Sharing work during a group critique session has been a novel experience. This is the first time that in both my time as a student and professionally in my work life, that I have been part of this format of feedback and dialogue. Creating work that was going to be shared, albeit anonymously, with a group of fellow students felt slightly daunting. The task was to create one to two images that shared out creative intent for this coming term/year. At first, this presents itself as a very simple and fairly quick task to accomplish, however, using only two images to share your intentions for an entire term/year means that both of those two images must be considered and that you must make the best use of the available space (1080x1920 px).
Thinking about my creative intention for the term/year meant that I had to reflect on what I had learnt so far over the past two modules (TMA1401 and TMA1402) and then further reflect on what I want to go forward and develop, such as specific hard and soft skills. As I reflected I wanted to use one image as a way to convey the concept of reading, writing and reflecting through my creative practice and how this, in turn, becomes an integral part of my creative process. Through the past two modules, I have found a liking for writing and reflecting in my practice, allowing this blog format to foster new ideas and for my mind to clear. To do this I used images from different creative practitioners. One image to focus on the concept of reading, one on writing and reflecting and one that has a more technical aesthetic to share the concept of the digital blog and channels such as my university focused Instagram account (@u1270275_ma_graphic_design).
I used the second image to share the newest area of my creative practice, one that began as an interest from one of the term one module, TMA1402, Creative Innovation and Entrepreneurship, user interface design. You can read about my initial explorations and research into this creative practice here. Since this initial exploration and since that project has completed I have taken the decision that I would like to expand my creative focus to include both branding and user interface design. The second page that I put forward for the crit was a layout that featured a range of digital experiments of user interface screens, from a range of themes, using Adobe XD.
I believe that, upon reflection and on reflecting on the feedback given from the crit, that I must be more explicit on the messaging. The feedback given was positive and allowed me an insight into what others think of the screen designs. It did, however, highlight a key concept that I must keep in mind for future crit sessions. Items that are placed together with no written element or with no spoken commentary to accompany the visuals, will automatically be linked together by the viewer. Through the feedback, although the screens had no link to one another, the group tried to discover the link and believed that it could be a mindfulness or fitness application. The truth being that it was a collection of one-off designs from a daily user interface design challenge I am undertaking. You can find screenshots of the feedback from the crit below, I have blurred the profile images and the students' names to keep them anonymous.
I believe this process and experience to be a positive one. I have reflected on the experience as a whole here.
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