Audiovisual – Motion Graphics
Editorial
Photography
Essais sur l'éducation
De 2021 à 2022, j'ai passé un certificat de troisième cycle en éducation (PGCEi) tout en enseignant le design pour l'année préparatoire en Art et Design (FADM) de l'académie BACA de Pékin. Le lien entre mes études et ma pratique quotidienne comme chercheur en éducation, m'a permis d'écrire des essais sur l'enseignement. Le premier est une critique du cursus a partir de mes propres objectifs et valeurs. Le second porte sur la mise en pratique d'un apprentissage collaboratif. Le troisième essai est un projet de recherche qualitatif sur la façon dont les étudiants comprennent le rôle de la recherche dans le développement de leurs idées. Depuis 2022, une fois le PGCEi terminé, j'ai entamé un Postgraduate en Design pour Environnements d'Apprentissage, ce qui m'a également amené à réfléchir sur mon rôle comme professeur de design, d'où les essais qui suivent.
De 2021 à 2022, j'ai passé un certificat de troisième cycle en éducation (PGCEi) tout en enseignant le design pour l'année préparatoire en Art et Design (FADM) de l'académie BACA de Pékin. Le lien entre mes études et ma pratique quotidienne comme chercheur en éducation, m'a permis d'écrire des essais sur l'enseignement. Le premier est une critique du cursus a partir de mes propres objectifs et valeurs. Le second porte sur la mise en pratique d'un apprentissage collaboratif. Le troisième essai est un projet de recherche qualitatif sur la façon dont les étudiants comprennent le rôle de la recherche dans le développement de leurs idées. Depuis 2022, une fois le PGCEi terminé, j'ai entamé un Postgraduate en Design pour Environnements d'Apprentissage, ce qui m'a également amené à réfléchir sur mon rôle comme professeur de design, d'où les essais qui suivent.
Lesson 1: Empathise with people
Lesson 2: Define problem and user
Lesson 3: Ideate through sketching
Lesson 4: Prototype and Design
Lesson 5: Test and modify
Essais sur l'éducation
De 2021 à 2022, j'ai passé un certificat de troisième cycle en éducation (PGCEi) tout en enseignant le design pour l'année préparatoire en Art et Design (FADM) de l'académie BACA de Pékin. Le lien entre mes études et ma pratique quotidienne comme chercheur en éducation, m'a permis d'écrire des essais sur l'enseignement. Le premier est une critique du cursus a partir de mes propres objectifs et valeurs. Le second porte sur la mise en pratique d'un apprentissage collaboratif. Le troisième essai est un projet de recherche qualitatif sur la façon dont les étudiants comprennent le rôle de la recherche dans le développement de leurs idées. Depuis 2022, une fois le PGCEi terminé, j'ai entamé un Postgraduate en Design pour Environnements d'Apprentissage, ce qui m'a également amené à réfléchir sur mon rôle comme professeur de design, d'où les essais qui suivent.
The Design Process at FADM BACA ©Thomas Verbal
The process shared by the UAL in their portfolio sessions
YOUR TASK
Share your thoughts on the following questions.
> Why is research important in developing ideas?
> What makes sense to you and what doesn't? Why?
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2. Collecting data: Surveys
Thinking about the user is essential in the design process as these are the people who will interact with your work, whether it is a graphic campaign, a product, an installation, a game, an app. You design for people, whether these are specific individuals or target groups. Surveys and interviews are useful research methods to collect data from people. Do you understand the difference between both?
Surveys need to be short, on a single theme and present a set of clear and simple questions. Surveys can be done online or on paper questionnaires, with questions that can be closed-ended (providing predefined response options) or open-ended (allowing respondents to provide their own answers).
​Examples from students’ projects
Example of survey made by teacher for his students (2023)
YOUR TASK
Plan a survey.
> What do you want to know from those you ask questions to?
> Write at least 10 questions that you would like to ask
Start with a demographic question, then closed and open-ended questions.
Essais sur l'éducation
1. Diverge and Converge
When doing your research you need to stay open as you discover a variety of information from primary and secondary sources. Once you have enough data, you can start to define the problem through a statement.
​Design Thinking process
The Double Diamond Design Process
YOUR TASK
Look back at the research done so far.
> Write 3 problem statements with the following format: <what you have researched on> <what problems you have found> (e.g. I have researched on women rights and I have found that women’s period is still a taboo that young people avoid talking about)
> Ask yourself WHs questions to formulate further research questions.
2. User PERSONA method
As a student – and even as a professional – you may not always have access to real users. The method User PERSONA allows you to create the profile of a typical user of your project to help you understand their needs, experiences, behaviours and goals. It also helps you to define the problem that the user may find.
YOUR TASK
Share your thoughts on the following question.
> What are the differences and similarities between these two users?
> What could the designer be designing for them?
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Who are you designing for?
Imagine a user that will use or see your current work. Apply the PERSONA method by imagining this typical user by creating her/his identity. Give that user a name, a face, personal information, likes and dislikes. Fill in the following document
3. Visual maps
Remember to visualise your research. If you do a moodboard, you collect images, photographs and materials that express feelings and concepts related to your theme. There are no words. On the other side, a mind-map helps to visualise your research and ideas by classifying them in different groups and categories with images and words.
YOUR TASK
> Which method of visual board do you prefer to use? Why?
Start doing a moodboard or a mind-map to visualise your research.
Essais sur l'éducation
1. Brainstorming
Ideation involves generating and exploring multiple ideas before settling on a final design. Brainstorming is a group activity in which participants try to find ideas to solve a problem, freely and creatively by asking each other questions. To brainstorm, we need (1) to ask good questions (2) a quantity of answers over quality (3) to list the ideas (4) to welcome wild ideas and finally, (5) to analyse and classify them.
Images from Graphic Design Thinking, Ellen Lupton (2011)
YOUR TASK
With the group, choose one of the following problem(s):
(1) The toilets icons at BACA are too conservative.
(2) BACA’s logo is not appropriate for what it represents.
(3) Design a protest slogan related to the research done so far in this project.
> Let’s brainstorm together for 10 minutes by using the WH questions (What, Why, Who, Where, When, How).
> Brainstorm alone for 10 more minutes to write down different slogans related to your research.
2. Sketching
Sketching is a valuable tool for visualizing ideas and making them more concrete. Sketches don’t need to be detailed; they should capture the essence of the idea and be done quickly and in good quantity. Sketching is not only useful to think but also to communicate your ideas to others and receive feedback based on what you show.
BUGFOOD by Zunk: This student was designing a brand where beverages and food are made of bugs.
YOUR TASK
Take a new sketchbook page.
> Choose one of the ideas generated during the brainstorming session and Make at least 10 small drawings of that idea in the next 10 minutes.
> Share your sketches with your pair and briefly explain the concept behind them.
Essais sur l'éducation
YOUR TASK
In the project Carpet of Memories, students usually conduct an interview to a family member. If you had to interview someone from your family to tell you stories and anecodtes about your family’s past, about an item that they have kept because of family memories, Who would you interview? Why?
Share your thoughts here and in your sketchbook. Write at least 100 words.
1. Quick, easy-to-make and cheap Prototypes
Prototypes are models of your ideas, that can be shown in many different formats. The purpose is to make something which can be created quickly, allow you to fail without costing much money, and be tested in some way. Prototypes are not your final outcome but simulations of it. They can be storyboards, floor plans, APP wireframes, technical drawings, paper models, foamboard models, service blueprints, PS mock ups, etc.
Examples of low-fidelity and high-fidelity prototypes: Fidelity refers to the level of detail and functionality you include in your prototype.
2. Build to think and test to learn
Follow this advice from Hasso Plattner:
> Start building, even if you aren’t sure what you’re doing.
> Don’t spend too long on one prototype.
> Identify what’s being tested with each prototype. A prototype should answer a particular question when tested.
> Build with the user in mind. What do you hope to test with the user? What sorts of behaviour do you expect?
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Examples of prototypes made with paper, glue, a cutter and foamboard
Sketches, four prototypes and the final outcome: On the top left, you have the first sketches of this photo-book made on a napkin, then four prototypes made at home with paper, my printer and some cardboard, just to see the size, the materials, the order of pages and the overall style, etc. On the bottom right, you can see the outcome printed in a print shop.
YOUR TASK
Take a pencil, a pen, paper, glue, double-side tape, foamboard, cardboard and a cutter.
> Based on your most recent ideas, make a small prototype in the next twenty minutes that can be used or that can clearly communicate your ideas, getting us closer to your possible outcome(s).
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Essais sur l'éducation
YOUR TASK
In the project Carpet of Memories, students usually conduct an interview to a family member. If you had to interview someone from your family to tell you stories and anecodtes about your family’s past, about an item that they have kept because of family memories, Who would you interview? Why?
Share your thoughts here and in your sketchbook. Write at least 100 words.
1. Communicate clear intentions
For every project, you need to communicate the problem that your observed, what your project is about and what you are going to do. When you stop everything that you are doing to reflect ten minutes in silence on these three parts, it is part of a longer reflection process. It is obviously better to reflect on your intentions early in the project than to late but hopefully this guideline helps you to structure your thoughts.
YOUR TASK
> Fill this guideline with your last project in mind.
> Try to fill it in for the project you are doing now.
Share your thoughts here and in your sketchbook. Write at least 50 words.
2. Compare and Contrast
Not all evaluation and review is written as we usually think. Evaluation can also be visual as it by comparing results and choosing the best options that you are analysing and evaluating your work. Look at these two examples and note how the students ask themselves implicitly if that looks better by changing...the colour background / the typeface / the shape / the material...Asking other to give their opinion on your work and taking their feedback into consideration is also part of evaluation and review.
3. Written evaluation in the sketchbook
For each step of the project, document your practice through pictures and write short paragraphs that tell us more about the process. For this, have these questions in mind:
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Describe your practice: What have you done? When? Why? How? With what?
Analyse your practice: What do you think has happened? What did you learn?
Evaluate your practice: How was it? What worked? What didn’t work? What could you improve? It’s important to share both sucesses and failures.
