OUGD 505 - Workshop 1

In todays session we were asked to bring in our research design boards and got into groups to present and give feedback on each others ideas. Here are my design boards as well as a brief description of what I talked about and the feedback that I received:

When giving my presentation, I talked through my boards and what each board contained. I started by discussing my topic of table tennis in general, quickly going through its origins and making sure everyone knew what it was. I then talked about the Olympics and The Table Tennis World Championships, the two highest levels of competition within the sport; this led me onto talking about the way in which the Chinese dominate the sport, and have done for around 50 years. I went into more depth about the Chinese, talking about how I aim to incorporate the Chinese design aesthetic within my own work. I also discussed my last board, talking about my ideas of exploring the lines and patterns created by the movement of the ball.

Here is the feedback that I received:

• Why are the Chinese so good at table tennis? - This raises questions such: as how much money do they put into the sport? Is table tennis a more mainstream sport in China?
• What other uses are there for the various pieces of table tennis equipment, such as beer pong?
• From the ideas I have spoke about, I should look into perspectives and angles, maybe try filming a game of table tennis from above?

All of this feedback is very useful and gives me further research to look into. After the group critique had finished, I continued to talk to Harrison in order to get more feedback and further direction. These were the things that we discussed:

• Research into the specifics and the statistics, such as: angles, dimensions, weights etc
• Look into documentaries and films about the sport
• Think more about popular culture, how has this affected/been affected by table tennis?
• Iconic players of the sport, or iconic moments?

With all of the feedback I have received, I feel confident that I can successfully move forward with my research project. After lunch, we went through what should and shouldn't be on a design board. These are the lists we compiled as a group:

Shouldn't -

• Initial sketches, if not relevant
• First person
• Spelling mistakes
• Food stains/Printing errors
• Poor image quality
• Too much text
• Scrapbook (a lot of images and no text)

Should -

• Board numbers
• Name
• Titles
• Final work and outcomes
• Good quality photographs and images
• Consistency among the boards

Now that we knew what made a good board and a bad board, we then got back into small groups and used design boards that we had already created from previous modules in order to get feedback on their effectiveness. This was the feedback that I received on some of my old design boards:

We then did the same task again, only this time using our design boards for this new brief. This was done by two separate people in order to get the best quality feedback possible, as seen below:

I found this workshop very useful and think it makes it much easier for me to create design boards in the future. Although I know what should and shouldn't be on a board, seeing the mistakes that I have actually made help me to ensure I don't make the same mistakes on future boards. I realise now that the boards are much more important than I had previously thought, and will have to spend more time perfecting them for future critiques and deadlines.