My advice for anyone that's trying to maximize their learning or at least get a good grade is to constantly be talking to your teacher. Having a continuous conversation throughout the quarter is a great way to get the most out of your learning experience.
I was really upset with the instructor because I felt like I had been tricked into the wrong path. I was actually ready to send her an angry email bitching her out. But instead I went for a 3 mile run.
Boy did that make a difference in my mood.
Note to self: Don't make decision right after work where you've been cooped up inside for 8 hours.
I revised my original hate letter and turned it into this.
Hello Jenny,
First of all I want to start by apologizing if I may have been a little rude and/or uncomfortable to have in class yesterday.
I was really upset and angry about how my "final project" turned out.
After seeing how awesome some of the other classmates projects turned out, I couldn't help but imagine how much better my own project could've been had I not followed your guidance to go more abstract.
I went so abstract that nobody understood what my project even was. And frankly I was pretty embarrassed by what I presented. It looked like I barely even put any effort into it. :(
I know you meant well and maybe if we had a longer timetable, we could've gone back and forth more.
All I'm asking is that I continue to work on this project and get some more iterations so I can put something I'm proud of in my portfolio.
I take a lot of pride in my work and whatever I produce to the world and truly desire to understand the world of design as well as you do.
-Ted
That's much better.
You don't really get what you want by being angry.
I did express my discontent however this letter isn't screaming at you like my other "deleted" one did.
And of course a letter like the one I sent gets a pleasant letter back like this one.
Hi Ted,
The only thing that was uncomfortable for me was the time limitations, which are hard to keep equitable for everyone, and it doesn’t always end up even, unfortunately. Usually it does even out in the long run.
This first project can be really tricky as we’re all just getting used to the framework of the class. And abstraction is HARD. But your desire to re-work and keep at this design “problem” is a good one. Yes, continue to work, and I’d be glad to offer more feedback as well.
As for the guidance I gave, I believe I suggested trying a word (like merge or fuse) because it could potentially have a more tangible aspect to it than “jolt” which is all about electricity. The direction I was trying to lead you toward (without coming right out and saying it) is that merging can suggest the merging of traffic, or merging buckets of paint that mix and combine colors, or merging in the sense of a compromise between two parties that have visual differences. When you went toward the idea of fusion on an atomic level, which is what I *think* you were describing, it became a bit more dependent on theoretical events rather than events that anyone can witness in their everyday life.
So, I believe that what happened to make your message less than crystal clear is that even though just ONE of those yellow double-bubble shapes actually looks a LOT like two separate entities fusing together, the fact that there were TWO of them symmetrically opposed to each other in the frame, made our brains want to cast them in the role of two characters. There’s not much tension between two elements that have already fused together; there’s a lot of tension (visually) between things that are not quite touching — so our attention was drawn to the energy zapping between those two opposing elements, rather than where you wanted us to focus, which was at the point of fusion. If your point of fusion is the ONLY place where two are glommed together, and there are a bunch of free-floating singles out there, then we’ll notice the one place that’s definitely DIFFERENT (i.e. the glommed together one.) and THEN we’re likely to get the message that what’s happening is fusion, or joining of some kind. The white circle in the middle was also a bit misleading, as it was a different color and smaller, so it appeared to be bridging the gap as some kind of other material, rather than as the output from a prior fusion event. In the end, even if your theory is sound, you still have to do beta testing and see if it works in the practical world. That means show to your friends, neighbors, cat, etc. and talk through it with them.
What did work was the dynamic color choice, the sense of depth, and the careful crafting — it is clear to me that you spent a lot of time thinking about this; it did not look like a no-effort job at all. So now, you just have to take a breath, cut yourself some slack, and then dive back in!
See you next week,
Jenny
I'm pretty fucking determined to get this design thing down.
It's been way too elusive.
Back to the drawing board.
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