I thought it would be beneficial to look over some of my work ethic from last year and compare it with how I have progressed in level 5.
Upon entering the course I had barely any knowledge of graphic design, I had simply come from doing art for many years throughout my previous education, and this was the foundation of my creativity, graphic design was my 'hobby', and I certainly had not had the experience that some of my peers had, using graphic design in more of a context rather than creating things just because I could, for 'fun'.
I learned quickly on the course that swiss graphics were extremely common amongst those around me, which initially intimidated me as I had not really discovered this in depth or particularly warmed to the style of it, at this point I simply wanted to draw/paint and use ink in all my work to express my fine art side that I had left behind after a levels.
At first I tried to 'fit in' with modernist graphics, but at the time this didn't feel very true to me, or my 'style' at this point on the course. I began to try and interject analogue techniques and found a happy medium of digitalising brush strokes, illustrations and other mark making. At the time I felt as though this was my style, however it became a regular occurrence that I would rely on hand rendered design even when it was not as appropriate, as it had become comfortable and routinely.
Over Summer, I discovered how much I actually appreciated contemporary design, through browsing websites such as tumblr, trendlist and pinterest, I found a newfound love for this type of design, and took inspiration and tried to fit this to my own practice with my personal projects. I had been working on my Feminist zine, and for this issue I had began to apply contemporary principles to it, which was a great way of refreshing the way zines are approached, instead of the messy hand rendered style, we had created a contemporary, clean zine which still communicated a passionate message.
Throughout my progress in Level 5, I have refined my style, still keeping it dark in places, but applying contemporary principles and not limiting myself to hand rendered techniques. This was really liberating and fun for my own practice as I no longer felt defined by using ink!
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