Five Reasons

Identify and explain 5 reasons why you chose to study on this programme.
- Tutor time, compared with other courses there is plenty tutor time on this course, this allows me to develop my own work and maintain the right direction. This year I will continue this level of communication with my tutors as well as trying to gain a higher level of independence.
- Impressive links with industry and employment rates at the end of the course, hopefully if I work hard enough I will get similar opportunities.
- Moving to Leeds provided me with the opportunity of getting away from home and gaining some independence. Because the course is intense compared with many others in the country, it provided me with routine and structure to keep me busy and enthusiastic about my work and give me a much better idea of what graphic design really is.
- Before starting the course I saw examples work from previous students. A specific example is Phil Armson, particularly his proud to be plastic print, I love the elements of hand rendered type alongside print and working with image. It also showed me a side of graphic design that I had not previously explored.

Identify and explain 5 things that you want to learn during your time on the programme.
- A substantial knowledge of print to improve my communication and relations with printers as well as the quality and production of my own work.
- An individual approach to research, to maintain interest as well and take my projects in unique and interesting directions.
- Lean how to promote myself and contact people in industry to gain a variety of networks within different areas in graphic design.
- An improved knowledge and understanding of the web and screen based design. This will help me promote my work while contacting industry as well as broadening my skills as a graphic designer.
- A professional and creative understanding of grid and layout design. Again broadening the different areas of graphic design that I could go into and improving my InDesign techniques.

Identify and explain 5 skills that you think are your strengths.
- Hand drawn development, when working by hand my designs and ideas are much more individual and I find it much easier to develop my work. Although I understand the importance of typefaces and
- Software skills, last year I spent a lot of time improving my technical knowledge of illustrator which has had a positive effect on my work from development of ideas as well as production of work. I will to expand on these skills during this year.
- Visual thinking, working visually is defiantly a strong point within my work, when I am working with lots of factual and statistical information my research goes slightly down hill, but when I take on a more visual and hands on approach the work has more depth and appeal to a greater audience.

Identify and explain 5 things that you want to improve.
- Communication / presentation skills, this was defiantly my weakest area last year, I want to be able to speak about my work with a whole group of people with the confidence I do when only speaking to one or two people.
- Knowledge of appropriate vocabulary, to improve
- My knowledge and skills within typography, particularly in more hand drawn areas
- The appropriateness of my design, after doing work over the summer I found that it was hard to do exactly what the clients asked for. Through consistent evaluations and plenty of research I will try to make my designs are suitable in relation to aesthetic and context
- Shortcuts on Illustrator / InDesign to make sure that I am doing everything to a professional standard as well as saving me substantial amounts of time in the long run.

Identify and explain 5 ways that you will evaluate your progress.
- Using my PPD blog to evaluate projects as a whole and keep an ongoing diary of how my work has changed and developed over the different modules
- Through communication with peers and tutors during crits and taught sessions
- Using my context and design blog evaluate how I have made improvements to my research and practical skills.
- Post more of my work to online resources such as behance to gain feedback from a variety of different sources and backgrounds.
- Readdress these questions and post PPD posts about my personal work, to maintain consistent improvement in both areas of my work.

Identify 5 questions that you want to find the answer to.
- How do you emboss & how much will it cost? so I can apply this knowledge to my own work
- What do I need to know to print and publish my own work to a commercial and industry standard? So I can start producing my own work to the highest quality possible and hopefully start selling it.
- How to market and brand myself as a designer and as part of a team? I can use this to get myself work placements and general experience of industry, as well as creating contacts and clients for when I finish the course.
- What are the different areas within graphic design? This will inform what I do into at the end of the course and what areas fit with my style of work.
- How do I charge for my time as a graphic designer? Utilise the enterprise module and try and apply what I learn to freelance design work this year.