Enterprise Evaluation

OUCE255 SELF EVALUATION

This module has given me an incredible introduction to the world of business in Graphic Design.  It has made me more aware, and opened my eyes to my next move after graduation.  Through incredibly helpful lectures, self-completed tasks and business collaboration, I am confident in my ability to start a realistic business and to take considerations in making sure it is financially stable.

I have developed a range of skills that I never had before starting the module.  One of the main things I have learned is being realistic in aims, pricing and planning of a business.  For example, a new business cannot possibly expect to make a profit in the first year, and it is unlikely they will in the second either.  No matter how good the business plan may seem, promotion and the building up of a client list is essential to start off, before breaking even and making a steady profit.

One thing that I wish that I had done more, especially in the collaboration work, is emailing working professionals.  That task was assigned to other members of the group, but I still think that I should have done this myself, to get experience constructing a professional email, and engaging with the response.  It would have also helped me going into the next PPD module.

A strength in this module for me was my attitude.  Collaborating, I tried to make myself available and to compromise with other members of the group with ideas, design direction and assigned tasks.  I enjoyed working with the other 3 members of the team: Liam, Steph and Simon - I feel they had the same positive attitude which helped when making decisions and moving the project forward.

Taking Simon's design work and implementing this into a well designed presentation was something that I was new to.  He had already created a certain style within the logo that I had to represent on the slides themselves - keeping the style, colour and the typefaces consistent to what he had already created limited my creativity.  This gave me an insight of what it would be like to design collaboratively - for example if the company was established as a small studio - and I feel that I performed well in this area.

Something that could have been worked on was my contribution to all the nitty, gritty stuff, the financing in particular.  Although we all had tasks allocated, I could have offered to share some number tasks to gain the experience.  I understood it completely, maths was a good subject of mine through school, but it would have been beneficial to apply this to the enterprise collaboration.

A group weakness, that was down to no individual, was our presentation.  The stuff that was said was relevant, but needed condensing down.  The slides that I had constructed were riddled with information - there was imagery that we didn't consider including where we really should have.  I think more rehearsals would have solved this and if the brief were to be repeated, I am sure we would all agree that this would have made the presenting the work a lot more efficient.

How would you grade yourself on the following areas:
5= excellent, 4= very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor

Attendance - 5
Punctuality - 5
Motivation - 3
Commitment - 3
Quantity of work produced - 3
Quality of work produced - 3
Contribution to group - 4