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Evaluation and Reflection

Final Evaluation/

Discovery

I chose my project theme from a real problem I encountered in design, whilst travelling Helsinki I and everyone else in my group did not use the Tram Network provided despite it being vast and easily accessible. This was because there was no visual map or signage laid at any of the tram stops which made it difficult to understand where each tram line was going, the only indication for where they would be going was a list at the stops which only had street names. I and everyone else found this daunting as foreigners so we opted out of using the trams. 

Using my experiences as the best way to make an effective project, I decided to do a full rebranding of the Helsinki Tram Network. This rebranding would contain a new Network company logo, a custom typeface, signage, a network map and a set of posters to advertise the rebranding.

For primary research I used my previous research from last year when I went to Finland during the Erasmus exchange. I stayed in Tampere and Helsinki over three weeks and I attended many museums and exhibitions to gather any kind of research that could relate to Finnish design. I found that my visit to Helsinki’s Design Museum and to the Suomenlinna Museum.

Whilst at the design museum I found it interesting to look at Finnish product design history and some traditional Suomi textile patterns, this helped me later develop my use of colour and shape/patterns into my practical work. In the Suomenlinna Museum I went to the Erik Bruun exhibition of his dedicated work for Finnish Graphic Design. I also went to the London Design Museum, there was a large display of Transit design such as the map work of Harry Beck and the road sign work of Margaret Calvert. I found these research topics very valuable and they inspired most of the work of my project. 

My project was mainly shaped through my research on transit systems across the world. I looked at systems such as the London Underground, NYC Subway, Seattle Skyrail, Tokyo subway, West Midlands Rail and Finland’s own tram network. I looked into these systems to gain inspiration from the elements of design associated with their branding such as; Logos, Signage, Pictograms, Posters and Maps. 

In terms of secondary research I have looked into some relevant artists that relate to my project theme very effectively. I have looked into mainly Graphic Designers such as Margaret Calvert, Erik Bruun, Otl Aicher and Paula Scher ect. I specifically chose each artist that applies to the directions I want my project to go in, an example would be Margaret Calvert and Harry Beck because of their work on maps and transit. In my work on Finnish design I chose to look into Erik Bruun and the Werklig (design agency), I used their examples of work of shape and colour and I even borrowed some of the same colours from Werklig’s rebranding of Helsinki because it would reasonably fit better into the cities overall identity.

Defining

I mostly had problems working on my practical work, I worked through my design problems through experimental sketches and tutor/peer assessments. I feel like my main failures with my practical work were my lowercase typeface and my work with posters. I initially started my typography work with just planning on making the uppercase type and the number/ symbols. After getting some tutor feedback I decided to create a lowercase type, it was mainly a failure because of how each letter looked compacted and squashed because I had to work within a grid. I feel like I adapted well to the problems with this piece of type but it still looks strange when used to make sentences. I feel like I did my best by working through my problems in experimental sketches to work out the problems with my forms. 

I also had problems keeping up with my blog work during this project. I wouldn’t say it was a failure but I wish there were a few more things I could complete before submitting the project. I felt like I could be more thorough with my daily journal entries. I do think that my blog posts describing my practical processes are quite strong. I have been keeping up with small tasks like screenshotting and photography my practical processes in every step.

Problem Solving

The main problems I encountered whilst on this project have been with creating my custom typeface. To keep up steady progress on my practical work I decided to cut time on my custom typeface by creating a grid template so I could construct each letter in the alphabet quickly. The problems with creating a pre-setup grid was that most letters could not fit into the grid or look natural whilst keeping the font style the same. I solved the problems with my designs through doing experimental sketches in my sketchbook, and advice from peers and tutors on what looked the most natural, legible and aesthetic. By far the lowercase part of my font was the most difficult to work out but I managed to make it work through sketches.

In this project I felt like my designs could also be used to help and inform so I initially designed my typeface in uppercase and made it as minimal and simple as possible. I did some research into typography for dyslexic people and read that sans serif fonts that are more minimal are more legible. I also read that having a lowercase type helps too, by advice from a tutor I decided to also add a lower case type just for variety. 

I also wanted to make my rebranding as easy to use as possible so I looked into adding colour to the tram service for accessibility. I did this by associating the ten tram lines with ten different colours so people with poor eyesight could distinguish each tram line if they were a frequent user of the service. Much like other Metro services across the world, maps use colour to distinguish each line from each other but in my service I decided to bring those colours into signage and maps, for instance if somebody couldn’t read the type on the signage they could use colours to find the appropriate tram to their destination.

Planning, Progress and Production

I feel that my time management has not been very effective on this project. I feel that I could have done better if I had spent more time developing my project from the beginning of the project in early February instead of putting it off until later on in the month. Overall I think that my work ethic on my blog was very weak since I had not produced a very strong project idea until I had my Pitch document review sometime in March. 

I believe my project was over-ambitious from the beginning, I felt that I have learned and grown my practical work in Graphics and Art over the past couple of years and believed that I should make my project a lot larger using those techniques I’ve learnt. I knew that I probably wouldn’t be able to finish all of my practical work from the beginning but I did it anyway by chance. Overall I am still happy with my work on this project and it has given me the opportunity to research some of my favourite designers and be very experimental with my work. 

If I did have more time on this project I would have done more extensive research looking into history and some studies and document them on my blog. In my practical work I would have produced more typographic posters for my rebranding and I would have gotten to presenting my work as a Graphics Standards Manual in a physically bound book.

Creative Practice

During this project I have developed a new skill in book binding. I wanted to create a design guide similar to books like “NYCTA Graphics Standards Manual” so I pursued creating a prototype hardcover book. Unfortunately the prototype is as far as I went with my physical book. This was because It took too much time to produce my typeface and map, I am also inexperienced with desktop publishing layouts so I put off doing my book for too long. I was also put off by the lengthy process of my prototype book binding project, but I feel like the quality of my prototype is very high except for some warping on the outside cover while the glues were drying.

I also have taken an interest in sketching more often than going straight onto Adobe Illustrator. I believe this has made my rate of work faster because I can create more varied designs in a shorter amount of time. I feel that the quality of my vector designs has improved from this because making small changes by free-hand is a lot easier than tediously altering the designs through a program.

The most ambitious part of my project was my work on typography, it was something I’ve always wanted to do in a project but I wanted to make it part of a large project instead of a smaller one so I decided I wanted to do it as part of my FMP. I gain most of my artistic inspiration from graphic designers that experiment with type, so I decided to make my own and use those artists as resources.

I used techniques like using grids and measurements to form the shape and the weight of my type and experimented with alternate forms through sketches. I created my typeface using Adobe Illustrator and I used geometry tools like the pen, square and ellipsis. I arranged these shapes into outlined grids and constructed the final shapes using the shape builder tool.

Overall this was the most successful and challenging part of my FMP, but I am very happy with the results.

Evaluation and Reflection

I found that reflecting and evaluating on my blog helped me alot in remembering tasks I have to complete in the future and what needs to be improved upon in my practical work and blog. I did most of my reflecting on my daily journal entries but there are also sections at the end of certain blog posts such as research that I used to reflect on how effective I thought the topic was and how it could help me further. 

I have found that peer and tutor reviews were very beneficial to my project. Whenever I had hit a roadblock whilst designing I would ask a third party to review them and see how I could improve upon them. 

This project has certainly been challenging but I feel that I have been very resourceful in solving my problems that end up working in new and interesting ways. I do have regrets in not completing my initial goals I set out to do in my project proposal, but I knew I was over-ambitious with my theme and that I tried to overcrowd it with different outcomes. I am thankful that I managed to come out of this project with some good designs, but I feel that I could have done more in terms of research and development and spent less time working on lengthy practical problems. This final FMP will be a teaching moment for me to take one step at a time on a project and to focus more on current work than final outcomes, hopefully not repeat these mistakes in further education.

Communicating and Presenting a Creative Practice

My reason for wanting to display my work as a Graphics Standards Manual is because I found looking through some examples were really effective in presenting a brand redesign. I did not complete my book by the end of this project but I ended with a strong prototype, I still managed to produce the core amount of work that I wanted to produce for the FMP and that is displayed in my blog and will be presented in the end of year exhibition.

I feel that I have effectively presented my reasons behind my context and research topics and how they have affected my decision making in my practical work. If I did have more time on this project I would have wanted to present my designs and sketches in a manual or zine. 

At this point of my project I am supposed to be thinking on how to finally display my project for the end of year exhibition. This year the exhibition will be online in a digital gallery. I think that I want to display my tram logo, typeface and my map. I just want to show off the basics of my project mainly because I feel that they are the strongest results from my project. Some of the experimental posters I made were not that strong so I will choose not to include them unless I don’t have enough content to showcase.

References/ Sources:

Exhibitions: 

  • Design Museum Helsinki (21.2.2020).
  • Bruun, Erik. Suomenlinna Museum (22.2.2020).
  • London Design Museum (11.3.2020). 
  • Calvert, Margaret. London Design Museum (10.3.2021). (Digital Exhibition)

Websites:

Books: 

  • Standards Manual (2014). NYCTA Graphics Standards Manual. New York: Standards Manual, LLC. 356
  • Richard Danne and Bruce Blackburn (2015). NASA Graphics Standards Manual. New York: Standards Manual, LLC. 220
  • Erik Bruun (2015). Erik Bruun: Finnish Graphic Designer. Japan: Pie International. 224
  • Paul Shaw (2009). Helvetica and the New York City Subway System. MIT Press. 144

Videos:

Articles:

Documentaries: 

  • Abstract: the art of design season 2 episode 6 (2019). Netflix. Jonathan Hoefler.
  • Abstract: the art of design season 1 episode 6 (2017). Netflix. Paula Scher.
FMP Final Evaluation – Fred FoxDownload

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