BA (Hons.) GRAPHIC DESIGN LEVEL 06 Module Code OUGD301 Outcomes N/A

Module Title PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT 3

BRIEF TITLE DESIGN STRATEGIES

The Brief

Prepare and deliver a presentation that reflects your experiences over the summer break and states your proposed plans for the third year of your degree.

Your presentation should focus on:-

Industrial Research/Studio Visits - what specific activities have you undertaken over the summer in order to broaden your understanding of the design industry. What have you learnt from these and how will they inform your design practice. How have you evidenced this in order to effectively evaluate your progress?

Dissertation Proposal / Research –

Summarise the progress made on your dissertation with regards to primary and secondary research activities, visits and decisions made regarding the direction of your dissertation and its relationship to your studio practice.

Design Practice/Independent Research –What do you want to be? Who do you want to work for/with? What kind of work do you want to produce? Are there specific audiences, contexts or areas of the Design industry that you want to engage with?

You should also identify and discuss how you have maintained your design practice through, type/visual journals, live briefs or independent practical research.

A Professional Skills Plan – Using the handout provided evaluate your current skills profile and over the summer period identify specific areas of focus in order to build an appropriate skills set for in order to help you fulfil your ambitions. You should include practical skills (software, print production etc. as well as personal and professional skills).

It is important that you come back with a plan that is informed by your experiences, ambitions, interests and skills. This is an opportunity to take control of your future and put strategies in place that will help you to establish and achieve your goals. Whatever they are.

Deliverables

A 7 -10 minute Powerpoint (or similar) presentation.

A completed skills profile and plan including rationale and statement of intent (see handout).

Entries on your PPD blog. that document your progress over the summer break.

Negotiated Briefs Studio DeadlineIdentify and formally present a set of 10 briefs that you intend to respond to during Level 6 of the programme. See additional handout.

Presentations will be delivered on Wednesday 26th/Thursday 27th September (to be confirmed)

This brief should be read in conjunction with the module brief. Please refer to module handbook for module brief, submission deadline, graded outcomes and further reading.

BA (Hons.) GRAPHIC DESIGN LEVEL 06 Module Code OUGD301 Outcomes

Module Title DESIGN PRACTICE 3

BRIEF TITLE NEGOTIATED BRIEFS

ContextFACT: YOU NEED A PLAN. In order to make the most of the opportunities available to you during Level 06 of the programme you need to take control of your own future. The direction of your own individual design practice will be dictated by the briefs that you select. With this in mind it is essential that you put a significant amount of thought into what briefs you choose, why you are choosing them, what you aim to learn from them and what work you will have for your portfolio at the end.

The BriefIdentify and formally present a set of 10 briefs that you intend to respond to during Level 6 of the programme.

The briefs that you present should be supported by a completed statement of intent (see additional document) and should represent the undertaking of a significant body of work that should reflect your emerging interests in professional Graphic design practices.

Considerations

What skills do you want to develop and what briefs will support their development?

What subjects/themes are you interested in investigating and how can a brief ‘accommodate’ your investigation?

What audiences and contexts do you want to design for and why? What do you want to design for them?

Which Competition / Live / Collaborative briefs will you choose? Why? What do you aim to get out of them?

Deliverables

10 Briefs presented in the standard studio brief format.

A statement of intent outlining your rationale, areas of creative focus, proposed research activities and practical development.

Posts to your Design Practice Blog documenting initial research, development and evaluation of source material.

Studio DeadlineAll material should be available in printed format for studio workshops during the week commencing 24th September and 1st October

This brief should be read in conjunction with the module brief. Please refer to E-studio for further module information, module brief, submission deadline, graded outcomes and further reading.

OUGD301 Design Practice 3 – Negotiated BriefsIt is important that you select & negotiate briefs that will allow you to develop an appropriate range of skills and offer you the opportunity to develop a body of work that is relevant to your creative/professional ambitions. The briefs will also need to offer you the potential to generate responses that demonstrate a significant investigation of the practical, conceptual and theoretical aspects of your individual design practice. You will also nee to be able to demonstrate your understanding of the relevant professional, social and cultural contexts of your practice.

You should aim to select and develop a set of briefs that will balance what you ‘WANT’ to do as a creative individual and what you ‘NEED’ to do as a professional. This includes considerations of practical skills development, appropriate media/formats, awareness of production requirements as well as relevant contextualisation.

The following list may help guide your decision making.

Research Briefs:Research briefs tend to represent a more self directed and sustained investigation of a specific theme, concept or specific area of individual interest. The focus of the brief s to generate your own content from which you will develop appropriate design solutions, products and responses. These briefs can take time to get going and o you should always have other briefs running alongside them in order to keep you designing. As a result these briefs require a high level of planning and organisation.

Competition Briefs:Competition briefs ‘give you a problem to solve’ and as a result both challenge your ,….. and demonstrate you ability to analyse and respond to unfamiliar content and contexts. ISTD briefs offer opportunities for significant practical & conceptual research underpinned by significant theoretical and contextual research. D&AD briefs will focus more on you’re ability to respond quickly and creatively to amore commercially orientated problem. You can modify old competition briefs to help focus more personal lines of enquiry.

Skills Driven Briefs:Skills driven briefs offer you the opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of production or distribution methods, processes and/or technologies. The content of these briefs can be ‘given’ or from predominantly secondary sources as the emphasis is on media investigation, visualisation and production. Quotes, existing texts, facts and stock imagery will allow you to focus on the specific practical skills that you want to develop which may include investigation of print processes, finishing processes, book binding, web design, motion graphics, story boarding, etc.

Live Briefs: Live briefs offer the opportunity to work directly with a client or external agency in a more professional context. You may get the opportunity to pitch for live briefs against other students and or professionals which gives you a greater sense of how the industry works in terms of pace, decision making, proposal and production. These briefs are usually exciting and frustrating in equal measure and rarely meet your creative expectations. (but this is why they are useful). You may identify a number of smaller,’ quick turn around’ live briefs that you combine into one larger brief or extend a live brief beyond the clients requirements in order to turn it into a more substantial and appropriate boy of work.

Collaborative briefsYou can work collaboratively through out Level 06 offering you the opportunity to combine your skills with other members of the group or work across disciplines. Many Graphic design students work successfully with students from other degree

programmes. This gives breadth to your portfolio and depth to your design practice. Be careful who you collaborate with and always make sure that you are clear about your expectations, requirements and what you are actually gong to get out of the brief. All collaborations must be discussed with Programme Leader &/or year tutor before any commitments are made.