Summary

Now that our project has come to an end with a final outcome, me and my partner believe it is important to analyse the work that we have created. To summarise our piece, we will analyse what we liked, what we could of improve/developed, and overall conclude the whole outcome.

Me and my partner may have different opinions of our project, so our evaluation might be slightly different. The image below shows an analysis of our final outcome and how each sense fell into the ranking. This technique was inspired by a TED Talk by Jinsop Lee, Design for all 5 Senses.

Personal Evaluation

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Strong Areas

When me and my partner Perry Rowe set out to work on this brief, we were somewhat overwhelmed by the initial ideas we were coming up with – seeming as our subject was Jack the Ripper. Although we had several gruesome ideas floating about throughout the process, we whittled it down to one simple idea which we felt could offer a unique solution to depicting Jack the Ripper. Seeming as the Ripper is somewhat a myth and no one knew his identity, we had to produce a 3D model which would solve the problem of not having to visualise the Ripper himself but better yet, represent him through his victims. This made our idea even simpler as he conducted very similar acts on all his victims so it just became a case of how we would make our letters to look like his victims. However, this is besides the point, I feel our core concept for this assignment was a strong basis for our design.

In terms of the box, we wanted to create something era specific so me and my partner are both very proud of the outcome due to our lack of experience in wood working, laser cutting, engraving and the other processes involved. We wanted to stain our purchased 4-ply Hard Plywood in order to add ageing so it would look more like the wood interior floorboards of where some victims were found. The incorporation of the bed sheet was to relate to one of his victims being found in her own bed – it was also a tool used to increase the contrast between our letters and the wood.

Our choice of typeface for the 3D letters and emblem were not among our initial ideas. We started by looking into era specific typefaces which were used in the press releases about Jack the Ripper. However when we began to make paper and digital mock-ups we opted for a bold and rigid san serif adaption of the font Intro. From this we also created a small engraved emblem for our assignment and wooden box. I am very much proud of the outcome of this. I would though experiment with staining the wood before engraving to enhance contrast between wood layers.

Areas of Improvement

It is unfortunate that a key area for improvement for me are the 3D letters. Although I feel the aesthetic styling of them was carried out very well, when it comes to the 5 senses, in order to make the letters represent the bodies of his victims, I felt the Touch sense needed to be improved. This could have possibly been achieved by sourcing other materials like Silicone – with more time this would have been a worthwhile experiment. The colour of the skin tone could have also been improved. Although we wanted the letters to look dead, they are too pink for my liking.

A small imperfection was on the sliding lid of the wooden box. I believe our calculations were all correct but unfortunately our engraving designs cut into the wood slightly off centre. This was unfortunate as we didn’t have enough time to re-do this mistake but overall I feel our wooden box was a success and I am very pleased with it.

One last area of improvement is on our printed promotional material. I feel the design of the prints are very good but I do wish to point out that the contrast of the black and white imagery could have been improved – it looks a little washed out to me. But overall, we both worked on this style to extend it from poster to postcard format and I am happy with the visual styling of it – adding a modern style layout to an old Jack the Ripper mystery.