Researching into products and packaging gave me a better insight to the type of work that I can potentially do and I really enjoyed this part of it – It made me realise that the possibilities are endless and I feel a little bit more excited and motivated by the prospects of it. As I created a final outcome that was quite informative, that have an aspect of education in it, I was once again reminded of the importance of research and to have an understanding of your subject matter before the planning and production of something.
Like all the modules I have undertaken so far, I have really enjoyed the production of my product but I feel that the development side of my work is really lacking; this was also identified in the final crit. I’m not quite sure what’s wrong with me but I can’t seem to experiment with different processes and visual qualities in my visual journal. As a result, I don’t think I’ve used my visual journal to its potential as I continued to work in my comfort zone. I’ve noticed that this is a repetitive thing across other modules as well. I think this is partly to do with the timescale that I have to work with – knowing that I have to have the projected completed and to produce something within a limited and set amount of time made me work to a method and process that I know will work, which is why I think I always stay within a method I’m familiar with and not giving my self the chance to explore other venues.
I also think the decision-making that went into creating/resolving the final images hasn’t been documented as well on my blog. It was said in the final crit that there isn’t much evidence of the stage that takes the images from visual journal to final images – I’m not sure of the reason for this, I felt it just kind of happened without me even thinking about it.
On the more positive side though, I have really enjoyed the module and really pleased with my final outcomes. I’m glad that people picked up upon the interactivity of the product as its strength, as this was what I wanted to achieve from the start. I did want to portray more dances and make backdrops and other props for the play pieces but the timescale of the module meant that I had to be realistic about the amount of work I put on myself. I think I’ve really improved my practical skills and I do believe that I have achieved something rather high quality and professional. I think I want to develop the product further over the summer – add more pages to the book and create more play pieces and additional products in the range. I would also like to see if I could actually sell it in the future and maybe contact some publishers to see if they’d be interested in the product.
If I were to undergo the project again, or take on a similar self-directed project, I would definitely make the identification of my target market/audience top priority. I believe that this would save me a huge amount of time and would allow me to focus and plan my work based on that, than having to go through the process blindly and without any guidance. This was what made me struggle for the first half of the module – I just wanted to produce every product under the sun and have everyone as the audience, which I later realised that this was not the wisest thing to do. All in all I believe that I have achieved something that is pretty thoroughly researched and informed, that is appealing to my target audience.
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