The Poetry of the Viewpoint studio is an exploration of ‘Point of View’ and its impact on the development of appropriate design solutions. A Parallax describes the effect that occurs when an object appears different when viewed from different positions, the Poetry stems from the transformation presented by the change. We are using the Poetry of the Viewpoint as a metaphor for the conceptual power of change: a process which can turn the banal into the beautiful, the obscure to the distinct, the illegible to the legible and the ordinary to the extraordinary.
As designers our role is to engage our audiences, to entice them to take notice of our message.
There are many ways this can be done among the most powerful is to present our proposition from an unexpected and intriguing point of view. We should never presume that our audiences share our point of view, and we should always be ready to explore the possibilities of the viewpoint to find an appropriate point of view for the message and the audience.
To discover points of view for audiences a knowledge of culture, values and societal structures are invaluable.
To this end we will encourage you to develop and understanding through research of why good designers have curious minds and are innovative and imaginative. We will do this in part by investigating the work of designers who have travelled along the viewpoint, changing the way things are seen and understood and in so doing have created visual poetry. We will look at campaigns that have changed the way the community understands imperatives and we will consider theories associated with audience structures and motivations.
Throughout this semester practice–led research will be used to create solutions to the design challenges presented in this studio. You will be introduced to the work of designers who have changed the way we think and live by changing our point of view. Taking their approaches as examples, you will be asked to experiment, take risks, challenge accepted ideas and embrace mistakes. In doing this you will have the opportunity to develop confidence in your individual design approach and practice. Finally, you will be asked to contribute to the development of a design proposal for the 2022 Communication Design Graduate Show, using the conceptual skills and technical skills you have developed over the semester.
In this studio you will be expected to:
Experiment
Delve
Destruct / Construct
Make mistakes and own them
Use your intuition
Take risks
Be brave
Make astonishingly creative design solutions
...and truly challenge your points of view.
This studio has 4 interwoven assessment tasks/projects that inform one another:
Brief 1. 30% The Unfamiliar Knowledge Object (SKO)
Brief 2. 15% Views of You
Brief 3. 30% Unfamiliar Familiar
Brief 4. 25% Grad.Show 2022 Proposal
Some of the things we recommend
and will refer to within our studio are:
The Art of Looking Sideways by Alan Fletcher
A Smile in the Mind by Beryl McAlhone
How to by Michael Beirut
Some of our Studio Partners will be internal, from within the Communication Design program.