Creative Innovation and Entrepreneurship, TMA1402, was one of the first modules that form my learning programme for the MA in Graphic Design course. As the module draws to a close, I take a moment to reflect on the module, it's content and how I feel about my outcomes and the journey taken to achieve them.
In this module, I challenged myself to develop my creative practice and to steer away from taking on another branding project. Taking my observations of how much more digital the world is becoming each day and, with companies continuously innovating to find new ways to attract customers and promote their brand, I decided to expand my practice into the augmented reality space. This was a risk I took and one that at various points in the project regret taking but persevered with because I had a commitment not only to my team but also to myself. Through this, I was able to learn a variety of 'hard skills' in the software I experimented with during the mid-stage of the project (Hiro, Lens Studio and Adobe Aero). Although I had set myself this challenge from the start of the project, I was overly ambitious during the early stages by attempting to also develop a creative response to the groups' common theme of 'portraits' alongside learning skills and software in a field of design I was unexperienced in and developing an outcome that I have never approached before. Although duality of tasks and initial desired outcomes enhanced my understanding in Photoshop and helped to strengthen my 'hard skills' with the software, I believe the project would have benefitted from taking a pure augmented reality focus from myself. Allowing myself to commit my full time for the project to the learning of the augmented reality software and the outcomes usability.
Although the outcomes were not as I intended, being desktop pop-up windows on the Unexpected Joy website due to technical issues, I am happy with the work produced. The original designs and the full augmented reality experiences do in fact work if opened either natively within Adobe Aero or if the .real or .usdz file is shared, for example via a text message which was tested during the latter end of the project. I believe that I would feel happier with the outcomes if the pandemic had not affected the physical element of the project, however, I am happy that the digital experience allowed me to create my outcomes on a desktop platform.
Reflecting on projects can often result in regrets or a sense of unhappiness with the project due to uncompleted tasks or unexplored avenues. There are areas of the project that I would like to develop further, which you can read about here. However, the project overall taught me so many valuable 'hard skills' and 'soft skills' that will be invaluable not only for future modules but also for my professional creative career moving forward. You can read further about how the skills I've developed along the way growing and their potential future use here.
View the final outcomes for the project here
Head to the Unexpected Joy website here
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