Week 12: Final Reflection
Our 13 week journey with Design Research has come to an end.
Things I have learnt
The importance of research and understanding, the vast history and story that design has gone through to get to what it is today. Researching can be extremely important and more interesting than I originally thought. Knowing the history or origins of items is quite important and can be very useful. Respecting the resources and efforts that have gone into the designs and works is important.
The challenges
Firstly, finding resources and motivation to research into South African design from the 1920s was very difficult and i could only find photographs or undated works. I later switched to European design from the 1920s and had much larger and broader selection of resources to use. I came across Art Deco (The movement of the time) which was very interesting to me. This resulted in my final topic being travel posters utilising Art Deco to efficiently advertise products and services. Grammar at the end was a slight challenge because I am not the best writer, but after working on it and using synonym finders I am happy with the outcome.
Overcoming the challenges
Finding a topic a was genuinely interested in boosted my motivation a lot and created a more positive environment for me to work in at home. In the later weeks coming to class and having that time to write and receive feedback really moved along my writing progress and allowed me to have a completed essay before it was due. This helped me not to stress about having nothing to submit when the time comes, and also allowed me to refine and improve from there.
The enjoyment
Exploring my origins and family history was really interesting. I learnt many things I hadn’t known and realised why some things are they way they are in my family. I found out about relatives i had never even heard of before and heard some really entertaining stories about a distant relative that had an exciting life. I also really enjoyed exploring the various styles and types of design in Art Deco. I really like the art movement and will definitely try replicate it myself in designs one day.
The Topic and Essay
My essay is about Art Deco advertising travel posters. Normally writing is not my skillset or hobby, but writing this essay was quite enjoying because it was something I was genuinely interested in and because it was encouraged to be from our own perspective and opinion. My final topic is quite far from what I originally started with. My first research start on South Africa in the 1920s because I picked my great grandfather for the first activity and wanted to use his love letters from 1925-1927. There was a lot of political agendas and things happening which is not really my interest but even then I was finding out new things i hadn’t known before. Unfortunately, not much of it related to design and I couldn’t find enough art and design resources from that time and location. I ended up looking into British art and design because South Africa was a British colony for a time and was quite influenced by British things. There was many more resources once switching location, and i stumbled across Art deco designs and styles. I really enjoyed the work I found from Ertè, most of which was fashion, cover designs, and posters. This led me to consider Europe as my location and posters as my media. I then came across many travel posters and enjoyed a few of the articles i read about ocean liner posters. I started to agree with some points they raised and decided i wanted to write about the travel posters of the 1920s that could have better incorporated Art Deco in order to successfully advertise their offers.
The End
I enjoyed this experience and will incorporate more research methods into my future projects to develop stronger arguments and reliable designs.
Thank you to those involved!