OUIL401 Context of Practice End of Module Evaluation

Throughout this module I have definitely developed my research and analytical skills and my knowledge of semiotics. Both Studio Brief 1 and 2 required an in-depth understanding of a subject so it was important for me to look at various sources and extract the relevant information. Whilst writing the essay for Studio Brief 1 I also became more confident with Harvard referencing and how to use in text citations - this perhaps isn't something that will drastically improve my practice as an illustrator, but it is good knowledge to have in an education environment.
In Studio Brief 2 I feel as if I stumbled into new territory because our illustrations required us to not only research and be informed on a topic, but to communicate that topic in any format we chose. Having such an open but heavily research led brief left me feeling very stranded in some instances because I had to figure out exactly what I was trying to say with the information I was gathering.

I am beginning to realise what my strengths are with my practice and what are the areas I need to improve on. My on-going goal is to be more exhaustive with my drawing and I think in Studio Brief 2, I really started to tackle this. As a result of this, I think it sped up my final image development process because I had already, intuitively created an appropriate aesthetic for the information I was trying to relay.
The weaknesses in my work have definitely been my lack of academic research sources. I tried to find as many relevant sources as possible, but I felt as if I needed more to really justify the points I was making. This may have been due to a small availability of sources relevant to the topic I had chosen however.

If I were to do this module again, I would spend more time doing more in-depth research and being exhaustive of the different academic sources. I feel as though I only prioritized this module when it was close to deadlines, so at some stages I don't think I really met my full potential. I found that when I was looking at my research, I got a clearer idea of what I wanted to do or what I could develop further. If I spent more time researching/informing myself, then my understanding and the development of my work could have gone further. However, the time spent researching was also influenced by other responsibilities so it couldn't always be prioritized.