Charette Reflection

Constraints
There were a few constraints on this project that affected it greatly. The biggest one was the timeframe. Two weeks to decide on a problem, research, create a solution, design it, and document the process was quite a daunting task. Due to the short amount of time we had, I feel like we struggled to balance research and actual design work. I feel like I personally got really caught up in the research phase and did not allow for enough time to actually design. Having our topics chosen for us was another constraint. It was inconvenient that the topic chosen for me was in Durham. But beneficial in that it was something different that I would not have chosen myself, which pushed me to think about new things. Another constraint was working in groups. It was difficult finding times outside of class when we could all meet to do work.

 

Opportunity
I think this project was a good experience for me in many ways. First of all, it was helpful for me to work in this group. I have worked in groups before but usually they’ve been groups I have chosen myself. I think it was good for me to work with new people because I got to see the different ways people think and work through problems. Also, working with a new group of people helped me realize that at times I will have to play different roles in projects. It helped me understand when I need to step up and be a leader versus when I need to step back and take instruction, allowing others to lead.

Application
Though there were some pain-points, I would say that working in a group was overall helpful for productivity, focus and concentration. First of all, I felt more productive due to the sheer number of hands working on the project. Obviously more got done than if I had tried to tackle the project on my own. Furthermore, I was more motivated to complete things in a timely manner because I did not want to let my teammates down. Another benefit of group work was that it allowed me to focus on just one part at a time, rather than the entire system. But at times it was also distracting. Because we were working in a group there was more going on than there would have been had it been an individual project. This made me preoccupied with what everyone else was doing and making sure it worked as a system instead of just focusing on my part. Another issue, when working in a group, was that decision making took longer and there was a bit more deliberation between us. This probably helped us make better decisions, but it certainly took longer as well. Another slight problem was that at times, we all had to wait on each other to finish one part of the project before we could move forward with the next step. But at the end of the day, working in a group definitely helped the quality of our end deliverables. There is no way I could have finished all of that by myself.

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

Charette | Reflection – Nick Hyde

This design charette experience was definitely different from our usual projects and workflow. Having only two weeks to work through an entire design intervention had both positive and negative impacts on our process. It greatly accelerated the rate at which we ideated and made decisions on things, having to commit to our best idea so that we would have enough time to be able to create all of the individual parts and pieces of our solution. I was really surprised by how much we’re all capable of producing in this amount of time that actually has substance to it. This condensed design method seems like it could be a useful tool in the future in some ways. By having the topic provided to us, I think it helped us hone in on where we needed to be a lot sooner, significantly cutting down our period of ideation. However, it also made it seem like we were all trying to avoid having similar solutions as other groups which may have pushed us in unintended directions. The group aspect of this project was possibly the most complicated part of it all. I for one, enjoy working with other passionate designers, it allows us to reach heights that would be unattainable working on our own. The downside is trying to coordinate our work schedules, especially when we have different groups for two other classes going on simultaneously. This really complicated things when we would try to equally distribute work and move forward in the design process.

I think this experience will inform my future endeavors in several ways. When it comes to working in teams, I think it’s critically important to be upfront about how much time should be set aside for a specific project and make sure every member is committed to doing just that. Assessing every member’s varying strengths and weaknesses is also an important aspect and can lead to better distribution of roles and workload. When it comes to focused design challenges like this, I think the greatest future advice would be to constantly recenter and reassess yourselves. It seems easy to quickly become overwhelmed or sidetracked when working on a project of this scale in such a short amount of time. By continually reevaluating the goals and core concepts of a project it could prevent these things form happening. So just remember to take a step back and intermittently notice the overall form your solutions start to take.

Collaborating as a team definitely keeps you motivated and focused. You feel obligated to work as hard as possible so that you don’t let your team down, especially when specific tasks are assigned to you. It also allows for a more diverse selection of ideas and access to varied ways of thinking, however, this can be a double-edged sword. It is crucial to “trim the fat” when it comes to narrowing down these ideas as it is possible to have too many parts or variations. This can end up making your design intervention more convoluted than focused. However, I think we still did a great job when it came to synthesizing our ideas to reach a plausible solution. I think we may have ended up a little astray when it came to the order in which we presented all of the components of our solution, but I still think the substance was there. I think if the final presentation was simply a mid-critique and we had more time to work on this, we would reevaluate how our current solution aligned with that of the original prompt and reordered how we presented everything. By reiterating how everything would start at the trail with the way finding system and then radiate outwards into these future possibilities, our intervention would appear much more appropriate.

For this project I was responsible for the website mockup, producing the video, and creating the core brand identity. I also did my best to keep the group on task and organized in order to keep us moving forward, ensuring everyone had a part to play. I wanted to make sure everyone felt engaged and was contributing as equally as possible.

 

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