Design Practice 1 - Communication is a virus// Crit feedback 02/03/12

We went into this crit with a strong Idea of what we wanted our concept to be. We found that we had some trouble conveying our concept without the aid of a visual product, as our progress at this point has just allowed us to develop a

• Concept
• Product
• Audience

 But we have not yet produced the visuals for the inside of the box that will convey the message. I think this is where we had some difficulty trying to explain the concept. However, we eventually got the message of our desired product to the audience and we got a mixed reaction I would say. 

Here are some of the feedback comments we received;

• The Audience - The members of public in the city center of Leeds, will probably not be too comfortable being asked to write their lies onto a lie slip, so maybe an audience of people that would be able to interact with the product without our input. 

Leeds College of arts students was suggested by Amber. If we used this audience it means we would probably get more response as people would be more inclined to approach and interact with the lie box as it is a more familiar product that students can see was created to communicate a message. As opposed to the general pubic of Leeds who don't often like being approached on the street and may not respond to the product at all OR some members of the public may even get offended by being asked to write a lie on a piece of paper as it can be quite a personal area. 

• How would we measure audience, reaction/ response?

At the moment we have no particular way of measuring facts and figures of the response of the product. 

This is not an area we have thought about much up until today, we didn't really realise it was a main area of the brief to be able to record statistics of whether our product has effected people when it comes to telling lies or the truth. 

It was discussed by the group after the crit, we came up with the idea of producing some form of handout (stickers/ flyers) that can be given to a person who interacts with the product, this handout will have links to a website which would hold information about what our product as as well as reinforcing the message and allowing them to see the entire process of the box filling up with slips, so they can understand the message if they were not able to witness the entire thing in person.

• The idea is quite "Fine arty" 

Even though a little offensive i would say I have to agree with this statement. As it is quite like an art installation but as e are focusing mainly and communicating a message then I would say that is where it differs from fine art. i think we have ended up with a different product to many of the other groups as we have tried the most to develop an idea that would work only with public participation, whereas many other groups are focusing on digital/ modern products to communicate.

Our Plan now after the crit, is to all go away individually with the slogans/ proverbs we have decided to focus on. and return on Monday with a range of different design ideas to present to the group Monday morning. We decided this would give us a wider range of visual options to work with, We would all present our work equally and vote as a group to the design we preferred the most. 

If we found there were a couple of designs that split the group we would also be able to work as a team to decide on the best and worst parts of each design which would allow us to mix and match ideas, resulting in us producing a piece of design we are all happy with.

I believe at this stage of the brief, considering the decisions we have already made together and where we are at with the design at this present moment, this is a better system for this group, than assigning separate tasks for each member to work on individually.