OUIL401 Self Evaluation

1.  What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?
·       Drawing in response to research- although this has been there in other projects COP is the hardest one for me as I found it hard to illustrate such wide and intricate concepts such as heteronormativity etc. I feel I have gotten better at this but still in need of improvement. ·       Presentation skills-I feel my pecha kucha went so well it helped me gain more confidence in presentations. I feel I did well because I tried to keep talking about my subject natural and not strictly sticking to a script. ·       Made me see the need for activism/messages within illustration- The lack of illustration by other people on my subject frustrated me no end through out the whole of this module, but looking back now I see that I have the responsibility to make my own
2. What approaches to/methods of research have you developed and how have they informed your practical outcomes?
·       Reading Journals- I’ve learnt how to work with google scholar and jstor, I’ve found that although a journal may not be exactly about your subject you can still find helpful sections and pieces of research from them. ·       Looking at Online articles- although always to be read with a pinch of salt, I found these were a good way to get surveys and more opinion based things. ·       Books- I found some of this challenging, reading a whole book was hard for me as the books relevant to my subject were all very dense and overly wordy. I learnt to skim read for good chapters and other things. ·       Image making as a form of research- I found through image making I could sort out my research into much clearer sections which allowed me to examine it better.
3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?
·       Essay Structure- I felt my essay was well structured and ordered which made my argument within my essay very strong. ·       Good analysis- I feel as though I am good an analysing the media within my essay. ·       Characterising concepts- I felt this is the best type of visual research I did, I felt by characterising and parodying the broad concepts I was working with down into characters it made them much easier for people and myself to understand
4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?
·       I wonder if my final piece may be confusing- I worry that without my character labels people will not understand which characters are which, although I tried my best to put in clear symbols into each portrait. Also for people not knowing about the idea of heteronormativity it may also be confusing as the piece does not explain what it is, rather how it effects our view of LBT people. ·       Not happy with type on my poster- Looking at it I feel as though my title is too big and should have been a lot smaller, with the illustrations being a lot bigger. OR I should have done hand done type, perhaps in illustrator. ·       Maybe I show bias in my essay and need to include more points of view
5. Identify five things that you feel will benefit you during next years Context of Practice module?
·       Narrower question- my starting question was very broad and although I narrowed it down still feels as though it was too big to tackle in the word count allowance. I also felt my work went off in tangents sometimes. ·       More research from things like podcasts to gather other peoples opinions ·       Read a whole book instead of just odd chapters from one ·       Perhaps look at more visual media for research such as film, I feel I could have found out more through watching films that carry LBT subjects, next year I will definitely look into film more as research. ·       More drawing- I still find the idea of generating a lot of drawings daunting and I’m trying to get better at just doing it, but next year I’d like to set myself higher goals for the amount of visual research. Also visual research not just from drawing! I tried a small bit of collage etc but I definitely think my COP next year will benefit from more.
6.How would you grade yourself on the following areas: (please indicate using an ‘x’)  5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor
	1	2	3	4	5
Attendance					x
Punctuality				x
Motivation			x
Commitment				x
Quantity of work produced			x
Quality of work produced				x
Contribution to the group					x
The evaluation of your work is an important part of the assessment criteria and represents a percentage of the overall grade. It is essential that you give yourself enough time to complete your written evaluation fully and with appropriate depth and level of self-reflection. If you have any questions relating to the self-evaluation process speak to a member of staff as soon as possible.

COP: Visual Diagram Evaluation

Strengths: 

• Colour- I feel I picked a strong colour palette that is very attractive and eye catching
• Character/Expressiveness- I'm very happy with some of my characters expressions I feel the top left hand box and the one below it show a lot of expression and a lot of my squares have a strong sense of character.
• Humour?- I hope there are some elements of my poster that are funny, as I tried to parody some of the aspects of heteronormativity by making them look absurd.

Weaknesses:

• Type- I feel as though just using a computer type makes it look out of place next to the style of my illustrations. I feel I should have drawn the type with the pen tool in illustrator but I ran out of time.
• Some tiles more developed than others- I feel I should have thought out the characters in each tile more.
• Maybe hard to understand perhaps for those unfamiliar to the concept of heteronormativity.
• Hopefully not but I do wonder if this could be misinterpreted as stereotyping on my behalf, when really I'm trying to show the stereotypes but make people think about them.

Notes:

• Not completely sure how I feel about the style I used, I like some tiles more than others, I feel if I'd spent more time on the ones I am unsure about they would have turned out as good as my favourites however.

COP: Visual Diagram WIP

Mock-up/scan

Drawing out the sketches more clearly and making alterations where needed. I also put in the boxes to make sure they were all equally spaced and sized.

Colour tests- I decided to go with something more like the top colour scheme as I found it a lot more human looking. I think the bottom scheme is interesting but doesn't fit.

COP: Visual Diagram Final ideas