Day 1: 10/09/18

Today I was very pleased to be able to start the foundation course. I was expecting to feel quite anxious when I entered the studio however it ended up feeling like a very comfortable environment to work in. The tutors set out their expectations of us and for the year which made me feel motivated. I felt that today was very productive in that I used various skills both independently and collaboratively in a group.

We were given our first project brief called 'The Ideas Factory' which involved an '-ism', 'process' and 'material' to help generate ideas. The three words I received were 'Utopianism', 'wrap' and 'water'. Initially I felt slightly intimidated by the combination of words and how I was going to address each element (especially since I like designing physical objects with a function or purpose as opposed to a conceptual and abstract piece). To overcome this challenge, I had a group discussion with my peers and unpicked each word through mind-mapping. Through these methods, idea generation was made less daunting and easier. Most importantly, I realised that it's easier to develop initial concepts through discussion. My peers' knowledge and questioning helped me to look at my ideas from another perspective, make alterations to sketches and to clarify my thoughts.

I think that I struggled with the '30 minutes, 10 drawings' exercise in the sense that I didn't manage to reach 10 sketches and began to struggle to come up with more ideas. Despite this, it has taught me (alongside the artists' and designers' research presentation) to not be so precious with initial ideas and sketches because they are not final outcomes, they are part of the process. I found that if I was too concerned with the concept being 'perfect', the flow of ideas was restricted. I think I need to be looser, more free with my thoughts and to not believe that all concepts have to be practical in this project. The exercise also taught me about time management. I need to be time efficient and not get caught up in one idea when exploring and experimenting with concepts. If I'm not strict with myself, I won't be forced to explore other avenues which could possibly lead to a more successful outcome. In the future, I am going to make the effort to be more disciplined with time management so that I can produce more concepts and sketches to then select and refine the best ideas.

Part 1

Part 1

Reflection

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