Studio Brief: 'Research, Collect & Communicate' Crits & Self- Evaluation

1st Crit

We were given the opportunity to discuss how far we had gotten with developing our initial ideas and deciding on what response we were going to use for our Brief.

I used the opportunity to discuss with the group the initial ideas I had produced, the idea I had settled on and what i was planning to do with my idea in order to be able to make important decisions regarding the appearance and the presentation of information to the audience. I presented my ideas and developments on designs sheets that I showed and explained to the group (See Design Practise Blog).

From this, I was given valuable feedback which I can take into account when producing and developing my idea:

1. When thinking about packaging, maybe use just a cardboard card pack or rectangular strip- would be simple, easier and cost effective if it was to be mass-produced.
2. While considering the normal size of a trading card/sticker, maybe test the idea of doing the cards A6 size so that they are a little bigger and maybe able to fit more information on the front of the card.
3. It's not traditional for their to be information on the back of a Top Trumps card yet it is traditional for a trading card- would this effect the game or would it be better in regards to the use of space.
4. Use people from real life or in the film (film would be more relevant to my research) as it would be too much to make people up.

From this, there are 3 key areas to focus on as I continue with my brief;

1. Consider a larger size for the cards- Experiment by making a bigger and a normal sized card version in order to be able to compare the sizes in regards to space, legibility and readability.
2. Use people from the film and in real life to compare the ease of translation into statistics/ information onto the cards- could use statistics given in the film and use the characters displayed in the film.
3. Packaging ideas- keep it simple and understated due to the important emphasis placed on the cards themselves as they are the most integral bit to the brief.

Final Crit:

For our Final Crit, we had to display our work for Simon and Amber to see and then we had to leave whilst they discussed the work.

Then we had to not say anything but listen to their opinions of our own work as well as everyone else in the group. This is what was said about my Baseball Cards:

• It was a good idea and had a good concept
• It was well produced which was aided by the print quality and the choice of stock
• Kept it simple
• It worked well with the brief
• Liked the fact that you could use the cards immediately and play the game
• Well researched

On the other hand:

• Use off-white to print the cards on
• Blend some more info-graphic aspects into what is already there- Visually represent topics with icons to add some more visual engagement and to add more room/space to the cards

I can understand what they suggested about the idea of using icons because, coincidentally, that is something that I had considered when creating the cards, however, I didn't do it because I didn't know whether it would be easy for the audience to interpret the topics from an image. Also, I felt it necessary to use the white stock based on the uniforms of the players due to the fact that some teams have off-white and others have plain white so I needed to be able to determine the difference. I will definately take this on board because it may be relevant to a different brief and the aesthetic for that brief.

Self-Evaluation:

• How did you approach the brief? - My approach to the brief was to produce something that would be relevant to the topic I had been given whilst being able to thoroughly answer the brief. I was wary of the brief at first as I didn't feel as though I was coming up with any relevant ideas but when I came up with my selected idea, it then managed to fall in place
• What was your thought-process behind the brief? - My thought-process behind the brief was to educate behind the theory, which in a sense is quite a difficult task. I approached the brief with the concept that I wanted to be able to provide a physical method of learning and informing of the audience behind the ideas and beliefs behind a statistical exercise.
• What worked?/What was Good? - I'm very proud to have produced the product solely from illustrator as it meant that I have learnt about applying colour, the undo shortcut and have got a lot quicker doing just simple things on the program. It has meant that I've had some time to get some sufficient practise into the basics of the program and feel much more confident, especially with my final piece to show for it.
• What didn't work?/ What was Bad? - What was bad was the subjeciveness of 2 of the topics due to the fact that it is based on the opinion of the research. Saying that, I felt it was important to stick to the information I had gained from my research and that was what I had learnt as important areas based on the theory of Sabermetrics.
• What would you change?- I would react to the feedback I was given within my Final Crit and design some icons to go along with the topics I had produced. From this, I would then perhaps include another card, explaining the icons and the purpose behind the card game. I would also use an off-white stock so that it was less bright and put more emphasis on the white colour uniform within the player design.