Deadlines approached with full force over these past couple of weeks. My final one is this Wednesday but I’ve already handed the work in; it struck me as odd that it’s absolutely fine to email your work to the tutor’s private email addresses here and you can hand it in early. The hard copies of publications etc need to be presented in a very formal way (you don’t just present them on a table for hand in, you actually present the final product with a slide show), which caught me off guard. That said, the process books are fine to have in a pdf form. I don’t know whether I prefer to hand them in as physical copies or not; although it’s environmentally friendly, I really enjoy having a hard copy of all my influences, sketches, etc... it’s really quite the contrast to how things are done back home.
However, there are plenty of things that I prefer over here compared to back home. Although I love the tutors in UWE and think they each bring something unique to the table, I often find the feedback can sometimes bring conflicting opinions and you’re forced to choose who to take advice from. Compare that to Hong Kong and you’ve got a tutor specifically for one topic, e.g. publication design, art direction, package design, web design, and because of this you can be fairly confident that they’re providing you with the best knowledge as this is their subject to teach. Similarly, I’ve found that the teaching pace here is much slower. Last semester I found it difficult to keep my head above water due to constant deadlines being thrown at us, especially in the last couple of weeks. This led to me underestimating how much work I had to do and producing what I felt wasn’t my strongest work; I didn’t use my time wisely and didn’t practice what I’d been taught thoroughly enough. Maybe it’s a combination of reflecting on last semester combined with a more relaxed teaching style here, but I feel that I’ve had the chance to really get to grips with what I’ve been taught here. I’ve come away understanding grid systems, I’ve gone back over basics in typography to know what works well; I’ve produced posters in formulaic ways and I’ve learned about the golden ratio and rule of thirds. If I’d been back home, I don’t know whether I’d have had to the chance to take away the same knowledge. But then again, maybe it’s from living so close to uni; spending afternoons in the library studying; engaging more with people on the course and researching things that I don’t understand rather than jumping into a brief head first... Either way, Hong Kong’s taught me a lot more than I expected, both about myself and my design process.
