Evaluation of Unit X

Upon reflection of Unit X I believe that Alice, Grace and I have worked extremely well together. When I first found out that it would be another collaborative task, I was apprehensive, however as the three of us have very similar taste and a range of different strengths, we immediately clicked together. Working in a team has improved my communication skills and allowed me to step back from my work and edit it. The use of social media within the unit also allowed us to communicate on a regular basis with one another, using our Instagram page ‘@multipledivision’ and our Facebook group to post inspirational imagery, research or our own work to gain each others opinions. These have been valuable resources throughout Unit X and if I was ever to work collaboratively again I would revisit this way of working.

Throughout the unit I feel I have worked a lot differently to that of past projects. I have increased my experimentation skills, and my ability to produce a large quantity of quality driven work. This was important to the group as a whole as we aimed our trend book towards a higher end bracket, although we did not want to restrict the work to a particular art practice, we did experiment with adding imagery to the human form. Something that has been an important factor within this project is the vast range of creative media the group and I have used, this was slightly out of my personal comfort zone as I can tend to be lazy in my use of media. This has opened my eyes to the different possibilities outside of digital work, and that experimenting more can benefit my digital work in the long run.

Our final outcome from this project was an ‘inspirational outlet for creatives’, we took on board research from different trend books and were most taken by the concept of Bloom. We wanted the book to stimulate ideas and trends but not dictate them or restrict ideas. During the final weeks of the project I regret not putting together a layout early enough, thankfully as we had a great team who were always in uni, we managed to tackle our problems and over come them just as quickly as they appeared. Specifically when using InDesign we came across the most problems, this came from our lack of experience with the programme, in future projects and within my own time I would like to get to grips with InDesign as I feel it is a valuable tool when used correctly. Communication with reprographics was an oversight in reflection. We got caught up in the excitement of creating a tangible book that we did not convey the direction of each page, if I ever use this outlet to produce my work again I will allocate time for test prints and not rush the process.

The live brief opportunities have been prized prospects for me as I have been given the opportunity to work with the Volklore team. Sam relayed to me in our meeting that he chose me for my advanced Photoshop skills, and my ability to represent his brand to a high standard and understand his market level. I am excited to get started, as I will be constantly learning new skills, which is another reason to concentrate on InDesign more. The Rianna Phillips brief has also been a learning curve. It has taught me to balance my workload and manage my time appropriately. This has caused me to adjust my practice and has changed it for the better; working with Grace was fun, exciting and rather easy. We are great friends and this allowed us to tell each other straight to the point if we did not agree with one another, and to support and motivate one another. Grace is a much more relaxed character than myself, which had a calming effect on me, allowing more time to reflect on the work we produced. I am very pleased with the presentation we gave, everyone worked very hard and we would be very happy to work with Rianna if we were to be chosen.

Over all I have thoroughly enjoyed Unit X and will be sad not to be working with my group again. The unit has confirmed that in my third year I want to further investigate Art Direction, Styling and Trend Forecasting. I feel I have a natural ability to construct Lookbooks and display trend books to a high standard, the live briefs that I have taken part in throughout the unit have confirmed this for me. Also being in contact with Style Sight for a summer placement gave me confidence in my work which motivated me throughout.