Evaluation

When in the creative industry, or just the workplace for that matter, it is essential that you know how to work in a team and how to present ideas professionally. This is what made the Gibsons board game project a good practice run for these aspects. First, we were working with a well-established company which allowed me to practice being more professional with giving criticisms and presenting my ideas. Second, this was a group project, so I needed to communicate my ideas clearly and discuss them with my group to ensure we all work towards the same goal. Even though this project was challenging and could be one of my least liked, it was good practice for the future. 

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As this was primarily a group project, teamwork and communication were an essential part of it. While we had no major breakdowns in communications or huge disagreements, I wouldn’t say we were the most effective at working in a team either. Most of the time it seemed that we were all waiting for someone to take charge and talk thoroughly about what we needed to do and the direction we were going to head in. It felt as though we were working on an independent project with a loose idea that kept us working together. Though there was one member of our group who took charge at points to tell us what our idea should be, it was not all that productive as no discussions were held and we all just went along with whatever this member said. Probably because it was easier. The next time I take part in a group project I should be mindful to mention my ideas and take a more active role within the group, giving advice and helping to direct those who have hit a dead end. 

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During this project, research took a back seat to keeping everyone in the group on the same page. Though I did some initial research into Beatrix potter, Maurice Sendak, Jon Klassen and Shaun Tan; their art never made it past the initial stages, let alone getting implemented in my work. Beatrix Potter went the farthest since one of my team members enjoyed her aesthetic. If I had researched further, I believe I wouldn’t have had some of the same sticking points during the creation of the characters. However, this was not completely a pointless endeavor as it served to depict the style we wanted for our redesign. One thing I do regret about this part of the project is that I never showed my team members a game called Psychonauts, which has an aesthetic that I thought would fit right in and something I would be overjoyed to work with. 

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Using the theme of ‘surrealism’ as a base I went ahead and created the characters for the game. This I found difficult as the style that we decided on as a team was not what I was naturally drawn to. Over the course of this process, I had to overcome my habit of doing what I liked equaled good. I had to force myself to step back and view things more clinically – what suited the remit of the redesign. As this took a while, I ended up with many ideas I believe had potential but just didn’t fit what the group wanted so they had to be scrapped. One of which became the final design, I just had to simplify the idea down a bit to fit the boundaries of the project. In the future I would like to see where the original idea could go if I could develop it further. Despite hating every part of the project, I believe it was important for me to get past the hurdle of needing to like everything I do, especially if I go into the industry. 

It was interesting to work with fabric as it’s not my first choice of materials. This led to experimenting with how I could make the counters, all of which I thought were exciting. Using applique meant I was able to create a collage effect of fabric – combining all sorts of colours and textures to make something unique. Backstitching gave a delicate feel, though it could only work to as an outline or to give details as it is time consuming to do. I ended up using backstitching along with painting onto fabric using acrylic. I avoided making any patterns as that would be hard to replicate on a commercial scale. I also made custom buttons out of oven bake clay to act as a base as well as accents on the counters themselves. Unfortunately, the custom buttons were too big for the counters and many of the holes I made for threading closed after baking. 

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What I was surprised by was how I would act during the presentation for Gibsons. I was confident and I believe I communicated our teams' ideas clearly.  

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Overall, this project was useful though it was also quite annoying due to our teamwork and communication having cracks. I could've used my time more effectively as then I could've gotten done with my part faster, meaning I could help my other team members with their parts so we wouldn’t need to rush so much at the end. There was no work I produced from this project that I thought was particularly successful, but the whole sun and moon opposite theme sounds interesting – along with my original idea for them.