Follow-up tasks from action research workshop

Many thanks for taking part in this action research.

Here is the outline of tasks:

1. Write a blog entry (minimum of 500 words) - by 30th May

Select one book, article, artist, film, object....etc. which resonates with your project in some way. Explain why you have chosen this and how/why it has influenced the direction or development of your research project.

Include any useful links to the chosen work or to your work that would help the reader understand better what it is you are undertaking in your research project.

Put this on the blog by Monday 30th May at the latest.

2. Write 2/3 questions - bring to group 1st June

Each student should read the blog entries for all the other students and write 2/3 questions or comments about each blog. Bring these written questions to the tutorial on WEDNESDAY 1st June. This will replace the normal tutorial on Thursday 2nd June. The tutorial will start after the lecture, so about 11.45.

If you are doing the research workshop on Thursday then you could select a smaller number of blogs to read, but choose at least 4 entries and write questions about these.

3. Meet in pairs - between 3 - 8 June

Anna/Carol Pablo/Rita

Amaya/Martha Soo-Young/Grace

James/Chloe Paula/John

Arrange to work together to develop/improve your presentation in advance of 9th June practise presentation. It could well be that you decide to meet again, before the whole year presentation, but this is up to you.

4. Practise presentation - 9th June

Show your presentation to the tutor group. Each of you will be asked to assess each presentation using set criteria and give your written feed back to the individual who presented.

5. Complete a brief questionnaire about this research - date to be confirmed

Thanks again.

Workshop

-

Action research > come up with a question and have critical feed back from other people.
Encourage more in-depth critical constructive feedback between students.
A questionnaire is gong to be send: Useful?
How many people here are giving feedback to other students during there presentation?
Why won’t you give feedback?

>Too big group for effective feedback.
>More time in small groups.
>Confidence
>Lack of specialisation / qualification
>We can critic the process (communication design content), but not the content > What are they talking about?
>More attentive and awake in smaller group
>I’ve got nothing relevant to say
>Gap between pathway (Graphic design/ Performance/ Typography)
>Gap of language. Communicate properly is already a challenge. >Confidence when speaking.
>Not enough specific feedbacks. The course orientation is too wide to improve our personnal skills.

It is worth speaking. Part of your learning skills is about contributing.
Speaking slower and clearly.

-Write 500w. about an object that has an influence you on the development of your project. (Could be an evant, book, extract of book, piece of Art, graphic design, performance, EVERYTHING, as long as you feel that it’s in the perspective of your project.) Find a resonnance, something directly linked to your project. Get something that gives the others an insight about your work.
>To be publish on the blog by Monday 31st May
Including a link to your personnal work.
>>The importance of student peer learning (book to read)

-Meeting Thursday 1st June. Bring written questions (2/3) for everybody else, based on the published article on the blog.

-Thursday 9th June, Rehearsal for the presentation.
On the week before, meet in pairs, and critically evaluate it.

Anna/Carol
Pablo/Rita
Amaya/Martha
Sooyoung/Grace
James/Chloe
Paula/John

-On the 9th, have to fill a questionnaire about the presentation.

Thank you very, very much.

website

http://www.carolbreen.com/

Workshop this wednesday

I hope you will all come to this workshop on Wednesday about how to encourage critical feedback among students.

There is a brief TEDx meeting after the lecture, so I hope we can start around 11.45am.

Thanks

Sam Winston

18 Mar 2011 / Professional practice

Sam Winston describes his practice as fine art through design skills, using words, typography or books. Thus he uses design creative practices to do something else, not design.

For him, commercial work is boring. Usually, when working commercially, people arrive to a point where they don’t learn anymore, where they have to comply with the client and that means that they are just working to earn money. For Sam, this is not the main goal of working. He mentioned three main influences for his attitude to work: Alan Fletcher who defended design as authorship, where the designer has a voice; Ken Garland, the author of the manifesto “First things first” and Ron King from Circle Press. The work should have some meaning, should always teach something. Therefore his practice is based on self-initiated projects and handmade experimentation, allowing “mistakes” to take part of it. He sees that as “the poetry of my body”. He mentioned that the more he was asked to work digitally, the more he created handmade briefs for himself. Intuition also plays an important role in his work, as it’s a very interesting way of learning. Everything is part of the learning experience.

Sam is passionate about words. So he decided to make a living out of that, exploring and engaging with language at different levels. “Language isn’t solid”. He plays with the meaning of words or ways of communicating, whether is the concept of dictionary, as the container of everything you can say or write, or the internet where knowledge is superficial and based in links between words.

When at first we look to his extremely beautiful works, there is no apparent logic or reason behind it. But after observing them deeper there are always stories to read, conclusions to take, something to find. Sometimes it's also partly information design.

Finally he pointed out the importance of structure and organization when working alone and always reflect on what and why we’re working on.

“My practice is my end goal because I learn from it.”

http://www.samwinston.com/

Jonathan Rez

11 Mar 2011 / Professional practice

In this lecture about wayfinding, Jonathan Rez pointed out the fact that designing wayfinding systems is more about functional solutions and constraints rather than providing experiences to who is using it. He started with some examples of mistaken, funny signs, showing how careful people designers should be, once it really affects people’s life.

In his opinion, the more correct word for describing wayfinding systems should be wayshowing.

In a wayshowing project the first step is to identify destinations and popular routes in order to find decision points where directions are needed. And then which signs are more suitable to each purpose. It’s essential to compile a destination list. This can be provided by the client or by different stakeholders. Otherwise designer can also do it, based on field/primary research.

It’s important to talk with different people in the area, both residents and visitors and ask them where they want to go, why they want to get somewhere. Like this, we can have a bigger picture and create something that is really focused on the users. Of course, not all the desired destinations will be covered. People have often very specific needs.

Following that, Rez argues that it would be actually important in some cases to reframe wayfinding as thingfinding. And that is where service design can make a difference, once it’s a user-centred approach.

Besides designing the signs it’s also important to provide an overall experience in delivering directions/information, considering pre-visit, travel, arrival, on-site, destination and egress. Making sure that the information at these different stages is coherent help to provide a good service and a good experience to the user.

online portfolio Chloé BELLOIN

http://chloebelloin.blogspot.com/