Typography Reflection

Normally I would have gone and worked in the studio this morning, but as I am isolating I couldn't. Instead, I worked on Activity task 2 independently for a couple of hours, sketching possible design ideas for my double-page spread. Although I usually struggle with layouts and grids, I didn't find it too difficult and came up with ideas I was happy with. I found the simple designs worked better than the fancy, dynamic ones I spent ages coming up with. Maybe the reason I have been struggling all this time is that I am overcomplicating it! I then had an online virtual 1-to-1 with Kate. I showed her my work and we had a lovely chat where she recommended I created the designs digitally and started thinking about choices of typography etc. She also gave me a couple of ideas of things to do if I had finished everything. I'll have a go at these on Friday, as I have no work to do that day. We also chatted about life in COVID, isolation and how I am generally coping. This was really...

Today I had my in-person workshop. I really loved doing the task with the 5 shapes. I would like to do more of that and will have another go the next time I have finished all my work and got a bit bored. Layout is something that doesn't come naturally to me so I would probably do me good to practise. I found the "find the gird" challenge super hard, but interesting.  I planned to start the new task this afternoon but I found out my flatmate possibly has to self isolate which threw me. It meant we all had to clean and do online shopping orders and just generally get our heads around the fact that we had to stay in. I am a very outdoorsy kind of girl, so the idea of no sea swimming or hiking made me pretty fed up. Am ok now though after an hour of finger knitting and Dave Gorman.  This also means I can't come in and work tomorrow in the studio, which is a shame because I love doing that. I might do an online one-to-one instead. And I will definitely video call my friend...

 I really like doing this journal. I am a talkative overthinker with a lot to say about everything, but not everyone wants to hear how activity task 2 went in great detail, especially as most of my friends either haven't done it yet or don't do graphics and don't have a freeking clue what I am talking about. It is nice to have an outlet for all those thoughts. Today I watched the stage meeting and the lectures then did activity task one. As last week I rushed the tasks a little and then found I had time left, I was careful to take my time and do it all properly. I looked at lots of different pieces of work on multiple platforms. I really enjoyed doing this. There is something really nice about just looking at lots of lovely pieces of work. I struggle a little to describe why I liked my chosen favourite, but I figured out a way to express my self pretty quickly.  Whilst doing this, I had a teams chat in the background with some of my friends from the course. we chatted about...

This morning I have taken part in an online InDesign tutorial. I was sceptical about how well this class would work digitally but it went brilliantly. As I have done the ACA exam for InDesign I thought I would know most of what we were studying already but it was almost all new! Clearly, I am not as much as an expert as I thought.  All I have to do now is watch the type lecture this afternoon and then I am all sorted for this week.  I have only done 19 hours of work so far this week. We are supposed to do 40 I think. But there is nothing more I could have done. Perhaps I could have spent a little longer on the briefs, but certainly not 20 hours longer. Maybe they are just going easy on us because it is week one of learning in a strange way. I'm not complaining!

Today I got up early and watched my textworks lecture, the attended the discussion. I found it pretty interesting, and it was on a topic I didn't know lots about and I learnt plenty. Then I had a break before my seminar so I worked on my type poster a little. I managed to improve it somewhat, but it still didn't look quite right.  In my seminar we had some interesting discussions which made me think different about what I had learnt in the morning. I always enjoy textworks seminars, particularly when they are with Tim. Then I went back to my type poster. I still couldn't work out how to improve it, so I gave up and posted it to padlet. This made me feel worse because all the other ones on there were really good. I reminded myself that the people most likely to upload early are the ones who found the task easier and are happy with their result which made me feel a bit better. Plus, layouts have never been my strength and it is something I can improve on in this module. Off t...

 Today I worked on the poster brief. I went into the studio early this morning to get started without distraction. I decided to work on paper untill I had a set layout because I liked working that way in the workshop the day before. I found this worked well again and within 2 hours, I had decided exactly what I was going to do. Felt pens and layout paper is definitely the way forward for me! This is a bit of a break though as layouts are something I struggle with. I already feel much more confident in this area than I did last year.  I also had a little chat with another student doing the same typographer and a member of staff who said they were one of his favourite practicioners. These were fun and interesting, but did not directly effect what I created. I then watched the guest lecture in the afternoon. I found it very interesting, particularly the bit about having your own projects, because I always have many things on the go! In the last couple of hours I have been trying ...

Today I had my first in person class! It was a workshop on content. The first task, selecting which pieces of copy for a poster were the most important and designing the poster to put emphasis on the right words, seemed easy as first. However, as I got into it, I realised it was more complicated than it seemed. I came up with several good designs.  For the group task, I worked with 2 girls I knew but wasn't close friends with. I like to use those sorts of tasks to get to know people better. We worked well together, and although we were stumped at first, we came up with something we were all happy with. I haven't started brief 4 yet. I will do that tomorrow morning. 

Today was my first day of uni. I was very excited to be finally starting, as I am happiest when I am busy. I moved back to falmouth on the 13th and I have been quite lonely and bored at times over the past week. Hopfully I will be too busy to be sad this module! When I reaslied we had 2 meetings to attend, 3 videos to watch and 2 tasks to do today I did feel a little overwelmed at first. Once I got started and realised that none of them would take very long I relaxed a bit. I found I understood all the videos and enjoyed the task. I do think I rushed the task a little though. I could have spent longer reseaching before coming up with my final 100 words. I was too busy worrying about getting everything done in time.  I like being able to see what everyone has done on padlet. One of the things I miss most about all working together in the studio is being able to wander round and spy on my friends. I think that will be a really useful tool.  I am going to go to the beach with Kit...