Reflective Learning Journal
During the third year of my degree, I formed a creative agency with my peers for a Digital Media Production Project. During this project, I learned communication, teamwork, and problem-solving skills, providing an ideal foundation for constructing a career in digital media.
Formation & Contact
We began this project by first gathering into a group at the end of September. Our group consisted of 8 people, Vera, Maya, Diandra, Sara, Alex, Chelsie, and Paro; this was a vital time as everyone chose their roles; I decided to be the group’s graphic designer as I take pleasure in this segment of our module. We agreed on roles based on everyone’s preference was as Chelsie joined the group a week later, she still had a passion for her crucial role. As a graphic designer, it is essential for me to gather feedback as this will allow designs to reach their potential.
As I had previously worked with Chelsie and Vera on a group project, I had very high hopes for this project to be successful. As I have seen the two focused and determined, it was pleasant to work with people I have never worked with before; this will help me in the future. Deciding on an organisation is a significant decision as this could be one of our most important decisions. As a group, we decided it was best to pick three leading NGOs we were interested in and the ‘psychedelic society’. This is a cause that we felt to be relatively exciting and relatable.
An essential step for this project was contacting the NGO; contacting people from this industry can often be stimulating, but we showed confidence and durability as a group. We first contacted Mags Houston; she is the coordinator for the Psychedelic Society and represents ‘Drug Science’. We set up a zoom meeting with her and discussed our proposal. Mags was impressed with our campaign, so she emailed Anya Oleksuik, the co-founder of Psychedelic society; this motivated us as we were happy that Mags was impressed with our proposal as this was our goal. I eventually met and interviewed Anya with questions I thought of in person, which was a great learning experience.
Design
Once we decided we were happy with our group and chose the NGOs we were interested in, it was time to come up with an agency name; the group manager assigned me to this; I came up with the name ‘Visionary House’, which signifies creativity and professionalism. I designed the initial design for our logo. At first, the colours I chose were bright and loud, but as our theme did not match, it was necessary to alter it; as a group, we decided to make the logo simple, yet effective, as most successful logos apply these aesthetics. The colours were decided collectively, and we decided to go with pastels as this reflects psychedelics and mental health.
Since we already had a logo for our agency, we needed to have a logo for our group. The lead designer decided to take responsibility for this and created a symbolic design that reflected our NGOs message; We went with an eye as this comes to mind when one thinks of psychedelics, and the colours are that we choose are pastels as this matches our theme. We choose to go with lower case letters as this looks additionally friendly rather than professional, and we choose to use two colours for the background gradients as it looks less loud. We have kept all the designs consistent whilst keeping the font and colour scheme in mind and the positioning of images.
Organisation
To stay organised and on track, we had set up Trello; this is a popular software created in 2011 designed to help organise events and projects. Trello was highly beneficial for our group as it allowed us to schedule meetings. To discuss our project and share work that has been done to gain feedback. To manage our time efficiently, we needed to create a schedule to handle our time to ensure we do not lose time. We decided to choose three weeks for preparation, setting up social media and looking at the budget and where we will keep our events. The whole month of February is for social media and the two weeks in March are for our events and the first week of April is when the submission is due.
Presentation
Our group presentation was the first time we had to get something done within a deadline; we had met up as a group to discuss what we would all be discussing. The presentation was worrying as I am not good at speaking in front of an audience, but this was a challenge I was willing to undertake. We found a great platform that allowed us to share a PowerPoint and keep everything consistent, ‘Canva’ was very useful as everyone posted at any time and any day; this was awesome as we all had a busy work schedule. However, we were all looking forward to presenting in person due to unfortunate circumstances, we had to present online. Overall, this experience was great as each group member got together and added their points to the PowerPoint. The experience could have been better if all group members had been present after our presentation; everything came together.
Social Media
An essential part of this project included our social media accounts. The central platform we decided to use is Instagram, as our target audience uses Instagram frequently. Our main aim for our social media is to create awareness and utilise the account to get as many people as possible to recognise us and attend our events. The Instagram consists of meeting the team with our photos, safe drug tips, event photos, and resources.
Event Planning
During this project, design played an important role; when it came to the events, I needed to design posters for events as we had decided on the three main events. It was a struggle when thinking of innovative ideas at first as we had to get together and think of innovative ideas to talk about. This was challenging as many people do not like to talk about psychedelics as they can lead to many personal events in one’s life. A mural painting event would be a fun event that enabled people to get involved by writing and drawing what comes to mind when they think of psychedelics. Our second event was a Virtual reality event this allows individuals to experience how it feels to take psychedelics, our third event was meant to be a speaker event where a representative was going to talk about psychedelics, but unfortunately, the speaker was unable to attend this was a significant challenge as she cancelled last minute. This challenge taught me to have a backup if things cannot go ahead. As a group, we overcame this challenge by coming up with an interview instead. We also received good feedback from our events; hence, we chose to repeat the mural and virtual reality events.
Campaign Week
As campaign week was approaching, it was very stressful as other deadlines for different modules were also due. However, we learned time management skills and successfully carried out our events. The first event we had included the mural painting event; it was somewhat challenging to manage everything as, unfortunately, our project manager could not make it to the first event, but we had to be responsible and take control of the event; these leadership skills will be vital for the professional world. Our other event included a Virtual reality event. This went thriving as many people enjoyed this and, in return, put their email down for the newsletter; this highlighted my relevant communication skills.
Interview
The interview gave us considerable flexibility to improvise and boosted our creativity; when thinking about the questions, a challenge that came to mind was what Anya would be comfortable answering. As the interview was behindhand, we ran into minor issues with the studio, camera, and sound. However, we found actionable solutions, such as recording the audio separately. We could not record in the studio, so we adapted to the situation and filmed outside, which was better suited for our campaign. I recorded separately on my phone; hence we spent less time solving the issue and prioritised filming Anya and making her comfortable to shoot a successful interview.
Overall Reflection
This project enabled me to plan and manage my time precisely to meet deadlines and perform under pressure over a short period which I could never have accomplished before this project.
I have learned valuable communication skills; during the events, I learned to talk and listen to many individuals, listen to their stories, and emphasise.
A critical skill that I have also learned is accepting feedback on my performance and acting upon it to improve my skills and project back feedback to help my team succeed.
The two modules Digital Media Production Project and the Professional Experience have helped us as a group to create a successful project that meets our mission statement individuals with destigmatising drug use, dealing with addiction and withdrawals, raising awareness of drug use, precautions, and safety measures, re-educate people on their misconceptions of psychedelics and drug use Promoting healthy relationships between individuals, mental health, and drug use. This project has helped me develop practical skills that will be useful for the professional world of work. This project has also assisted me to recognise the exemplary skills that I have developed and showcased throughout this project. Although we met a few challenges along the way, my problem-solving skills came to good use. I have benefited from many learning experiences from this project that will help me succeed in the future.
