Evaluation

I found this brief very useful not only from the outcomes from the research but from the actual method that was used to research, it just made it everything seem so much simpler by seeing research as observing then asking questions then answering them, it sounds stupid but it made the whole process of research much easier. The majority of my research was practical; I wanted to learn programs that I thought would be (a) beneficial and (b) necessary for me in the future. I started with Cinema 4d which was the first 3d program I had ever used I learned from resources on the Internet which are quite plentiful and felt that I learned the basic skills, but I would like to further my research into animating with C4D. This was a useful tool to learn and has a much smaller learning curve than Maya and I was thinking of utilising it for one of the YCN briefs. The second program I looked at learning was Max/MSP/Jitter, an audio/ visual patching program I quickly learned that it wasn’t the sort of thing I was after, but I later came back to it for more audio based work that I do outside of viscom. Processing was a program that I had been meaning to get into, I found it a hard process but I started from scratch but its something that I will continue learning. It also made me think about the direction I wanted to go in, I see interaction and interactivity becoming more important and I want to be prepared and have the skills, as its becoming more and more apparent of artists collaborating with programmers. Processing is an ongoing thing for me once I have money ill buy the book instead of having to renew it every 2 weeks. When I was learning these programs I set my self a little goal just to produce a little something, like the c4d characters or the tiny bits of processing it showed me that I was able to teach myself what I wanted to know. From all this research and getting to grips with the software I felt that I was learning so much but I still didn’t have the skills to take it to that next stage and felt like I would be wasting my time just constantly learning for this whole project and not produce anything. The research made me review myself, and where I stand within visual communication, I became concerned about getting work experience and wanted to produce a website combining some of the things I learned from my research. Making my actual website was harder than I thought, I found myself being overly ambitious in the way I wanted to present myself it was a long development but still I gained from it so much, each time I restarted my website I became more confident with web design and understanding code I finally realised in the end when to realise when to stop trying to do something ‘else’ and realise that I didn’t know how to do certain things.
The main thing that this project has provided me with is drive, learning all of this has made me motivated to use these tools for future projects from. My actual website is simple and functional but it made me realise that I didn’t have much work to show and made me more motivated to produce more work outside of college. I haven’t hosted the website because I’m lacking funds because it is the end of term but come Easter it will be up. Looking back at my blog I don’t think I documented my understanding of the technologies well because there was a lot of trial an error and I didn’t screen grab everything I only really documented when I realised I wasn’t happy with what I was doing. I found blogging very useful for this project, it was easy to quickly document links I had found, things that I had read etc.
What became my main rationale for research and development was trying to find where I stand within visual communication and how to become more professional. One of the biggest helps was reading ‘how to be a graphic designer without losing your soul’, it made me realise what I wanted and what I needed to do to get what I want. Although I have wanted to learn all these programs I have realised that I don’t want to sit in front of a computer screen there has been times when I have been looking at my computer screen for more than 10 hours. This made me appreciate drawing more as I was getting slightly depressed by seeing my drawing skills deteriorate but I really enjoyed doing life drawing and doodling more. It made me realise that I have to find a balance between being purely a digital artist and a physical real world designer.
This term I have become more confident with independent study because I know I can teach myself all I need is the resources and I’ve realised that if I get bored or feel like I’m not doing enough, that its my fault because I write my own briefs from now on, I felt like my work flow was smooth this term I didn’t leave things till the last minute like previous briefs but I still didn’t organise my time very efficiently, I was determined to use a diary which I bought but I didn’t use it. Looking back I kind of wished that I had just concentrated on one thing most likely processing, I felt like I have tried to many things and not given enough attention to either of them except dreamweaver.