University exhibition!

At the end of the second brief there was discussions of displaying our work within an exhibition that would be held within the uni. Unfortunately this was happening after my time over there, sometime in January but I still had the chance to display my work within there.

I organised my work and sent it across to a friend within the class to set up my work (thanks again Neno). It was a shame that I wasn't there to take more pictures and have the chance to chat to people but I was still happy with being able to have my work within the exhibition.

Having complete creative freedom

For the second brief we had complete free reign over what we could do, the brief itself was to be designed and set by yourself. Having so much freedom was great but also daunting at the same time, typically I've always worked to set briefs so for the whole thing to be set for myself, by myself was a task in itself.

Something that's always intrigued me psychology, why people do what they do. Especially in todays society where people always feel the need to be socially accepted by others around them. A big contributor to this is social media, it has a huge impacts on people's everyday lives from trying to snap a picture perfect photo of their outfit to having the most followers on Twitter, Instagram etc. All of this leads to a hugely anti-social society because as much as we seem to think that we're connected in more ways than one with there being plenty of social networking sites out there, when in actual fact scenes of people sitting round at a bar and each person being on their phones is all too common. Are we really as connected as we think?

What influence does social media have on our behaviour, both as individuals and as a society as a whole?

My whole project was based around social media and the effects it has on us individually and as society as a whole. As much good as social media can do, connecting people, sharing work etc. it can do damage as well to relationships, personal wellbeing (anxieties, depression) and even something as simple as ruining your productivity. 

So something I did myself as an experiment was to cut out several forms social media that being Snapchat and Twitter to see if I really needed it as much as I used it and to see if I would miss having it. Surprise surprise I didn't, not one bit. In fact using social media more in moderation made my productivity increase and my wellbeing also improve. It made me care less about having to be 'always on' in terms of having to reply to every notification as soon as it comes through and allowed me to get on with my work without being distracted every 5/10 minutes.

The result of this brief was a physical piece that kind of mocked society (and me included) in a couple of ways. The idea behind it was a physical representation of how we are always sucked into our phones and have a disregard for the real world and instead focus our attention too much into this virtual world in our phones. But also to take a dig at how us as consumers are pretty stupid in some ways, we give in too easily to phoney products that are advertised on the TV that claim they will improve our lives in some way or another.

The product allowed the user to view their phone through what is essentially a cardboard box. The idea was to brand this as if it was an actual product by creating a commercial similar to those in America in the 80's. The branding and tone of voice used back then was very energetic and over excited, making it out as though the toy is the best thing since sliced bread. This worked perfectly for what I wanted as it contrasted (sarcastically) with the fact that this is a very boring product that, in reality, no one would want.

This whole project was possibly the hardest yet most satisfying work I've completed to date, taking on the task on filming, directing and editing a video is something I've never touched on before. Luckily I had friends within the class and from other classes to help me out as actors and I think they did a pretty good job of acting like kids, reminiscent of the 80s.

Final Commercial

Designing an app

Our first brief of the semester was to design an app for the government funded railway company, NSB. Given that that the company was soon to be broken up into different sectors for their competitors to fight over and purchase, the main idea behind designing this new app was to create something that would make NSB stand out in the market and withhold their rights to the company.

Having never designed an app before it was something entirely new to me, but using them day in day out for years on end I felt I was capable of creating something that users would want to use. The main premise for my app was to create something personalised to the user but also to try and involve the company with the local communities within the cities as I felt this is something Apple do really well. Staying involved with your community and giving back dissolves this idea of both hierarchy and a one way stream between a company and their consumers, instead creating a tight knit community where everyone has some sort of involvement.

Personal Feel

In the same way a personal assistant would sort out your morning coffee at work and notify you of any your upcoming meetings for the day etc. the app follows this same idea of making the whole catching a train process smoother and easier for the user by essentially being your personal assistant. 

The account page of the app was something that had to be a visualisation of the user's journey both in the real world and the points system within the app. 

The points system is something that allows the company and customers to give back to their communities through giving rewards when hitting a point milestone that can be spent in local independent stores.

Living & studying abroad

For the entirety of my first semester I had the opportunity to live and study in Norway, more specifically Oslo. Aside from the cold extremes and almost borderline illegal prices for a pint, the time I spent there was extremely valuable as I had the chance to improve my social networking skills and also my knowledge and ability within the design world.

Being thrown into a completely new environment both physically and socially, meant that I started off slow. Leaving behind pretty much everyone and everything I'd gotten accustomed to over my first year at uni, only to have to restart all that again in a country where I was considered a foreigner; it was a strange feeling to say the least.

Fortunately for me I already had somewhat of a head start by having two of my friends with me in the same boat, meaning we were all as confused to begin with as each other. But once the ball got rolling with the first initial brief things went onwards and upwards from there. We'd made some friends within the class and sourced a couple of local coffee shops to keep our caffeine needs fulfilled and in one of the world's largest coffee consuming countries it was hard to stay away.

With the way the system worked at the university, it meant that we studied with 3rd year students all ranging from the ages of about 21-26. Most of which also had completed one or two internships during their studies giving them a wide knowledge base on design and an increased confidence within their work. I feel this definitely somewhat rubbed off on me during my studies as I'd not long finished my first year of uni. Having only really just started getting to know the industry and starting to improve my skills within design, I felt I started the semester off not all too confident with my work. But over the course of the 4 months studying there with a range of culturally different students and tutors, it gave me a lot of confidence within my skills and the work I produced from the two briefs. Although over the years of doing graphic design I feel my work has improved each year, as that normally is the case with most people, I think that I even made a huge jump within just those couple of months giving me a much more thorough approach to design from start to finish.