In this weeks seminar Rob formally introduced us to the essay brief.
He explained that it was split into two parts, a textual aspect where we were to write 2,500 words, and a second half which is the visual appendix which should be the equivalent of 2,500 words.
There is to be a formative assessment stage, which requires a 800 word draft to be submitted by the 17th of December.
Rob went on to then say that the intro should be around 500 to 600 words, and the main points of the essay and a brief conclusion should all be included in this opening stanza. And at the end, the 300(ish) word conclusion should answer any lingering questions that weren't answered or were raised during the course of the essay.
This would all then need referencing, both visual and textual references, and putting into a APA 6th Formatted bibliography.
The visual appendix is of equal weighting to the textual aspect, and should be a practice based response to the ideas, theories, histories or concepts raised in the essay. This means that the visual appendix should be our own work, and shouldn't all be a direct illustration of the essay.
Rob gave us the chance to write down some ideas for our essays, based on what we found interesting or inspiring, and these are some of my notes;
I thought about doing it around Harry Beck's tube map of 1933, because I find it really interesting and inspiring because it was revolutionary at the time, due to its none geographic representation of the stations on the Underground. Instead it was much more visually interesting as it only used straight lines and spaced out the stations at equal distances where possible, the rationale behind this was that when you're underground most people didnt care for knowing the the relative distances between the stations, mainly just which stop was next or how many stops were between them and their desired destination.
His use of colour was also revolutionary because of the clear/uncoloured background with the differently coloured lines.
His idea was obviously a good one as this has been copied all over the world and is still in use today.
Was this the start of infographics/abstract representations?
How has the aesthetic being updated?
Travel Maps? Infographics?
What else can the style be applied to?
Need to find an approach to analyse the objects/subjects.
