Producing Print Based MediaVisual Language:

Composition

How have you chosen to set out your designs and why?We decided to layout our designs fairly basically with quick a lot of space between each element so that it was easy to navigate throughout without getting confused or muddled. We felt this would be appropriate when working with a student audience as it is more preferred to have a simple, clean format that promotes the simplicity and ease of the recipes rather than heavily worded and confusing. We wanted to experiment with different ways we could align the text to create an visual that was interesting but still relatively each to understand. (Example; top image)Moving on from here we decided to use block shapes as banners to hold in elements of text such as the headers, ingredients and nutritional values. Doing this helped even more with separating each element and guided a viewers eye through the card, as everything was allocated to it’s own individual space or shape rather than been reliant on a title to separate each piece of information. Again this supports the concept of simplicity and DIY cookery and shows the relevance to students wanting a quick snack or something to try with friends.

The ratio of image and text is majorly dominated by imagery as they are quite significant in size and dimension compared to the space in which the text lies. We felt that it was a key feature before picking up the card to know clearly what you were going to make and who the card was aimed at. Using a bold title that specifics “Students” and an added picture of students learning was an added feature to relate more the young generation and the concept of learning new things and experimenting. Also the benefit of sharing with friends and peers.

Image Construction

Discuss the context of your final images and reflect upon decisions made?Our final set of images were all taken for other sources across the web, although we did attempt and created an example of using our own imagery to show we had gained a full understanding of the benefits of our own photography in terms of control and complexity. We chose to use images from the internet as this was an easier solution and gave us a lot more time to work on creating a layout that resembled a professional standard. If we could do this project again we would of liked to of planned our days more efficiently so that we could fit in time for taking photographs to create a more original approach. (Example; bottom image) The images we did however chose from the internet were our first points of call in terms of choosing a colour scheme that wasn’t too garish and still gave a clean professional layout, but appealed to the target demographic. We used the “Colour Picker” tool in Photoshop to take segments of colour from e.g. the image of students or the food – and used this as a base for our background and colour accents. A good example is the bottom image, here we saw that their was a large usage of gold,

browns, beiges and off yellows. Learning from this we chose a colour and using the slider, found a suitable similar shade that would compliment the imagery and provide a simple background colour which we then went on to give a gradient effect. Specifically we didn’t go too far fetched in terms of colour as we, as said before – wanted to stick to the idea of simplicity. Going into more detail about the individual images we chose images that weren’t took heavily jumbled with action that didn’t relate to the concept. Images of students learning or spending time with friends we felt would be most appropriate for an informal piece of text, we found it difficult to find pictures of students cooking and this again, is point where taking our own imagery would have been more beneficial as we would of gained more control of how exactly we wanted the students to look and what they would be doing to benefit the purpose of the card. A good point about taking sourced images of students was that the photography was quite high key and too a professional standard with adequate lighting and a clear visual, also with high key and portrait photography the subjects tend to always be positive and smiling which is what we wanted to promote the cards and how the recipes are enjoyable amongst friends, or as an individual.

Images of food we chose again, sourced images – but always made sure that they were relevant to the recipe and a reader could work to present their food the way in which it had been displayed in the image. Quite heavily cropped images and centre the food and show very minimal negative space worked best as when working in advertising in the food market, an audience tends to be more enticed into the product by been shown close up shots of texture and therefor resulting in them been more tempted to try.

Representation

Discuss the semiotics and connotations created from the content you have included?During the planning stages of our recipe cards we were originally going to stick to a green colour palette and alternate between shades that compliment each other to create and clean design. Green is the colour of nature. It symbolizes growth, harmony, freshness, and fertility. Green has strong emotional correspondence with safety. Dark green is also commonly associated with money. In most advertisements in today’s media, the colour green is often included to represent health and wellbeing – also it can be representational of veg andfruit. This would make the advertisement more noticeable in terms of looking for something healthy or nutritional in for example, a supermarket or on the internet.

Although our plans soon changed and we decided to alternate between several colours other than green as it proved difficult to create cards that flowed consecutively but also were individual to their own recipe, due to the similar colours. In the end we choseto use a mixture of pastel and dark toned colours that complement each other and flowwell in terms of layout. The bright colours we felt related more to our target audienceof the youth generation as they are eye catching and excited, more toned down colours such as baby pinks, off whites and greys would be more appropriate and associated with an older audience, as in generation terms the more experienced cooks look for quantity and not quality.

Audiences

Create an audience profile of your target demographic?

Age: 16-21

Gender: Male/Female

Geo-demographic: Britain

Education: College and university students, A Level & Vocational etc.

Race: All races.

Culture:All cultures.

Physiographic:Has an interest in music, socialising with friends, television and other social media, video games etc. We would categorize this generation as a “Emulator” due to their strong aspiration to achieve and their ability to seek prestige for their work.

NRS Social Grade: ABC1 (Is likely to be able to afford to buy basic food and ingredients, in full time/part time education and attends college/university etc.)

The age range of our target demographic is between the ages of 16-21, this is the standard age for students attending college and university and therefor would be the more suitable age range to reference to in order to appeal to our target demographic. Students attending school may not find our product as convenient as stereotypically a lot of their cooking is done by their parents or guardians.

The gender of our target demographic is both males and females, we didn’t want to give indication that we believed a male or female wouldn’t be capable to cook the recipes and wanted to keep the product entirely morally equal between both sexes. We stressed the unisex formality in our imagery by using both male and female models, we also alternated in colour scheme between stereotypical colours associated with males and females such as blues and pinks.

We chose our geo-demographic to be based in Britain and refer to readers living in the UK attending colleges and university. A lot of the ingredients in the context of our recipe cards is British produce and can be easily found in British supermarkets. The language of the card was also written in English but alternatively if we were wishing to branch out to a wider audience of cultures we would opt for using several

In terms of images the images we chose are fairly simple with very little clutter and focus initially on the one focal point. Again this is relevant to minimalism of a complicated recipe, a heavily combusted image can often distract the viewer away from the overall purpose – also when working with inexperienced cooks it can seem like the expectations for the final product are higher than what is expected of a student - if the final product in the photograph is heavily decorated and presented in an expert manor.

The physiographic we have chosen is “The Emulator”, we chose this as it deemed most appropriate and relatable in terms of a student audience. As a student progressing in education with a desire to achieve, this as an “Emulator” demonstrates the aspiration to become an “Achiever”, working in a business complex with an overall aspiration to accomplish power and physical wealth. This group also states that they yearn to gain approval of their peers, are often under the age of 30 and are frequently not financially stable. This, although punitive – is representative of a student lifestyle – we needed to clarify in our context that using the recipe cards would benefit the “Emulator” and push them to becoming an “Achiever”. This was visually implied by using high key photography of other students looking positive and the final product looking to a professional standard of which a reader could potentially achieve. We also described several times that meals were excellent to share with friends, with “Emulators” initial desire to gain approval of the opposite sex and their peers this would seem metaphorically appropriate.

The NRS social grade we chose was ABC1, we chose this because with our students been partially living at home or in student accommodation etc. – it is likely that the readers when picking up the card will know themselves that they will either already have the ingredients specified or be able to purchase them from supermarket complex and will be able to support themselves adequately financially. We also believe our audience will already be in full time or part time education attending college/university etc. and will require quick, simple meals to fit around their study schedule and social time.

languages in our context to appeal to a wider demographic.

College and university students are visually implied as our target demographic in our products and in bold letters the title reads “For Students”. In more in depth terms our products refer to students either attending education full time or part time, this can be studying vocational, A Level courses etc.

In terms of race and culture we have initially developed our recipe cards to meet the appeal of all cultures and races, we included not only traditionally English recipes but also several recipes that can be found in other cultures to encourage a reader to experiment and branch their knowledge wider than their own location. The language we used was formal and to the point giving no indication of the necessity to change the method or the ingredients dependent on a readers race or cultural beliefs. We also did not stress at all during the product of our context that it was a necessity to choose the vegetarian diet and gave alternative methods in the form of small tips to try and meet the needs of several types of audiences.

Pictures of students posing in a positive manor and engrossed in work; this can be referred to the physiographic of our target demographic enjoying socializing with peers and also the traditional aspects of student life. It also promotes the product with a positive expression in the high key photograph that shows the students are enjoying themselves.

The title is bold and significant in size and dimension so that it is the first element of the front face of the card that you see before the imagery. We also included “Vegetarian Meals” in a slightly smaller sized font but bolder to visually show it’s importance in the context. This is so the audience will

clearly be able to spot and recognize that the product is deemed suitable for them.

We included the VegSoc logo as stated in the brief that it was vital to include the logo for organization purposes and to show clearly that the food was based around a vegetarian diet. We indicated on two occasions we the text and the logo that the product was made for vegetarians.

The nutritional values we felt would appeal to our audience as statistics show 43% of teens aged 16-21 are conscious about their diet and/or look to eat more healthy balanced diets. This, similar to food products – shows the nutritional components of each recipe to show people exactly what

they’re eating. This also helps for people with allergies etc,

The QR code is used as a way of quickly using your mobile device to scan and link to YouTube tutorials of the recipe in a video format. This helps as technology is vastly becoming the way forward in society and a large number of teens aged 16-21 have a mobile phone or MP3 player device, this acquires how print based media has linked with the internet.

How have you constructed your work to appeal to your audience?

Historical & Cultural Context

What did you use as your design influences and why were they chosen?We were influenced by past media products that were aimed at different audiences but featured a range of shapes, colours and layouts. Often these posters would stereotypically feature the colour green to represent health and nutrition, as I have stated we were originally going to opt for a fully green colour scheme but further into production changed our plans to a series of bright complimentary colours (2). Also we found that many posters featured many geometric shapes (1) and patterns that along with the colour scheme, this worked well with aiming at younger audiences that enjoy lots of creative elements that encourage them to read on. Also we took inspiration from (3) to create clipping masks on Photoshop to add a dynamic effect with e.g. pictures of food, people. We also tried to decide our image/text ratio, from looking at previous examples we saw that young audiences, 3-10 – prefer significantly more pictures than text where as slightly older audiences tend to lean towards more text based products will lots of helpful information and context.

1) 2) 3)

Do vegetarian products have a specific design aesthetic and how does your project reflect/contrast this? Why?Vegetarian food products and advertisements tend to have elements of design that lean towards representing the relevance to a vegetarian diet. These design aesthetics include main segments such as colour scheme, choice of shapes and pattern and of course, the context. Advertisements in terms of colour scheme tend to be based around the colour green which is associated with health, nutritional and vegetation – this relates with vegetarians well as they recognize this amongst other food produce as the VegSoc and Quorn logos are the colour green. Very rarely colours like vibrant reds are used as in some cultures and beliefs red is associated with blood and violence, which can be referred back to the controversy around the slaughtering of animals.

We have took what we have learnt from looking at previous examples of product packagingand advertisement and incorporated the design aesthetics into our own products. On threeoccasions we used a green colour scheme and in the end realised that the majority of our cards were based around a green colour palette. We in the end decided to stick with this mishap as it showed another indication to the products been based around a vegetarian lifestyle by showing the associated colour on more than one occasion. We did on the other handuse several other colours associated with positive aspects such blue (calm), yellow (happiness) and pink (companionship).

Finished Products

Does your finished product reflect your initial plans? How? If there are any differences, describe why changes were made.

FinishedPlanIn our original plans we opted for diagonal rectangular boxes and having some of the main elements of our text fitted into banners or other various shapes. We wanted to include pictures of students to stick with the initial theme and also wanted the audience target demographic to be easily recognizable against a series of other recipes cards for other audiences. Overtime after experimenting several times with other types of imagery we went back to our first idea and stuck with including high key, portrait imagery of students cooking or learning. Another element of imagery we included was a basic element, the final product – originally we wanted to expand and include various photographs of a visual demonstration of each step in method. This would make the context of the recipe more easy to understand and follow through rather than reading from text and creating a visual in the mind and then proceeding with the method. But after looking through how much available time we had for image making to create 8 meals, we decided against and opted for only one or two photographs of the final product at different angles. If we could do this project again and had more available time and resources for image making we could definitely consider taking more imagery to show the simplicity of each recipe.

In our finished product we stuck with many elements of our original plan such as keeping elements of text in boxes/banner and including images of the final product and students posing in a positive manor. Elements we didn’t keep are the “Goes well with…” section as this would involve taking more imagery and also reducing the amount of space that could be used for including the ingredients, nutritional values and methods. In our final product we included another larger image of the product and cropped it to a triangular shape and lowered the opacity so that it allowed more room for overlapping text and shapes. We also included more smaller shapes such as paint splodges and drawing pins to replicate the student lifestyle and give it a more relaxed, informal touch rather than traditional and uninspiring.

Does your finished product match what you were set in the brief? How?Our product does meet the requirements of the brief. An example in which we have fully met these necessities is “For most of our recipe cards we have the image on the front and also the title. We also use a branding strip along the bottom that contains our logo. Here in our final products we have included most of the imagery of the front face of the card along with the text, title and header. We have also featured in the VegSoc logo in a branding strip along the bottom, we could of referenced VegSoc involvement more by including a web address and telephone number for further information. A second section of the brief in which our final products have met is the clear theme across the cards, all elements include shapes, text alignment etc. stayed the same consistently and only the context such as the method, ingredients and other basic text features.

Another element we could of tried was branching out to various cultures by introducing more ethnic foods and explaining their meaning in their home countries. This would act as an educational feature for students but also a chance to try something new instead of traditional British meals, this idea was specified in the brief. We also met the brief in terms of photography and imagery, although the imagery was not taken by ourselves – we took them from the appropriate sources that showed clear relevance to the theme and purpose. They are of a high quality but due to them been sourced from a separate location, this can cause some very slight pixilation that could not be prevented. Using our own imagery would of benefitted us more in terms of describing the recipe process through a visual rather than been heavily text based.

All of the recipes included are suited to a vegetarian audience, as specified in the brief – it can be seen clearly on the front face of the cards that they are designed in mind of vegetarians. To improve our recipe cards and overall approach we could of included a stamp on the front face of the card for particular recipes specifying that they are vegan friendly and that they work as “Part Of Your 5 A Day”, as our initial proposal was to constantly promote the necessity of healthy eating.

How did the use of peer feedback help you in your production?Throughout the production stage we undertook regular peer feedback in order to make sure we were appealing to our target demographic, our chosen audience of students benefitted us greatly in terms of gathering feedback as we were working in a group of 17-18 year olds. Methods of feedback we perused was a survey using www.surveymonkey.com, we released our questionnaire on popular social networking site, Facebook – and awaited results the next day. We gained just over 100 results that helped us recover the basics of where to start in terms of design with out recipe cards.

Although our short survey provided some solid starting blocks to our production, it didn’t help us in terms of appearance, colour scheme, imagery etc. In the later stages of our design process we undertook feedback throughout our class, this questionnaire was more detailed and focused more on what people liked about our chosen design rather than what they wanted.

How does the card appeal to its audience?The fun use of colour on each card will appeal to the audience, also the audience knows that the cards are for them because the title says ‘Vegetarian Meals for Students’

Questions like this helped us to finalize our overall approach to our target demographic. As I said before, gaining feedback from a student audience benefitted us greatly as it was easier to understand and work from the feedback given. It helped us gain a wider understanding of how others thought we were progressing and how we could be improved. Although only 2 people took part in giving feedback, the detail given in the questionnaire worked in our favour compared to a closed set of questions.

Are there any errors?The recipe cards do not state whether they are vegan friendly.

Questions like this were very helpful in terms of improving our design to fit the target demographic. There was only one minor error throughout the whole design which we were pleased with, and could easily be altered – although when further looking through our recipes we could see that some recipes contained ingredients that were not vegan friendly and we were at a too later stage in production to completely change out recipes. The brief initially told us to focus of a vegetarian audience, so we agreed amongst ourselves that we would continue with our initial production and later mention in the evaluation that if provided with more time, we would branch out our target demographic to vegan audiences as well as vegetarian.

Do you feel it meets the brief? If so why/why not?I feel that the recipe cards do meet the briefs in all ways. They all state that they are vegetarian, they all tie together nicely, they appeal to their audience very well and they also have the vegetarian society logo allocated on all cards

Finally, we conclude that we were overall satisfied with the final feedback and the majority of answers posed a positive outlook on our final design. We used this to our advantage and looked at creating more products related to the recipe cards such as food stands, posters and folders.

Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your final product regarding its technical and aesthetical qualities.

Text; Sharp, clearly spaced font specifying the purpose of the card and what it entails. Readable and easy to follow, laid out in a suitable pattern to compliment the imagery. The title “For Students”

is slightly off balance in terms of alignment, if given extra time in production we would of gone

back into Photoshop and aligned the title accurately using rulers and holding Shift.

Images; The imagery is vibrant and of a professional standard. Mostly taken from an off

centre composition to show the texture and consistency. Added features such as the wheat

grass and lemon helped to add more colour and make the image more interesting to look at. The yellow colouring was taken from the lemon as

used as the background colour for the whole card – this helped compliment the imagery. We could have improved by using our own imagery, if we had more time and experience in cooking our

selected recipes – this would have made the cards more personal to our taste and approach.

Colour scheme; The colour scheme is bright and vibrant which appeals well to a younger audience. It is made up of two complimentary colours in each card that separated by accents and blocks. We also included a gradual gradient effect of the two colours to create a

more interesting perspective rather than block colours. We felt an overuse of several colours would take away the visual of the initial purpose which is the final product.

Context; The language used in our cards is formal and informative but not demanding and leaves a reader an alternative option of method rather depending on their preference. Mostly laid out in the form of a list with 3-5 steps to show the simplicity of each recipe.

This works well and appeals to beginners and people just looking for a light snack rather than a heavy meal, we constantly promote the benefit of been able to share with friends or use as an alternative for other meals such as takeaways, which are popular choices

amongst students. We could of included more alternative options of methods to suit other preferences, for instance if they could not access a certain piece of equipment or couldn’t find a particular ingredient. Another benefit is our inclusion of a nutritional values chart,

it isn’t necessary but often works as a benefit for young people in terms of keeping healthy and having a balanced diet. It also works well for people that may have allergies or just choose not to have certain substances.

What skills/knowledge have you gained/developed in this project? How could these be applied in future practice?Skills I have gained during the course of this project are using certain elements of software e.g. Adobe Photoshop – to produce and experiment with my design work and use various tools and options to transform my work to a professional standard. Particular tools on Photoshop I have enjoyed using are the “Warp” tool, to alter and mesh my text and images into a particular style or shape. Another element of Photoshop I have gained a further understanding of is experimenting with several fonts outside of the default options to give a more dynamic visual. Although in my final designs I did not use fonts taken from a separate source, in our extension tasks we took several fonts from www.dafont.com and incorporate them into our pieces. www.dafont.com was a helpful website which gave a more extended amount of choice in font for each category, depending on the look you wanted to go for. I chose to use fonts associated with students/school/kids – fonts like this were heavily bold and rounded which appealed more visually to a younger audience compared to a slim, italic font.

The knowledge I have gained from Photoshop could potentially be used again in future projects throughout my course, expanding my options in terms of the appearance of a product will appear better when wanting to show my understanding of target demographics and visual dynamics. The “Warp” tool can often we used to manipulate text into unusual shapes and fit them around images and shapes, this helps to create a more innovative look that would appeal to modern day audiences and products.

Other aspects of digital software I have gained knowledge of are websites used to produce research and gather information through social networking sites and other forms of communication. www.surveymonkey.com was a helpful website to create my own short questionnaire in order to create the first building blocks of my project in terms of what people actually looked for in a recipe card. I found sharing my questionnaire on my own Facebook account more beneficial than Twitter or Tumblr etc. as I am fully aware that the majority of people that I have on Facebook are between the ages of 16-24, this gave me an opportunity to gain information from the audience I wished to target. I gained just over 100 results which gave me several options of which direction to take my recipe card that would give me the best overall outcome. Another good thing about www.surveymonkey.com was that I could filter my results into several categories to see which majority of individuals opted for which particular option. Using www.surveymonkey.com would be beneficial to me in the future as I could gain an accurate knowledge of my target demographic and what people wanted in a product. For example, if I was to create a magazine – I would be able to gather results on what colour scheme, font, imagery and context was preferred over several options.

Production Processes

Do you believe your work is creative and technically competent? Why?I believe my work would appeal greatly to my target audience in terms of technicality and creativity. Image 1 I feel personally represents a student audience well in terms of text and imagery. I chose to include images of positive students to maintain the encouraging approach to a vegetarian diet, these images were sourced but if I had been given a longer deadline I would of produced these images myself to improve my understanding of my target audience. Models carrying notebooks, bag packs and wearing bright colours give the stereotypical student visual that a reader would recognize instantly. From a distance the food stand would be easily recognizable about it’s purpose as “For Students” is presented first along with the images of students, as done so on all my recipes cards (Image 2) You would also be able to recognize that the products are to do with healthy and the colour scheme is completely green – the colour green is representative of well being, health and nutrition in advertising.

1) 2)

The layout in which I have chosen to align my imagery and text is mainly straight angles put into individual sections so that the eye can follow easily and not cause confusion. The front face of the cover has the majority of the space covered by image and a large banner of text – I felt that negative space would lack the initial visual and temptation to read on provided by the enticing images. Choosing heavily cropped image helps draw the eye to the texture and consistency of the meal which is used a lot in food advertising such as the Marks & Spencers television adverts and other food ads. Other elements that work well in terms of technicality are the relation to the vegetarian audience, the cards mention on several occasions that the recipes are suitable to vegetarians (image 1 and 2). I feel that if I had kept the colour scheme consistently green it would of presented more appeal to a vegetarian audience or someone looking for a healthy option. Although this seemed a good idea at the time, the imagery we sourced often did not compliment the green colour scheme and they had elements of blues, pinks, yellows etc. that would have been bleached out by the vast amount of green. Opting for a selection of colours provided each card with individuality to their recipe, yet still been part of a set due to their identical layouts and features.

How effectively did you manage your time? I think we managed our time effectively in terms of reaching our deadline with positive results that met the brief, although looking back there are one of two elements that we could of spent remaining time improving – but chose not to. One of those elements is the imagery, as I previously stated the images were sourced from different websites across the internet and incorporated into our product. If our product was to be released in the modern day world to the public, taking other peoples images can be classed as a breach of privacy and the theft of a design which can lead to fines or prosecution. It would be vital that we plan our time accordingly to take our own imagery in order to meet the requirements of the market scheme. We could of planned ourselves 1 or 2 days for image making alone in order to provide our own images, but we found this difficult as we had little experience in cookery and often the final product appeared unappealing and distasteful in the images – which we did not wish to put onto our final product. We did however provide an example of our attempt at providing our own images to show that we had experimented and reached out of our comfort zone instead of just taking them all from separate sources (image left)

Despite failing to include our own images, the time with did spend effectively worked in our favourite in terms of creating a recipe card that was of a professional looking standard that meets the brief and the expectations of our target demographic. We worked accordingly sticking to our schedule of producing one card each day, we worked quickly but provided positive quality products. Reaching our deadline, we were left with extra time to produce all the extension tasks to improve our grade and show our visual understanding of print based media.

If you could repeat the process what would you do differently?If I could repeat the process I would spend more time choosing the fonts that fit the target audience appropriately. The fonts we chose are appropriate but don’t specifically represent students and don’t stand out as well as we had hoped on the page. Learning from this we should of research and experimented with more fonts on www.dafont.com rather than just the default fonts on Adobe Photoshop in the design ideas stage, fonts that represent a student audience would work better at attracting the target demographic to read on as they feel they could relate to the product originally.

Working To A Brief in the Creative Media IndustriesConstraints Experienced:

What constraints did you encounter and how did you consider/avoid them?

Legal Constraints The only legal constraints we would have to look into would be the copyright laws surrounding sourcing images from separate locations. We would have been able to avoid encountering copyright laws if we’d taken our own images and used them in our product – we did not however have enough time or resources to produce high quality images.

Regulatory ConstraintsIn order to meet the target demographic and the brief that specified we approach a vegetarian audience, we had to make sure that we only used vegetarian appropriate ingredients and show not input of meat or animal-made produce, as this can be deemed unsuitable for a vegetarian audience. We ensured we did this by researching only “Vegetarian Recipes” on www.bbcgoodfood.com and double checked the ingredients before incorporating them into our product.

Financial ConstraintsThe overall total of all our resources needed to produce our final recipe cards was £837.08, this included all the ingredients needed to create the recipes , the cost too and from college by car and the cost of what we would need to play to hire a graphic designer and a professional photographer. With this only been a college project, the graphic and photographic work was to be produced by us instead of professionals, there for no cost was needed. The cost of ingredients was calculated, but in the production stage we found that this did not apply as we sourced our images from a separate location. But, our sourced images if we were to do this project in a real job would come at a price depending on the company at which they had been taken. Stock images (http://www.shutterstock.com) often come with a watermark across the image so that they cannot be taken and placed on another piece of work. The cost applies to the image as a whole, often a company can apply for a subscription for a period of time to this sight and take a minimal amount of images depending on what they are used for. The subscription comes at a price, usually around £150-1500 a month to download 25 images a day. Or to download an image individually without subscription £20-100. We could of avoid the price of sourced imagery if this project was for a real company by providing our own images produced by ourselves or a professional photographer we hired.

Management

How did you work as part of a group? I worked productively as part of my group, my main goal was to reach the deadline with appropriate work that met the brief. I was fast thinking and played a large role alongside my partner in the idea making segment of the project, here we came up with mind maps and mood boards which helped us piece together which direction to take our target demographic. I enjoyed working as part of a team as we got the work done much quicker and there had remaining time to adjust the quality of our final pieces and go on to produce the extension tasks.

What have you learnt about working in a group and how will you apply this to future practice?Working in a group I have developed a further understanding of team work and the importance of playing a role in a group rather than individually. Working as part of a pair meant that there were several roles that could be split between the two of us, or equally shared – this allowed us to learn and take note of each others opinions and taste in order to appeal to a wider range. With us working to a target demographic of students both male and female, working alongside a male allowed me to stick to my initial idea of a unisex selection of recipe cards and not stray towards a female based demographic, due to my own taste.

What have you learnt about working in to a brief and how will you apply this to future practice?Working to a brief has taught me to respect boundaries and requests of a client or a company rather than my own personal choices. I found scanning a brief very helpful to find the starting points of my project to work from and develop, it helps me gain knowledge of what product I was assigned to design, who for, when for and the conditions surrounding. This will be beneficial to me in the future as a brief is usually provided in many full/part-time job and freelance based design projects.