Distinction: The Chelsea Perspective

Project Summary

2008-06-06T03:21:00.001-07:00

Distinction
The Chelsea Perspective

A printed and digital compendium of the greatest
works and invaluable insights from the best
and brightest graduates of Chelsea's prestigious
BA Graphic Design Communication degree.

Twenty one graduates, excelling across the
spectrum of the graphics industry, share their
projects, opinions and advice on key issues within
the expanding field of graphic design today.

Commenting on Chelsea's curriculum and
educational philosophy, this book and Internet
resource aims to bridge the gap between
studentship and professional practice, by
transcending beyond mediocrity to distinction.

The intent is to offer alternative insights
to successful project development, and help
articulate the various methods of succeeding
in today’s diverse and competitive graphic
design industry.

Context

Graphic design has evolved significantly: Where once
the roles and responsibilities were distinct and divided,
the progression of technology has amalgamated these
once separate tasks, onto the single shoulders of the
modern day graphic designer.

This progression has prompted different opinions
on what should be taught on graphic design courses,
in the importance of idea conceptualisation versus
technical proficiency, and breadth over depth.

The project aims to indirectly highlight some of these
issues through the comments and opinions given by past
students, and provide alternative insights into the diverse
range of conceptual and technical skills required in the
expanding field of graphics; helping young designers to
transcend the gap from studentship to professionalism,
and from mediocrity to distinction.

Rationale

The skills and abilities required of a graphic designer vary
depending on the particular brief and the graphic specialism
it falls under. Where some of the dos and don'ts can be
simply taught and easily explained, many are believed to
be better learnt with examples, exposure and experience.

With Chelsea’s reputation for producing top quality work
and industry-ready graduates, there lies a tremendous
resource and opportunity to analyse the most successful
outcomes from the course and the reasons behind each
project’s inherent success. While anyone can give out
‘free’ advice, I believe that their validity rests on
who is giving them and how much they actually know
about what they are talking about.

The publication hopes to demystify aspects of the design
process to help improve a designer’s potential, while also
highlighting some of the inherent academic issues within
graphics, in the mixed opinions on what is important when
transcending to professional practice.

Wrapped & Ready

2008-06-05T16:23:00.000-07:00

Book & CD Finished

2008-06-05T08:12:00.000-07:00

Just got back from the binders. A huge thanks to Kat
at Wyvern, for taking photos during the binding process.
It's 3 cm fat - 24.5 x 19.5 cm. Nice and heavy in orange
'seudel' which like suede, changes shade as you run your
fingers along it. Sexy. My wrapping paper is sadly short
by 2 cm - a bit of an oversight on my part but on the
grand scheme of things - minor. So I'm off to the printers
again now to sort that out. Still need to take some last
photos, burn the CD and pack it all together for tomorrow.
With 12 hours to go, everything is looking peachy...

Website Finished

2008-06-03T16:34:00.000-07:00

The website is now finished, available
for download at the link below (30 MB -
includes book photos):

www.justinwolter.com/fmpsite.zip

Potentially still some changes to be made
if any of the interviewees feel necessary.

With not everyone having gotten back to me
regarding images being put online, I will not
be putting the site up live, until i have
everyone's permission. Don't want anyone
getting sued. I will be handing it in as a
stand-alone site on a CD along with the book...
which I'm going to wrap in this...

More Site Progress

2008-05-31T18:15:00.000-07:00

Have all of the content in. Still have a few bits
of formatting issues to fix. Also, deciding whether
to put in a flash title bar for those who have the
plug-in. Thinking about what would be cool and
not too intrusive/annoying...

Initial Site Progress

2008-05-30T16:57:00.000-07:00

Some screenshots of the site so far. Keeping it
relatively simple as i don't see any reason to put
any bells and whistles that would detract from the
content. Its looking a little empty on the right
because of my wide-screen and resolution. Also
need to start adding in the images (at least the
ones I know I'm allowed to use). More to come...

Printed & Folded

2008-05-29T09:31:00.000-07:00

Picked up all the spreads from the printers yesterday
and spent about an hour checking and folding them into
sections. Brought them to the binders today and confirmed
all the materials - will be ready on Thursday, the day
before hand-in. The book is out of my hands as of now.
A bit worrying yet somewhat relieved...

With one week left, and only aspects of presentation to
worry about, I'm going to be pushing the idea of this
project being a helping resource - by putting it online.
While on the one hand, i feel it takes away from the singular
'special-ness' of the book in being a one-off, i feel that
if the original premise is really about helping others, then
the internet would be the most beneficial way of going
about this, 'in spreading the word'.

I'm still waiting for some of the graduates to get back to
me regarding any images/content that they don't want up
online, for whatever legal or personal reasons. So with the
final week to go, its all going digital...

Progress Update

2008-05-24T13:42:00.000-07:00

Finished all of the pages and gave them to the
printers on Friday. Bank holiday monday kind of
snuck up on me and altered my plans a little,
but everything is on schedule. All 224 pages in
screen quality are up on:

www.justinwolter.com/book_spreads.pdf

I'm thinking about how I can push this project
even further, and am waiting for the interviewees
to get back to me. There a couple of 'dead' days
when the book is out of my hands, which I want
to spend a bit more productively.

I still have the cover and end pages to work on,
as well as the blurb. Hopefully everything goes
smoothly at the binders. I intend to take photos,
so more progress to come soon!

Here are some statistics, as to what went into
getting all the content over the last 10 weeks:

>5 hours of voice-recorded interviews
>350 emails
>7GB of acquired files
>30 phone calls
>40 text messages
>500 questions asked
>40000 words

More Visuals

2008-05-17T07:31:00.000-07:00

Preliminary Visuals

2008-05-13T11:03:00.000-07:00

Some preliminary visuals, cover, end-pages and mock-up pages. Obvious placeholder text and some layout variations. Thinking of changing a couple of things still…

Featured Graduates

2008-04-27T14:47:00.000-07:00

1. Linda Callenholt
2. Fredrik Castberg
3. Peter Cutler
4. Anna Fidalgo
5. Alex Geoffrey
6. Simon Hughes
7. Aleister Kelman
8. Leif Lovgreen
9. Cristina Martinez
10. Andreas Neophytou
11. Anna Odell
12. Ray O'Meara
13. Pedro Proença
14. Lisa Rahman
15. Anna Rhodes
16. Jeffrey Shield
17. Tim Smyllie
18. Ravi Sohanpal
19. George Tsioutsias
20. Thorsten Ulbrich
21. Joanna Zhou

Initial Thoughts

2008-02-29T18:00:00.000-08:00

I've been trying to work out a gameplan for my FMP, and have alot of different issues to reconcile, mainly in defining the parameters, approach and content. As a result, i need to ramble a bit to help organise my thoughts on paper (or online in this case)

As mentioned, the intent of my book is to help and inform graphic students to become better graphic designers, through the comments made to successful outcomes to projects. I want the outcome to work towards bridging the gap between studentship and professional practice, and comment on the inherent issues involved.

I need to think about the best way to achieve this. Firstly, i intend to approach Frank (and perhaps Nigel) regarding design education, to familarise myself with the concerns on this issue, which would definately help me decide on the questions/content.

However, before doing that, i need to refine my project a bit more.

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Im trying to imagine what 'I' would want out of the book, being part of the target audience im aiming to help. I need to start making decisions on certain things to narrow down my options. Any comments on any of these points would be greatly appreciated:

1. I want to showcase successful outcomes to various graphic design briefs covered in Chelsea. I am deciding whether to base this on:

-The highest grade awarded for different briefs in level 3
-The highest grade awarded to first class honours students and their FMP.

The first one would provide a selection of work with different scales i.e. 1 week projects as well as 16 week FMPs giving a variety of briefs and accurately reflecting this range in the professional industry.

On the other hand, the latter would have more emphasis on large-scale projects, but perhaps more importantly, it increases the likelihood that the graduate is successful and in the industry, thus potentially making their comments more valid (compared to a one-off fluke success from a student who is no longer in the design industry)

This concern leads me to considering whos comments actually matter, and would too many 'cooks' make the project more about the individual and less about the nature of the work.

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2. On a large level, i believe that a students comments on their own work is useful/interesting in determining how they went about the project. It would provide a personal perspective that a professional wouldnt be able to give. However, having said that, i think that hearing the comments from more experienced designers would be more beneficial. Im thinking about perhaps including both aspects?

However, this issue then raises another set of concerns: I feel that people will be more willing to talk about their own work rather than others (with the generalisation that all good designers are a bit narcissistic). I can imagine that there is very little incentive for a professional designer to make time to give constructive feedback on an ex-students project. At least less of an incentive than a student talking about their own work, or alternatively a professional talking about their own work.

Which then, leads me to another concern:

In considering maybe to include the degree work of the professionals i contact, although there is no guarantee that their work back then is first class material, and it also drifts away from the element of studentship and Chelsea-ness that i want to include.

Another idea is to use the comments made by tutors during assessments, which are probably filed away somewhere containing all the notes and justification of grades. However, i dont imagine these to be very verbose, and i feel it might be too much of a dominant theme (assuming that most of the comments are made by Geoff, and although im sure entirely true and valid, becomes a little too much about him)

Having said that, i dont want to dismiss his comments entirely, considering that as a tutor and with a PHD, i imagine him to be more articulate in describing what exactly makes a project successful, perhaps more so than many professionals in the industry. I need to think about this point more.

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3. I feel that for the book to have a wow factor and provoke interest, it would have to largely promote the concept of 'success' and in some sense, elitism. In that respect i think it would be largely beneficial to have comments from professional designers (at any level of involvement) - big potatoes in the industry, whose comments would be highly prized in the eyes of a design student.

However, i have not entirely decided as to the relationship/ connection of these professionals and the work... They would ofcourse have to have alot of industry experience related to the field of the particular project, however id ideally want them to have a stronger tie and reasoning for choosing them.

For example, if i were to showcase a D&AD book winning project, then the comments from Andy Stevens would have more impact, in being a judge.

As Geoff kindly offered to give me appropriate contacts, i will need to see who they are before deciding on this issue.

4. I also need to think about the scale of the content, which then also affects the title and general approach. I need the book to be quite substantial and not look too thin, while also not making it too difficult or ambitious, as the biggest factor outside of my control is the participation and response of the people i contact (which is what the whole project rests on).

Im deciding between:

-Top 20 projects
-Top 20 FMPs
-Top 20 graduates

Im not sure if 20 is enough, but any less and it wouldnt sound that impressive, although i suppose i could always omit mentioning it. I will need to see my response rate first - If it goes smoothly i could always do more.

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5. I want to include a range of work that falls under the category of graphic design (which covers quite a bit). However, im not too keen on labelling a project so concretely in saying for example that its purely illustration, or purely typography. I suppose i can deal with this and how to organise/select the projects, once i find out what i have to work with.

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6. I think it would be interesting to include the marks given to each project (assuming the people i contact are ok with this). I find it interesting in the sense that it appeals to grade-hungry students who care alot about their marks, but also it comments on the (funny) idea of quantifying a largely subjective and qualitative topic. It could also work as a reference point in discussing successful features and their bearing on the mark.

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7. I need to think about how to approach the people i contact to maximise their willingness to help. It would also be wise to have a few contingency plans considering the reliance on others.

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8. Im thinking about getting comments from the people i contact, that dont necessarily relate directly to the brief in question but still relates to the industry.

i.e. it might be interesting to know the designer's favourite piece of design, or the typeface they most like to use. Perhaps more substantially, ask them them about their approach to their current work, the role of their current position or advice to graphic design students on certain matters.