OUIL602 Final Summative Evaluation + Evaluation Form

This year's PPP module has been hugely beneficial for me in terms of forcing me to make decisions about my practice. I feel that towards the end of the module I had successfully identified a path for future exploration, and a plan for my career goals, which a short while ago were incredibly vague and ineffective. This module has helped me to understand alot about how the creative industries work, for example, how an illustrator would usually be commissioned on a freelance basis by an advertising agency, as opposed to what I previously believed, that illustrators would work in-house. I've done a great amount of learning which has informed my decisions about the future, and pushed me to aim for a path that is less freelance illustration, and more design based. 

Despite my decisions concerning Illustration and Graphic Design, I'm confident that this course was beneficial to me. I started with an interest in commercial image making and design, and feel that it has just helped me to identify areas that I want to develop but also discard. I feel that I have also gained a much more in-depth understanding of the term Illustration.

In comparison to other people on the course, I feel I haven't developed professionally as much, mainly because of my struggle with my creative identity and defining the ideal direction for my development. I have struggled with maintaining confidence in my work which has resulted in a lack of self-application and engagement with the industry. If this module deadline was extended by a few months I feel that I would have been able to approach practitioners, employers, job applications etc, with a much fuller picture of what I am offering as a professional, which I intend to define over summer. 

Where appropriate I have engaged with opportunities that I felt would benefit my practice however, including the Stratstone BMW brief and the various exhibitions at Colours May Vary that are displayed in my current portfolio. I feel that the skills I have built over the duration of the course have created a solid foundation that I can use with a range of platforms, and apply to graphic design projects, but also to general business. 

When developing my creative presence for the module, I found it difficult to identify certain elements of my current practice that I want to promote/market. I based alot of my decisions on the feedback from Ben Cox, when he gave me an insight into which pieces of my work would be commercially viable and which wouldn't. The less commercially viable (the darker, atmospheric images) I avoided using on my business cards as that style of working isn't relevant to how I want to develop my practice, and wouldn't be the type of work I want to be commissioned for. Ultimately, I was so happy with how my brand identity turned out, because I feel that it is effective and relevant to my future goals, and looks really professional. 

Overall, PPP hasn't been a straight forward path for me because of my lack of confidence and inability to capitalise on successful areas of my practice, and because of this it's been a struggle to fully engage with. I'm confident that I have created an effective action plan to get where I want to be, also learning about various tools and platforms that will benefit my professional development. I also found blogging to be a really effective tool in terms of expressing my thoughts and developing opinions, which is something that I would really consider for the rest of my continuing practice.