Responsive Peer Review & Self Evaluation

In our latest Responsive seminar, most of the class were at Manchester's Animation Festival, so there were only a few of us amongst the Illustration students. We were given this sheet and passed it around to our peers to get some peer review from our projects so far. We were to present what we had done for our briefs at this time, what we had analysed, and taken away from the requirements. This was easy for me to do because I felt like I had really gone through my briefs and picked them apart, so I could really talk about what I had gotten out of them and what I wanted to actually do with them.

The feedback I got was really helpful however, I was advised to keep asking for more feedback since I never actually like to go out of my way to ask what people think, but they said they would like to see what I have been doing and that it would benefit me to get more tips and advice on new perspectives on how to improve. I agree with this and have decided that I will keep on asking for feedback because I like to hear what people think of my work.

They also advised me to look into more illustrators so that I can have more contextual images to refer to and get inspiration from. I had never even heard of what a contextual image was before this session, so I will definitely be looking for some so that I can have more creative direction and more influences! 

I did also get some lovely comments which motivated me to keep going with my briefs. My peers said that I had done a lot of planning and brainstorming in order to get to where my ideas are now, and they also said that my work is looking colourful and professional which makes me really happy to hear! 

We then had to fill in the sheet for ourselves, which I found to be much more difficult as I had to really think about what I had gained form the briefs so far, instead of just asking other people's opinions. The most interesting box I had to fill in was the 'What would you differently next time?'. I hadn't really thought about this question until now, but I think I would do a few things differently. Of course now that I know what contextual images are, I will be looking for a lot of these for my other competition briefs, even for my other projects as well! I will also ask for more feedback next time, and perhaps try and stay away from sticking to the first idea that comes into my head. This is important because I will be able to have more refined ideas, and be able to incorporate more influence to my work.

I feel like I have gained a lot from this feedback session, and I definitely underestimated how useful they can be! I regret not doing more of them and think that once I start the next brief that I will look to asking for more feedback, because it makes me feel more motivated and inspired to do better work! 

Feedback summary:
-Keep asking for feedback.
-Use more contextual images.
-Keep up with the research and brainstorming.
-Think about what you would do differently.
-Don't be afraid to improve even further if you feel piece is not finished.