Last Module Feedback // Grade

Design Practice 3: OUGD 301 feedback.

"The level of practical and visual experimentation is good but inconsistent resulting in a body of work that lacks clear focus and direction. A more critically aware approach to the development of initial ideas would help you to exploit the potential in your work more consistently."

If I'm being perfectly honest, I was expecting a worse grade. I struggled to get myself of the ground for the fist module of this year and this has impacted my grade significantly. My inability to time keep and keep a record of this also contributed to the grade.

"A more organised approach to your studies would allow you to develop a more effective studio practice."

By definition I'm not a very organised person. I kept up the blogging and posting something everyday, even if it was just a small reflection but I clearly need to step this up. I need to be making action plans, (something I struggle immensely with) and my briefs need to reflect my design practice more because something clearly went wrong in the process for last module.

I liked the briefs for their character design aspect, I didn't like them for the applying to a range ect. There was so much more I could do, yet I didn't do this and the only thing I can blame is my poor time keeping abilitys, despite being in the study 5 days a week 9-6. This is something Lorenzo brought up today during group progress surgeries. I'm not a brief writer.

Despite being disappointed in myself I now know what I've got to do to make FMP work for me so my portfolio will reflect my design practice and my grade will reflect my efforts.

(Posted on FMP)

Designers to email

Over the past day or so I've been collecting the emails (or not in one case) of character designers/illustrators/ comic book artists for my Design context journal. Ideally I would like 50 names and emails to send off by the end of this week to see who would be interested in being interviewed ect.

These are people working at Nickelodeon, Cartoon network, freelance, children's illustrators and animators.So far I have 15 names of designers/illustrators whose work I have admired/followed for the past few years.

People to Email:

1. Jamie Smart: sixtyfootmonkey@yahoo.com
2. Chris Battle : CBillustation@gmail.com
3. Sanford Greene : sanford.greene@gmail.com
4. Bobby Pontillas : BobbyPontillas@Gmail.com
5. Darren Rawlings : contact@rawls.ca
6. Pascal Campion : pascal_campion@yahoo.com
7. Flaviano Armentaro: flaviano.armentaro@hotmail.it
8. Eric Canete : ERIC.CANETE@GMAIL.COM
9. Francisco Herrera : blog@herrerabox.com
10. Steve Gordon : http://stevenegordon.com
11. Mike Thomas : Sketchmt@aol.com
12. Ryan Woodward : rwoodward@mac.com
13. Sean L. Moore : seanlmoore@shaw.ca
14. Dan Panosian : Info@danpannosian.com
15. Skottie Young : Will find his email/send a message through his website.

I will also be making case study posts of all of the designers i email over on my FMP blog.

I'll update this post with more names and emails and also mark off who I have contacted and whose got in contact with me.

Edit: 18/01 - I aim to have 25 by tonight

16. EK Weaver : ek@tjandamal.com
17. Justin Rodrigues : Justinrod123@sbcglobal.net
18. Matt Jones : matt_jonezuk@yahoo.co.uk
19. Sean Galloway : seansgcheeks@yahoo.com
20. Jeff Lemire : jeff@jefflemire.com
21. Elena Barbarich : Elena@yamiloo.com

Si Scott

(Posted to FMP as well)

I had my first portfolio review with Si Scott today and I was not really sure about how it would go. He pointed out a couple of my fears such as what I'm going to do when I graduate to tie me over. (Breaking into comic books is hard, I'll need something to do to pay the bills for that first year or so)

When looking through my work, the piece that stood out the most to Si was my Marvel Novelization brief. It surprised me that he actually liked it so much and we spoke about what I could do incorporate that kind of style into some of my briefs this year.

Another aspect he liked were the smaller characters I draw, that there is a darker theme to them despite almost looking like something for a children's books.

I'm taking him comments on board and seeing how I can work these into my final major project briefs but I know it's just one opinion of many. When it comes down to it I need a portfolio that's going to get me a job and Si knows what he's talking about.

Revised Portfolio

For next portfolio surgery's I re ordered my portfolio (as well as completely re-designing it using an altered template from last modules submissions boards.) These are my strongest pieces to date and the beauty of a portfolio is that they're always changing:

Open publication - Free publishing - More portfolio

At the back of my portfolio, I wanted to include some illustration so I chose 3 pieces to show if time restraints let me. (If not, it's not a big loss.) :

Open publication - Free publishing - More portfolio

Along with it will be my square format business card that I'll be printing tomorrow with the other stuff.

After next weeks surgeries, I'll review both my work and portfolio and I'll use any remarks/suggestions to help me re work this for digital/email distribution. I'm also looking into make a more illustration mail out that I can send to designers/agency's.