Critical Report
I was. bit nervous going into the report but once I started writing I realised I had already done the hard bit - all of the research! I planned it out logically and came up with the following structure -
With this I wrote my first draft according to the plan which you can see below.
This went well however I realised it was more logical and lacked heart. I spoke to Ben about this and he reminded me that design is about sensation, not always logical thought. The general structure was fine and followed on nicely however the religion section was far too sanitised. It lacked the linking of ideas to truly analyse the information I was looking at. I decided to restructure this section entirely, weaving the ideas into each other allowing me to compare them more closely.
I also realised at this point how useless my research on memory retention and forgetting. I was trying to objectively analyse a subjective topic. This is about feelings and sensation, not about scientific memory research, I decided to make a bold move and add in a conclusion to this section stating exactly that - that the last 1500 words were essentially useless. I think this is a bit of a risk but one I am willing to take, there is truth behind it and the analysis of this helped me understand its futility.
My second draft I think was better, it delved deeper into the subject of grief and, as Ben said, was more poetic. I used emotions more and kept reminding myself, and the reader, that grief is a personal thing that is impossible to objectively look at.
I was definitely happier with my second draft version. Although I did actually write 6500 words and had to massively cut it down! The next step was to design my report. I decided to go with the PDF design for my report as it's simple, clean effective. The most important thing here is the information.
Summary
I actually enjoyed this a lot more than I originally thought and I was pleased with my final submission. I do wish I had slightly more time to edit more and make sure my conclusions were as thorough as they could be but time is something we always need more of. Quite apt for this project really!
The critical report came at the perfect time in this project - it allowed me to re evaluate my research and make sure my design development so far is on the right track. Looking deeply into all the work I had done so far made me realise I am on the right track and the zoetrope design I am currently working on fits into the remit of grief really well.
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