- Today I'm gonna show you the work
that I did in my last year of design school.
If you haven't been watching
the rest of the videos in this series
and you're curious to see what I got up to
in the earlier years of my design degree,
then those videos will be linked
in a playlist in the description.
You can check them out.
Yeah.
Today, I'm gonna show you what I did my last year studying.
(upbeat music)
So the last year of my degree,
the main thing you're doing is your major project.
That's what it was called.
Which was two classes, one in each semester.
One is heavily focused on researching a topic
that will give you like a theme to get started with
and you'd research from there to figure out,
it's essentially your thesis,
what you want to make your thesis project on.
And then the second semester
that project is much more focused
on making something out of your research.
But along with that,
we also had electives and some other classes.
And I think I'm gonna start this video
by showing you the electives
because there's a lot to show in the major project part.
So let's get the electives out of the way first.
Okay, I wanna start off with information design.
This was an elective I was really excited about
because I was really into data
and like making designs based on data,
I thought it was really fun.
What I remember of this project
is that we had a cause,
I don't know if we got the same one
or if we picked our own one, I'm not sure.
I think we had to pick an endangered animal
and do it about that.
So mine was about the Hector's dolphin
which is a dolphin that is native to New Zealand.
So it looks like the first output that I did.
And this was,
I think it was a graphic design
like typography class as well.
It was these little cards showing it's like protected areas,
just some stats about the Hector's dolphin.
This is an interesting choice, this right aligned text.
I don't know if I would do that nowadays,
but I guess it kind of works with the like,
the flow of the thing, and it's not too much to read.
So I guess it's okay.
I kind of like what I've done here with,
I remember doing watercolors and then like,
you know, photoshopping out bits of it,
to show the graphs in the areas.
We're really encouraged to find
unique ways to represent information.
So yeah, this was me trying to do that
through images of water
combined with paint to get across that feeling.
And this was,
I remember having this little series of cards
with you know, this was the backs of them, obviously,
and I put it into a net,
which was the main,
like cause of death for a lot of Hector's dolphins.
I had this like net bag that I put these cards
and that was how I presented it,
seems like a student thing to do, doesn't it?
I remember as part of this, I made a video though too.
I wonder where I saved that.
I was trying to like combine
my motion graphics skills
that I'd studied last year into this,
to like, you know, try and bring them together
'cause it was something unique that I could bring
that perhaps other students couldn't.
I can't find it though,
not sure where that ended up.
It was sort of like a TV spot ad though,
I guess was the intention behind it.
It doesn't matter.
You just have to believe me that I did it.
So yeah, the other final thing
was this booklet, there
that was telling the story
and presenting the infographics I suppose.
And again, I'm using this font that I loved,
loved Trade Gothic (chuckles).
And this was a booklet as well,
so you're not seeing pages next to each other
as they really would have been.
But yeah, as you can see there is graphics in amongst.
I still do this dotted line thing today,
I didn't realize that was where
the first place that I did it.
I think in general, just this whole thing
needs that extra layer of polish,
I quite like this,
this like blue with the type
and sort of the overlapping things.
But when you look at the graphs
they're kind of just like,
they're not holding the space,
they're just sort of like slapped on the page,
it feels like.
That's something that I would definitely go back
and do differently, if I was doing this project again.
But yeah, like I said,
I do like this whole thing here.
I'd probably niche about my like things lining up
across pages too it'd be better with that grid.
In general, there's just like a lot of white pages.
I think I printed this
on sort of like a yellowy stalk, actually.
But still, there's not much contrast
created throughout the book aside from in these intro pages.
I probably could have done
like a different textured background
or something on the graphs
to make them stand out
from the text a little more, I don't know.
Yeah.
That's what I ended up doing
that was my infographics project.
Another leithoff I took this year
was spatial typography.
So this was like a typography class
but mostly for like signage or like type in an area.
And my group we focused on wayfinding.
I think this was a group project anyway,
if I'm remembering correctly.
And our assignment was
to improve the wayfinding in the library.
I can't find our like,
final presentation for this, can I?
Oh, here we go.
This looks like a presentation of some sort.
But yeah, we had the Wellington library,
so we would go and visit that
and be like taking photos of the signage
that they currently had,
see on the shelves and things like that.
And obviously in a library
things are generally not super cohesive,
that's, you know, just a given.
So there was a lot we could improve there.
And we were looking at like different areas
where we could put fun typographic stuff like in the space,
so this huge area.
From elevators obviously stood out
they did have a cool,
like neon sign hanging up there,
there we go.
We ended up with this idea
of grouping information based on color.
So blue was used for,
like finding different topics
within the library information, that sort of thing.
And then red was kind of like other stuff
in the libraries, like facilities.
Here's a little mock up that we did,
we had to even think about things like,
okay, if there's a sign that's smaller,
where does it hang?
Does it hang from the top,
or does it line up at the bottom?
we decided it would line up at the bottom.
This was a really
like I think it was a really good project
that I didn't appreciate at the time.
In terms of thinking about users.
This was probably,
yeah one of my first experiences
thinking about user experience in a way,
even though it wasn't to do
with product design, web design
it was to do with spatial typography.
But yeah, thinking about how people use
a thing that you're designing
and making it appropriate for them.
We used Trade Gothic again.
Yep, my usual,
like all of the signage was translated into Maori as well.
And we put that on the top,
just as a sign to show that like this is important,
it's New Zealand's native language and all that.
I remember making these mock ups,
I think someone else in my group did the people,
which I do think actually looks quite cool.
And then I would mock them up onto these signs here.
I remember learning
how to use like the burn and dodge mode in Photoshop
to make the signs look like they had light on them,
that sort of thing.
Yeah, so this was our presentation
showing how to we had put stuff in the space.
In general, I think we put a lot more effort
into the presentation
than into the design of the stuff itself,
if that makes sense.
This was one of my favorite parts.
I really liked this sort of thing,
they're showing as you walk down the stairs,
you would see zero
because you're going down to level zero
or one as you're going up,
and how it would end up with this crossover thing.
I thought that was really cool.
Sort of like a red carpet walking you in, you know?
Oh, that's right,
this thing was that every computer
would have like a big red circle on the ground,
and then there'd also be one on the ceiling.
So if you weren't sure where the nearest computers were,
you'd like look up and see that
and that would be like your wayfinding tool
without there being a sign saying computers here,
if that makes it.
Yeah, fun project.
Good to get me thinking about users,
but I remember not loving this project
because I didn't love the visuals and how it turned out.
Like I didn't think it looked very cool
apart from these numbers.
Yeah, I don't know.
And it was a group project,
so I'm sure there was a lot of things
that I wanted to do (laughs) that others didn't,
and vice versa.
And there was probably some arguments that were had.
Okay, now we're getting into my major project.
So first of all, I wanna give a shout out
to Mark Bradford who was my tutor (cheering)
on this project if he's watching,
'cause we follow each other on Twitter
and he was excited to hear that I was doing this video.
So major project like I said,
you got given sort of a theme
to just start researching
and find something that you're passionate enough about
to make it your focus for the year and make it your thesis.
So because this first semester was full of,
like a lot of the research and stuff like that.
I don't think there's much for us to look at,
so we're gonna jump straight to,
here we go,
stuff that I handed in.
So this was a poster about my research.
And the topic that I chose was internet use.
And I was looking at online pollution.
So the fact that
there's a lot of content being created online,
and like not all of it is good.
In fact, the quality was going down and down and down,
and how the internet is such a great resource
and that we needed to do what we could
to protect it and make it,
like bring up the level of it, you know.
Still hyper relevant today, right?
(laughs)
So what have I said here?
Okay.
My strategy is to test if conventions
from anti-pollution and national pride campaigns
can be appropriated for the internet
to instill a sense of digital citizenship,
and connect internet users on an emotional level,
encouraging them to stop polluting the internet
and start contributing value.
This is so interesting to me to look back on
because this is like still something
I firmly believe in today,
is putting valuable stuff online.
That's what I try and do with my videos.
I'm trying to like you know,
share value and share good stuff out there.
So it's cool to see that this is what I was doing then.
I did things like, here we go noting my online activity,
looking at what my home base was,
finding news online, okay?
And then what did I say here,
I was gonna design an ongoing campaign
to recruit members of the Net Generation.
I don't think we knew the term millennial then,
that wasn't what people were calling it yet,
to become digital citizens
and implore them to stop polluting the internet.
Aim to get users
to move past thinking about the internet
as bytes, pixels, and data,
and instead focus on personal aspects
like home, community, and citizenship.
So that was my plan from,
that I developed from that first semester of research.
And then we get into the last semester of design school,
last, like assignment for major project
was to make something based on that brief
that I just read out.
So we started the semester
just like experimenting,
making things and seeing like what could come out
and what would be the final thing we'd produce
'cause whatever you produced at the end
was what would get shown at your graduation show.
And the medium that you chose for it
should be related to
like what your major and your minor is, you know.
So I was minoring in graphic design,
and so I knew that my final result
was gonna be something
that was graphic design related, you know.
Probably print for me
since that is what I was focusing on at the time.
I remember in this last semester of university
just being really over it by this point,
like I had started working as a designer,
I was doing like 30 something hours a week
and in a job as a graphic designer for a company.
And I was like stoked to be getting paid to design stuff.
I talked about this in my salary video.
If you haven't seen that yet, I'll link it on a card,
one of these corners, I can never remember which one.
But yeah, I just remember,
finding design school really frustrating by this point.
This was my fifth year of studying
even though it's the fourth year of the degree
because I had taken that time off,
so it kind of stretched out the whole degree itself.
And I was just over it.
I wanted to be done with studying
and be out there in the real world.
And so I don't think that I put as much effort
into this final project
as perhaps I could have or should have.
Mark, my tutor, bless him, was a great tutor.
I remember him pushing me to try and like,
you know, get more out of me
that you know, he knew was there
and I don't think that I fully realized that potential.
I am still happy with what I ended up with.
I think it's cool.
And I did some cool printing techniques with it.
I'm gonna show you in a sec.
But yeah, I think that I could do more.
I think if I went back now,
'cause I'm still really passionate
about this topic in general,
I could do a much better job of it.
I just didn't have the,
I don't know, like I said,
I was over it by this point.
And so I was just trying to get to that finish line,
I was trying to get something that would be good enough
to get me an A minus,
'cause that was what you needed for first class honors,
(laughs)
an A minus average across your grades for the last year.
And that's all I wanted,
I just wanted to graduate and be done with university.
I wasn't like super excited to work on the project itself,
if that makes sense.
But let's take a look at what I did end up with.
In fact, I'm just gonna jump
to showing you the finished thing
and some portfolio images I took.
So my final product was almost like a report.
It was kind of like a zine,
I don't know what to call it.
But it was a newspaper
about pursuing digital citizenship,
like what does it take to be a good digital citizen.
It was kind of like documenting my research
in this fun, like cool little
coffee table object, I suppose,
that you could have to flip through.
And it wasn't meant to be read
as a thing that you'd sit down
and read the whole thing cover to cover,
there was like bits, you could like dive into a spread
and look at, that sort of thing.
And I printed all of this by hand
using a turps transfer method.
So I would print out
the design backwards onto,
like using a laser printer.
And then I would take turpentine,
and like swipe it on the back,
put it on some newsprint, roll it through,
like this roller in the printmaking room at university
and it would transfer the ink from the laser print
onto the newsprint around the right way.
And so I don't wanna think
about how much fumes I inhaled through making this project
'cause obviously it wasn't just the final copy
there was also all the tests and stuff that went into it.
And I think I had to make
four versions of the final one as well,
one to give to each assessor
'cause you like present your final project
at the end of the class
and like talk to them about your research
and why you did what you did
and like defend it a little bit, that sort of thing.
So yeah, this was mine,
pursuing digital citizenship and a journey on Twitter.
I focused on Twitter
because that was the main social media
I was using at the time,
newsflash still is.
And so the whole thing
had this like Twitter blue color scheme to as well.
Here's just a look at some of the spreads inside,
as you can see, like mimicked newsprint stuff
with like the crop marks here,
actually I think there was like alignment marks
and then the color strip
was down the center of every single page.
There was like a flow to this book.
I had it online at some point
I wonder if I can find it
to show you the PDF.
Like it doesn't look as cool in PDF form as it does printed
because when you print it
you get these cool like variations and stuff.
See I'm still doing grunch stuff all the way to the end.
(laughs)
It's just so me.
Yeah, but I had,
this graph was flowing through from another page.
Those statements, like a digital citizen
has an established online identity.
I think this was like a spread of all of my tweets perhaps,
something like that, all arranged,
but it just ended up looking cool,
like it made a texture.
Again, I'm doing this thing
where I'm taking data and information
and using it to form the design.
That was my computer
where I was doing most of my design work.
And then I was overlaying
like this was like a graph
of like my social network, I think.
Like I said, I am really proud of this project.
I do think it's quite cool.
And there's a lot of cool design stuff in this
that I still do today
and that I still really like and wouldn't change.
But I think that what I would change
is just my overall approach to the project in general.
I just really, it was a struggle to get to here
and I don't think it needed to be.
I think it was trying to jump
to an end product of getting an A minus
instead of like being able to go with the flow
and go with the process,
which I mean, I understand why I was like that,
there was a high stress
and like,
you know, high pressure
I suppose a high pressure environment being in university,
so it happens.
But yeah, I think my project could have been a bit better
if I had let myself like relax into it a bit more
and see where it took me
rather than trying to force it so much.
Here is a look at the PDF
that I printed,
just in case you wanna see a few more pages.
I know there's a lot to read in this
now that I'm flicking through it.
And I'm like remembering all of the research that I did,
'cause it was kind of,
yeah a booklet forming together,
all of my research.
I remember at one stage of the project,
this one student in my class
was like tweeting about how they stole a font.
And then,
oh, here we go.
Yep, and so then this like kicked off
this whole Twitter thing,
where the actual font foundry
saw what they were talking about
and kind of like documented
the spread of this like person confessing I suppose,
this was the type foundry.
So that was kind of like an interesting thing that happened
during the course of my research.
I don't know if people who were at the exhibition
our final year exhibition
really got what they were looking at when they saw my work,
but I hope they thought it was cool.
It was fun to like have a newspaper, you know?
Yeah, that's what I worked on
in my last year of university.
Thank you for sitting with me throughout these videos.
It's been really fun for me
to look back on all of this work.
I know the videos have been long,
but yeah, I appreciate you sticking around
and taking an interest in the work that I did
and seeing kind of like where I came from, you know,
I'm still in the process of putting together
my actual portfolio for nowadays
but if you wanna see some examples
of my more up to date work,
then you can check out my Dribble.
I'll link that in the description below.
Thank you for watching this series.
I hope you enjoyed it, give it a thumbs up.
I'd love for you to leave me a comment
and tell me what you thought about the series,
and if you're studying right now yourself,
tell me if any of these projects are like
at all similar to what you're working on in design school
or if they have changed completely
since I was there.
Yeah, thanks for watching,
and I'll see you in my next video.
Bye.
(upbeat music)