FINAL EVALUATION

 

The Aim of my final major project was to map out my own personal journey and to portray this in a creative and exciting way, also showing my personality. This could be a map of either, my past, present or future and the different memorable events I had obtained along my life’s journey. In my opinion, I have achieved my aims successfully through the portrayal of image, drawing and colour in order to show who I am through the design and artwork.

 

To begin my research and decide my subject matter, I began with a short photography project. This project involved taking pictures of my hands from my perspective rather than another’s point of view, which was done in a week. Therefore this is what helped me to decide that I would base my map on the present through looking at what buildings and places I spent my time in. Since I planned to look at the places I’ve been in throughout the week, I looked at the map of London to begin my mapping project. To find ideas on how I could use this secondary source and create my own map, I looked at the places that I remember being in and plotted these with crosses on a  free and open source drawing/painting software called krita. After plotting the places, I thought of joining these places to make my own personal map shape of London and this is what began my development stage. This map shape was a starting point and I used this to experiment with different shapes, sizes and colours. One of the problems I had was that while being away from the college I did not have the required software. Therefore, to maximize my time at home without the access of Photoshop, I researched and made use of free open source softwares that acted as my alternatives. These involved Krita and Gimp 2. Although they were not familiar and difficult to use at first, this experience helped me to easily adapt and learn about new techniques.

 

Through the help of my tutor I was able to find artists and techniques that suited my style. My artist researches, Stephen Walter, Gareth Wood and Paula Scher were major inspirations to my final major piece as they all influenced my style, shape and use of colour. Both Stephen Walter and Gareth wood helped me to decide the style of my piece. Paula Scher inspired me to use bold lettering and words in order to emphasize what I wanted to represent in my work about myself. My research was successful as you can clearly see which parts of my final major outcome were inspired by my artist research.

 

The design development stage was where I decided to make my final outcome through the development of shape, style and colour. This enabled me to build on my statement of intent because I was able to personalise my own map. Through the experimentation of new programs I was able to incorporate the buildings where I spend most of the time in. In order to further develop and make the project more personal I took the shape of these buildings and put them together into my map shape. This was successful as I was able to change the colours and outlines to make these additions more visible and obvious. Furthermore these changes could also be made subtle, discreet and hidden through my colour scheme as my building shape additions were well blended into my map. I chose to make a three part final major outcome on three sheets of A3 paper in order to display a split message about myself. This was also done to show the difference of the buildings being shown both obviously and discreetly.

If I were to extend or re-work my project I would have spent more time and researched more deeply into my artist researches in order to further develop my final piece through the use of context and style. I would have also looked further into more different shapes I could have styled and shaped my map through looking at different types of map such as climate, economic, political and topographic maps. To further develop my piece I could have experimented with the overlapping and layering of paper with my collage skills to make a more interactive and 3D piece. 

 

My final outcome relates to my initial statement of intent as creating a three part final piece shows the different parts of my life and what is important to me. My aim was successfully fulfilled as I was able to map out my week in a style that also used data from my photography part of the project. I almost developed my piece into an infographic of myself.

 

One of the weaknesses of this piece was the fact that my incorporated buildings blended in too well into the map which made my additional changes discreet. This was because I realized that I did not manage to use the right colours in order to do this. This was because I looked at a similar shade and colour scheme of the map rather than what colours complimented each other such as blue and red. I was too focused on portraying what my favourite colour was to make my piece more personal. If I was extending the project I would have made additional changes to my choice of colour in order to further to clearly portray my message. However my final outcome does fulfil my message and plan as my three part piece showed different portrayals of my life in a creative way. The top piece focused more on where I spend my time in and what this shows about my hobbies and interests through the style of simple doodles and small illustrational drawings. The middle piece is what I view as the centre of my life and what fulfils my purpose. This is my faith. This second part of my final outcome was also greatly inspired by Paula Scher for her use of lettering. In order to make this more personal, I used my own font and lettering which I often use to title most of my work. I effectively emphasized the message of my middle piece through the use of the solid teal/ turquoise colour and through my inspiration of Gareth Wood’s piece. His artwork was what inspired me to include swirls rather than leaving the background completely filled with colour. The bottom piece of my final outcome focused more on my favourite colour and hides the fact that I have added the shape of other buildings. In my opinion there is also more room for improvement in this bottom part of my piece. Instead of just showing a different arrangement of colour, I could have incorporated an additional journey of my life. This would have been either from the past or the future.

Other people’s feedback for my final piece enabled me to view the strengths of this. My viewers found that my piece was successful in showing both small and intricate details while also showing bold details in order to portray myself. My tutors also helped me in the context and direction my project was going in. For example, for my photography part of the project I realized that my image showed more than I thought as it also showed how the right hand was more dominant in everything I did. To improve the outcome of my project I believe that I could have managed my time more carefully.

Overall I feel that my final outcome does have some strengths and some weaknesses that could be improved. In my opinion, my final major piece has successfully fulfilled and emphasized the message I wanted to show about myself through a journey and a personal map.