Upon reflecting upon my development throughout the year I have realisied that I have benefitted greatly from undertaking the projects set. I believe that I came into the year very unconfident in multiple areas such as the use of software’s for computer aided design. In particular, I felt unconfident in technical drawing however in completing AutoCAD designs for projects such as discover Huddersfield and Choc Affair I feel as though I am progressing my understanding in this area. A software I feel as though I have gotten much more confident in is SketchUp, I believe that over this year my ability to create models in this software has developed massively which has enabled me to feel more confident about the course as a whole as I feel less limited in software use.
Time management was and continues to be an issue for me. By taking on too much for myself in a work/education/life balance, I restricted my ability to carry out my projects to my full potential. Moving forwards into the following year I know now that I need to restrict the volume of time I spend working to allow time for me to really preform in my education and not end up having to rush my projects resulting in me feel guilty for not putting my education before my work life. This had a detrimental impact in my desire to continue in this course as without realising, I was pushing my progression further behind which made me doubt whether the course was right for me. However with the unfortunate circumstance of the current times, my work schedule has ended which left me with far more time to focus on my work resulting in a project that for the first time in university I feel happy with my progression. By continuing to put the time needed into my course and having the confidence in myself, I feel I will be able to develop as a designer in a way I have previously unconsciously restricted myself from doing.
A skill I believe that I have progressed in is model making, from the exhibition stand model being the first model I created I learnt the importance of the dimensions of the stand being perfect this is because I initially cut the pieces of the model incorrectly which made it that there needed to be many alterations made for it to work and it still ended up being a piece I was not proud of. In the concept model and the plan model for Choc affair I learnt that models enable you to visualise a space which enables you to problem solve in your designs. This was very useful to my design making as it provided a clear idea of the feel of the space to influence how I created my design.
In completing the year I feel the most confident I have in the whole time I have spent on this course, I feel as though this project shows the most progression for me as a designer than any other work I have produced throughout this year. I feel as though my development packs have come a long way and my technical skills are building. I believe that the transition from physical drawing (which I am very confident in doing) to creating designs using software's was a difficult thing for me to grasp but I am confident that my abilities will continue to grow as I continue to practice.