Studio Brief: Alphabet Soup- Visual Thinking (Part 1) Evaluation

From our Alphabet Soup project, we then had a large Group Crit where we had to discuss our work quickly to the other people in our group (about 12 people). Here is an image of my Final Chosen Squares for reference (see picture).


Final 10 Squares

Group Crit: From this quick description, they had to select 5 of my letterforms, They chose these ones because they were the most communicative and they liked them as visuals. (see picture)




Chosen 5 by Crit Group

After this, we then had to put our selected 5 squares up on the wall in a line and present them with the selected word written alongside it to show what it was suppose to be (see picture).

Crit Group's Chosen 5 for each Crit Group member

We then switched tables and each group had to choose 5 overall squares that they felt best communicated the word they had to represent. One of my letters managed to make it to the chosen 5. When asked, the group had given feedback on my letter as being 'broken and fragmented' and 'illustrated what it would be like to drop something from a height' (see picture).

Overall 5 squares chosen from our Crit Group squares

From these selected 5, we then had to select the 1 which was the most successful at communicating. Out of my group's 5, mine was selected as the most successful one (see picture).


My Successful Letterform as the Last 1 up on the Wall

I was very proud of the fact that 1 of my squares was selected as the most successful as it just reinforces and re-iterates what I was discussing earlier about the idea and the message being the most important factor when producing a visual interpretation. However, despite this success, I have to take into account that the rest of my squares wern't seen as successful in thier communication so that would mean that I would need to put more consideration into how they could be more successful in thier interpretations.

The Crit process I felt was quite good as it allowed us to evaluate other people's work and recognise how other people had interpretted the brief, seeing how I could improve on my own work and see how other people consider the work of others. I felt it was better doing it in a group situation andd considering other people's work outside the group as it meant that it was less personal, less intimidating and less pressuring which helped it be more of a relaxed atmosphere.

Self Evaluation: 

• How did you approach the brief? - I approached the brief by first researching into the subject matter as it seemed the most logical step in the process to begin with. It was important that I was well- informed before I began to tackle the subject matter with conviction. From that, I moved onto drawings: initial ideas, developments of ideas and finalizing the outcomes.
• What was your thought-process behind the brief? - From that, I approached the brief with the intention that I was going to base it on the ideas and intentions of the letters rather than base it on a visual aesthetic so that my ideas would come accross. Also, I approached it with the idea that I wouldn't just base the letters on the physical/literal interpretation but also on other definitions and aspects to the word 'Shatter'.  
• What worked?/What was Good? -My approach to Idea Generation was particular strong in this brief because that is what I spent alot of my time doing, whether that was generating, developing or refining. Ultimately, if it wasn't down to the ideas that I had produced then my Squares wouldn't have been as successful. 
• What didn't work?/ What was Bad? -The weakness within my brief was perhaps the lack of media experimentation as I didn't really try any other ways of presenting my work in regards to using a different media and they did look quite plain. The plainess did work in conjunction with the word but maybe it would have been better to test out some more ways of presenting the squares.
• What would you change?- I would change the line thicknesses on the pen that I have used to produce my letterforms as I personally prefer bold and thick linework to see whether itn would give the same effect on the work. I would also maybe attempt some other designs to see if they would be more successful at thier communication.