[archived from: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/mccu0154/mugwump/2006/05/albert_nobbs_display_case.html]
As it turns out, not only am I bad at aligning a camera for shooting my work, but the lens of my six year old digital camera is awful. Parallax? What parallax? I love when parallel lines converge! Augh. I need to purchase a tripod and a new camera. Some way to shoot out inconveniently placed lights in hallways would be good too.
Describe your ideation + brainstorming process on this project:
The display is all about the ideation. I knew the client wanted a large version of the poster and sketches, but I had to figure out the most effective arrangement. I taped out the shape of the display on my floor and moved the pieces around trying to find a workable overall composition.
What issues came up as you interviewed your client?
My original design had way too many pieces, and the client pointed out many of the posters had only vague differences. I also lacked a chronology, so the pieces were more thrown together than they needed to be. The choice to limit my roughs and place them from loosest to more refined served the concept well.
You were asked to generate two different approaches to the showcase design…what were they?
I had to choose between mounting everything onto one giant piece of foamcore, mounting every piece by itself, or by tacking everything up individually. I had wanted to mount everything onto foamcore but realized mounted roughs made little sense and would take forever.
What issues came up as you began to plan + work with materials?
The large format printer in the VDIL is not nearly as fancy as one would expect. Problems printing from Illustrator arose, which lead to the creation of a 300 megabye tiff for the final enlarged image. A previous failed print revealed my tiling background had seams, so I had to hand erase the lines in the giant tiff file.
Evaluate the success of the concept and the craft of your finished showcase:
The end product hangs together very well. I set the design brief in the same typeface as my final poster, and the ransom-esque title “IDEATION?” uses wood type letters present in all of the designs. By working with the available pins and tacks I reinforced the idea of a “rough”? The giant mounted poster also provides an amazing contrast. By having a complete design process, someone can go from a mess of construction paper and white-out to a clean finished piece grounded in meaning. I think design choices done only for form are a cop-out, so I was glad to have a functional reason for my materials and layout.