Reflection

Evaluation

How has your research influenced the planning and creation of your promotional materials including your UCAS Personal Statement?

At the beginning of the assignment I had to start doing a lot of reasearch based on UCAS personal statements and also portfolios and this was because I needed to have a good portfolio set up in oirder to be able to showcase my work that I was creating inside and outside of college. I also needed to do research on UCAS personal statements because I needed to have a good one that explained why I wanted to enroll on a certain uni course and it also allows the uni to get a better view of who I am, I also needed to ensure I was producing the right personal statement as there is a list of do’s and don’ts when making them and I wanted to make sure it was right. When doing research for my portfolio I looked at some online portfolio providers such as ArtStation and CarbonMade, both of these websites featured professional and non-professional artists which is always a good sign, I decided to go with ArtStation after having an in-depth look at it I decided it was the best one.

Reflect on your learning and skills – What you have done and why you have done it?

I carried out this research as I had to ensure my portfolio was set up correctly and I was uploading my artwork to it and setting that up in a manner that would allow people to see it without it being too messy, this meant creating separate project folders and therefore allowing people to gain a better understanding of where certain parts of my work were. I had done most of this research by looking at other portfolios on ArtStation, I was mainly looking at pro portfolios but did also have a look at non-pro portfolios as I wanted to have a wide variety of ideas on how to set up a good portfolio. With regards to my UCAS personal statement and details, I had to add all of my GCSE’s and any grades I have achieved so far as this allows the university to see what grades I have, as well as this I had to create a personal statement, this gives the person reading it a brief description of who I am and what I have done so far, it will also explain why I have applied for that uni course and what I wish to do in the future with regards to my job in the industry.

Sum up your ongoing evaluations/opinions/reflections that you documented during the project.

When I was doing my research on online portfolio prodivders I was always looking at the way other people had laid out there portfolio and how they were making it easy to navigate, while also doing this I was checking what sort of artwork was their most popular and what was gathering the most likes and views as this would be a key thing for me to utilise going forwards as I wanted my artwork to be like that although I knew that would take a while to get to. I feel like doing this research was very helpful although I feel I could of utilised the internet a bit better and gone out of my way to look at other sites and try to find videos with statistics on what type of art is the best to upload to a portfolio as this could’ve helped me as well. When I was producing artwork for my portfolio I was focusing more on the digital art side of art instead of 2d art, I was using vector shapes in Photoshop to create my art as this was my chosen art style and I felt comfotable making it, I was also doing some 2d art but that was for one of my porjects I was doing.

Reflect on peer and tutor feedback.

Throughout this assignment I was gathering feedback from my peers on what I could do to improve my portfolio, this meant I was asking for ideas on what to add and what should I change to make my portfolio look better, I’d say this went well as it was always handy getting feedback from my peers. I also had some feedback from my tutors explaining that I should be adding work that showed my progression instead of just the finished piece as this wasn’t really showing how I was improving and how I was reaching the end point.

What have you learnt during this project?

Overall from this unit I have learnt how to successfully create a good portfolio that is easy to navigate and looks good. I have also been able to learn what makes a good personal statement and have gone on to create my own perosnal statement which has been sent off to 3 universities that I have chosen to apply for to start in 2020. This unit has also allowed me to get more comfotable with creating my chosen style of artwork as I wasn’t too sure of it beforehand but now I feel I am getting better at it.