OUGD503: Responisive - Collaborative Practice (evaluation)

The collaborative practice aspect of this module has been an eye-opener and also a learning curve. I found it very difficult to find a partner at the beginning because I did not want to work with a friend due to personal interests and also the fact that I do not want to fall out with friends. I knew that I wanted to work on a web brief so I had to find someone in the class who wanted to do the same. As the selection of partners happened over a 2 week reading week it was very poorly timed as many people had to ask people over facebook and text. Due to this it happened that most people ended up working with their friends as it was an easy option. I asked many people who I knew from the 504 module enjoyed web design but all of them were working together.

When I finally found Adam was interested in web design and he wanted to work with me it was a feeling of relief. I had already looked at some of the competition briefs and identified a few that would lean towards a web resolution. Adam had also done the same and when we came together we decided to work on Redrow (YCN). We chose this brief because we thought it was the most detailed and gave us the creative freedom. As we began to brainstorm I came up with some concepts and Adam agreed with me on most of them. The final concept was a collaborative effort though it stemmed from one of my initial ideas. Adam knew that he was not as interested in UI and UX, which I am. I took the lead with layout and grid whilst Adam turned his attention to designing artwork for out website. We decided to create an illustration that detailed the three stages that a site goes through, in order to see this we visited a Redrow site at Steeton. Adam has photography skills which was very helpful on this day as he was able to gather primary research and also model his illustration on an actual site in production. Adam's illustrations were amazing and really pulled together the information that I had come up with. Though we might not have each spent the same amount of time on the project this was not to say that we did not produce the same amount of work. My input into the project was mainly preparation and organisation of files and also information. I was able to design the logos for each job which was something I enjoyed and also I put together the format of the website.

When it came to putting our proposal together Adam was more skilled on the software to do this, I took a more supervisory role in this aspect of the brief giving my opinion as Adam worked. This part of the brief was the most time consuming and it seemed that Adam started to loose interest in the brief. I do not think that this was necessarily his choice but the illustrations seemed to take so much time that he was beginning to resent the brief because of it. The last week before submission was a struggle as we were not agreeing on certain aspects of the design. In the end we had to come to a compromise and we did produce something that fit in with the current branding of the Redrow website.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this brief and I would be happy to work with Adam in the future. We now hope to win the brief as it is one of our favourite pieces of design we have both created. The time and effort that we put into the brief is reflected in our response and we hope that the judges can appreciate this.