World Without Design

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…

On a dark and stormy night…

From bricks to billboards, From grams to grammies…

Okay, okay, enough, I’ll just spell it out in plain english…. today I had a group presentaton to present to my MA class. After spending a few weeks mulling around with weak ideas, the final deadline loomed large at all of us last Wednesday. That’s when Aga, Alvaro, Dimitri, Soo-Ah and myself began to buckle down and haul ass on producing some tangible work. Based on a prior set of three class readings we decided to compose our group presentation around the notion of what the world would look like without the influence of graphic design. So, in a super-hero kinda way, we decided to chronicle a day in the life of Soo-Ah, but photoshop out all the typical graphical elements she would encounter in her everyday life.

(by the way, our collective grouping was pre-assigned by the course tutors)

We spent practically 4 days with each other non-stop. And since we all hail from different parts of the globe respectively (Poland, Spain, Greece, USA, and Korea) each with different perspectives and design opinions, you can bet there were plenty of lively debates between us on how to present our project, and gather material for it. From Aga’s insistance to always going to the pub to stimulate our creativity, to getting lost to Soo-ah’s flat, to Alavro’s displeasure of being cast the “villian”, to Dimitiri’s challenging of some of our social design related considerations, to me and my big mouth in general, remarkably, we all worked really well with each other.

Now I won’t lie, we were all slackers in our own individual way. That was part of our bond, but ultimately we were determined to see the project through and make it as strong as possible. Even up to the morning of our presentation (we were the first of nine groups to present staring at 10:30am sharp!) we were rehearsing and finalizing our routine. There were plenty of jitters on everyone’s part, yet once we got up there it flowed really well. Alvaro, though not having the most to say, ended up stealing the show with his powerful delivery of his antagonistic lines to Soo-Ah.

One of the many funny moments while working on this project together was when we were scouting out a bar to shoot inside of at night for one of our scenes. As we made our way to one of the more secluded booths, one of the place’s staff members swiftly approached us and insisted we had to be willing to spend at least £100 if we wished to sit there and drink; needless to say we left the joint, since we didn’t really want to have to break our £500-pound note.

When it was over, a collective sigh of relief fell on all of us after the presentation. Not just for the fact that we were done with it, but also because it turned out so well! I really had a blast working with everyone and afterwards we celebrated over a couple of pints (as per Aga’s request ) down in the student union pub. And now that we’re finished with this part of it (we each still have to write a 2,000 word report on the project) I plan to catch up on some very much needed sleep….

You can view some pictures of our collaboration here:
set 1 | set 2 | set 3

Also, here’s some still shots from the presentation if you would like to view them.

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