PSA Today: Team Design
Beginning the Design Process
This week you will use the tools you have developed in the Unit 2 Learning Experience and Introductory Project to begin ideation, sketching, and prototyping for your group’s PSA. You have already done significant precedent and design research in PSAnalysis and through The Power of Animation. You will now hone and synthesize this information and develop concepts through the next stages of the Catalyst Process, mirroring what you are teaching in the Student Mini Projects.
First we will review the following components of the Catalyst Process:
Conceptual Inquisry/Brainstorming
Design Research
Precedents
Sketching
Initial Prototyping
Then you will work through the process together within your groups, posting as comments in your group workspaces. If you feel like you have a firm handle on the process, you can jump straight to the tasks for the week.
Catalyst Process Components
Conceptual Inquiry/Brainstorming
Brainstorming forms the foundation for student projects and is approached through supporting the fecundity of ideas through a deep commitment to non-linear collaborative idea development. There are three moments or stages of brainstorming, Initial (individual or informal small group), Class (collective) and Collaborative (team project.)
Initial brainstorming is the students’ first opportunity to ideate on the presented project theme based on the Framing discussion. At this stage, students are encouraged to quickly develop an extensive collection of ideas around both the problems they wish to address given the project context AND initial solutions for those problems from the mundane to the preposterous.
Informal conceptual inquiry and initial research on the topic and context happen here, and this is an opportunity for students to personally connect to the broader ideas. Educators and mentors support students in developing a wide range of ideas that make broad connections and are both specific and thematic with a focus on limiting self-editing. This stage is often associated with sketching and a discussion of precedents in which students provide supporting information for each idea in the form of a precedent, a sketch, and a brief written description of the idea. This stage can also be done in informal, self-defined groups.
Class (collective) brainstorming is a mediated discussion in which the goal is to draw out and classify student ideas, develop the concepts with educator and mentor direction, identify ideas of high potential for both engagement and content, and establish student teams based on shared interest. This phase often begins with students presenting the results of their Informal initial brainstorming. This is also an opportunity for educators to share the criterion they will be using to critique the ideas within the context of student generated ideas, and aligned with the project framing. Critics can subtly elevate strong ideas through inclusive discussion, to downplay ideas with limited relevance or potential, and to form strong, balanced groups.
Team brainstorming follows division into teams and is the starting point for project development. Projects will shift in nature or content from the original seed idea to the final realization. This is a fundamental quality of the iterative process and is a strong benchmark for both project and pedagogical success. To support this goal, students are asked to create many initial concepts for their chosen idea supported by research, precedent research, sketches, and writing similar to the process of informal brainstorming.
Design Research
Design Research is an integrated and ongoing part of the student creative and iterative process. In projects addressing complex topics, educators may develop assignments to assist students in gathering and presenting data in a more traditional sense, though this research serves solely as a foundation for understanding the breadth of the topic. Some projects may require interviewing experts or end-users and offer an opportunity to interact with experts and critically identify lines of thought for project development. While precedents are a major part of design research, it also includes collecting pertinent data, speaking with experts, and learning any core knowledge material required to process with well-informed intention.
Precedents
What is a Precedent?
A precedent is a project done in the real world that can be used to help explain some of the ideas that will be covered in a project or student work. They are used by teachers to frame projects or problems and students, as creators, to both learn about and contextualize their intentions. Students should locate and critically evaluate precedents and demonstrate how the content relates to their work.
Precedents generally fall into a number of categories - conceptual, aspirational, and comparable.
Conceptual precedents: Explore ideas related to the project through critical analysis of a wide range of thematically related work..
Visionary precedents: Look at related cutting-edge or futurist implementation of solutions as related to the project topic.
Comparable precedents : Look at nascent or current projects, often in the world or marketplace, that relate to the theme of projects at a design and technological level that students can reasonably achieve within the course of the project. They may provide technical guidance.
Through a critical analysis and melding of these categories, students can develop ideas for creative and technical innovations based on an expansive understanding of the theme.
Sketching
Sketching is a primary tool for both the development of ideas and communication in the creative process, particularly in the critical discourse between project team members, educators, and mentors. Students are encouraged to maintain an active sketchbook through all stages of design and sketches are a vital part of student documentation for final presentations. Educators explicitly (through tutorial exercises and active sketching during critiques) model the importance of sketching and clarify that sketches are a tool to develop and convey specific meaning and are not, as many students fear, something related to artistic ability. Sketching can include language, images, storyboards, sequencing, technical information, or anything else helpful in realizing an idea.
Prototypes
Prototypes are a point-in-time manifestation of student ideas. While they are not complete, they are real and should increase in fidelity as the project progresses. Though prototypes begin as idea sketches and develop to the final studio prototype, they are all a reflection of the current state of thinking. The form of prototypes varies based on the project. Prototypes can be physical objects, storyboards, scripts, digital artifacts, audio clips, or anything that is a manifestation of the idea. The fidelity — both in the level of detail and “finishdness”— of prototypes ranges from a non-functional sketches that illustrate a form or idea to a highly-precise final prototype. Initial prototypes are constructed of quickly manipulated materials (cardboard, tape, string) or methods (storyboards) and serve to embody what, until this point, existed only as abstracted ideas. In the early stages, students will create multiple prototypes in parallel to explore a range of ideas or many solutions to a specific design problem. Only when an idea is clarified can students move into more refined prototypes. As an idea advances, students may prototype different portions of the same project (ie-video effects and script) in parallel. As the project nears completion, prototype development shifts into a synthesis of parts to create a holistically functional implementation.
Process Tasks
Conceptual Inquiry / Brainstorming
Choose three topics or themes relevant to your broader school community (including students, families, neighborhood). Themes do NOT need to be “grave”. They can be adjacent to your subject matter or identity within the community. Ex - math teacher creating a PSA on how knowledge of statistics stops fake news. Raising awareness of unseen disabilities. Online caution. Be specific but maintain internationalist.
For each topic choose three approaches to a PSA (humorous, guerilla marketing, mixed media, human still life, etc.) This brainstorming can go in either direction - thinking of delivery first then topic or vice versa.
Spend time clarifying and multiplying the idea, creating many initial concepts for their chosen idea supported by research, precedent research, sketches, and writing similar to the process of informal brainstorming. Feel free to post your ideas and ask for feedback from the CS team. As a group, settle on a theme and approach.
Document all of this work as a post in your group workspace.
Design Research
You already have access to our found many precedents which likely informed your project ideation. Choose 1 approach precedent and 1 style precedent that support your thinking.
Research & Plan: Research and take notes on facts, statistics, and solutions around your topic
Why is this issue important?
What do you already know?
What do you not know?
What to others NEED to know.
What can they do.
Technical Research: Figure out any backgroupnd information you need to engage with you stylistic approach.
Document all of this work as a post in your group workspace.
Sketching
In this project, sketches will take two forms, related to the content and the style.
Content will be addressed through “treatments” for the project or script.
Include a description of the issue you are creating for.
Your treatment should:
Engage Audience
Introduce problem (with facts, statistics, quotes, images)
Offer Solutions/Call to Action
Style will be addressed through very short animations using their proposed technique as a proof of concept.
Document all of this work as a post in your group workspace.
Initial Prototyping
In this project, prototyping will be done initially as a series of storyboards and scripts and then proof of concept production.
Create a visual storyboard
Sketch how the PSA will look frame by frame
Includes: Sketch, Description, Camera Angles (if needed), Audio Notes (Voice Over, Music, etc.)
Write a script
Describe action narratively
Include voiceover/interactions
Document all of this work as a post in your group workspace.
