OUGD 501 Evaluation

EVALUATION:

This brief began with focussing on a topic to write a 3000 word essay on, something that I was unsure on what to choose from. I mulled over topics such as “The future of communication”, “Where speech is headed in relation to new media?” “The future of communication amongst teenagers” and so on, after tutorials with Simon Jones I moved away from topics such as these as this would result in me attempting to predict the future or how communication would develop, something that wasn’t advised.

Eventually settling for “What influence has social networking had on the contemporary Graphic Design practice?” as an essay question I felt overwhelmed by the vastness of this and found it hard to begin writing and to get a foothold on the vast subject.

After structuring my essay in to 3 sections I began to use Google scholar to find documents, books and journals which would give me a wider insight into my subject as well as providing me with names of theorists and authors whom had previously covered such subjects.

Meetings with both COP tutors gave me direction to my essay but at time I still felt overwhelmed and felt stuck in which direction to move. Overall I found it insightful researching into the topic I chose for my essay despite personally feeling that my essay doesn’t have much direction and is more of an overview of a designer’s use of social media, than a comparative piece of writing. This is where my essay is weak, not containing much substance and not having much of an opinion.

Practical response

Upon the completion of my essay I had to create a practical response to what my essay had taught me, and design something that would work alongside the content to my written piece.

I explored various avenues relating to my essay focussing around meme design primarily as this was an area I have interest in and felt I would enjoy further researching.

Visualising a number of ideas helped me gain more focus into what style of response I would like to create, I decided on researching Trendlist’s style of design further and editing memes in such a way that they would follow the rules found on Trendlist.

Researching trendlist from an outsider’s perspective gave me an insight into some of the principles this style of design followed which made it possible to edit memes in such a way that correlated with the styles found on this website.

Using memes found on Knowyourmeme.com I began editing them in a specific way that conformed to the styles found on Trendlist. Once 6 memes were augmented in this style I designed a publication where these memes would be found, this was then printed using an exposed content layout that appeared as if the publication had no structure.

This response to my essay was an unusual style for me to work in, but I enjoyed researching into Trendlist styles.