Months back before the degree show I have been assigned as the project manager/team leader. It was my task to write up the things that needed to be done for the show, and to then assign these tasks to my colleagues within the group. I have then put all of the information into an infographic. My jobs were as follows; Mailing List, Radio Interview, Online Brochure, Dress Code, Laser Cut, Logo Name and Design, Installations and Poster Rack. Even though not all of these jobs were carried out, I have in fact looked at most if not all of them.
The Mailing List was a task where I was looking at different companies on Art Station, local and international and found the contact details that we needed when it came to inviting people to our degree show. The Radio Interview was an idea that I had after sometime back in October/November time I have been invited on a Radio Show with my tutor Paul Starkey by BBC Humberside to talk about games design and the overall industry. Because of that, I did get an idea that it maybe would be possible to get back on the radio and this time advertise the Degree Show alongside students from other areas in the building like Illustration, Graphic Design, Fine Art etc. Unfortunately, around the time where it was most suitable to go on the radio, there came around few issues that had to be sorted out, for example, some colleagues falling ill, or needing extra help carrying out their tasks which as a Team Leader I felt obliged to do.
The Online Brochure task kind of turned into the Mailchimp task, as I did design the way our email that we’d send out would look. I have also worked on posters that would work as prints and also digital posters. When it came to the posters and the Logo, I knew that all of us had to participate in the design process. So for the poster specifically I decided to get everyone to help me out by re-creating our logo but in their own style, which I would then put together into one logo that still resembled the original logo. As for the logo itself, prior to creating anything, we as a team have decided to come up with a list of possible show names, and then take that further and design some logos. Everyone got about 10 different names and that’s when I started designing. Some of the names that I got I didn’t’ exactly know what to design for them, but the word “Timeline” did jump out to me the most as I could see how easily all of our Final Major Projects could fit into a timeline of its own. In the process of making the designs for the email and the posters, I did also create a design for a banner which has then been sent off to print professionally. We had the banners displayed during the show, one in front of where our studio is, and one next to the screen with our general show-reel playing in our studio. On the day of the show, I have also printed out some of the posters I have made, in order to cover some stains that were visible on the doors to our studio.
My other task was to look at Dress Codes. In the beginning, I had the idea of looking at a website called OppoSuits. The website offers suits that are quirky in their design and can easily show off the person’s personality as there are a lot of designs to choose from. Unfortunately, no one from the group wanted to wear a suit for the degree show, so another idea that I had was to buy some cheap tops without any images or design on them, and then print our logo onto them, which everyone seemed to be happy with. This way we all looked like a part of the team on the night of the show. The process of printing was also quite interesting as I never screen printed anything before, so to have to do most of the work for the print was a new experience which I did learn from.
Another task that I was in charge of was the Installations. This part I did struggle with a little bit, as I already had an idea for what I wanted to do with one section of the room, but the rest was a bit of a mystery at the point of planning. The main thing that I wanted to do was to use the windows in our studio and use the grid that can be seen on the window, in order to create pixel art. This worked pretty well without the client project, so we decided that this would be the station for the client project where we also had people being able to come over and play our game. Another “installation” was to have VR and have Tilt Brush so that people could come around and try it out. I think that it was a good idea to do so as we also wanted to advertise the course to new possible students. Tilt Brush, however, is not free, so I did have to purchase it two weeks prior to the show on my Steam account, which means that if I ever get a VR of my own, I could, in fact, use Tilt Brush myself. Two or three days before the show, I did notice that I had a lot of loose A3 paper in my sketchbook with my armour designs on it that belonged to my Final Major Project. I decided to take these and stick them on the wall near my station for the show which made our studio look more interesting, so I asked my colleagues if they could do the same or at least print out some of their work and stick it on the walls too which in the end did end up making the studio look more interesting and more full with our work. In a corridor room before our studio, there was a giant white wall with nothing on it; the public would have to walk through that room in order to get to our show. I decided to take the design made for the poster, enlarge it, and print it out on 15 A3 pieces of paper to make one giant design which to my surprise worked pretty well. I have then put some of the other work that I have not properly used, and stuck it around my part of the logo. I have then asked my colleagues to do the same in order to fill the space.
Due to my colleague having difficulties in creating the room layout, I decided to take up on that job myself. I have quickly made 3 different designs for the room layout, which did help a lot when it came to re-arranging the room for the show. I have also worked alongside Hannah Bales in order to move PCs and decide which ones to keep. I have also worked with Lee Kerwin who is the IT Technician in order to set up the machines for the show so that they start up the right files upon opening, and so that we have 3 machines properly displaying Portfolios. We also worked together on setting up the VR and the Mac to be able to play music and our group show-reel.
A week or two prior to the Degree Show, most of my colleagues had issues with coming in, in order to help out and move the furniture around and also to clear out the studio of unnecessary items, I was advised to leave some of the things for my colleagues to do when they did turn up, which I did, and in the end everything did get moved out and cleared out which can be called a semi-group effort. After I have handed in all of my work for my degree, I have taken on a task to create a personal show-reel of my own that I would have playing on one of my screens during the show. I have simply used images from the book I have made and made something on a line of a teaser that shows off the “Classes” available in my game with some of their weapons and armour which has been playing on a loop. On the day of the show, I have realised that we still haven’t had the show-reel up and running, so I had to wait for my colleague in order to hopefully export the show-reel and having it up and running, unfortunately the file has corrupted so my colleague had to create the show-reel from scratch, an hour before the show. During this time, I have also printed out my FMP book and then made a physical copy for the show in case it would be easier for the public to read a physical copy rather than a digital one.
A day before the degree show I also noticed that one of my colleague’s job was to create signage for the day so that the public would know where to find us. Even though the layout of the building is pretty simple, and most of the degree show was happening upstairs, close to where Games Design is situated, I did create some quick arrows that resemble the ones that can be found in a video game series called “Dance Dance Revolution” and then stuck the arrows on the walls leading from the reception area, all the way to our studio.
On the day of the show, about an hour before the show started, we have realised that one of our colleagues was not going to turn up for the show. Their machine was not set up for the show as we didn’t have any access to their work, but I was advised that we did need to have something on that machine as we couldn’t leave it blank. So I asked one of the 2nd Year who was present at the show as he was helping out with VR for the night if he had any work for the 2nd Year client project. He did, in fact, have a presentation and also a video for research purposes that he took at some point when meeting with the client. So we decided to use these two files and have them displayed on the night of the show.
The night of the Degree Show itself was not what I expected. For some reason, I did expect a lot more people turning up, and a lot more people asking me personally about my work. At first glance, it did seem that there were a lot of people in our studio at one time, but it does turn out that most of these people were just parents or close friends of some of my colleagues. I’m not fully aware if anyone that we have invited from different Games Companies have turned up, but I did have in total, two conversations with people who were interested in what I did for my Final Major Project, one of them I wasn’t exactly sure where she was from, if she was from some design company or if she was just very curious about my work, either way, I did really enjoy the conversations I had with the people I spoke to, during the night of the Degree Show. There were also plenty of people asking about the Client Project, which I was more than happy to talk about seeing as I was the closest to the station. But overall I am quite disappointed in myself, for not being more outgoing and actually approaching people that were even just glancing over at my work, I think the main issue that I had was that I did not want to seem intrusive. I was also a bit stressed due to constantly noticing that there were few things that could have been done prior to the show, which maybe would have made things more clear to the public. For example, it did seem that some people weren’t aware that the portfolio section was interactive and that we did want people to be able to click on the projects that we had displayed on there if it sparked their interest. I also personally could have a note stuck to my station saying something on a line of “Feel free to browse through my book, or use the mouse to flick through the pages on the digital version of the book on the left screen.”
Platinum Piotr 