Reflective Statement- Unit 1

During the first few weeks of the course when we started doing the Rough Guide project I at fist wondered how on earth looking round London was ever going to help me learn practical skills and become a textile designer but looking back I think it was one of the most important projects I’ve done. It taught me that to achieve a really good and interesting final outcome, design idea or image, you really need to research properly. A couple of drawings isn’t enough and it took a whole week of collecting photos, drawings, rubbish and leaflets for me to really get a sense of place and understand the area and appreciate it.

I think I have also really learnt to look at all the information I have first then start to edit and analyze it, which really makes doing lots of research important! I have learnt to look at my photos differently and also take photos from different angles, levels, viewpoints and directions to capture the most visually interesting scene I can out of something which may look very ordinary.

I have worked really hard on my blog, trying to write down what we needed to as part of the tasks, but also include a few other posts, such as little reviews of the exhibits I have been to on my own and my thoughts on how the blocks were going, with images of my work, so others can judge and hopefully write comments about how they see the work. I think it is a helpful tool to show your thoughts and work to the public in a friendly and informal way, and it is nice to decorate and make your page a little bit interesting so people actually want to look at your work! I think I have done well in the tasks and wrote quite a lot for them all, but I think that at times I totally forget I’m doing a blog and slip into essay language, which isn’t good. I also wish I was better on computers so I could make my blog look really good as I’ve seen some with lovely backgrounds, pictures in different places, fancy text, links to other pages and websites, search boxes and even movie clips and I think that these added features really make the blog more interesting and easier to navigate. I would especially like to be able to use links and search boxes properly as it would make it much easier to see my different posts and find what you were looking for straight t away with the blog, as some posts don’t have the most obvious names. When I’m next doing my blog for a task I’ll keep an eye on the language I use to try and keep it chatty and informal and like something which I would enjoy reading so hopefully others can as well!