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A-Z

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INTROINTRO / TITle page

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A-Z

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Hello, welcome to my a-Z. The brief was to

create an a-Z of graphic language.

It’s supposed to “say something visually

interesting, entertaining or informative”, so I

thought I’d make it about me.

This is a multi-platform project. I’ve also

created a micro-site:

www.adams-alphabet.blogspot.com

VCT ESSAYaN examINaTION Of emOTIONal desIgN aNd THe sHIfT

TOwaRds THe self, usINg sTefaN sagmeIsTeR as a

cONTexTual case sTudy.

my response to the project; an a-Z of graphic language, has

been very personal. The spreads are almost like diary entries

and the format I have chosen to present the work: a blog,

also reflects the personal nature of my response.

Throughout the project I have looked at the work of stefan

sagmesiter. There are many things I admire about him, but

I think in particular it is his honesty that engages me. In

his book made you look, the reader is allowed access to

sagmesiter’s inner thought, the book contains excerpts from

his diary, it contains successful work as well as unsuccessful

work. He also rates all of the work and lists the design fees

involved. This is an access-all-areas experience. Nothing is

swept under the carpet or kept from view.

“If I want to touch somebody’s heart with a piece of design, it

has to be true and sincere. The audience of my design will feel

if I’m honest, if it comes from my heart. Just like my friends

know instinctively if I’m being authentic. If I’m true, if I have

the guts, I have the passion, my message will get through.”

what is apparent and inspiring with sagmeister is the ongoing

process of self-analysis, which the reader is allowed to

witness. He will readily admit if he is happy with a piece of

work. Interestingly though, whether or not he is happy has

more to do with how genuine he feels he has been with his

response, and less to do with the technical quality of the

work. Indeed very little emphasis is placed on technical

quality or meeting traditional standards of good design.

This is apparent in his shift to using his own handwriting

instead of computer rendered typefaces. His aIga posters

(cutting, and headless chicken) are clear examples. I think it

takes a lot of guts to produce a poster for a graphic design

organisation that completely ignores traditions of ‘good

design’, uses hand drawn type and has no clear grid.

sagmeister is clearly capable of producing technically

strong, clean design (as evident in his early work; business

cards etc), but what makes his work stand apart is the focus

on concept over technical mastery:

“I suspect that in ten years’ time this touching design is

going to be the only kind of design that’s going to be done by

actual designers. all that professional, good looking fluff is

going to be generated by sophisticated computer programs.“

after looking through sagmeister’s book and websites, I

have a few favourite pieces of work: The aiga detroit poster

(cutting), the aiga National conference New Orleans poster

(headless chicken), the lou Reed set the Twilight Reeling

and the two books themselves; made you look and Things I

Have learnt. There are a few consistent themes with these

works: unconventional treatment of type, subjective design.

I apologise, this is the extent of my essay. Time got the better

of me. I have done plenty of reading and now the design of

the pdf is complete I can focus on the essay.

He highlights what type of work he wants to do throughout.

How has emotional design, that has been explored in product

design and branding manifested itself in graphic design.

How does sagmeister set up possible conditions that engage

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good design, failed on both counts. I believe that designing is

something that you have to do for love. If you are committed

first and foremost to producing good design then you’ll make

money as a by-product because good design is something

people are willing to pay for. But that financial reward will be

a bonus, a gift.

sagmeisters list of credentials for design work that touches

his heart:

new perspective

trigger of memories

passion and guts

surprise

virtuosity

beauty

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VCT ESSAY

the reader/viewer and lead them to an emotional response?

most effective when there is a shift from mass medium to a

smaller more personal audience.

different media: design vs fine art, product design, film

making, writing

subjective design. design that requires the reader to do some

of the work.

QuOTes

Is it possible to touch somebody’s heart with graphic design?

I think one reason for all this fluff is that we as designers

don’t really believe in much. we are not much into politics

or religion and don’t have much of a stand on any important

issues. I guess when our conscience is so wishy-washy so is

our design.

I’ve seen movies that moved me, read books that changed my

outlook on life and listened to numerous pieces of music that

influenced my mood. somehow, I never seem to be touched

quite the same way by graphic design. I know, the comparison

is not all that fair, afterall, movies do have 90 minutes to do

all that heart touching, books have several days, while most

graphic design has to connect in seconds.

I think it was Katherine mccoy who said that graphic design

can never rise above its content. If I have nothing to say, the

best design can’t help me.

art is something that happens, its an experience, not a quality.

Brian eno

In my experience, every designer whose prime aim in into

business was to make money while at the same time producing

VCT ESSAY

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BIBlIOgRapHy

Books

No more Rules

made you look

Things I Have learned In my life so far

How To Be a graphic designer without losing your soul

web:

sagmeister.com

Thingsihavelearnedinmylifesofar.com

A-ZINTRO / TITLE PAGE

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Art School C*ntsmaybe I should elaborate on my theory...at

art school, like any school, there are cliques.

The art school equivalent of the ‘cool kids’

would be the art school c*nts. These are the

guys and girls with the art school dress sense

and haircuts. They party in east london and

delight in going to obscure private views.

They swan around like maverick creatives -

which they may or may not be - who knows.

Its hard to tell if they are trend-setters or

trend-followers.

I hope I am not one these guys. I might be

though, I do wear a Barbour.

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BooksI have a tendency to accumulate graphic

design books and never read them.

I’ve decided to put an end to this! I’ve read

three books already this year, and I really

enjoyed them. One book at a time, I am going

to be a reading machine!

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CollagraphThrough out the first term I signed up for

various printing inductions. surprisingly,

collagraph was one of my favourites. a piece

of card is used as a starting point for a plate.

The surface is then added to, or scraped

away, to create relief. The plate is sealed

with shellac, intaglio inked and printed like a

traditional etching plate.

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I went to university once before. I studied

fine art but I chose to leave in the second

year. It felt like the right thing to do at the

time; the course wasn’t stimulating, another

year and a half seemed pointless.

someone called me a ‘drop out’ once. I didn’t

like how it sounded and I haven’t forgotten it.

so I’m back at university to put that right and

become a graduate.

Drop Out

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EnjoymentI get bored. I am bored. Bored of this

project, bored of being a student again.

I want to be out in the real world doing

something worthwhile.

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FriendsI’m a one man wolf pack.

One of my close friends let me down. Our

paths don’t cross anymore. I have friends

now, but not close friends. It feels like there’s

a void but I’m still too bitter to do anything

about it.

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Green“Don’t design landfill.”

“Beautifully designed things have value and

longevity, but mediocre design usually ends up in

a bin.”

These two statements were made by a

speaker at a talk I recently attended; How

To Be an eco creative. It made me aware of

some important issues in design and in the

wider world. I have since made a conscious

decision to try my upmost to be a socially

responsible designer.

I want to pass the message on and help raise

awareness. These sites are a good start:

Three Trees Don’t Make A Forest

Lovely As A Tree

Transition Towns

Chris Jordan

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HandwritingI have always liked handwritten type. I think

this quote from stefan sagmeister sums up

its appeal:

“I am not obsessed with typefaces and find the

selection of just the right one a rather tedious

exercise. Using my handwriting eliminates that

process, personalizes the piece and can be

interpreted as an anti-computer statement all in

one easy move.”

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Isobel WilliamsI met Izzy in October. I liked her instantly.

she’s the sunshine kid.

Izzy:

> is my favourite illustrator

> doesn’t get in bad moods

> refers to herself in the third person

> has quickly become one of my best friends

check out Izzy’s blog she’s great.

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Juxtaposition is an image placement approach

whereby related or contrasting images are

placed side by side. It may imply similarity or

dissimilarity.

Juxtaposition

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Know Your AlphabetI found this poster at the 99p store in

elephant and castle. Its one of my favourite

examples of an a-Z. It brings back childhood

memories.

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LetterpressIts taken a while - but I finally got to try

letterpress. I enjoyed setting type by hand,

it appealed to my obsessive nature. I hope

to find excuses to spend more time in the

letterpress studio this year.

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MantrasI read Things I Have learnt In my life so

far by sefan sagmeister. I felt inspired

to produce some mantras of my own. I like

them, but I do feel this sort of typography

is verging on pretentious. also, I noticed

writing mantras can make you think you’re

wiser than you actually are.

I just found a whole website of this stuff:

Things I Have learned In my life so far

But two is enough for me. who’s going to top

sagmiester anyway?

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Newspaperswhat amazes me about newspapers is the

speed and quantity with which we consume

them. The rise of free newspapers means

they are now more abundant and less

valuable than ever before.

yesterday’s news is old news, but yesterday’s

newspapers are forgotten.

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Origami“Our culture and society rest upon twenty six firm

pillars, the letters of the alphabet, and they’re not

going to give way that easily”

In his book The essentials of Visual

communication, Bo Bergtrom says it can

seem as though pictures are our enemies, but

letters are our friends.

He says most people are afraid of pictures;

and analysing a picture can often say more

about the person doing the analysis than

about the picture itself, which turns the

process into a kind of self-portrait. He

suggests that on this basis we have to

hope that the pictures teach us the value of

admitting our secrets and the dangers of

hiding them.

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I designed a poster to encourage my new

course mates to join me for a night out in

Hoxton (see Art School C*nts).

I printed it digitally, then made further

prints using solar etching. This technique is

similar to traditional etching but allows you

to develop images directly on to the plate with

uV light.

Poster, Print & Process

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she is the mother duck!

I owe her a lot, probably more than a load of

cards with ducks on and one letter of an a-Z.

QUACK!

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RelationshipsI’ve dated plenty of attractive girls but I’ve

never been in a serious relationship. I’m

25; I wonder at what age I’ll start to get

concerned?

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Saint SagmeisterIn the acknowledgements of the book How To

Be a graphic designer without losing your

soul, it says; “Thanks to Stefan Sagmeister, the

patron saint of this book.”

sagmeister has now been bestowed with

the prestigious honour of the patron saint

of adams alphabet. sagmeister’s work has

inspired me throughout this project and

motivated me when I ran out of stream.

(It was either him or Isobel Williams, and it

couldn’t be Izzy because she’d love it too

much).

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TalentDo some people have a different way of seeing

and thinking? Is talent gained from experience or

are you born with it?

I think design can be learnt, yet some people

have a natural talent for it. It pains me to

admit it, but I don’t really consider myself to

be a talented designer. I’m not sure I have

the raw ability or the creativity.

I will work hard to be a technically strong

designer. I would like to lead projects and

work alongside the more talented designers.

I do however, have some friends who are

very talented designers and create beautiful

works. check out these guys:

Rob Francis

Joe Hughes

Isobel Williams

Mike Calandra

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Universal Languageuniversal language refers to the language

of symbols. I designed a set of abstract

symbols to be used by hunters. I don’t know

any hunters, but I’m sure hunters would love

them.

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VinylVinyl is wonderful. No other format of music

is collected and treasured like vinyl and most

likely, never will be again.

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Web DesignI’ve dedicated this year to acquiring skills that

will help get me employed. Knowledge of web

design seems to be in high demand, so I’m

studying short courses alongside the degree.

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XeroxThe photocopier is almost regarded as

obselete, but I still think its a great tool

for image making. I used it a lot during our

workshops at the start of the year and I think

its good to embrace anything that gets you off

the computer!

adams-alphabet

A ...

B ...

C ...

D ...

E ...

G ...

F ...

H ...

I ...

J ...

K ...

L ...

M ...

N ...

O ...

P ...

Q ...

R ...

S ...

T ...

U ...

V ...

W ...

X ...

Y ...

Z ...

YellowI like yellow, it evokes happy memories. when

I see yellow I think of sunshine, flowers, post-

it notes and rubber gloves.

I think I’m correct in saying that the

combination of yellow and black creates

the strongest possible contrast of any two

colours.

adams-alphabet

A ...

B ...

C ...

D ...

E ...

G ...

F ...

H ...

I ...

J ...

K ...

L ...

M ...

N ...

O ...

P ...

Q ...

R ...

S ...

T ...

U ...

V ...

W ...

X ...

Y ...

Z ...

Apple + Zapple + Z should be a sin! which would make

me a sinner.

I live in the ‘undo’ culture. I worry it makes

me complacent. I know I should spend more

time thinking and planning a design, but I

head straight for the computer safe in the

knowledge I can always ‘undo’.

I wish I did more design manually.

letterpressing, screen printing, sketching

and drawing. even cutting, and pasting with

scissors and glue. I’m going to make an effort

to try for the remaining two terms.

adams-alphabet

SUPPORTING WORKINTRO / TITLE PAGE

VCT ESSAY

A-Z

suppORTINg wORK

PPD ESSAY

WORKSHOPSThe project began with 5 weeks of studio

workshops. They were optional but I chose

to attend as many as possible in order

to intergrate myself into the course. The

workshops were diverse; covering, amongst

other things, technical skills, conceptual

thinking, experimentation, research and

analysis techniques, image making and

contextual theory. studio days were divided

into three sessions with several workshops

running during each session. This required

us to select the workshops we felt would be

most helpful or relevant.

Workshops

Images from my chosen workshops.

WORKSHOPS

WORKSHOPSwork produced during the studio workshops.

DRAW

adobe Illustrator workshop for year One processing: The language of code

tradition innovationregal, royal, deep colours, jack wills,pimaries, bauhaus

bright lumionious, loud, contasting, apple, punk, secondaries

tradition innovationregal, royal, deep colours, jack wills,pimaries, bauhaus

bright lumionious, loud, contasting, apple, punk, secondaries

language of colour

WORKSHOPSwork produced during david’s subvertising

workshop. The brief was to alter an advert

and reframe, or poke fun at, its meaning.

PRINTING INDUCTIONSI signed up for a variety of print inductions

over the term. They required a full day but

provided an opportunity to experiement with

new techniques. I produced some interesting

work, some which I used in the content of my

a-Z. The workshops I attended were: lino cut

and relief printing, solar ecthing, collagraph,

letterpress and screen printing.

PRINTING INDUCTIONSwork produced during the print workshops.

Clock wise from top right: solar etching,

letterpress, lino cut, screen print, collagraph.

TALKSdurng the term I attended two ecca lectures

(enterprise centre for the creative arts):

How To Be an eco creative and making The

most of social media. Both talks helped in the

development for the a-Z. The social media

talk was a catalyst for creating the blog, and

the issues discussed in the eco creative talk

directly influenced my letter g (green).

SKETCH BOOKSI got through two and a half sketch books

for this project ! I used them to record

my thoughts. They are filled with concepts

and themes for the a-Z, lists of letters and

sketches for the layout.

INSPIRATION

1 dividers and playlist magazine

2 year planner

3 coronation souvenir

4 posters from lcc

5 dictionary and definition of ‘language’

6 grafic and Vice magazines

7 ual short course guides

8 collected leaflets

9 school portaits

10 design books

11 books on layout

12 non-design books

13 sketch books

14 free publications

15 ‘green awareness’ material

16 exhibition literature

17 illustration source material

18 silly postcards

19 colour wheel + favourite pen

20 family photographs

21 wim couwel book

Inspiration for this project came from far

and wide. I collect the things that influence

me. The items photgraphed were kept for all

sorts of reasons: the imagery, use of type,

layout, concepts, colours, information, etc;

collectively they were my inspiration.

12

45

6

8

910 11

19

121314

15 1617

18 20

21

7

3

4 206

DESIGN CHOICESThe design of the pdf has gone through

many incarnations since the project began.

countless experiments with grids, layout,

navigation, format and typefaces have led to

the final outcome.

MAKING THE LETTERSThe content of the spreads took considerable

time to construct. The following pages give

an insight into the process.

MAKING THE LETTERS

THE BLOGThe idea of the blog was to allow the work to

be accessible to a much wider audience than

a pdf or book would allow. This was my first

experience of publishing online, I looked at

several blogs for ideas and inspiration.

BIBLIOGRAPHYmade you look

Setfan Sagmeister

Things I Have learned In my life so far

Stefan Sagmeister

Basics design: grids

Ambrose & Harris

Basics design: layout

Ambrose & Harris

The essentials Of Visual communication

Bo Bergstrom

How To Be a graphic designer without ...

Adrain Shaughnessy

watching words move

Chermayeff, Geismar & Brownjohn

who I am and what I want

David Shrigley

The alphabet Of manliness

Maddox

80 20 100 wim crowel crouwel designs

Warren Lee

The amazine

Lazy Oaf

student guide VI

Vice Magazine

letterform collected

Grafik Magazine

special Report: music

Grafik Magazine

The History Issue

Vice Magazine

How To Be green by Nat walker

Monthly article,Grafik Magazine

playlist

Weekly culture guide, The Times

Books PeriodicalsWebsites & blogslazy Oaf

www.lazyoaf.co.uk

facebook

www.facebook.com

lookbook

www.lookbook.nu

fda design for graphic communciation

www.fdadgc.co.uk

Indexhibit

www.indexhibit.org

daniel eatock

www.eatock.com

Isobel williams

www.isobelwilliamsgotablog.blogspot.com

James Brook

www.factoryalphabet.info

ella camponi

www.melikesyoualot.blogspot.com

mike calandra

www.theloudmouthbraggart.tumblr.com

Rob francis

anotherfuckingdesignstudent.tumblr.com

PPD ESSAYThis has been my first major project on the fda, having joined

the course at the start of the second year. I had previously

studied part-time and short courses at lcc. The transition

has been fairly difficult and I have found this project a

considerable challenge.

The projects on my previous courses had typically been 2-4

weeks in length with relatively straight forward briefs. This

project could not be more different! I have been slightly

over-awed by the scale of the project: the time given, the

amount of work expected, the separate elements required

and self motivation needed. The project has not been without

its problems, but I feel I have learnt a great deal from the

experience and produced some good work.

The project began with 5 weeks of studio workshops. They

were optional but I chose to attend as many as possible in

order to intergrate myself into the course. The workshops

were diverse; covering, amongst other things, technical skills,

conceptual thinking, experimentation, research and analysis

techniques, image making and contextual theory. studio days

were divided into three sessions with several workshops

running during each session. This required us to select the

workshops we felt would be most helpful or relevant. during

these early weeks I was also able join year One software

training sessions and undertook several print inductions.

By mid November, the workshops were completed and we

were expected to begin work on the hundred page pdf. I

quickly decided I wanted my project to exist solely as a digital

document, rather than designing something for print. an early

problem I encountered was using grids so at my first tutorial

Ben suggested I change the format from a5 spreads to single

a4 pages, which david subsequently approved. This proved

a very good suggestion and made designing the grid a lot

easier. another early idea was to put the work online, making

it accessible to a much wider audience than a pdf or book

allows. at that point I did not know how realistic it would be

given the time available and my web publishing skills.

at this stage I was lacking a clear idea of where I wanted to

take the project, and although I had further group tutorials

throughout November, ideally I would have liked some one-to-

one sessions to talk through my ideas and direction. I did try

to arrange this but it was a very busy time for the tutors.

In early december there was a formative deadline when we

presented a draft version of the pdf. The feedback from my

tutors and peers was positive. They felt my work had strong

elements but also highlighted several areas to work on. It was

suggested the layout could be improved by varying the size and

placement of elements and allowing for more white space.

I took the feedback on board and planned to continue

developing the project after finishing work for my elective.

However, the formative assessment had been the last week

of term and the subsequent university ski trip, christmas

holidays and illness combined to distract me. It was quite

some time before I got fully back into the project. I accept

responsibility for this set back and have since worked hard to

catch up, but I know I allowed myself to waste valuable time.

salvation came in the form of blogging and stefan sagmeister!

Over the christmas holidays I borrowed his book Things I

Have learned in my life so far. I read it from cover to cover;

it kick started the project, provided a source of inspiration

and helped me to develop my own ideas. I set about creating

INTRO / TITLE PAGE

VCT ESSAY

A-Z

SUPPORTING WORK

ppd essay

new work for the spreads, but rather than concern myself

with layouts I decided to record this work on a blog. I didn’t

have time to build a website, but a blog was the ideal solution

due to its template structure and quick publishing. I created

a separate page for each letter and set up a navigation menu

using basic HTml coding.

The blog approach allowed me to focus on creating content for

all 26 letters and view them as a collection. This really helped

me to finalise a theme and make the content coherent. The blog

went through many changes with some letters having several

different posts created and tested. The format made editing

the collection easy.

creating the blog also helped with the pdf design. The blog

itself is clean and consistent with a generous amount of white

space framing the blog posts. I wanted the spreads of the pdf

to be more sophisticated and varied but still retain the feel of

the blog.

although I know I should have made better use of the

christmas holidays, I did manage do plenty of reading. I

read three books to help me address the issue of layout that

had been raised in my formative assessment. These were:

‘made you look’ by sagmeister and two books from the

Basics:design series; ‘grids’ and ‘layout’. all three have

excellent examples of grids, image placement and handling of

type. I hope I have been able to incorporate some of the ideas

into my own design. I certainly feel I have a much improved

knowledge of the area and that this project (along with my

work placement report) represents my most considered use of

layout to date.

for the final weeks of the project I have been finalising the

content of the blog and transferring the content to the pdf.

although at this late stage I have not allocated my time very

effectively: I have spent a disproportionate amount of time

working on the spreads and content, and not really allowed

sufficient time for the essays or supporting pages. I do not

want to let myself down by failing to complete all the work

required so in the future I have to allocate more time for any

supporting work required.

The theme of my a-Z is addressing what I have learnt about

graphic design as a subject, and about myself as a designer

and person. I am very happy with the finished pdf, I believe

it represents a significant achievement and a considerable

step up from last year, in terms of quality and contextual

awareness. The design has been developed and informed

through research. I have looked at numerous contemporary

examples of work for print and web, and subsequently feel

I have improved my knowledge of the subject. I have also

become aware of important issues such as social networking,

sustainability and the recession and their impact within the

industry. I have taken the opportunity to learn new skills like

screen printing and letterpress, as well as improving my

design thinking and problem solving through the workshops.

I have been able to utilise the feedback from my tutors and

peers to good effect, taking on board their comments to lead

me to further research and ultimately, improve my work.

I feel publishing my work online represents a significant step

forward. It has allowed the work to reach a wider audience

(at the time of writing the blog had 45 views and had only been

finished a week). This has helped me to gain further feedback,

and also demonstrates an increased awareness of self

marketing and self promotion.

The area that has been least successful is self management.

I am concerned by my lack of motivation over the christmas

break, and at not effectively allocating my time between the

separate areas of the project. looking back, it would have

been helpful for me to have broken the project into sub-

projects to better deal with the large time frame.