Knowing what you know now, having developed the skills and confidence through your studies and further refined your personal design process, how might you approach an earlier exercise differently? Revisit any of the work you have completed at level 1. This might be a book cover design, a brochure or some of your first experiments with typography. Try to select an exercise where you have a complete learning log entry and access to your working files and process work. You may select an exercise you really enjoyed, one that you didn’t understand at the time, or you may decide to select an exercise that you would like to improve for your portfolio. Critique your work. Be honest with yourself and also be kind, your early work is not a reflection of your current skills and abilities. The perspective you have gained since you completed the first version of the project will inform how you proceed with this exercise. The goal is to push boundaries, take your work further, and demonstrate how your creative process has matured. Based on your critique, select the option that will best enable you to take creative risks with the work and evolve it beyond what you initially thought possible. Option 1: Scrap it and start over. With this option you go back to the brief and start with a completely new set of ideas, developing the work from the beginning. Option 2: Salvage and refine it. With this option you work with the existing files and continue towards the concept you had initially set out to achieve. You might make adjustments to layouts, colours, or typography but the core idea will remain. Option 3: Pick and choose. With this option you might keep some elements and completely replace others. You may return to a thumbnail sketch that was unfinished or you may dismantle the final layout and keep some elements. Once you have critiqued your work and designed the new, updated, or revised version, compare the exercises side by side. Reflect on how your process has changed and what you have learned since your first attempt at the exercise. Include this reflection in your learning log.
Selecting an Exercise to Revisit
I started by selecting a project from level 1 that I found challenging or less satisfying upon reflection, Magazine illustration. For this project, I didn’t fully understand at the time would be particularly interesting because I could now apply more developed insights to enhance it.
Critiquing the Original Work
Looking back at this magazine illustration project, I can see there were a few things that worked and a lot I could improve. I think I got the theme across quite clearly, the chaos of a child’s messy room as a “disaster at home”, and I liked using Procreate and experimenting with different textures and colour palettes inspired by real natural disasters. Including the character from my previous exercise gave the piece some continuity, and I enjoyed developing that part. However, I really struggled with the composition; it felt too busy and overwhelming, and I don’t think the final piece was very visually strong or creative. The character’s reaction sometimes got lost in all the mess, she looked like she was just stuck on top rather than part of the scene. I also felt limited by the concept, I went for a literal take on “disaster” and wish I had pushed myself to explore more unusual or metaphorical interpretations. Next time, I’d like to simplify the scene, focus more on the storytelling, and not be afraid to experiment with different ideas right from the start.
With my current skills and confidence, I would consider how I now approach design: I feel that the project’s core concept needs a complete overhaul, I would start from scratch, keeping the brief in mind but aiming to develop a fresh set of ideas. This would give me the freedom to explore new creative directions without being constrained by the initial design.
By redoing this exercise, I want to take everything I’ve learned so far and create a piece that feels more honest, refined, and true to where I am now creatively. I’m hoping to move beyond the struggles I had the first time and make something that really reflects how much I’ve grown, both in terms of my skills and how I express ideas visually.
Brief
A magazine wants an illustration on one of the following topics:
Lost – Disaster – Discovery – Guilty secret
They want an illustration based on a still life. You have the freedom to select the items for the still life and are given creative free rein. The rest of the content, the method you use to produce it and the colours you use are all for you to decide.
What to do
Working at a maximum A3 size, produce a well-observed, objective drawing of your set up. Consider the materials to use and do thumbnail alternative compositions to explore variations and formats. Allow yourself to distort your drawing to convey the essence of the word. Each decision you make – choice of subject, arrangement of subject, placing of subject in the frame, choice of media – should contribute to the overall description of the theme you have chosen.
Either trace, scan or photocopy this drawing and then do a tonal version of it. You may choose to totally eliminate the line from the drawing or to build tone around it.
At this stage you may wish to introduce a character or be more specific about a location to suggest a narrative. Alternatively you may continue to work with and modify your original still life.
Create a line visual that should communicate clearly the final artwork. Take this visual through to final artwork.
Choosing the Theme
After reflecting on the potential of each theme, I chose “Lost” for its narrative potential. I could choose objects that tell a story of someone who’s been missing or searching, like pieces of a forgotten life or memory.
Setting up the Still Life
Lost in Time
Pocket watch, sand watch, old calendar pages, dusty book, broken clock, faded photo, old hat, candle, old glasses, key, flower
Inspiration: Surrealism
Thumbnail
Drawing the Still Life
Introducing a Narrative Element
This still life tells the story of a man who was lost during war, someone who left home full of purpose, but never returned and his fate left unknown. The melting pocket watch once belonged to him, now warped by time and memory, symbolising how the truth of what happened has eroded over the years. The torn calendar page, frozen on the 13th, marks the day he was last heard from, a letter that never came, a knock that never followed. His photograph, faded and cracked, is one of the only things his family kept close, while the worn book represents the journal he carried, its final pages empty, stories never written, a life interrupted. I imagined these objects floating on the edge of a swirling void, representing how war not only takes lives, but also leaves behind unanswered questions and emotional absences. With this image, I wanted to reflect on how time doesn’t heal all wounds, sometimes, it just buries them deeper, leaving loved ones to piece together fragments of someone who was never truly found.
Design process
Final Design
Self-reflection
This piece, “Lost in Time,” is my attempt to express the surreal and abstract feeling of time slipping away. I wanted the melting pocket watch to be the central symbol, representing the distortion and fragility of time, and the torn calendar page marked with the number 13 adds an uneasy, unlucky feeling that ties into the theme of lost moments. The swirling black void in the background was meant to create a sense of being pulled into the unknown, as if time is collapsing or disappearing altogether. I tried to guide the viewer’s eye through the piece, starting with the large watch and moving down through the smaller objects, an old book, a worn photograph, and another watch, all of which I chose to represent memory and things left behind. I used warm, cracked textures and a muted palette to give everything an aged, almost forgotten quality. If I were to develop this further, I think including a more personal element, like a handwritten letter or a child’s drawing, could make the piece feel more emotionally connected. Overall, I’m proud of how this artwork turned out, it feels much more intentional and aligned with my creative vision compared to my earlier work.
Resources
- Freepik (2024). Damaged grunge texture. [Image] Available at: https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/damaged-grunge-texture background_160868982.htm#fromView=search&page=1&position=12&uuid=f562e391-1a07-454b-b244-411ff17c501a&query=cracked+texture (Accessed: 15 May 2025).
- Google (2025). Images. Available at: https://www.google.com/imghp (Accessed: 12 May 2025).
- Pinterest (2023). Surrealism. [Image] Available at: https://uk.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=surrealism&rs=ac&len=10&source_id=ac_Ky4o4qsu (Accessed: 15 May 2025).
Maryam: OCA Graphic Design 