Visual Communication 1

For Visual Communication 1 we had five weeks and five projects. The briefing and critique for the work would be on Monday. This module criteria was focusing on research and concept development.

Mondays: Project related lecture with Phil followed by a tutorial (Critic + Briefing)
Tuesdays: Art History lecture with Simon followed by a seminar. (Help us think about the project)
Wednesday: Addvantage Module
Thursday: Seminars to discuss our research
Friday: Technical class with Pete and PDP.


Week 1: The first project was to produce a photo for the book cover. I think that the hardest thing that left me confused is that I wasn't sure on how to do my research and where to look for inspiration. I also felt that one week was a bit too much for a photography project. The critics on Monday for this project was that we left post it notes with our feedback for each other. We didn't get any feedback from Phil which felt that the tutorials were pointless as the feedback from other students weren't that helpful. I guess we all agree that as much as tutors encourage students to give feedback to each other, it won't help if the tutor doesn't start it first. And this happened naturally, when students become friends, they start giving feedback to each other; it shouldn't be forced. The most useful critic sessions is when the tutor starts giving feedback and then there best of the group joins in.

Week 2: Typography Movie Poster. I can't really remember what the seminars were about, but I didn't find them helpful. For the critique, we had to stick our posters and then using post it notes we would rate them. The critique was very general and Phil didn't get the chance to talk about everyones work. But I think the lectures were related to the topic, so it was quite helpful.

Week 3: Shoes Advertisement. We had to choose from a range of news advertisements and have them in  a poster form. The critic was in group and we had to fill a feedback form on each others work.

Week 4: Argos Logo. We had to redesign Argos logo using three different mediums.

Week 5: Manifesto. Three words that describe our work and an image in the middle.

I wished we had more feedback on our work, or help us direct our research.

Reflecting on it now, I think the module structure was great, we just needed more feedback on our work.

For the assessment we did a portfolio presentation and we had to submit a feedback sheet which we were given every week on the feedback we got from our peers and how we responded to it.

First Steps Towards Teaching

I  decided to start this blog to reflect on my experience as a student and use it for a future reference . I will try as much as I can to remember what we did for each module, the timetable, lecture topic..etc. I will also try to upload the marking criteria for each project.