OUGD405 - Studio Brief 02 - Group Crit

The main piece of feedback I received from this group crit was that I needed to focus the theme of my work on one clearly obscure fact, which linked directly to the calculator, rather than the idea of mathematics in general. After a brief explanation of some of my research, it was suggested that I take ideas from the tools used before the development of the electronic calculator, such as the slide rule. It was found that the slide rule helped NASA engineers send the man to the moon on the Apollo 11 moon mission and so I should create a piece of work based on this idea of space and the slightly obscure uses for such tools. The text images based on ascii art was well regarded and was said that I should continue their use within the next stage of my process towards my final design, whilst digging further into research of the graphic design technique. Rather than a zine, it was suggested that I produce a large-scale print of the moon using this technique and produce this within a grid created with the aid of a slide rule itself.

Another element of this idea that was well regarded were the prints on the front and back covers of the zine. It was said that I could develop this idea further and produce an independent zine featuring a variety of prints from the individual parts of various dismantled calculators and to explore the effects this may produce. However, initially, the pale pink colour of these cover pages was questioned, but after explanation it was considered as a good link towards coding and mathematics in relation to the calculator.

Feedback on my other mock-up and initial idea was that I also needed to give this more of an obscure element to make it more engaging. For example, one peer suggested that I only use inappropriate words, reminiscing on school days when students would create such words from the calculator. This would give the theme of the zine a slight twist in that it would be more of an urban dictionary than a regular one and make it more entertaining to flick through. If I were to continue this idea, I would also consider reducing the size of the text and making the images standardised throughout the booklet by either focusing directly onto the word from the calculator screen or ensure they are all of the same orientation and colour.