PRJ64904 | FINAL COMPILATION
21/04/2026 - 28/07/2026 (Week 1 - Week 15)
LIST OF CONTENT :
MIB
INSTRUCTIONS
LINKS
Major Project I Google Drive: Erin Fenner_0381696_Full MP1
Figma (W1 to W4): Project Figjam Board
MP1 PROGRESS
Week 1
I started brainstorming some ideas for what I wanted to do after we were fully briefed by Mr Kannan regarding the course process . I ended up doing some light research and ended up with 5 ideas.
Week 2
In this week, I tighten my own scope and decided to focus on the 2 ideas I thought was more achievable that I found more interesting. I focused on the learning stability as well as mental conflict as I felt these were more widely experienced but not always discussed. I did more research on the ideas before reading some research papers on the topics.
Week 3
I met up with Mr Kannan and Ms Anis to discuss my ideas. I first consulted with Mr Kannan on the two ideas I had; learning difficulties and internal conflict. After we had decided on a topic of focus, I consulted with Ms Anis on the idea for internal conflict. Their feedback prompted me to do some more research and start on some sketches. However, the sketches did stump me and I hit a bottleneck.Week 4
During the lecture, I once again consullted with Mr Kannan on the publication format and he gave me some questions to think about that could help me with my decisions and the design development. He also told me I needed to design my own fonts for the project. After, I consulted with Ms Anis. She also gave me a few thinking prompts that I tried to ponder on and build on more. She also recommend some instagram accounts to check out for inspiration for my own designs. I had a few ideas but it felt all over the place and quite directionless and so I dropped them.
Week 8
During this week, Ms Anis asked all the Graphic Design students to prepare our progress presentation slides of the work we had done so far as well as our ideas to present at a workshop that was held with Professor Phil Cleaver, who is a professor at Middlesex University and an award-winning artist, author and graphic designer. The professor said that my idea for the zine design was intresting and creative.
Week 9
In this week, we had to present our progress that we had done so far in the last nine weeks of the semester. I added in some of the missing slides that weren't ready when I was presenting to Professor Phil.
Week 13
I worked on completing my event space's SketchUp model. As a lot of the furniture and built in displays I wanted to include weren't available in the existing library, I had to design and built it piece by piece. That process took longer than I thought and I was also struggling with how to proceed with Room 3. This resulted in the final outcome of the event space being less completed than I had initially planned.
Week 14
In Week 14, I finished up the remaining slides and had presented my final updates on my progress for the end of Major Project I. After the presentation, Mr Kannan said that I should have included the idea for my zine and the packaging even though I don't have any output or drafts yet for those. So, I amended the slides to include that as well.
FEEDBACK & PROGRESSION
Link to: MP1 Project Management Document
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REFLECTION
Throughout Major Project I, I developed Both/And, a campaign that explores how people reveal different sides of themselves as familiarity grows. The project brings together visual identity, typography, campaign design, editorial design and a spatial event experience. As the project will continue into Major Project II, this semester focused mainly on establishing the concept and building the initial design system. At the beginning of the project, I spent a lot of time on research and conceptual development. I had several connected ideas involving first impressions, layered identity, familiarity, physical media and interactive editorial design. However, having too many ideas made the direction feel broad and difficult to explain clearly. Through further development and feedback, I narrowed the project down to how familiarity changes what people notice and understand about another person.
Although the research helped me develop a clearer concept, I spent too long trying to resolve every part of the idea before properly beginning the design work. This left me with much less time to develop and refine the actual outcomes. Looking back, I learnt that I should have started visual testing earlier instead of waiting for the concept to feel completely resolved. Creating and experimenting could have helped me understand the direction sooner. I also had difficulty translating the ideas in my head into something physical. I could imagine how the project should feel and how it should progress, but turning this into typography, layouts, posters and an event space was more challenging. Some ideas appeared clear in my mind but did not work as expected when I began designing them. This resulted in several changes throughout the process, but it also helped me understand that design development involves testing ideas rather than expecting the first version to work immediately.
The project was eventually organised around three stages: First Encounter, Familiarity and Closeness, which were also represented through Strangers, Acquaintances and Friends. This gave the project a clearer structure and helped connect the different outcomes. Throughout Major Project I, I developed the visual identity, custom lettering, initial campaign posters and a rough event-space model in SketchUp. Working across these different formats helped me understand how the same concept can be communicated in different ways while still remaining consistent.
One of the main challenges was balancing Major Project I with my other courses. Several assignments and deadlines were happening at the same time, which made it difficult to manage my time properly and give this project the attention I wanted. There were also many days when my mental and physical health were not good, so I needed to take breaks from my projects, including this one. Although the breaks were necessary, they reduced the time I had available to work on and refine the designs. Because of this, I was not able to complete as much as I originally planned, and some outcomes did not reach the quality I wanted. Parts of the event space remained incomplete, while the publication, website and full social media applications still required further development. While I was disappointed with the amount of work I managed to complete, I decided to focus on building a clearer foundation instead of rushing more outcomes that would not be properly developed.
Overall, Major Project I helped me understand the challenges of developing a large project across different design formats. It taught me that I need to balance research with visual development, manage my time more realistically and allow enough time for refinement. Although I did not complete everything I originally wanted, I now have a clearer concept and an initial system that can be developed further. Moving into Major Project II, I plan to complete the publication, website, social media applications and event space while continuing to refine the existing work. I also want to set clearer weekly priorities and begin testing ideas earlier instead of spending too much time trying to perfect the concept before designing. This will help me use my time more effectively and develop the outcomes to a higher quality.