GD crit... last week

I realise that i haven't blogged about my meeting with Emma, the graphic design student, last week... Emma was the one person out of the whole MA and 3rd & 4th year undergrad graphic design who actually got back to me regarding the crit I proposed. I mention this, not to suggest that more people should have got back to me, though that would have been nice, but to highlight the fact that Emma did. It is a busy time of year and it is asking a lot of people to give over time and effort to someone they don't know... this is what Emma did do and I am thankful to her for this...


Obviously, due to the small number of participants, (2), this meeting could no longer be the group crit I had originally proposed/envisaged. Instead we met in my studio for a more informal conversational tutorial.


One thing that struck me as interesting was Emma's clear idea of what a document should do. It was her opinion that while my posters did a good job of 'promoting' the work, the line drawings did not 'document' the work. For Emma a document should capture as much of the essence of the thing being documented as possible and she felt the line drawings killed that essence.


when I suggested that the posters were not 'of' the performance and therefore, the drawings were perhaps more truthful than photographs, as neither really presents the work, Emma suggested that in order to point out that they weren't the work, the posters would be better presenting as much information of the performance as possible, so the spectator knows what the work is from the document and can see that the document itself is separate... (not my finest sentence ever but I think it makes some sense...) 


I did enjoy this chat/tutorial and I hope to repeat it somewhere down the line. If nothing else it highlighted some differences in the approach of a design student compared to an artist... but this chat was useful and I have lots of ideas... the lines drawings are here to stay though... for now...