The first thing that comes to mind when I reflect on this brief is that it seemed to consume a lot of time. From the initial pitch, to the multitude of planned and impromptu meetings with the Fine Art committee. While this time can definitely be attributed to the success of the brief, it was difficult to manage interms of following our collective and personal work flows.
One thing that was very successful about this brief was the way in which we conducted ourselves as a design team. In the first meeting the Fine Art committee asked us to bring us colour choices and fonts to the next meeting. I felt like this was an injustice to what we had learnt over the past three years and I urged the rest of the design team to take a pitch to the next meeting. I felt this was necessary for 2 reasons. Firstly, I felt we needed to put across to Fine Art committee that we were confident in our ability to design, in order to garner a level of respect from the committee. Secondly, I thought it was better to take a starting point with justifed design decisions, in order to gain a level of authorship over the design. The pitch went down very well, and although the book has been developed a lot since the original pitch, I feel that this was a vital step in our development. It allowed us to gain more constructive feedback, and move forward with the brief in a considered and organised way. The pitch allowed a point of reference for the Fine Art Committee, and the feedback allowed us to take away parts that weren’t right and quickly replace them with problem solving design.
The book was a thorough grounding in managing a lot of content and displaying it with an element of respect that would make the students feel proud. We organised the photographers so that everyone would have the opportunity to have their work taken as professionally as possible, this gave the artist a level of ownership and direction over the way their work was displayed. This also minimised the amount of chasing up we had to do, as the photographer’s had a level of responsibility to get all of the photographs that they signed up for.
In addition to these elements, we created a 3D type sculpture with the help of 3D modeler Luca Calabrese. We created a 3D rendered sculpture of the word SUM that was made up of a number of physical sculptures. The type face became a physical rendering of the concept. This was something that I have never given myself the opportunity to do. To apply type in this way has been a fantastic experience that opens my mind to the scope that typography can have. The type became a model that then became image, and informed the overall aesthetic direction of the yearbook and exhibition branding. This process of working with a 3D modeler was quite difficult due to the amount of time he could dedicate to our project. We were very conscious that he did not have a lot of time to be making amendments, so this part of the project could have been executed better in a professional environment such as a design studio, where there may be an inhouse 3D modeler. This time would have allowed us to make a greater statement of the type, and tightened up some of elements. The process was not made easier by our own inexperience in working in 3D. It is one thing to work with photographers, but working in a 3D piece of software comes with it a whole new level of opportunites and problems simultaneously. I would like to work with this more in future as I expand the focus and the range of possibilities and applications of my practice. I think that 3D software can play a huge role in the day to day of graphic design, and I would like to acquaint myself with it a little better, or atleast the people that work with it.
Overall this brief went very well, and the feedback we have received has been great. Working collaboratively became easier as we developed the brief, on the whole we worked well collaboratively in terms of us giving each other feedback and getting a final result we were all happy with. We all had significant input into the book and I feel like the decisions that were made were shared, and a true reflection of our collaborative practice.
Leave your comment