autumn abridged

Christmas is nearly upon us, which means that it's definitely officially the end of autumn (correction: a quick google reveals that the last day of autumn is today??). The little summer summary I previously wrote proved to be useful in identifying my areas of improvement as well as my successes, making me feel quite proud of what I'd achieved - so I decided to do it again for autumn! I'm going to take up the same format as last time too, ranking everything from 1 to 10 (1 being something that's probably the best thing since nintendogs - weird comparison but whatever). Let's go!

10. My Christmas Tree

Bit of a weird one I know - although I wasn't really in the festive spirit at the beginning of this month, I am now, and I really love how my tree turned out. I did most of the decoration placing but the choice of decorations was a collaboration between myself and Charlotte (better give her some credit too - she wanted rose gold or copper colours). It's only really at the bottom of this list because I'm not entirely sure this is classed as design - but it was fun to organise.

9. Looping Chicken animation (Inktober)

For Inktober, I decided to create mini animations rather than illustrations to give myself an opportunity to build on my animation skills. I didn't upload every day as frame by frame animation takes a long time, but I was really happy with how some of them turned out. This one was for the prompt, 'Chicken'. This was a great exercise that allowed me to learn more about squash and stretch, while making an outcome that I felt was quite comedic. This one just wasn't necessarily as creative as my other Inktober pieces.

8. Tehran Taboo poster (Launching films competition)

I entered a competition set by Launching films to design a quad size poster for an upcoming film, Tehran Taboo. This was something I'd never done before, and at a format I'd never worked at too - it was so big! My new large monitor came in handy here. We were given assets like the stills from the film, which I photoshopped together, and added a logo and other type. It was a fun project to do over an afternoon even though I didn't win! I felt that this was a great exercise in typography and choosing appropriate typefaces, which is one of my weaknesses.

7. Looping Present animation (Inktober)

One of the animations that worked out really well during Inktober was for the prompt 'Gift'. I love that although the actual animation was really short, it loops forever and it feels rather seamless. I do think that the perspective could have been improved though; I just liked how I created the movement in this piece through squash / stretch and pull back / follow through.

6. Cardboard app prototype created during the BBC UX week

This was a team effort revolving around our idea to create an app allowing art students to swap materials, paint etc. to save money and the environment. We created this prototype using simple paper engineering - something which isn't really my strong suit - but it was great fun! We took this little video as a test; I like how seamless we managed to make the prototype even though it was quite difficult to do so.

5. Charlie Brooker book (Typography project)

I really struggled at the beginning of our Typography project at uni - I've always been quite scared of typography so I was like a deer in headlights when we were told that we had to use solely typography for this one. Thankfully, Jess really helped and guided me, so the outcome was a lot better than I expected it would be. She suggested using Comic Sans to represent Charlie's tone, and I feel that it worked really well. I'm currently editing my book to make it even better, but this is the version I submitted for our hand in.

4. Looping Bottle animation (Inktober)

One of my favourites from Inktober turned out to be the very first one I did - the prompt was 'Poison'. It was a really simple idea but I enjoyed the creation of it and felt it worked well as a little GIF. This was definitely a step forward for my frame by frame animation skills, and I think the colour palette worked quite well, too. This was a great exercise in thinking about angles, perspectives, and how liquid behaves / moves.

3. Star animation (Inktober)

My absolute favourite from Inktober was this spacey Doctor Who inspired loop for the prompt, 'Star'. I know it was a slight stretch but I had this idea in my head from the beginning of the month, so I just had to execute it. I really love the colours and the different aspect ratio here - I thought I'd change it up as I was starting to feel restrained by the standard Instagram square ratio.

2. RESPONSE Issue two: Volume one

I knew from the beginning of making this list that our RESPONSE volume would be close to the top. I won't talk about it too much here as I'll write my second in depth post very soon. I've loved every second of the placement; both because of designing the editorial spreads and because of meeting new people and making some great friends. I'm really pleased with how our volume has turned out - especially due to the short span we had to make it in. This was my first time really leading a project but I really enjoyed it and I feel like the outcome is great (hopefully our Placement Manager agrees!). I've also just been told that my application to extend the placement into next term has been successful - I'm so excited to continue and design Issue two: Volume two! The wonderful illustrations below are from Danni Thompson (Instagram: @dannithompson9), with photography from Maia Baker (Instagram: @maiakbaker).

1. Day by Dice animations (Stance project)

This was a no-brainer (sorry to all my other work - this project just blows you out of the water!). I love group projects, especially when I get to work with talented people. The animation side of this project was completed mainly by myself and Isobel (Instagram: @isobelillustrates): Isobel took the illustration role while I animated. We used these animations paired with a situation based game, with each animation representing a round and a situation the players had to try and tackle: but their outcome was based entirely on the luck of the dice. We used this method in order to demonstrate to our audience how unpredictable it is to work as a Deliveroo rider, Uber driver, or anyone else working within the Gig Economy. It was a success - the interactive nature of our work meant we persuaded the audience onto our side. This was my favourite project of 2018, I'd say - just surpassing the stop-motion animation I worked on at the end of first year.

So, that's my autumn abridged - hope you liked my work! This was a little difficult to put together to be completely honest; I feel like I need to be producing more work so that these top tens are my absolute best work possible. Hopefully next season will be even better. Merry Christmas!