DESIGN PROCESS - RESPONSIVE - FINAL CRITIQUE

Today I participated in the final critique for our chosen responsive brief.

After initially choosing a brief that did not offer me enough scope for substantial development I decided to outline a new brief from the D&AD website.

As previously mentioned I selected the national trust brief from the D&AD website. As I selected the brief fairly late on through the module I only managed to get the bare bones of a concept and some research together in time for the first criticism. Furthermore, due to some bad time management I was left focusing on finishing work in time for the 'Design Production' module deadline. As a result, I unfortunately did not have much progress and develop my ideas for the brief, as was left presenting a very vague start to the brief.

We started the session by choosing a space in the room to lay out our design boards. Instead of presenting work to a group like we usually would in a critique, we relied on the effective communication of our design boards to deliver information regarding the project. Completing the session in this way was useful as it gave us the chance to review the effectiveness of our design boards as well as the progression of our project.


DESIGN BOARDS


Below are the design boards that I presented.

FEEDBACK 

Feedback was written onto sheets that outlined the individual sections of the project and boards that should be critiqued.

The sheets I received are displayed below.

• Love the images.
• Strong concept.
• Good guilt trip on the adults. How will you address the children directly?
• I like the concept but it would be good to see a variety of ideas.
• Consider distribution methods, display through design boards.
• Clear that child is watching nature on TV.
• Use 'refine edge' on photoshop to sort out edges of hair.
• Work at a higher resolution to avoid pixelation of image & logo.
• Quote is effective.
• Design boards are lacking direction - I was unsure which sheets to read first.
• Would be good to see variety of ideas.
• How else can the concept be developed into an entire campaign, not just one poster.

• Attracts everyone into the countryside. Digital/indoors is bad.
• From what has been introduced it relates well, just needs more development/variations.
• Include a version on the brief/re-written brief.
• Campaign targets adults and calls them out by guilt tripping them.
• More variations are needed.
• What other slogans/variations will there be?
• How will the advertisements be communicated? Billboards? Digitally?
• Although the background image is unfocused you can clearly see that it is a TV and the message it is conveying.
• Refine edges of hair.
• Resolve pixelated text and logos.
• Strong introduction and proposal, needs a brief to relate response.
• Lacking in direction, needs a variety of ideas to help pull the project together.
• The slogan works well in content being aimed at adults to guilt trip them.

ANALYSIS 

Firstly, I started analysing the feedback received during the criticism by highlighting the strengths outlined;

• The concept works well at attracting people to the countryside/outdoors and highlights to the audience that overly interacting with technology and digital media is bad.
• By guilt-tripping the adult audience it will help provoke a reaction and evoke them to interact with the campaign.
• Initial response clearly communicates the intended message.
• The quote/slogan featured is effective and relevant. 
• The introduction and proposal featured on the boards is clear and effectively communicates the information needed to understand the concept.

Moreover, I also analysed the feedback from both sheets and highlighted areas of the project that could be improved to help make the project more relevant and effective;

• There needs to be a variety of ideas displayed, not just a singular poster.
• Consider the distribution methods, how and where will the campaign be displayed? and how will the choice of distribution reflect and relate to the target audience?
• When creating the posters ensure that they are produced to a high standard.
• Design boards are currently lacking direction, consider adding elements such as an attention grabbing title to help users navigate through the boards.
• Consider how the campaign can be developed into a whole, integrated campaign. 
• Include a design board outlining the re-written brief to give work further context.

RESPONSES

After analysing the feedback received from the brief I formulated responses to improve the weaker areas of the project that were outlined.

• As mentioned above, the reason my project is lacking a variety of ideas and poster variations is because of some unorganised project management in another module. Unfortunatly, as I was focusing on preparing work for another module submission I was unable to full develop aspects of the project in time for the final critique.  However, now that the module has been submitted I have taken steps to ensure that my time management stays organised, allowing me to keep on top of the workload. In response to the first point, I will develop a range of posters as part of the campaign each displaying a different slogan aimed at evoking a reaction from the target audience.
• Furthermore, I will also take time to consider the methods of distribution and how these reflect my outlined target audience. The chosen distribution methods will then be displayed and explained on one of my final design boards.
• The production of the poster displayed on the final design board presented was rushed, which is why the quality of the outcome is so poor. When creating the designs for my final set of posters I will ensure that the correct techniques are applied to ensure a quality outcome. 
• My design boards currently contain numbers indicating their order and a small titles at the top of each board. However, it is apparent that people are still struggling with their navigation. In response to this feedback I will consider adding a larger title to each board to help communicate the content and order of each board.
• Finally, a design board displaying the brief is needed to give the project context and help members of my class understand my concept and design choices. However, when submitting to D&AD this is simply not needed, they wrote the brief and understand the details thoroughly, so to add a design board communicating the ins and outs of the brief is a waste of a board that could be utilised to further communicate aspects of the outcome.