Postgraduate Shows: London College of Communication

The culmination of another term-and another academic year- has reached us.

I still have engraved in my memory how my first day as a postgraduate student went; from the alarm I set (probably a little too late), the breakfast I had and the clothes I wore; the uncertainty and excitement all mixed and overshadowed by the disbelief that I had actually joined the Masters I had always dreamed of. A dream that soon will be transformed into the eternal what next? question.

And that question came too fast, as this week we saw the culmination of our postgraduate degrees at the London College of Communication Showcase. Open from November 20^th until the 24^th, students from the design school including:  MA Design for Art Direction, MA Design for Data Visualisation, MA Design for Social Innovation and Sustainable Futures, MA Graphic Media Design, MA Illustration and Visual Media, MA Service Design, and MA User Experience Design had the opportunity to display the work produced as part of their Final Major Projects.

Having had the privilege of being part of the MA Design for Art Direction cohort helped me in gaining a better insight of what actually goes on at the exhibitions. Previously, I had attended as an spectator and admirer. But now, I am glad I experienced it all, from stressful deadlines to unexpected leaks and a lot of team effort.

For our program, students were assigned the task to plan the logistics of the space, which meant coordinating a class of almost 60 students to understand the requirements of each project. Technical, spatial, especial requirements…each project’s uniqueness had to align with the next one.

As art directors perhaps this was aligned with what we have learned throughout the year; and by finding creative solutions and compromising when needed, we managed to curate a successful space aimed at rewarding everyone for their hard efforts in their final projects.

And the range was as diverse as one could hope for a design program.

Lehr is a an audio-visual installation by Marium Jamal, that explores the intersection of classical music and contemporary digital technologies. At its center is an interactive violin, an instrument that reflects her artistic practice and symbolizes the hybridity between classical and modern.

Attendees were encouraged to interact with the piece, able to see the notes they played in the violin coming up on the screen.

Being an art director means absorbing constant creative input from different mediums and from others, being open to collaborations and reinterpretation. A notion that was perfectly encapsulates in this project.

Stray Stories, my final major project, is a stop motion proposal about stray cats and dogs in Mexico City. Art Direction is a medium that enables us to stretch the boundaries of storytelling, by aligning different elements to a project’s identity. This is something that felt pertinent to explore for the final project, and to get a taste of how to solve briefs in a professional setting, where the unexpected becomes the norm.

In the Upper Gallery at London College of Communication, students from MA User Experience Design had a brilliant display encompassing proposals that test the user role in games, interfaces, and help us reflect on the importance of crafting an ideate experiences that allows users to feel welcome and to help them integrate with a product.

A recurring theme was sustainability and reconciling our relationship with nature and our environment. A major issue in today’s society, and it is inspiring to witness how students have chosen to understand and represent this problematic. Certainly, they have innovated in new ways that are engaging, entertaining and resourceful, thus offering users the chance to acknowledge any necessary steps or actions needed for  a more sustainable lifestyle and awareness.

Bonding Flame (above) is a collaborative project which celebrates the Chinese tradition of passing on stories to others, and in this setting, around fire. To play the game, users need to draw a ‘memory trigger’, which will initiate a conversation and help them in telling a story from their own experience. They can also change the background to their preference.

Visiting the exhibition for MA Design for Data Visualization allowed me to better understand the role design has to map ideas and make sense of themes that may not always be perceived as a part of a creative role. But visualizing data and the ability to make it approachable through intricate, fun, and educational mediums, is a very important task to bridge the gap between what may seem as more ‘technical’ with the creative and expressive.

Outline is a publication based on interviews with housewives by Yinqing Zhao. The book is a parallelism to the repetitiveness of housework and how some women have come to be trapped in this role. This project reminds us that data is not just about numbers, but also about shared and mutual experiences and collective gathering of events.

Walking amongst these projects felt like a lesson, a powerful one, of all the possibilities and ramifications in design; and ultimately a rediscovery of what it means to be part of the design school. A combination of research-based creative proposals that explore pressing issues; expressions to understand the world around us; innovative solutions; bold graphics; experimental programming and powerful storytelling.

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