Summer Brief: What Interests Me?

In preparation for the second year of the Graphic Design Degree programme, we have been asked to collect and prepare a body of research which we will ultimately present to the class.

We were asked to initially research into three separate subjects which interest us and are appropriate to Graphic Design, these could be a hobby/interest, a invention/discovery or a person/place. Using the broad amount of research we have collected for each of the three subjects we were then asked to focus down onto one particular subject which demonstrates our interests and will be the subject of our five minute presentation.

The presentation should aim to cover everything about our chosen subject matter; facts, history, why we personally find the subject interesting and what other target audience exist for it whilst being visually interesting.

I began the brief by brainstorming the various ideas I had for the three subjects I have been asked to research into, using the three topics - hobby/interest, invention/discovery and person/place - suggested by the brief as a guide.

Initially I did struggle when producing possible ideas for the three research topics which the brief states must be appropriate to Graphic Design, I therefore began by thinking about general interests and hobbies which could perhaps be relatable to Graphic Design.

From this initial brainstorm of ideas I selected four which I felt were most appropriate for the brief as they had the most potential in terms of the collection of research and also highlighted my personal and professional interests.

To aide the research process, for each these for ideas I had chosen I made a further list of possible areas of research relating to this subject and the possible sources of this research.

From these four ideas the three final research subjects I chose were; The Berlin Wall, Promotion and Children's Books. Although I felt that the subject of 'humour' would have the potential for a vast amount of research I didn't think the subject could be classed as a 'hobby' or 'interest' and therefore I decided to explore the use of humour within promotion which is a particular interest of mine.