SECOND SEMESTER REVIEW

Jacob Ham

DATE

24th April 2017

DEADLINE.

NA

Introduction.

In the second semester, I have learnt much more about design and developed my personal and professional skills more than I had imagined back on 13th December when I evaluated my first semester.

Set Targets.

At the start of the semester, I had set myself a couple of targets that where based on various aspects of myself and my work that personally could be developed further as a student and future employee. The below is the following targets I had set myself;

Confidence
Expand further on briefs
Learn more about website design
Become familiar with the new Adobe program "XD"

Review of set targets.

After this second semester, I feel that I have improved on all the topics massively apart from one individual. Thus, being down to issues that I have had with the software, below is a breakdown of each target.

Confidence.

I have always struggled being confident in my work, presenting myself and ideas to others. However, in this Second Semester, I somewhat feel a lot more confident than I did in the "Hoam Grown Presentation" and feel that I can now stand at the front of the class and talk about my ideas and get the correct message across. Being more confident allows me to also be involved during class discussions, which can crucial for development in my work and others too. Before when I developed a presentation, the entire preparation was useless but now I feel more independent and can rely on spending the minutes before double checking and going over the ideas and main talking points, prior to presenting.

Expand further on briefs.

During this course, the more work I take on the better my skills as a designer will develop but I will also have a chance of getting a higher grade. During WRL One I aimed to expand on every single brief that I could, and I managed to do that successfully.

Regardless of the initial brief set by my tutor or the client, I choose to expand on each brief. Even if it was not the biggest of tasks such as making business cards or publishing it to my portfolio. All of this was documented in my WRL One Sketchbook and annotated with reasons why I had made certain changes or decisions.

Learn more about both website design and Adobe XD.

During this semester, I have developed my skills when creating and designing websites. Developing them for my personal brand and for "Gaming In Mind" however the second part of the target to "Learn Adobe XD" was rather difficult to fully get a understanding due to the current progress of features available on Windows Platforms.

Adobe XD, is a great program and I really wanted to learn and use it to develop UI designs, however due to being a Windows 10 User the current state of the program is behind that on Mac Platforms. Lacking simple features such as the scroll bar and seeing layers. Hopefully in the near feature, across the summer I will revisit the software and look into trying to use it when more aspects have been introduced.

Redeveloped targets.

After reviewing my second semester targets, it would be best to set targets for the summer and for Level 5, either revisiting set targets or creating new ones.

The following list below, is set targets for the summer;

Redevelop my portfolio.
Develop early concepts for my Critical Study
Continue to work with clients on various types of projects beyond branding and logo design.

A full discussion can be found here.

The following list below, is set targets for Level 5;

Greater understand editorial design.
Work towards an entry for D&AD
Undertake work experience at a local design agency.