My Design Process: Evaluation

The purpose of this project was to create a leaflet which reflected and showed our design process. I chose to work with a double concertina fold as I felt it accurately reflected my design process; Neat and in an organised order. I decided to design it so that at first it appears simple. I have found that people who are not designers overlook the process as they just see the start and the finished product. However the leaflet unfolds to reveal the design process. It is both useful for those who don't design as they can see the effort that goes into it as well as useful for myself as I can use it as a rough guide to refer to when I get stuck in a rut.

I tried to keep the leaflet as simple as possible so that at a first glance you could get the jist of it without having to read into it to understand it. I kept the colours simple with a light grey background - so that it wouldn't be such a harsh contrast. On top of that 3 main colours, not including black. Green to represent anything involving others and being stuck e.g. Asking for help or feedback. Pink represents everything behind the design process such as mind mapping ideas, checking it over and things to consider. Blue then represents everything to do with designing!

In the way of stock I was limited with what I could use as I was having to print on A1. I decided to work with simple cartridge paper as it was a good gsm making it ideal for folding several times whilst not being to thick once all folded.

Folding has been an issue for this project. Having to fold down an A1 sheet precisely has been really difficult. In my first draft it was slightly out but overall I was impressed by how accurate it was as normally Im not great at folding. However it could have been better. I didn't score it before folding so I have learnt from that and scored it for the final piece.

Although the double concertina fold works well for this set brief to represent me alone, if it was being produced on a mass scale it would not be practical. It has to be printed on A1 which is more expensive as you could probably only fit 2 designs on one print, 3 at a push. The main cost is not financial but time; the amount of time it takes to accurately fold the leaflet is not practical for any more than producing one or two and therefore wouldn't be an appropriate fold.

I feel that I worked well within the one week time limit and was able to produce a good body of work. I was able to explore different options involving the design on the leaflet and also the fold I would use. I settled on the design and fold used because they both reflect me best, in my opinion.

This project has really made me aware of my design process and made me appreciate how much work actually goes into a project no matter what the time frame. It has also made me realise that if something works well but isn't appropriate for the current project that you can re-use it in a later more suitable project. This is really simple but has really made me conscious to blog everything so that I can refer back to it later on.