Final Product & Evaluation

 This post will contain the image format (JPEG) of my final poster design for the Sunderland Culture project as well as my written evaluation of it too.

My final product for this project (Sunderland Culture) is a poster design which presents 2 different landmarks of Sunderland that are important in its culture, way of life and social interaction. In this evaluation, I will go through the planning process, the meaning behind the poster and the way it was made in a brief presentation. 

Planning, for me planning has never been an issue until recently due to having such an open brief about this project I had multiple ideas that I wanted to intertwine into my design overall but decided to pick one which was due tone. The due tone is a strong and very minimalistic style of creating a poster meaning regardless of the age gap between my audience everything will be decoded as planned by me, I wanted to create something unique but also representative of Sunderland, while looking at the "red design" you can expect the younger audience to be attracted to it and perhaps start wondering "who am I, I'm I the lad in this poster, supporting his home football team". I'm hoping that their personal identity could reflect upon their relationship with this football club, city, culture, generation and establish a relationship with older generations; for example, their parents could educate them on the history of this club and spark an idea for pursuing their 'inner Mackem' heritage that can relate with their personal identity. Perhaps they will create a conversation about the main question 'Who am I'. viewers could potentially be educating their children and loved ones about Sunderland club to find out more about what they love and what they enjoy potentially again bringing them back to my poster.

While making these posters they have different models and colours based on the landmark to separate them from each other for the viewers, Sunderland stadium fitting with red mainly because it has always been the home colour for this football club from its creation until the present but also about the style and presentation of my poster. As creating the poster I realised I needed a strong vibrant colour that will allow my image to express itself with contrast in the darker areas meaning red was definitely the right choice, it presented detail in a unique way and obstruction potential failure while creating.

Going back to the making of my poster, I needed to do well amount of research before starting any of the designs. The main research carried out was towards the client, my audience and some similar products to gather an understanding of what was expected me to make and to gather knowledge of which style will suit this project well. These all played a primary part in helping me decide what ideas to put together for my own poster. The independent research into this client definitely boosted me with ideas on what I wanted to present Sunderland. For example, I used the stadium as the main backdrop for the first poster because they are a partnership with Stadium Of Light and due to that I thought that the client would like to see their partnership contributing to the club. My research on existing products led me towards watching many videos on how to complete the style 'duo tone' and none of them did it as I wanted it to be presented. There were similarities in the right execution of this style but not quite my cup of tea because of that I decided to create a few drafts with the video's help and then while doing that potentially I managed to make a blueprint to where my ideas can be all fit on. But not all the videos were waisted potential some have educated me to have a focus on the selective process for the right image and tended to have quite colourful mise en scene helping me down the road. I was inspired by a singular poster design by how well it presented the colours of a raw image after a photoshoot but I personally did not like that, I wanted to publish raw footage that is un-edited and is not so-called clean presenting the fact that this city has few rough edges meaning the colours and contrasts in the image are unedited making my edit process difficult but I was completely fine with that as long as my message and presentation of this city is rightfully impactful.

Researching on potential viewers also presented me with the chance to think about what to include and how to include it for the right audience as my target group was well restricted from 16-25 years of age, I pushed through with my research and made my own little questionnaire using word of mouth and got me the green light from responses telling me what they believed would be eye-catching and impactful to see in the final product - these were all within the age bracket given in the brief for this project.

I have become my biggest critic over the recent years of studying and I can identify a few strengths and weaknesses within my project. On the weaknesses side, I believe it took me a while to wrap my head around what style to go with and how to execute it due to me making mistakes and weakening my way of thinking for executing this project which delayed the production side of it meaning it took me more time then needed to produce this project then needed but on the other side I believe that pushed me expediently to complete this project rather the constantly adjusting small impactful details I ended sooner rather than later. moving on to straight, I believe my editing never lets me down always practising putting the thousand-hour rule in the dust and me becoming better and more experienced with adobe software will support me and extend my career skills even more than ever (researching the correct size for a poster, using it effectively and not deducting quality from the images, exporting multiple formats of a singular file such as PSD, jpeg, png and understanding what they mean) These have made me more excited and collective for the future being something that I would definitely replicate in the future. I also believe that my research skills are now more effective in depth and precise, meaning I can decipher more clear than ever and envision what my client would need and how to find a way to create their ideas into life simply from research.

In the end, I believe my overall project hs meet the brief well. I have had feedback educated with the background of this brief enduring me that my understanding and adaptation to this workflow has presented Sunderland Culture with a fine body of work when it comes to poster designs. I have successfully reached quite an upsized audience group simply by using 16-25 as a guideline and no particular demographic. I have published what I personally believe would be interesting to the viewers of Sunderland culture/Sunderland as a city but also hope there is will be something to enjoy for everyone. Due to that, I have used Sunderland stadium as a backdrop knowing citizens from Sunderland will recognise it well other hand using the poster 'castle' to reminisce upon historical events Hylton castle was built by Sir William Hylton as his primary residence in roughly 1400. exciting older audience who could have potentially been educated upon this information presenting the older audience with something more than the younger. There were also encoded messages on the poster the most significant being the colours, red meaning Sunderland and blue meaning the colour of the Hylton family each representing each other quite well working together to sustain viewers with questions another example is the dates (03/JUNE/22) is the date Sunderland got promoted from 3rd division into 2nd division of English football (championship) presented on the poster because of how significant it was for the club to finally promote. Furthermore, 08/JUNE/22 is a significant date because the Hylton family created engraving of their castle in 1728 thousand. I'm fairly confident I explore the question 'who am I?' well, relating it back to regional identity and how this shapes your personality every day.

In conclusion, I think the project has succeeded in making it a Sunderland to be City of Culture 2025 poster due to representing Sunderland honestly and educational but also fairly entertaining.