I started this project in a very laid back manner. By that I don't mean I haven't been putting the effort in, I simply mean that I want to identify a subject matter, but after that I just want to carry out research and gather as much primary material together as possible, which would mean I can make an informed decision as to where to take the project. So, the subject area that I chose was methods of communication, more specifically 'Small Talk'. Once I had the idea in my head I started to do some research and found a wealth of information over the internet. The information was mainly 'who, what, when and where?' and there were also a lot of pages giving advice as to how to prepare yourself and what conversational paths to follow. One of the more interesting pieces of research I found was three examples of possible conversational scenarios, and a step by step guide as to what to say. I thought to myself would somebody seriously read this and follow the advice shown, because I found it quite tongue in cheek and found myself laughing at the ridiculous things that were being mentioned. For example It told you to never mention things like divorce and illness when first meeting someone new, but surely people realise that. Then it struck me there had to be a reason for this site existing and maybe some people really do struggle that much, therefore I decided to adopt the idea of making a 'Small Talk Survival Guide'. In it would be all the advice you need to survive the first days of the course and how to cope with meeting fifty new people that you are expected to work with for the next three years.
I liked the idea initially and thought there where plenty of interesting directions that I could take it. For example layout and composition would play a very important role, for I had the idea of making it entirely type based and using different sizes and styles. I used the book 'Whatever you think, think the opposite' as inspiration and began to come up with a few initial page ideas. However it soon hit me that I was moving far to fast, it had only been a week and I was thinking of the final piece, so I stopped myself and went backwards a bit. A crit with John also helped me realise that I shouldn't be so two dimensional and should try thinking of more creative ways to answer the brief. I brainstormed for a whole day, just thinking of al the idea's I could, which I could narrow down and really consider at a later date. However, one idea that really stood out to me straight away was the design of furniture designed to enhance the whole 'Small Talk' experience and how this furniture would fit into a 'communication area'. I knew I wanted to use the speech bubble shape as inspiration so I stepped away from the sketchbook and started to craft some 3D pieces that could experimented with and analysed. I created a few separate ideas for furniture, including tables and chairs and photographed the end results. These images where then put into my computer, from where I edited them to create visual variations, playing with colour and different phrases. Below is a scan from my sketchbook showing some of this experimentation.
After deciding this was the direction I wanted to go with this project I thought it necessary to write myself a redefined statement of intent so as to document where I was going and to avoid confusion with anyone who was following my project. Below is that redefined brief:
After this I started to look at the greater picture, rather than just the designs of the furniture I wanted to envision the setting where it would feature. So I sketched a few ideas and also looked at the different ways in which this information would then be communicated to my target audience. I came up with the idea of a mail shot being the idea with the greatest chance for success so I started to look at nets and layouts that would be the most effective. Below are a few pages from my sketchbook showing some of more my developed ideas. From left to right it shows the 'communication area' layout, to how this will be shown on a print out, to how that will be distributed to my intended target audience.
After having a very brief conversation with John I realised the idea wasn't working as fully as I wanted it to do. He mentioned something about someone he knew who when they first met someone, would somehow know everything about this new person within ten minutes. I thought it was interesting point and made me realise that my focus had been too small and I would have to expand on the subject matter to create a more well rounded idea that could actually work. Therefore I thought about conversational techniques and distinguished the difference between three main methods/topics that the majority of people go straight to. These three identified topics are:
Small Talk - Which is usually the discussion of less interesting topics, keeping it light and fluffy, the weather, niceties and polite expressions, almost superficial.
Personal Discussion - Talking about your life, things you like, personal preference, can get quite deep, discover a lot about your conversational partner and their background.
Interesting Debate - The discussion of relevant topics, things in the papers and on the news, your take on current affairs, can get quite heated and argumental.
No comments:
Post a Comment