Charette Reflection

The past two weeks were stressful, in more ways than one. Developing a brand, with multi-touchpoints with little to no time to evaluate the full scope of them was a lot. I felt as if our groups’ design process couldn’t become fully developed as we wanted it to because there was a sense of urgency. Yes, these touchpoints were not supposed to be fully developed as stated multiple times in discussions, but I did not get that feeling after presentations. As a group, getting a topic provided was also a struggle, but it provided a sense of structure. However, I do believe that since one of the topics was a theoretical trail it made it more difficult to answer concrete questions related directly to it. This is where I felt our group had a moment to step out of the “Durham Beltline” strict trail and design in other ways. Group projects are never easy, especially when you have three going on at the same time in all of your studios. It’s hard to find time for every single group and make every single project great.

However, I believe our group did a great job with meeting multiple times and figuring out the direction we wanted our project to take. Yes, it took many discussions to trim out the unnecessary parts, but we moved past that and focused in on what we wanted to do. I think we accomplished what we wanted to do in the time we were allotted.

I envision this experience will help me work better in teams for the future because it brings together different-minded people working on an assigned project. It will also help to give me a better idea of a “making process” instead of thinking too in depth when deadlines do not allow an in-depth research time frame. This project will also allow for new ways of working since there were no required touchpoints, and it was all up to us it allowed for the group to create more necessities rather than fluff. It also will set a guideline for how to work better in groups in the future. Everyone in our group contributed in different ways, making different things. All of us helped with the very in depth research part that went into understanding the trail. I studied multiple websites, listened to every proposal video there was and took in depth notes to help relay core ideas. We broke off with the touchpoints, where I created the promotional aspect (Instagram, t-shirts) and created the final slide show presentation. I did what I was asked to do and offered to help multiple times with the other touchpoints.

Working in groups helped to improve the level of quality in the deliverables because the motivation to do your best for your team was there. Especially in a project under these circumstances where you have the same topic as other groups, it makes you want to do your best work. I don’t know if working in groups benefited focus or concentration except for the fact that you had limited time to work together so that might have helped improve the quality of focus.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B1ybPggY3GIYX3BXbF9UU3lWR1E

-Sydney