Friday 30th September, 2016
Research Seminar Introduction
The first seminar which will be used for essay's and research purposes started by giving a brief breakdown of what we can expect from each of these seminars through the course of the year. Moving to ask us basic questions on what we thought theory as practice was, what is research and such. After this we moved onto the first set of things that should be going through our minds during research proceedings.
"What? = theme / research subject & question; (what do you want to create, investigate?)"
"Why? = context / background & literature review; (why do you want to investigate this subject? how does it relate to you? what have other creators and researchers done in this field?)"
"How? = approach / methodology & methods; (how will you proceed with your critical investigation? what kind of tools, media and methods will you use?)"
And after all of these questions, the final one would be;
"What? = outcome / results & conclusions; (what have you achieved and learned? what are your future plans?)"
Each one of these questions are vital when moving forwards with anything creative, whether it be with a design brief or a written piece of work. Each question serves its purpose when creating something, giving you fruitful answers or responses, depending on the work, in all areas of the piece.
The next slide in the seminar featured a diagram showing the progression that we as university students are currently taking through our education. The diagram starts with our careers as they begun in first year, "foundation". Then onto the second year, "transformation" and the third being "professionalism". All of which are true to the aspects of our course. The final outcome of these three years and our progression to professionalism turn into independence and originality. The main point of this section was to point out that research is a part of the professional practice.
Above is the quote shown as part of the seminar, basing its premise around the need to create an artistic problem to get past a barrier.
To finish the seminar, we were asked to look at two different design briefs and break them both down with the questions we were shown previously. These two design briefs were the "Whitney Museum of American Art, 2016" and the "Hear the Human Story/Red Dot Award, 2015". In small groups we went on to break down each of the briefs using the information provided to formulate an answer to each question. The brief I had ended up with was "Hear the Human Story, 2015", a very interesting brief in its entirety.
The answers to each question, mine at least, are found below;
#1 - What is the theme/subject of the project?;
Publishes the stories that you don't generally hear.
Raising awareness to the third world through the use of a online documentary.
#2 - How does it relate to the client's needs and aims?
Gives the client the stories that they were asking for.
They had found the kinds of stories that mattered.
#3 - How did the designers approach the assignment?
Approached the brief by capturing each of the stories from countries like; Rwanda, India, Spain, Jordan and the Philippines.
Also providing them with a platform to publish these stories.
#4 - What was the final result and achievement?
The final result was a set of online films, filmed as though they were a candid documentary.
