Position Statement

My practice has definitely become more defined throughout this module, not necessarily my practical work but for my future. My practical work this year has been a lot more focused on what I want to do when I leave uni, and I think it has somewhat benefited it more than it has in my previous years. 

Doing work that is around education or informing people has really increased my motivation when working on briefs, I find it a lot more interesting and I thoroughly enjoy it. I have found that research driven briefs are what I like to do most, and I now try to incorporate this in my work all of the time.

In regards to what I want to do after I graduate, I think that I am very prepared to start this next journey. The skills and experience that I have gained throughout this module and year at university has made me feel prepared to go and achieve my goals.

I have learnt many different skills that I feel like will help me along the way; my confidence in speaking and communicating with many different people has grown a lot. I have always been chatty, but now I feel like I can alter my tone for different situations i.e. professionally. 

I also feel like I have become a lot more professional within this year, I am now very driven and work well to deadlines, and I am very focused when it comes to putting a lot of work in. All of these changes will help me move on after university.

I don't want to do my PGCE straight away as I have spoke to a lot of people about this since September, as I have been informed the education system regarding the subject of Art could be changing in the next few years.

In the meantime, along with working, I would like to carry on doing workshops with the Fox Creative team as we are a really good group and it gives us a lot of experience when wanting to go into teaching. I have been to the career track Tuesday meeting on how to get into teaching, as well as talking to teachers and I feel confident that I know what I want to do, and how I will achieve this.

Overall, with all of the things I have learnt in this module and from the people I have spoke too along the way, I feel very confident that in a few years time, I will be an art teacher.

Summative Evaluation

For PPP this year, I've found it really helpful to my practice for the first time, which is probably because I focused it on what I want to do when I leave, compared to just giving up with it and thinking it doesn't apply much to me. I feel like because I've opened myself up to it, I have reaped the rewards as I feel like I have gained a lot from this module.

I really enjoyed taking part in the creative workshop at Cockburn school and speaking to all the teachers there emphasised my motivation to be a teacher, which helped me progress in the module towards the latter part. With the drive that I have and the positive comments from this experience is what drove me to want to do more workshops with the group, which has turned out to be quite successful.

From my experience working with the group on the workshops and the mural project, I have learnt a lot more about myself and how I work. Mostly, I've learnt that when I am passionate about something, I tend to put my all in and take a leader role, although that’s not what I intended to do. I don't feel like a leader, I just get quite excited to do a project when I am really enthusiastic.

The downside of the collaboration has been the disagreements that we have faced and I did feel like i had to be somewhat confrontational, but the experience has taught me how to be professional and how I hold professionalism to quite a high standard when it comes to a business stand point.

My favourite part of this module has been the mural project, not because of what we have/have yet to achieve, but it's because I have felt like it's the first time since I started the course that I have put myself out there and gained a lot of confidence within myself and my ideas. I’ve also been able to to talk and meet a lot of people because of it, students, student’s union etc. and its made me feel very productive.

The downside of this module was meeting Ben Cox, he's lovely but his comments that I shouldn't be an illustrator affected me a bit more than I thought it would have and my confidence about my artwork is very low. Although, I do want to be a teacher, so I am taking the positive of what he said about me, that I am a great business person, and I should be the one hiring him for jobs, and that’s what I will be focusing on.

I think this module has set me off really well for leaving uni, as I have gained experience for the course and job I want to do but I've also improved my personal skills in the meantime.

Presentation

Presentation Boards

Portfolio

Educational Portfolio

As well as the practical portfolio, i personally felt like it was important for me to create an educational portfolio, showcasing the experience i've had over the last 4 months. The reason for doing this as i was advised by the art teachers at Cockburn school to do this if i want to be a teacher.

Mug Design

I made a mug mock up for us to use as merchandise, and i really like the design. I changed the logo for the underside, which i had to learn how to make the writing go in a circle, which I'd never done before. I put the contact details in the text as i thought it would be good to have them even if they are on the underneath. I think the design looks really good and i would personally buy it myself. I am quite proud with the end result and overall the whole product range looks really good.

Badge Design

It's quite common to see badges given for free from companies, so we decided that this would be a great addition to our merchandise. We decided that the background artwork for the website would be lovely and a nice change compared to re-using the logo on all of the different products, so I gave it a go.

The problem I had was that with the spacing on the artwork, it left gaps on the badge when a clipping mask was put on, even though i moved it around quite a lot to get various compositions, so this is when i made a last minute decision to use the individual drawings from the artwork and this could give us more variety in the badges.

Overall I am very happy with this design but even more so at the fact of having loads of different varied badges that will represent the company and would be fun to collect them.

Post-It-Note Mock Up

We did initially think that fox shapped post-it notes would be great, although we would have to possibly buy them from someone, so I decided to make these for us anyway, I made the logo opaque so that they would be more useable as you can see writing on top, but kept the stack colour bright to represent our business.

Im very pleased with these and would be a great way to advertise and promote the business.

Pen Mock Up

As the idea is now to make merchandise that could possibly be gifted to people who hire us, I thought that products which are normally on a desk would be really good, as they would use/see them everyday and then will remember our business. These would be a lovely incentive that we could have, almost like a thank you pack that will inevitably advertise our business for a long time.

Im really happy with the mock up as the product looks very professional.

Ellie's Mock Up's

Ellie sent over these mock ups today and they're great, i'm very happy to use her designs for the business, the business cards are very nice, simplistic and I like how she's used the background of the website as one side of them as it brings them to life with the pop of colour. I also like the metallic effect on the bag, it makes the bag look very current.

Changed Shirt Designs

After the changes we had discussed and agreed, i made some more mock ups for the business, I had to change to font for the contact details since the previous design as i felt like it wasnt very easy to read. Although simple to do, i think the designs are very affective and the actual t-shirts would be cost affective as they are quite simplistic.

I really like the designs we have so far.

Facebook Account

I set us up a Facebook business account where we can advertise both our website and Instagram page, I've linked them all up and now we all can access and edit together as a group.

Mock Ups

Today I've made some mock ups of some potential merchandise that could be used for the business, Ellie also made some with some nicer overall designs so we should use them for the professional side, but we have option. It would be a good idea to have our information on products that could be left or given for example, mugs, pencils, pens, tote bags, post it notes etc.

These are what I made initially but after discussing with the group, we've decided the pattern makes it look too busy and also if they were more plain we could do them in different colours

My Page

After starting the website, I've been on to edit my page, telling the viewer a little bit about me and an Image of me. I still have to upload some of my work onto the page and them, although at the moment I don't know what piece of work I'm proud enough of to have representing me, I'm going to have to think about it before I put anything up there.

Creating Our Website

Today me and Sophie started to piece together the website for Fox Creative, using our new business email address we set up our Wix account. We started inserting our logo and decided we needed some more artwork just to bring it together a bit more.

The three of us in the group did some doodles in crayon that we scanned in and changed the colours for a banner image to sit behind the logo. It really sets of the page, hinting at the playfulness of the workshops we provide.

With timings of us meeting up, we had to leave it there so we can individually go back and start editing the page more on our own.

Group Email Address

I set up a group email address for us to use today for setting things up like websites, instagram accounts etc. At first I made a standard gmail account, but with further research i found that there is a possibility that it could log us out if multiple people were signing in from different locations. With this in mind, i decided to see if there were alternatives where numerous people could log in and reply to messages.

This is when i came across collaborative inbox options on google, this is primarily used by companies for support emails, this is so loads of employees can log in to answer enquiries. I watched a short info video and set one up for us. 

After a but of figuring out, the email address now works and all of us can log in and email people.

Sophie's Logo Design

Sophie sent over her logo design and I instantly loved this design, I think it looks really professional and creative at the same time. I love her use of the different shapes of colour and the text fits the design really well. I would be happy to use this logo to advertise our business and hopefully the rest of the group agrees. 

Fox Creative

We decided that our business name will be Fox Creative, we like the playfulness of the name and now we can go on to make logos for the online presence. I do think we should maybe work on this separately as although we are all in Leeds over easter, we all have different schedules and can be difficult to meet up. 

Suggestion By Student

With the theme chosen, we had a post by a student asking whether they could use previous work for the mural. We had to discuss this before replying but initially this would be the choice of the participants as it is essentially student led.

A possible problem with this could be that not every student might have previous work to fit the theme, although if they are willing to re-work the design to fit in with the rest of the composition and change the colours to fit in with the chosen colour palette then i wouldn't see a problem with this.

We mentioned this as a reply and also said to bring other possible designs just incase.

Fauna & Flora

After the theme poll, we announced the winning suggestion, which is Fauna and Flora, and created another poll for people to choose how many colours we should have in the mural. With a joint decision, we will have to hold another for people to decide on 3 or 4.

Poll for the Theme

After the theme submissions, Tyler posted a poll for everyone to vote for their favourite theme out of the suggestions. I think polls are really effective when working in a group, although i think if we were to do this again I would change the post a bit. Although theres nothing wrong with it, if looking closer It could contradict the message we are trying to send to the participants, for example:

- Telling the students they can add more suggestions to the poll - this sends a different message to the professional one we are trying to uphold with the project. We already had given a deadline to them, and by giving them the option to add more suggestions, it takes away the professionalism, as in the professional world, you wouldn't get this opportunity and we need to be consistent.

- Giving them the option to choose more than one theme - This is not a bad idea, but it can cause problems when trying to get a specific result. If people choose more than one and for instance liked all of them, we could get an equal result and cause us to have to make another poll, which can take more time. We also want people to be carefully considering the different options on what they would like to work on, and this stops the students from going through this process.

Theme Ideas

No Response

Since Sophie's post on the mural page, we hadn't received a response from any of the students involved. Although an option of just providing a theme can be done, we do want the project to be student-led, so we had to re-think our approach.

I stressed in the mural meeting and to our group that this is professional, and although we understand that people have other things going on, this was stated as a professional brief when we presented it to the students and we need to keep it that way.

I decided we should make another post stating that they should get involved to make something they want to make and extended the deadline further but actually put a deadline on the post and said that if they fail to come up with anything, then we would have to give them a theme to work on, although we ideally don't want to do that.

Mural Theme

As we want the participants of the mural group to work on ideas over the Easter break for when we get back, we decided to post on the facebook group page to ask everyone to start posting theme ideas so we can later make a poll of all the suggestions and the group can then decide on what they would like to work on.

Mural page

I set up a Facebook group for the mural after the meeting we had, I asked everyone to add each other as I don't know names yet and we have 21 members so far. I think this will definitely help us to keep tracks on people's suggestions, creating polls, posting important information etc.

First Mural Meeting

The first meeting went pretty well, we presented what we are aiming to achieve and demonstrated how we will do it and where it is going to go. I admit that I am very chatty, so a lot of the people who attended, I had already pretty much told them everything they needed to know!

No one really spoke that much but I think that was due to tiredness and being shy, although we did get people asking questions which was nice to see people getting involved and already thinking about different things.

Within the meeting we did discuss that we are going to need to choose a theme for the mural by the end of the week, this will give the students three weeks to draw some initial ideas for the first meeting when we get back.

We were going to use the student notice board as a point of contact but within the group it was mentioned that Facebook would be a better platform to communicate so we will make a group page specific for this so it will be easy for everyone taking part to make the decisions on theme and colour etc. easily.

Presentation for the Mural Meeting

After planning what we would like to have on the presentation for the first mural meeting, Ellie made this presentation for us to show to the students.

Posters In Department

Stressful group Meeting

With it being the last week before we break up for the Easter holidays, I have been really stressed out with trying to get everything finished for this project before the end of the week. With bad organisation from within the group, we now have not been able to set up the websites and instagram accounts, meaning we have to spend more time to get it done before thursday.

Because of this, it's now taking more time out from doing work for Extended Practice, which i can't afford to do. So with this being really frustrating, I decided we had to have a meeting to discuss how this needs to improve. Obviously, working collaboratively in a group of four will mean that there will be disagreements, but it is awkward to mention problems to each other, but i find it a lot worse to not say anything.

I decided that confronting the problem head on was best, with it being 2 days before everyone breaks up for Easter and it supposed to be professional, then bringing up problems within the group would be nothing more then professional.

The meeting itself was actually really awkward as my main worry was people thinking i was attacking or victimising them, but I had to be blunt to get my point across firmly with no chance of it being misinterpreted. I feel like although there were some tears which weren't from me, which made me feel awful, i think that it was definitely necessary, not only to address the problems within the group but also to keep the standard of professionalism within the project, as if this was a company or a real-life professional situation, the same thing would have happened, if not sooner.

Im hoping from now on that we can improve and move on from all of this, as I wouldn't be able to carry on as it is now.

Organising ourselves with Websites, Instagram and Facebook

After the second week of creative workshops I stressed that we needed to organise ourselves so we could put together the online presence package for the submission before Easter, which is only a week away. After acknowledging that it isn't easy for everyone to come into uni for meetings, we decided that a facebook group call would work best to arrange what we need to do over the weekend, to make the work load manageable.

We had the facebook group call on Saturday and I think it was a really productive way of communication. It was like a conference call so we could all talk whilst doing other things, making the meeting less tasking and taking up more time than needed.

We decided that we should think over the weekend of names for the company so we could meet on Monday and set up a Facebook, Instagram and Website and then go away and meet on Thursday with logo designs to put on them. I thought this way would be less time consuming for everyone as it would only take up a few hours of 2 days in the 4 day week at uni.

I think this form of communication is definitely something that i will proceed to use, as unlike messages, it helps each other to understand the context of what people are trying to say and its a lot quicker to make decisions.

Creative Workshop Facebook Post with new Posters

We were able to post our new poster on facebook before the next meeting, it definitely makes it feel more professional with something representing the workshops.

Posters for Creative Workshops

Sophie made some posters for the creative workshops to put up around the department and in the studios to advertise a bit. She kept the style messy, drawing upon the creative/fun theme of the workshops.

It's nice to have something to post and put up for our project and have a practical side towards what we are doing instead of just word of mouth and written posts.