ccdn 331 | project 1 | hand-in

Design should inspire people to see the world in a new way.

Hand-in: 

The final part of the process: 

Daisy and I hadn't really seen Chris since the project had started and we weren't really sure what stage he was up to when we came in to campus this morning.

We caught up with Chris after the 331 lecture to see what he had done. He had added the sound which needed some tweaking and then, while we watched and discussed our design decisions, he added the text. This is the final version we handed in.

Reflections on the group project:

The output:

I feel like we answered the brief with a strong project. I am pleased that it fulfils my own expectations regarding clarity of message and refinement of vision. The object we made from the wood we were given was playful and yet there was a mature quality to the whole concept in that it didn't just fall back on the easy option of destroying it, which was an idea we had toyed with originally. I feel that the message of the video is twofold: one is about sustainability but the overarching idea is about how it is possible to draw the attention of your audience to everyday items (that might otherwise be overlooked) through thoughtful design.

Because we did not finish in a timely manner, despite my best intentions, mean that I feel what we handed in was not as polished as it could have been.

What I learnt through the group-project dynamic:

From the outset I really bought into Daisy's initial jumping off point (the pencil) because she justified the connection through the research she had done into the type of wood we'd been given. She had found that cedar is typically used for pencils. So it not a coincidence that we ended up with a (giant) pencil, and I really like that this was such a considered choice. Daisy is also an excellent communicator and is good at sharing her ideas without being overbearing. We are friends, so there is an established rapport between us which makes working together fun. Even though familiarity can be a positive, it can also be the source of distraction in a group project. It turns out that Daisy and I are also effective at being efficient with our time when completing tasks together, so this was not a problem we had to contend with.

Chris was an unknown quantity for both Daisy and I, so I was curious to know how things would work out when we were initially deciding how to divide up the work. As it turned out, everyone performed their designated roles really well, however communication was not something that characterised the way we ended up working with Chris. This did make the project harder to resolve between all three of us. As someone who places great value on communication I found this challenging. Happily, in the end I do feel Chris' input, even though it occurred late in the proceedings, was valuable and justified. I thought the music he composed worked well and his input around the text was thoughtful and elegant. It would have been preferable not to have been completing Chris' part quite so late on the day of our hand-in but I recognise that I could have made Daisy's and my timing expectations clearer to Chris.

For my own part I relish project management and took this role on without hesitation. It also felt good to get back into making the pencil after a trimester away from the workshop. I don't deny I have much to learn about Premiere Pro but enjoyed working with it again and think it was good I made an initial clip to help us understand the final requirements better. For someone who doesn't major in media design, I feel I can be proud of what I achieved with my initial clip. It confirms my theory about this degree being really useful for better understanding the work that future specialists do for me. I don't need to be able to use technical applications brilliantly but I do need to understand what they are capable of producing and how they work. I definitely learnt more about what is needed in terms of camera-work for video production and enjoyed my first foray into the school's ergonomics lab.