OUGD 403 Alphabet Soup. Visual Thinking-Visual Communication Group Crit

Group Crit

Alphabet Soup-Visual Thinking, Visual Communication 

Friday 5th October

During this session we got put into groups of 11where we showed and spoke about each letter form. Within our group we had a range of people who had different themes and some with the same so it was deffinatley interesting to see how people had taken there word and portray it within there letter form.

Once we had seen every persons letter form within our group we all had to work out which were the best 5 within the set/sequence of ten, and it was interesting to see due to the fact that everyone liked different letter form for various reasons so it was well discussed debate on which ones would be best to choose. Once we had all decided on 5 of each we stuck them on the wall next to a note saying which theme this sequence was portraying. (image above)

Admittedly i didn't really like the next part of the crit as it meant we had to be so judgmental but also had to take into consideration that people were ruthlessly judging your work too and trying not to take offense was hard. In our groups we had to move to a different groups wall of letters and start eliminating each letter and telling the group why we had removed there letter for what ever reason it might have been. We had to stop when we got to 5 letters left. The five we chose were a culmination of different themed letters all done in different styles. As a whole class we told everyone why these were the last 5 letters. Then the hard part was to eliminate it down to one letter form and discuss why that was the last one standing, so to speak.

Personally this was an interesting and beneficial group crit even if it did stung a bit when your letters get taken off the wall quite soon when you have worked so hard and spent so much time on it, but then again this is something that is going to happen frequently in this industry, not everyone is going to appreciate or like your work. From it i learned to take criticism on the chin and work on it for next time.

EVALUATION OF FINAL PIECES

At the time of designing i didn't really want to go for a really obvious approach that was too literate, however it became apparent that i couldn't come up with ten ideas that would all be different and wasn't obvious, which is where i struggled. Therefore i went down the actual shattered route but varied how i did and to different degrees of detail and simplicity. Originally i wanted it to conceptually but i changed it so it would be more visual. Some of my letters are strong an visually interesting which i would be happy with whereas others didn't turn out as well. i had ideas but couldn't represent them as well and lack of time was the downfall as if i had more time id go back to them and re-do them so i was entirely happy.
The Process i did my letters was when i found the font i wanted to use as inspiration i traced around it then incorporated the design in or around the letter. As the letter forms had to be in black and white i mixed it up and used negative space as well to create shapes but for media i used black fine liner and pencil, with the occasional use of a white fine liner pen which didn't turn out as well as i had hoped.


All Final letters on Design Practice blog.