Week 4: Criticism of 50 things

From our discussion of last week we criticized each other’s work based on the agreed factors that makes good design. We all presented our projects in very different ways and it was really interesting to see each other's interpretations. It became clear that perhaps not all of our chosen factors were as important as each other depending item we were discussing. For instance – for one piece of work, ambiguity seemed more appropriate however we had as a group decided that clarity was a key factor. If through ambiguity you can draw the viewer in, this seemed appropriate.My piece of work was considered and fortunately had moved on a great deal from where it was a fortnight ago (phew). The class suggested ways of making my facts clearer to follow – something I was aware was a problem but couldn’t find a suitable way to achieve and also suggested that I move away from the small gatefold booklet and progress it to 3 separate posters. This would definitely affectively deal with the problem of clarity and would be far more attention grabbing.
Unfortunately time constraints have prevented me from recreating my project as the 3 posters, however, if you're curious about my 50 facts, please click here for my emotional, habitual and lifestyle facts, here for facts about my experiences and here for facts about my characteristics.
For next week we've been tasked with coming up with a list of influences for visual, music, writing and film, and reasons as to why we are influenced by our choices.

Reconsideration of my 50 things

I tried to implement some of the feedback from week 2. From this it became clear that I needed to make more of the way I had presented the facts in an analytical way. During the redesign it became clear that there was too much information and that not all of it slotted into nice neat categories so I decided to divide my facts into sections that gave a wider picture of who I am and how the facts affect me. The design became far more information led than self analytical and was in part influenced by a music video I have seen by Royksopp which shows a slice of London life and details all the information in the video down to water usage and mass transit.
I also simplified the style so that the project became more about what I’d learnt about myself through the process rather than a bold garish poster that doesn’t truly reflect my personality. The process taught me that I strive to make sense out of the nonsensical and my decision to reflect my facts this way is evidence to this.

The individual pages

Photo of completed booklet

Week 2: 'This is me' workshop – discussion and presentations, Rob Kettell and John Hammersley

The workshop was quite scary but definitely very insightful. We were critiqued on our work on our 50 things. I became aware as we discussed our projects in pairs that my work didn’t truly reflect me, but that the idea of analysing myself through the design was a good one. The critique reflected that and gave me some ideas on how to move the project on for our next submission.
We were also given a mini brief to create a badge in a font that we feel reflects ourselves.

Working on 50 curious things

My first challenge was to come up with 50 things that were not only interesting but also that I didn’t mind these people I had only just met knowing! The first 30 weren’t too tricky but I did have to get help with my last 20. I did also go through the list a few times and swopped a few things round!
To a certain extent find the process quite therapeutic and thought I could use this as an idea for display – I decided to rate myself in terms of ‘weird and wonderfulness’
See below for the outcome (click on the image for a larger view):