Category: Professional Practice

Within the group most of us had never interacted with each other before or knew much about one another at the start of the project but as the project progressed we were able to work well as a team and achieve what we set out to do. It was easy to communicate with other members of the group and to get along with them, I enjoyed working with all of them and I think that as a team we worked well together especially under the online only circumstances. I think we were able to work so well together and get the work completed due to the organisation at the beginning of the module of the communication channels, having easy communication meant that we could share live updates of in progress design work and get near instant feedback on what we were creating.

I think that within the group meetings we were all able to be at ease with each other when we talked and were able to suggest ideas and work on them together, I think the group was also good at coming to agreements and helping each other to build on ideas. For some of the work there were some tasks were smaller groups of us worked together to create things for the business, I found this helpful as we were all able to work well together and get the work done with useful input from one another to improve the quality of the outcomes. Our team leader Kalina did a good job at organising the group and assigning roles which I think contributed to how we worked as a team and made us more effective by making sure people were working to their strengths. I think Kalina’s leadership skills really helped to keep us on track and make sure that the project was running smoothly, making sure the work was getting done and that any issues were resolved quickly. We as a group didn’t really have many issues with the work and good communication and dynamics between members made sure that any collaborative work went smoothly and input was also given from the rest of the group.

Overall I think the group was able to overcome any issues easily and was able to work together well and produce good outcomes. It was easy to get along with the other members and to create collaborative ideas.

To organise our group our team leader Kalina decided that within the discord that we use for communicating we would use a bot to keep organised. This bot called “Task Manager” was used to assign tasks to group members in an easy and convenient way to make sure that we we’re all up to date on what we were doing for the group in that week. This was a way that we all stayed organised with our assigned tasks and were able to plan what each group member would do every week.

Also for staying organised and planning things we had separate channels in the discord for each type of work that the team might have to do, such as 3D work or graphic design, which we used for sharing work and discussing the relevant sections. This meant that it was easier for us to talk about certain topics in the relevant places on the discord server, allowing us to stay organised and keep things neat and easy to find.

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Additionally the group had a board on the website Trello to break down the tasks and elements that we would need to create for this project. These tasks were broken down into separate lists which allowed for them to be assigned to members to work on for tasks during the project. These smaller tasks were assigned weekly and corresponded with the roles that we had all been given to make sure that we were working to our skillset. Trello was a really good site to use to plan aspects of the project as a team and to keep the tasks organised and neatly listed in one place.

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Personally, to keep myself organised I set aside a few hours a week and scheduled this time for working on my tasks for the project. I also set aside 1 hour for the group meeting on Wednesdays every week to make sure I could always attend these important group meetings. By setting aside time each week for this module it gave me time to do my work for the project without it conflicting with my other assignments for other modules. I set aside adequate time for each module and assignment each week to work on them and make sure I am keeping up and staying organised. This along with the tools our group decided on made sure that all our work ran smoothly.

My first task for the group was a large one, to design the logo.

To begin doing this I looked at the original logo that Kalina had created for the brand in her previous project looking at the inclusion of a paw in the design. From there I created a paw shape in illustrator and started to try it out with different fonts and colours as seen in the first image. These are all my initial ideas that I came up with.

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I consulted with the group asking which they liked best and what should be taken forward, we decided on the top right design. I then took this design and worked further on it, adding the paw stitches to really connect the logo with it being a pet toy brand and give it a clear link to our company. Once I had the 2 stitch logos created with the variation in text, our group voted which was best and the final logo shown below was finally decided.

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For the advertisements below, I created I knew I wanted to use the logo on them and to use the colour scheme that this logo provided. As the company creates pet toys I created 2 vector illustrations of a cat and a dog to be used on promotional materials. I created these using the pen and smooth tools in illustrator, drawing them out with my mouse. Once I had a cat and a dog created I made these 5 banners below. I knew I wanted a uniform recognisable style for the banners that I made so I designed them with similar assets, such as the recurring background. The group helped to create slogans for the banners I was creating and we worked together to generate ideas for these. I then applied these slogans that we came up with onto the banners, I think the combination of my art and the slogans work really well together and that the logo and colour scheme helps to create a solid brand identity.

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I additionally made the below posters that could also be used as flyers. I added some variation by editing my vector art to offer different coloured animals. These posters, using the existing colour scheme fit in well with the brand and offer further promotion for our company offering new ways to interact with customers. These can be used offline or online to promote the business.

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During this teamworking experience I felt like I learnt a lot about working with others. To start, I hadn’t worked with the majority of my group members before this project so I had to get to know them and figure out the project at the same time. I found throughout this project it was easiest to do both of those things with strong communication channels in place, working together online requires extra effort on the part of each party to communicate effectively. I think that this teamworking experience taught me a lot about the importance of communication and how best to interact with others in the group through our discord channel, it was most effective to relay important information over the weekly voice calls as replies were guaranteed instantly and feedback could be given and built upon as a team.

I also learned from this project how important it is to plan things and keep organised. Making sure that I had tasks I was required to complete and rough deadlines for when these needed to be completed helped keep me accountable for my part in the project and producing my work. I produced numerous logo designs, posters and banners for the project within the deadlines I had set myself. I also learnt within the design process of the project, that it is best to make a few different ideas for logos for a brand so that your team has some to decide from and you give yourself the creative freedom to play around with a design and get something that fits the brand well. This also applies to general design work and has made me more mindful of playing with multiple designs over just using one and working on that.

I do think that the teamworking experience was really useful to me as a designer as I haven’t had much opportunity to work with others on design projects and it is really helpful to get the input and insight of other individuals as they can offer differing perspectives to the work you make and really help to push a design further. I think that the team setting has also allowed me to work on my time management and planning skills as the work took a lot of planning to decide who was going to take on which tasks and how it was all going to be completed for the deadline.

At the start of the project for the first few days our group had a designated channel in the year groups discord to discuss our tasks and talk to each other and get to know each other better. This was a good solution to get communication going within the group. Below is a screenshot of what this solution looked like.

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For this group project it was decided among my team that we would use Discord as our primary outlet of communication. We thought a Discord server would be superior to a group chat on any other platform due to the amount of customisability that Discord servers offer the user. Kalina was kind enough as the group leader to set up the discord server for our group with all of the necessary elements and sections that we would need to keep our group and its progress organised.

Along with being able to have separate channels for each of the parts of the project that each of us were working on we also were able to pin relevant messages to our group for everyone to easily check and see. These usually consisted of messages with summaries of that weeks meeting and the date of the next meeting to make this information easily available to everyone quickly. Below are some screenshots of the sections of the server that we have along with the voice channel where we have our weekly meetings at the bottom along with examples of the pinned messages created by members of the group.

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Overall for communication I think that discord was the most appropriate and useful channel that we could have chosen for our group. We are all familiar with how this piece of software works which makes it perfect for us to use it to the best of its capability and make it work for our group. The ability to share work and discuss things related to the group within one space whilst still keeping it in separate channels was really useful for keeping things organised. It also proved useful to have a place to voice and video call in one place along with the ability to share screens with each other to show work we had made or get opinions from other members of the group. I think that our group was able to communicate really well with each other and stay in touch easily which aided with the project a lot.

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For this project within our group we decided at the beginning to organise rolls and duties of each member. In the first week of the group we had a session meet up on the Wednesday to decide between us who was going to do what roll and discuss what we were all good at and what we could contribute to the team. At this meeting I mention that I had Graphic Design and had previously done a course on. In this course I had done a few projects with companies and branding that was successful so I knew that this would come in handy for this project. I also showed the group some of the artwork I had made in a vector style of people and animals and some previous websites in-case this could be relevant to our project outcomes.

After this meeting it was decided that my role would be primarily graphic design based as this was my speciality area and that I would be assigned to help create things such as logos, advertisements and packaging. This meant that my first task for the group would be to create a logo for us to use throughout the project and be the brand identifier. I also helped to decide on the colour scheme for the business and always provided different options for each of my designs for my group to decide on collectively. Ultimately any designs I made were unanimously chosen by the group to be the ones that I continued to develop to make sure that the whole group was happy with what had been created and chosen, we did this for all elements of the business so it meant that we could work individually but come together to discuss work and make sure everyone liked what was being made. My role was in my eyes important to the group and I was able to play to my strengths and work doing what I am good at. This I think will be helpful in making a professional outcome for the project as I am able to work on things I have a lot of knowledge and experience on.

I think that the role I was given in the group is a good fit for me because of my experience in the field and it is something that I looked forward to working on for this group.