Studio Brief: 'Speaking From Experience" Crits and Evaluation

Concept Crit:

For the Crit, we had to present the 3 concept boards we had made along with any work we had, which for me, included a design sheet of initial ideas.

Concept Boards for Crit

We had to describe our idea to a group alongside tutors and present to some third year students, showcasing the concept boards we had produced.

Feedback from the Concept Crit

They liked how I had considered the problems with the physicality and production of the board and gave me some ideas as to how it could be overcome in regards to the board being the packaging itself perhaps? From this, it seemed to be the only problematic concern. My idea was clear, concise and easy to understand.

Development Crit:

This was a large group Crit where we had to present how far into the project we were so far.

Illustrator File showed for Crit plus Additional Development since

I presented on my laptop the development I had achieved so far using my Illustrator file. Due to the over-run of the Crit, I wasn't really given any feedback, however, I mentioned myself that I need to consider the production of the game and those around me agreed.

Final Crit:

We had to layout the work that we had done since the previous Crit and present it to a group of our peers. I was in Group 4.

We had to quickly present what we had done since the last Crit and where we were going with it next. I discussed how I had progressed quite a bit since the previous Crit, especially with the start of production for my board, cards and instruction booklet and the areas of my project I was next to focus on, like the player counters and the consideration of a packaging proposal.

Layout for Final Crit

After that, we then had to go around the group and write some feedback on each person based on some questions that had written down that they wanted answers to. This is the feedback that I was given:

Feedback from the Final Crit

I was given some really good ideas in regards to the questions I asked. I was given some possible resolutions for my player counters as well as places to look in regards to stockists, which these were especially helpful. A traditional packaging box of a rectangle or square was favoured as a suggested ideal and it was unanimous that the board needed cutting out of the rectangle of stock for a more professional aesthetic. This feedback we then had to read out to the year group.

Self- Evaluation:

• How did you approach the brief? - I approached this brief with the intention of producing something that would be useful, educational and something that could be used time and again instead of being a one off. I wanted it to be a fun brief which would be less conventional than doing a 'survival kit' or a publication/book as that seemed to be a typical theme.
• What was your thought-process behind the brief? - I wanted to be able to prepare them for the workload that was coming as I sometimes find it difficult to handle so this way they would be able to get a sense of how to answer a brief, the process behind it and an insight into the way we work. I feel that sometimes icebreakers can be embarrassing and I didn't want it to be personal of the people so I stuck to the common ground of graphic design and kept it educational and informative.
• What worked?/What was Good? - I was very happy with the production of my instruction manual as I felt it was the most successful, professional looking layout that I have ever produced so far. It was well produced and presented in a clear and concise manner whilst playing around with presentation. It has given me a lot more confidence in my ability to produce a decent layout when given the time to experiment and play.
• What didn't work?/ What was Bad? - What was bad was my lack of planning ahead in regards to locating and sourcing materials for my components like the hourglass and the player counter stands. It has meant that I have learnt my lesson the hard way from the unnecessary stress and from now on, I will have to be more forward-thinking.
• What would you change?- I would perhaps change my board game and make it larger and more streamlined so that it could include more players within the game and add to the cards so that it would accommodate more players as well.