Summary Post for the Year
Looking back through the whole year it seems to me as a introduction to visual communication. Before starting this course I wasn’t aware how comprehensive the area of graphic design was, the more I learned about it made me realise how much I needed to learn more. The initial workshops we had at the beginning of the year enabled me to understand how colour, typography, cropping, text, image, and layout worked. We also had sessions about thinking tools which really helped me for the rest of the year.
The first project which was Graphic Design Fundamentals has been one of the key projects for me even I didn’t do very well with it. It made me realise the importance of research and the importance in understanding target audience. My research part in that project was very weak, I focused on ideas more then the research which didn’t enable me to identify the problems and leaded me to come up with solutions which weren’t solving any of problems, as I could’t understand what the problem was in the first place.
Another important aspect I learned in that project was the connection between research and ideas is the thinking tools which I didn’t really use. Thinking tools are like a bridges between the research and ideas, you start with the research think in divergent, unconventional, wishful, distorted ways and then whatever ideas you had you convert them into solutions you for the problems you discovered.
On the second term we had three projects which were 1 week mini project, mapping project and industry project.
1 week mini project was about researching a question we’ve been given as a group and making a mini exhibition about it. Our question was “What are the ways people misinterpret to the role of a graphic designer ?“ We started our research by trying to define the role of a graphic designer but it wasn’t easy, as its a constantly evolving industry so we started looking into Media, education and Design industry and tried to understand what was fueling the misinterpretation. We came to conclusion that our question didn’t really have a straight answer as it’s almost impossible to prevent misinterpretations to subject which was really open and constantly changing.
For the mapping project I chose to specialise in art direction and explore the question
“How does Ideation Process work in Art Direction“ The reason why I chose this question was the fascination I had for the stories behind ingenious designs. The main aspect I learned while researching art direction is anything creative needed a bit of art direction. it’s the art of managing the process and making the right decisions for the right executions. if I would have done the industry project before the mapping I am sure the industry project would have been much different for me, everything I learned in mapping project become like a preparation for me.
And the last project of the second term was the industry project. The project which allowed me to use everything I learned in practical, working with groups, target audiences, thinking tools, observations, insights, presentations. Experiencing all these activities in practical was probably the best way of learning and also constantly getting feedback from tutors as wells mentors from industry was taking everything to a next level.
Currently I am working on my final major project, which is very open brief about cities, which allows us to make various experimentations and be playful. After attending to the workshops under the theme of cities I am focusing on city architecture, city sounds and personal maps however there are many more pieces I created in various themes.
Since I started this course one of the habits I gained, which will probably stay for rest of my life is observing, observing in way of asking questions and reasoning, almost everything we see around is designed by somebody, I am not talking about intelligent design in scientific terms which is a completely different subject, I mean things that are designed by people even if it’s designed well or not, there are decisions made by somebody while designing it and asking questions and trying to figure out why it was made that way can teach you a lot and can make you understand how much thinking can be behind a simple outcome.
