THE DESIGN WEB
Here is the design web for this project, showing the different steps and the flow of the journey of the project.
EVALUATION
Personal
I can already feel that the work I have put into this project has had a profound impact on my lifestyle and choices. Just bringing the awareness fully out in the open with my finances and spending habits, I have been able to shift some patterns that I was previously choosing to ignore. I am still far from wealthy. But whereas when this project began I felt very much stuck in negative patterns of spending and borrowing and living beyond my means, now I live within a budget, having cut down my expenses hugely. I think the biggest effect on me has been learning how money circulates within our society. This has changed my relationship to money quite hugely, and really helped in my determination to not be caught up in this system and to always try to find another way. Also, after looking carefully into developing some reliable and clear income pathways, I have begun to earn money now from ways that I feel really confident in, and feel my head above water for the first time in ages.
This project has been in the making for around 2 years in total, with many personal changes along the way. It has been a real journey to keep coming back to this work, and looking at how I can learn from my mistakes and come to more conscious decisions related to my finances. I feel that this has been incredibly beneficial for me and for my family, a really important topic to look deeply into and to recognise my part in.
This project has been in the making for around 2 years in total, with many personal changes along the way. It has been a real journey to keep coming back to this work, and looking at how I can learn from my mistakes and come to more conscious decisions related to my finances. I feel that this has been incredibly beneficial for me and for my family, a really important topic to look deeply into and to recognise my part in.
Project
As far as a diploma project goes, this one has been my most abstract and difficult to get down into a coherent design framework. As it was over a long period of time it has been a challenge to document the changes whilst still staying on the same path of a design. It also overlaps some other projects (p4 and p8) which was unavoidable as each project depends on the others to fulfil their needs in some way. To begin implementing project 4 I have needed to take a look at my finances, so this project was crucial for that one to now hopefully begin. And now I have also been working on project 8, some of the outcomes of this project directly relate to the work in schools that connects there.
Another thing that came up for me was that the market stall idea wasn't exactly a shining idea of a design project, and I almost felt that I wanted to not include it at all, quite shameful of the unsustainable nature of it. But I included it because I feel that I learnt so much from the process, and especially from writing about it here after it is all done, what a valuable lesson and it has knocked me further back onto the path I wish to follow much stronger than I could have hoped for. So in this way it has been very beneficial for my diploma work, and hopefully my next few projects will better for this.
I feel that this project really benefited from the positive, negative and interesting analysis. Using this really helped me to uncover some key points about the possible routes to go down when considering my options for the future. I also really enjoyed using Prezi, as I feel that this wrapped up a lot of information in a quick and easy to understand way. It also provided a welcome change from paragraphs of more writing, as this is quite a heavy and long project to get through.
Another thing that came up for me was that the market stall idea wasn't exactly a shining idea of a design project, and I almost felt that I wanted to not include it at all, quite shameful of the unsustainable nature of it. But I included it because I feel that I learnt so much from the process, and especially from writing about it here after it is all done, what a valuable lesson and it has knocked me further back onto the path I wish to follow much stronger than I could have hoped for. So in this way it has been very beneficial for my diploma work, and hopefully my next few projects will better for this.
I feel that this project really benefited from the positive, negative and interesting analysis. Using this really helped me to uncover some key points about the possible routes to go down when considering my options for the future. I also really enjoyed using Prezi, as I feel that this wrapped up a lot of information in a quick and easy to understand way. It also provided a welcome change from paragraphs of more writing, as this is quite a heavy and long project to get through.
Professional
I have experimented with several new programs in this project and feel much more capable of just quickly getting information down. I think working to a time deadline also helps with this! The added pressure makes things go much more quickly...
I feel that I have also made some progress with making sure that my professional life involving money heads in the right direction and with the right values. And by the education I gained from the research on the banking documentaries I hope that I will be more balanced with the way I spend my money and so this should positively affect any professional business that I venture into.
I feel that I have also made some progress with making sure that my professional life involving money heads in the right direction and with the right values. And by the education I gained from the research on the banking documentaries I hope that I will be more balanced with the way I spend my money and so this should positively affect any professional business that I venture into.
Time review
Project start and end dates: November 2012-October 2014
Writing up on website: 1 month
Updating and completing the project at a later date: 2 more weeks
Writing up on website: 1 month
Updating and completing the project at a later date: 2 more weeks
Programmes/technology I have used in this project
- Prezi - making power-point style presentations, I totally love this! think I may be using it a lot..
- Freemind mind-mapping software (never actually finished the mind maps as they were taking too long and I gave up and used paper instead)
- VUE mindmapping software (same goes.,.. this one is nicer looking than Freemind, but its been so long since I used them I couldn't get back into it and much prefered paper and pens in the end...)
- Freeimage image converter - I've been needing an easy program to convert pictures to be smaller sizes to upload them for ages and have been using lightroom, which takes ages and crashes the wee net book computer its installed on every time I use it. So downloaded this, and its amazing! Super fast and simple.
- I have a new computer! And it has made all of this sooo much easier than my old slow tiny travel one.. Thanks Oriol!
- Moonfruit - to set up my on-line shop for the Nepal things. Nice fancy web hosting site, beautiful templates, but much harder to use than Weebly. I spend much more time fiddling with all the design things and not writing anything, though that's maybe also because I'm so used to this one now.
Appendix
Here are some images of notes from my learning journal.
Sketchbook drawing
