My personal experience at a design convention held in the Richard Steinitz Building at the University of Huddersfield.
Positioned in the Richard Steinitz Building, a collaborative set of creative people gathered to share their work for an hour at a time. The room was large and spacious, but the hard walls produced an echo making it harder to understand the speaker. The experience was engaging and brought me closer to people within the design sector from all over the University.
I thought the experience was educational and it inspired me to work differently and outside of the box. For example, the animation and illustration talk gave me the idea of creating a short video using my own interior perspective drawings in which I got influence from both Sally Dale and Matt Fletcher who ran an interior design activity. I thought both days were inspirational, but I hoped there would have been more time to go to more of them as they all sought out to inspire and improve my way of working.
Being a part of a group of people I had never met before did not phase me, and I ended both days meeting new people, which in turn gave me more confidence. As a designer it is easy to get caught up in precision of my work, however I felt that this experience gave me the ability to come out of my comfort zone. It gave me a chance to not be afraid of being loose and free with my work. I certainly learnt new techniques, and I gained special attention to the designers who are from my course as they passed on their techniques from their personal experience.
However, despite people from my profession influencing my way of work, I was also inspired by the architect, Derrie and animator, James. Therefore, a vital thing that was learnt from this event was that my designs and inspiration don’t have to just be from people who specialise in my course, but ones who can make my way of working different.
In conclusion, I saw this event as an educational experience, full of professionals striving to inspire the next set of designers. I took away a range of skills from collage, perspective drawings, using both my hands, doing illustration and animation which on reflection would be beneficial to express my way of working.
Examples of where I have used these techniques, are within my development pack. I have been focusing on the illustration and looseness of design by drawing over printed models with tracing paper.