#documentation design studio

We’ve started to wrap up all of our projects for this class- from now on, we’ll be having studio time in class to put everything up on digication.  Currently, we are all a little exhausted in this class, but I think we’re all determined to still put out quality work by the end of the semester.

I am working on my observation book now, primarily.  I find it very hard to break away from my instincts to cram every page with as much text and images as possible.  I know now, that breathing space on the page is very important as to not overwhelm the viewer.

Other then some technical problems, I am also happy with how my video is going.  I have decided to use only still images as I thing video recordings would only distract, instead of enhance, the story I am trying to tell with the audio narrative I have constructed.

Today’s class we had a visiting teacher.  Her name was Jori Ketten, and she, among other things, uses to video to document artistic experiences.  Prior to the lesson we looked at her vimeo account, but I found her lesson much more revealing then an unguided romp around her webpage.  

She works with a lot of video content, so she was there to show us examples and how to work some of the programs we are going to be using.  Some of the questions we dressed were: Why Video? Why do people document? What does the word Documentation mean?  Overall, it was a really interesting lesson because I had never worked with video before.  It was interesting to go though her work to see how it improved over time, and how we could use the information she had gained over the years to start from a higher standard of production.

Today in class we all gave our first draft of project 3 and met Everett Epstein who gave us feedback on our presentations, and also gave his own presentation on the sentence diagraming method he uses in his english classroom.  I thought it was exciting to get an outsider’s perspective on our powerpoints, and have a writer critique them, as well as a designer.  This way we can improve the strengths of our presentations in both ways.

I thought everyone’s presentation was really wonderful, especially for a first draft, and really liked how they were all so different, not just in the fact that they were about different studio practices, but the narrative, visual quality, and mood of each one was very unique to the presenter.  

This week we are working mostly on project 1, refining our logos and creating a poster and handout with the image.  I think that as a future teacher it is critically important to consider how information is visually presented to our students. 

I have settled, with the help of the class, on working with my first logo, inspired by the small shark  taxidermy from the nature lab.  I have also been working on creating my handouts and posters.  The posters are very difficult for me, I think perhaps I need to see some of the work my fellow students are creating so I have a clearer idea of what is expected. 

The handout is actually kind of un to make, but I think I have too much information on them for a third grade audience.  I feel very reluctant to have any blank space on the page because when I think back to the handouts I received in grade school they always were absolutely crammed with information. 

Five Rules for Presentations

By Duarte Design

Rethinking Powerpoint

By Ron Galloway

Reading Reflection

This past Thursday was a studio day in the RISD Nature Lab, which I found to be really nice and refreshing after so many days of class lecture.  Not only was the Nature Lab absolutely amazing, but I found that being able to use art and design in such a practical way early on in this class really helped me grasp the concept of translating my studio practice into visual aids in teaching.  

I have never done much graphic design work, but doing the logos was a lot of fun, even though it was really challenging, in my experience.  I also thought the method we used, with the post-it notes on the logos we liked, was a great method for seeing where we stood with our projects without forwardly offending anyone.  It really helped me clear up what I was doing right, and what I was doing wrong.

Many of the basics of design that we learned in this class were also very helpful to me because they are things, that as a fine arts student, I need to make sure I keep in mind now that I am creating art for my audience, more then I am creating art for myself.