for a given period of time (say a few hours) and for the chosen emotion to have an infinite affect the consumer would have to continually purchase the product. Despite this once I got into the design work I was able to go in a direction which perfectly suited me; closely looking at branding and identity along with typography resolutions, as well the newly introduced geometric approach.

Due to the fictional nature of the product direction, it was quite hard to prove its necessity in the market, but there is definitely space for a product which can aid the controlling of your emotions. Particularly for people who work so much they have little time to relax or socialise, or even people who have too much time they don't know what to do with themselves. These types of people would definitely benefit from the proposed product range.

I think the main things I have learnt from this module are:
- more about industrial print processes and how the level of which your understanding is of them, the easier your life and relationship with the Printers is. Also how to mock up industrial processes with the resources available at LCAD.
- a basic understanding of geometry; and its rules and structures. For a period of about a week I started to get my head around fractals but I realised it was not necessary to delve any deeper as it was purely the visual side of the theory I was interested in and not the mathematical production behind it.

The most successful areas of this module were:
- the branding and identity; how I structured the development to come up with a high standard of resolution. I spent days adjusting subtle nuances of stokes, serifs and kerning, both on screen and in print. It was definitely all worth it. I was happy with the bespoke letterforms for the brand name and all the emotions within. I will also plan yo create the upper case and glyphs fro personal benefit in the near future.
- My crafting skills are usually well planned out and carefully constructed and I feel the tablet box evidences this; with a net which was bespokely designed to create a seamless cover over board structure.
- I was really happy with the use of colour against their respective emotion, I found a diagram which seriously aided me with this, but nether the less it was still a successful area of the branding.
- work ethic was better than it has ever been, I worked hard throughout with many long days in the studio, but it definitely paid of with the amount of work I produced and the processes I under took and experimented with. I was also much more decisive throughout and using the experience gained in the first year I knew when and how I had to make decisions, to progress in the right direction.

The least successful areas of this module were
- The general standard of the range of mock-ups; the box was well constructed, but the all labels were grubby and not applied to the products very well. The stock I had to use to suit the foil blocking, didn't affix well to any surface and the foiling itself wasn't particularly great. However all of these issues were easily resolved in photoshop, so I guess this is not too much of an issue as a designer.
- Perhaps the lack of quantity of emotions I suggested to create; looking back on research there are about fifty achievable emotions, but my range only suggested to sell half of those. This was mainly down to the colour selection.
- as always the quality of photography - I'm not sure whether to try and get good at it or whether to give up and ask other people to help me...

I am rarely happy with much of my resolved work, but I guess that is understandable when I am always learning and evolving as a designer. Having said that, this is by far my most successful resolution to any brief I have tackled so far. I choose to work in a direction which suited me perfectly. I love type, layout, identity and now geometry. I just now need to take these areas of my work and see how they can work within a less open brief.

I am rarely happy with much of my resolved work, but I guess that is understandable when I am always learning and evolving as a designer. Having said that, this is by far my most successful resolution to any brief I have tackled so far.