Getting ready for final critique

The critique will begin at 3:06 sharp
If you arrive after that time, your project is late. If you are “assembling” after that time, your project is also late. (Never fear — this is not the end of the world, but it will result in lowered points for the project grade.)

If you are significantly beyond this time, it is likely you will not be able to present your work to the class. Please do not continue assembly after the critique begins — this is worse than simply being late, as now you are disturbing the rest of the class.

Please note, even with the full class time, we may not be able to critique every piece — some work may be discussed in the following class. All work will nevertheless be collected at the close of the time. Missing the second day of crit (because your work was already discussed) will adversely impact your project grade.

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For this project, you will need to “mount” your work on black board, black foam core, or black poster board.

It is your choice whether you want to leave a “border” of black around the outside edge of your poster, or whether you would like to have the border trimmed off for a flush presentation.
With a border, your work might look like this

This is your friend:

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Feel free to “tile” your work, if you like, or have it printed professionally (see Design Resources & Tools page in CI Learn for printing options). Remember to think about paper quality.

If you decide to tile — make the presentation impeccably clean! Here are some tips:

• Trim all “white” margins out;
• the poster should look perfectly intact (even though it is made from multiple pieces).
• The board itself should be cut cleanly and no tiles coming unglued.
• Please no tape on the printed side of your pages. This looks terrible and unprofessional (double-sided tape is your friend here).

The mounting board should help you in the tiling process because you can “affix” the pages one-by-one to the board. View project 01 Wrap-Up if you need a refresher on tiling.

If you have questions on tiling send me an email and I’ll try to help!

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Before you arrive, prepare something to say. Take a look at your work — really, look at it, what have you achieved? What were your goals? What is working well? What is not working well?

In design, we must contend with the fact that everything you do should have a reason behind it. In other words, at any time, we can ask “why” you chose to do something. The answer should be more than “I don’t know,” or “I thought it looked cool.”

It’s okay for things to “look cool,” but as a designer, this will not carry weight. Think about your work — think about your decisions. WHY might something look cool? If you can answer this, then you are really thinking as a designer.

On a technical note, one thing I will be looking for is how diverse your materials have been — how creative you have been with your scanned materials. There is still time to get more elements, so if necessary — start scanning!

Finally, be ready to discuss your ideas about composition, scale, eye movement, and dynamic size relationships.
Good luck!