Fianl 1 minute Video

Action Plan

How I intend to enhance and develop my skills and knowledge base:


I have subscribed to Campaign magazine, which I think will greatly increase my knowledge of current issues, creations and so on in the world of design. I think it will open my eyes to the industry and give me a better understanding of whats going on within it. It will also help me see existing jobs within the industry and get a wider understanding of the industry giants.


I need to begin reading a broadsheet magazine on a regular basis in order to have a better understanding of the world around me, especially the Monday Guardian as this is the media issue. This should begin as of immediate effect.


I have recently joined Twitter for the purpose of following designers, advertisers and agencies. I need to follow this through and check on it regularly to keep updated.


Attend any possible guest speaker/lecture type opportunities to increase my knowledge span at any chance possible over the next 2 years.


After being given a reading list by Mel I have bought a couple of the books and taken some out at the library in order to broaden my knowledge about both current and past design and I intend to continue doing so. I am slowly getting through them and already have found that a lot of the subject matter and designer names are reoccurring through these, lectures etc. 


I feel that the next 2 years of this course will continue to open my eyes to this industry, learning new skills throughout this time, being guided by course leaders, tutors and lecturers. It is important that I have the best attendance possible and gain as much from these 2 years as I can. 


It would be beneficial for me to gain extra experience with live briefs through live competitions such as D&AD and so on. Any opportunity to take part in competitions I aim to  do over the next 2 years.


Although I am not planning on doing a placement year between my second and third year I feel it is important to gain experience working within the industry, working hands on and getting a real feel for the jobs I could be doing in the future. I intend to take part in placements at some point.

Strengths and Weaknesses

“ …one which causes us to make sense of what we have learned, why we have learned it and how that particular increment of learning took place. [...] Reflection is equally useful when our learning has been unsuccessful – in such cases indeed reflection can often give us insights into what may have gone wrong with our learning and how on a future occasion we might avoid now-known pitfalls …. (reflection)evaporates away unless we stop in our tracks to make one or other kind of crystallisation of it – some evidence.” - Race (2002)

Now that I have completed the majority of work on this project, I have began to reflect on my strengths and weaknesses within this project as well as within my professional life.

I think that my main strengths are that I am hard working, organised and ambitious. Throughout this project I have always kept to deadlines, produced all work that was asked of me and kept on top of everything. I think that working in a team has worked well, although I find I tend to take more of a leadership role which is something I need to work on. Im a good listener and me and my partner worked well at bouncing ideas off each other, joining different ideas together and talking about what media to use and so on. I think that often I am very creative and have interesting ideas and concepts, although sometimes I do become concentrated on one idea that I cannot move on from - this is something that I need to work on. In this module I think I have had a really good insight into advertising and how the process works from the brief to having a set of final ideas ready for creation. 

I feel that my weaknesses within this module have been a lack in previous knowledge, I didn't know a lot about how advertising has developed from the 1950s and what it used to be like. However, after watching a documentary within class called 'she's not a moron she's your wife' I felt I got a really quick, yet deep insight into how advertising has changed, although it was specifically orientated towards women. This over view has helped me to understand a bit more into the history of advertising and why it is how it is today. Another weakness I have is knowing about different techniques - i was unaware of guerilla advertising and other methods, although I feel I am now beginning to learn about these more. I have began reading some advertising based books, some which are on the reading list we have been given, and also some others. I've found already that these have taught me a lot about the industry, job roles within advertising agencies as well as the industry giants and important people within the industry such as John Hegarty. 

So far I feel I have began to gain a grasp of the basics of advertising; how to generate ideas, mock up ideas, develop ideas and apply these to media. I have also learnt what strap lines are, and have a better understanding of how to create them (and a good one hopefully!) I have learnt that the first ideas are usually the ideas that everyone has, but usually it is essential to get these out of the way before you can begin to think of something new and interesting.