My Working Process Development

My working process up to this point was very simple and rigid and I followed it in a strict methodical manner. I would get my brief, analyse it and write it again in a format more relevant to me, then I would decide on a direction for my research and one by one tick of each subject that I listed to look at. I would follow this very strictly and not deviate from my list of topics, even if my ideas or viewpoints had changed and the research was no longer relevant, I felt I could not allow myself to wander off with my idea; on reflection now I realise this was a terrible idea, I should always follow where my ideas take me. Secondly, I would move onto my idea development which was influenced and directed from my research. I would not allow myself to go back and do more research to help with my production as it was not a part of the plan, I would create stiff sketches that were not free to explore and move away from my initial ideas, I left no room for real development. Then I would charge onward to my finished piece, following my decided plan which lead off from my development process. I was then left with a neat book of 30-50 pages with a neat finished product that was nicely presented and discussed at the end of the project book.

Research - Development - Production

This way of working worked well for me, it got the job done. But it did not give me any room for exploration, I was suffocating my creativity with such a methodical and strict working plan. So coming into my second year I decided to develop a new working process. I did this by first making no plan, and simply following the natural direction of the project. This left me with some loose guidelines to follow from there onwards, to ensure I keep on the right tracks an meet the deadline. Imagine it like this: throw a few darts onto a map and follow the route between each dart and there you have your journey.

The process I was left with went something like this:

. Initial scratching surface research

. Idea development via mind map or similar

. Relevant research based on few different vague ideas

. Final idea brief

. Research on methods

. Development

. Creation

This I think is a much more natural progressive process which follows the ideas lead and makes me progressively learn to support the idea, not creating an idea to fit what I had learnt. It forces me to learn new things to make an idea work which results in a relevant and interesting journey of development from concept to product.