PPD4 - End of Year Show

The show is important to me because it is my final bit of work and it will also be showcased to the public. The difference between this and a normal end of project, is the work will be critiqued by at least 100 more people than it usually is, people who don’t already know my skills and weaknesses so this will be a first impression on them and they are going into it with a completely open mind not knowing what to expect. In some cases this can be the best way to find opinions out about your work because people don’t know who you are so they should be completely honest so you are then getting genuine feedback and also the size pool of the feedback is going to be much greater meaning again that you’ll get a better idea of where your strengths are and where you need to improve.

The end of year show is aimed at a variety of people. To begin with, there are the friends and family of the people showcasing their work. Then there will be people related to the college itself, whether that be other teachers, principals or governors, they all get invited. However most important are the people you want to impress and show your work off to. These people are usually the people from the places you want to go after the course, so it could be a future employer or another tutor from a university for the course you’re going to be going onto or it could just be a local architect you want to come and look at your work and get some professional feedback from. But the people you invite will always range from those closest to you to those you don’t know yet, however the end of year show is always a great way to meet people in certain professions which you’re interested in and establish a connection with them because you never know when its going to come in handy.

Used visual merchandising experience from work as opposed to exhibitions, in many ways the concept is the same, presenting the shop window and the artwork for exhibitions are very similar. Very inapt and are aimed at making people stop and look. Retail outlets want people to come in and buy, design students want people to stop, look and look closer at their work and enquire who the artist is.

Use of light in the exhibition or lack of it. No artificial lighting as there was a plentiful supply of natural light in the building which is cleaner and healthier for people in the building.

By mounting the work onto foam board, it makes the work look more professional than just mounting it onto the boards on the paper. Similar to how artists have a large frame or canvas on their work, giving it depth and making it stand out against the wall.

Annotations;

Although we went with a spot theme with a brief bio, there wasn’t any contact information attached to this which could have been disadvantage however on my design sheets, my email address is on them. The work itself could have had more information on to give the viewers a wider understanding of the work itself.

My exhibition was arranged so that the strongest selection of work was placed on my left board as this was the first board of mine people would see upon entering the exhibition. I can relate this to my experience merchandising at work as you want your strongest sellers to be in a prime location which will catch the customer’s eyes the most and draw the most attention which is what you want from your work, you want to catch the eye when they walk by which is why you lead with the stronger bit of work.

I used a model which I created using the laser cutter to enhance my exhibition. What this did is it allowed people to see my work in their 2D form through my CAD visuals and then get a more detailed look at it in the 3D model. I feel that giving them the option to see a 3D representation of the design helps them to visualise it themselves as opposed to just looking at the work produced on sketchup.

At the beginning of the year I created an architecture brand called Neoteric Architecture, and this will be shown on my work. It won’t be on all of my work but the biggest pieces will be on my border which will have my logo, name and contact details on. This is a good idea to be used in the end of year show because it gives you an identity other than just your name and by using brand identity throughout your work it will give people a sense of what you’re about through your brand identity.

The work I will select to go up will be the work which I feel is my strongest and what I feel most confident with. Looking over my work, I believe that this is my last two pieces of work, the shopping centre which I did for spatial design as it was my first large scale design and I feel like it was one of my most innovative design as opposed to them being more practical. The other work I will put up is my most recent design, which I did for contemporary and contextual design. All of my work selected will be mounted on foam board. What I like about this is the fact it’s such a simple and easy thing to do, yet when the work is displayed it makes it look far more professional than if it was just mounted on the paper.

I shall be dressed in smart casual attire. This is because I don’t think the theme we have gone with and the size of the even warrants a full suit for example, so by wearing jeans and a casual shirt with a blazer and shoes, it creates the perfect balance which is ideal for the end of year show. I shall try to position myself along the corridor so that if anybody that is viewing the show would like to ask any questions about my work or speak to me, then I shall be no more than a few meters away and therefore be ready to interact as much as possible with the guests that are at the show.