Summer Evaluation.

Throughout this summer I felt that I really had to be disciplined with myself as I wouldn't have the normal work schedule to focus on. I would also be in a different environment that involved catching up with friends and family, work and holidays, so my project had to be incorporated successfully around this. My usual approach to things like this would be to leave it quite late as I would be to interested in the things going on around me, although this year I planned to do little bits throughout the weeks so it wouldn't be as daunting. I felt this would be attainable as I had only the one brief to focus on rather than a selection, which meant I had no excuse. I feel I have been successful in this and it has definitely helped with the progress of my work, mainly because I have had the time to try many different avenues that I wouldn't have had chance to before. Stress was reduced dramatically because I wasn't rushed and panicked about fitting in enough in a small, allotted amount of time.
I am really happy with the level of research I have gathered throughout this time. I believe I have covered a lot of areas whilst still going into some depth. I think both factual and design based areas have been covered thoroughly and I am surprised how much I have enjoyed this.
On a design aspect through this project I have definitely improved my illustration skills. As I have covered quite a few research topics it gave me a lot of different areas to create illustrations for which made it interesting and varied. I have tried to move on from just simple shapes and colour to a lot more of a focused approach, paying strong attention to detail when it came to drawing the outlines to ensure a large amount of visual information was included. With colour I experimented with gradients in a subtle way to enhance shapes and also more tonal variations to add dimensions. I feel I have made a big step with this.
One way I think I could have improved this project would have been to create further booklets on other conspiracies, maybe if I had decided on my final outcome sooner this could have been attainable. I also feel my layouts could have been more dynamic and maybe looking back I should have pushed myself on this. This could have been done by drawing designs first like I have done in previous briefs.