Professional opinions and questionnaires sketchbook- honours

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PROFESSIONAL OPINIONS AND QUESTIONNAIRES

Professional opinion- aperiosdesign For my honours project I thought it was important for me to get the opinions of professional designers for my project.

I wanted to know what they thought of the importance of the design principles. This was an important question I came up with based on my project, and the fact that it was about educating people on the design principles, i needed to know why i was doing this, if they get used in real professional life and how i can prove their importance so i can informatively educate younger designers on this fact.

Here I messaged a graphic designer that i liked that seemed to be very popular on Instagram.

@aperiosdesign Professional graphic designer.

This was his response. He said that the principles are important because it gets you designing correctly from the start and if you didnt use them your designs would be all over the place.

Without a foundation you cant expect to build something reliable- This quote from him really helped my confidence within my project because it made me realise how important the principles actually are. This opinion from a professional really set me up to be passionate about my honours project because there was real life proof that in a professional setting, designers use the principles and without them would have ineffective designs. I can now confidently say that you need the principles, and me creating a guide to them for younger designers will help them in their future career to alwasy apply them into their work to make it more effective.

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PROFESSIONAL OPINIONS AND QUESTIONNAIRES Professional opinion- andrew wolfenden After messaging the first professional designer I started looking into more designers I could query with my question. This question really did round up what my project is about. This question, when answered, is the meaning to my entire project, why are the principles even important in the first place?

I came across this designer from Liverpool who actually works in the baltic triangle. His work really engaged me so I messaged him through instagram, he actually messaged me back to send the question to his professional email as messages sometimes get lost within Instagram, so I did.

@andrew_wolfenden Liverpool based professional graphic designer

I emailed the question over to his email.

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PROFESSIONAL OPINIONS AND QUESTIONNAIRES Professional opinion- andrew wolfenden 2 Below is the response i recieved for the question I had asked in an email he sent to me.

This response was really helpful as he very strongly viewed that the principles of design are the most important part of design. Without understanding design principles you could lose functionality and leave the problem unsolved. He also adds that you can bend and break the rules, BUT with a good knowledge of them first. This response was really interesting and got me thinking about my work and the fact that the project ive chose to do is really important and will inform young designers on information they really need to know because of the responses I’ve gathered from professional designers. This research has really helped me to understand the meaning of my honours project and what I will get out of it and how I can make it effective.

“Design principles for me are probably the most important part of design. To me it’s about creating a functional piece of design that communicates and is also aesthetically pleasing and has purpose. Without understanding design principles you could lose functionality and leave the problem unsolved. Overall though design principles and rules are there for a reason but having a understanding of them means you can find ways to bend and break the rules of design leading to more experimental, abstract and unique pieces of work. ” - Andyjwolfenden

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PROFESSIONAL OPINIONS AND QUESTIONNAIRES Professional opinion- professional’s at Lucid Games- 3D artist Questionnaire interview with designers from Liverpool- HONOURS

Q1- Can you state your name and job title?

A1- Denzil Forde- Junior 3D Character Artist

Q2- How important is the application of design principles in your work and why?

A2- 'I'd say design principles are very important for 3d characters as a character's silhouette and volumes can be the key factor in making a character stick out and become unique. Everyone recognises Mario and Sonic are because of their unique design and shape. In a technical sense too design is very important, when it comes to character's clothing and accessories, a poor design, could lead to the character's outfit being too busy if the design doesn't serve purpose or doesn't focus on the major focal points (e.g leaving rests between assets)’ .

Q3- How often do you use the principles within your professional work life?

A3- 'I can't say I use these principles all the time, many times I need to remind myself of them. But it always serves me well getting feedback on my characters, many times my leads needs to remind me on the importance of design and focus on keeping things simple.’

Designers Art station: https://www.artstation.com/forde_fiesta I asked some more professional designers about the design principles and their opinions on them. The feedback I got from Denzil, a 3D artist, is important because, again, it shows that he finds the design principles are effective even in something you wouldnt expect to think about them in, he knows that if he designs something that is too busy or ‘not balanced’ in principle terms, then it will cause his 3D model to become in-effective. This is really helpful research because another professional has once again confirmed that the principles are very important within a design career, which helps me to understand further how I can create this editorial to visually show students the importance of the priciples and educate them on them whilst creating aesthetically plasing graphic pieces.

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PROFESSIONAL OPINIONS AND QUESTIONNAIRES Professional opinion- professional’s at Lucid Games- graphic designer Questionnaire interview with designers from Liverpool- HONOURS

Q1- Can you state your name and job title?

A1- Simon Turner - 2D artist/freelance designer

Q2- How important is the application of design principles in your work and why?

A2- ‘Design principles tend to be important in terms of being confident in the aesthetic choices I make and having a clear sense of how best to approach and structure a task.’

Q3- How often do you use the principles within your professional work life?

A3- ‘I use the principles frequently throughout most tasks in my professional work life, and perhaps more often than I realise eg: applying them subconciously - they also prove helpful when explaining to a client how their initial ideas can be improved without it feeling like a criticism.’

Designers instagram: @coloursorchords This is another professional designer that I managed to gather the opinion of. He stated that design principles tend to be important in terms of being confident in aesthetic choices you make to structure a task. He also states that he uses principles frequently throughout his work. This piece of research was really effective because it shows me that principles are used to effectively approach a task within the proffesional career of designers and that you use them as designers, which is why im creating this guide for younger students to look through, so they know what they are and how to apply them in a fun, visual way that wont be pages and pages of writing and in turn will help me create graphic designs that are effective. Gathering this professional opinion has really helped my research in terms of being able to back up my reason for creating this brief and possibly showing the audience the exact reasons why you should learn about the principles as a designer.

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PROFESSIONAL OPINIONS AND QUESTIONNAIRES Questionnaires 1 Honours questionnaire about principles- results

I created a questionnaire on my honours project for people to answer so I could get the general gist of the opinions of the people im designing for before i start designing. This reserach was crucial to my brief so I could further understand the exact type of people im designing for and what they want out of my outcomes, otherwise designing something that i like wouldnt have any actual effect when it came to the final outcome because the audience may not like it, so i had to conduct this research.

Q1

Most people who took my questionnaire were either 20/21.

Q2 most people were in university.

Q3 There was a 50/50 split on the amount of the people who took my questionnaire who knew what the design principles were and kind of knew- which makes my project even more important because they need to know what they are.

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PROFESSIONAL OPINIONS AND QUESTIONNAIRES Questionnaires 2

Q4 The audience would want to see a magazine about the design principles- which is good because thats what im planning on creating, and its good to see that it would actually get looked at.

Q5 This question was important to me because I wanted to know exactly what I should be producing within my magazine to make it more effective to my audience overall- The results were that they wanted alot of images/colour, the theory behind it but without being boring, examples of the principles in use, and explinations about the principles. This is all really effective feedback from the quesetionnaire because I can now start planning my magazine with an understanding of what my audience actually wants from it and what would actually keep their interest rather than a magazine that could potentially bore them.

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PROFESSIONAL OPINIONS AND QUESTIONNAIRES Questionnaires 3

Q6

Question six was all about finding out whether there were any reasons they would want to read a magazine on the design principles, to find out why I am creating this project to back it up. The answers varied from to gain knowledge, inspiration, reminding of the principles, personal work and to understand them fully. This was really helpful feedback for my project because it enables me to understand that my audience actually do want this editorial and it would really help them in gaining knowledge of the principleswhich is the whole point of my project and really backs up my project that my audience actually do want to gain knowledge of the principles.

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PROFESSIONAL OPINIONS AND QUESTIONNAIRES Questionnaires 4

Q7

I asked the question what are their favourite principles of design to understand which ones would be popular within an editorial so I can take note, and when ive done my research on what are the most used principles of design, I can decide which ones will go into the editorial.

The answers were, colour, texture, space, hierarchy, balance, composition.

Colour theory came up alot so I will definatly be doing a bit about that within my editorial.

This has helped me understand what my audience want to see within my editorial and what I can do to create this.

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PROFESSIONAL OPINIONS AND QUESTIONNAIRES Questionnaires 5

Q8 The final question I asked was about any comments they had about the design principles and their importance, to see if they had any statements about the principles and the importance to them individuals.

The answers were stating that they make design better, they improve designs, theyre essential to sping board designers ideas, and applying them helps work become industry standard. This feedback was helpful and important because it helped me understand that the audience understands the importance of the principles and thinks that everyone should have understanding of them because without them you dont have any progress of your ideas and they make designs better because of the application, and i can back that up with my research on them because they were created from informed sources and understanding of human brain and ways of thinking, so this feedback was effective because i now know that my audience understands their importance as well and I can take that feedback positively and understand that my work will be effective for my audience to look at and understand teh principles more ina fun, visual way.