OUGD403 Alphabet Soup: Visual Thinking. Group Crit.

On friday we did a group crit to analyse the work that everyone had completed for the alphabet soup crit. 

We were put into groups of 10-12 people, within the group we got into pairs and chose the 5 out of the 10 letters they designed we thought COMMUNICATED, the word they were given best. In columns we then had to stick the outcomes of this on the wall, along with a label detailing what word each of the typefaces were given.

We then rotated in groups so that we were on a table with a whole new set of typefaces, here we had to judge as a group which we thought best communicated the word they were given picking the best 5 examples. After we had done this, we went around each table in the room and 5 people from each group explained why they had chosen their top 5 letters. This was very useful as I was able to learn what makes good, or better communication. Unfortunately one of my letters wasn't picked, however I have found from this crit that it wasn't because they were bad or poorly designed, which would have been upsetting after hours of slaving away, but because they may have been too subtle or abstract for an audience to understand. Luckily I can improve on this for next time and I am glad I have learnt this now. 

Finally after selecting our top 5 we had to chose which letter we thought was the ultimate communicator, with 12 different designers in a group, the arise of 12 different opinions made this task tricky. Letters were taken down and put back up. until there were 2 left. Both designs that were presented beautifully with clear messages, we had to flip a coin in order to chose the deciding letter. 

Next time I will remember to work harder visually in reflection of communicating a message so that my audience can really understand the concept i am trying to portray. I enjoyed talking about work in groups as sometimes assessing work by yourself can be daunting. I found it knowledgeable to hear others opinions as they will help to shape any work I do in the future. But most of all I have learnt to not focus so much on contextual factors and underlying meanings therefore emphasizing the visual message as well as the concealed ones.