The Case Study Hoopla Part 2
All That I learned...
Finally, I want to share with you everything I’ve learned in this process, hoping it might benefit those who are starting on their journey of design, but it’s not limited to only design students :
A bad jury isn't the end of the world - Remember that juries are never
objective. The critique does not have a problem with anyone. Your sole purpose
to stand there is to learn something, to gain something. There is no use of
brooding over the 'whys' and 'should-haves'. Reflect upon the reviews given,
make notes of what you could improve on next time, & pat yourself on the
back because you made it to the finish line. When you would complete your major
and move out of college life, you would actually be missing those comic days.
Yes literally! You will find humor in all
that shit you went through and you would be left with hard earned lessons. In fact, I get nostalgic now and then, missing my days at Pearl Academy.
I’ve realized now, there was no point in being so
serious and taking everything so personally. But being too thin-skinned, I got
affected easily and was used to becoming paranoid. College life is not meant to be
that serious, period! It's a process of learning,
growing while also enjoying the process. In fact, this process is only making you
smarter and ready to face the world after college. As beginners we are bound to
make too many mistakes, and as clichéd as it sounds, that happens with everyone
and not just you or me but the important thing is to outgrow yourself. The
proudest thing would be realizing that you’ve outdone yourself & you are
not making those silly mistakes now & then.
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| Our batch of seven, having a fun photoshoot in college |
Presentation
Tip #1 Build your vocab - Sometimes I
would become really short of words while describing my views about any site
that I studied & other times it would be difficult for me to describe my
own design concept. This happened with
other batchmates as well. There were just very few words in my dictionary like
good, bad, beautiful, modern, etc; and I couldn’t move past this old school
English. When any one of us was found using these adjectives, our mentors would
stop us and it would go something like this…“There is no such thing as a good design or
bad design because design is a subjective term, what is good for me may not be
good for you”…obviously!. use
“good” as an adjective somewhere, our course leader would say “how about the
word impeccable (her favourite
adjective) that sounds better no!”. Also, as design students we have to be sure
of what adjectives we are choosing, for eg, people choose “modern” very
loosely. We normally think of modern as something which is relating to the
present times as opposed to the traditional styles or values. But when a design
student uses “modern” for eg; ‘modern design of interiors’, some serious questions
will be thrown at the person to test his/her knowledge, like “Is it really
modern or is it contemporary?” or “Which era of modernism is this, post modern
or mid-century modern?” (eehhh!! you don’t like history right!). Well,
designers have a lot of niche words, a terminology of their own and one should
be familiar with these terms. Trust me, it will be a lot easier for you to
communicate your thoughts when you are asked to share your perspective on any
design or you have some serious write up to do like writing concept notes, you
just need to know how some ‘designer’s
vocab’. Here
I am providing some links which I really found useful -
THE TOP
INTERIOR DESIGN TERMS YOU NEED TO KNOW By elledecor.com
18 interior design terms you should know By
invaluable.com
Bookmark these links as well -https://www.canva.com/learn/graphic-design-terms/
Get your ass to the library, and
take Elle Decor, Architectural Digest, etc, off shelves. Read decor and design
magazines whenever you have time & observe how beautifully they analyze the
aesthetics and put it down to words. We had a library full of magazines but I
actually regret this now that I didn’t utilize those resources when I had such
easy access to them in my college days.
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Tip #2 Learn photography skills - Good photography is a skill every
architecture or interior design student would benefit from. I realized this
very late after I gave my last presentation on a restaurant cum bar & did
the same mistake in every semester. That was really the best-designed
restaurant I had ever seen in my life, so beautiful, serene & picturesque.
I would have had brilliant photographs if only, I knew how to click. So, when
the time came to attach photos in the ppt, I was screwed. I realized that these
lackluster shots taken by me can be a total spoiler & that would do
injustice to the beautiful ambiance that I had captured in my eyes. Eventually,
I searched for the pictures on the internet, & luckily I found many
awe-inspiring photos of this restaurant, that have been taken by famous
architectural photographer Edmund Sumner. Yes! I understand we can never
compete with professional photographers, but at least we can learn some basics
of taking quality shots so that we are able to bring our words to life & we
would not have to compromise on the visuals of our presentation. I realized
this was the case with every presentation I was doing, sometimes the angle is
weird, sometimes the lighting is not enough, etc., and eventually, I would be
searching on the internet for site photos. But, it's not possible to get good
quality photographs for every site you visit, so, focus on learning the basics
of interior/architectural photography.
I am sharing some links below, which I
found useful for DSLR users and smartphone users -
No matter
how hard we tried, there will be those dull
shots, which need editing. DSLR has so many impressive effects but most
of our less expensive cell phones can't capture light, colors properly due to
sensor limitations...so after processing is unavoidable. Just learning the
basics of image editing in Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom goes a long way in
fixing those dull images. These are generally used for advanced level of
editing. For the basic level of editing, download apps like Snapseed and Vsco
in your phone, these two are the best and free for ios & android. I
wish to end this on a high note, so I am sharing a quote which is
very related to amateurs like me:
"Technical
proficiency is overrated. Exercise your power of observation, learn to look and
see deeply"
- Richard
Koci, smartphone photographer & multimedia journalist
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Tip #3 Quality over quantity - Quality of work always wins over
quantity, hands down! Slogging down through endless slides, speaking faster and
using microscopic fonts will not work to captivate the audience. As I described
earlier, I couldn't make an effective presentation because I didn't really
check the quality of my work. I was satisfied with what I had
How to
work on the quality -
Work on
the structure -We all
have gone through those days when we are asked to endure a dull presentation at
class or an event. The slides are packed with text & the presenter feels
obligated to read every single word, while your neighbors are yawning and
everyone seems to have the "when will it be over?" expression on
their face. But what if the same happens with you during your presentation..?😱 That is
the reason why our course coordinator would always say "It should come out
like a story". Back then I couldn't grasp the depth of this statement but
now I really do. Storytelling is a rage these days and if you have a closer
look at the world of advertisements and social media, everyone is narrating a
story. The best corporate storyteller has been Steve Jobs and he is still
incomparable when it comes to his style of giving presentations. His keynote
presentations in TED talks or other platforms continues to attract millions of
views on YouTube because he mastered the art of storytelling. Like the
phenomenal presentation he gave in 2007, the release of first iPhone, he
started off by reviewing the history of Apple and how it all builds up to the
big event. The point to be noted is that he didn't start off by simply
revealing the phone and its features.
Don't
just skip to making slides, scribble for ideas as what you want to covey and
how you are going to convey it. What is your story?? A story is a time-bound
thing. It has a beginning, a middle and an end. As in the case of
interior/architecture case studies, your story revolves around a space. So, decide
in advance how you want your beginning, middle, & end to be like and what
you want in it. For eg, if your site is situated at some historic location like
an 18th-century colony..... you can start off by reviewing the history of that
particular location to intrigue interest, and it will be your job to make
history sound cool! Hence, this is how you would generate interest in the
beginning. Take clues...browse the internet, see similar work of
other students on sites like SlideShare, have an informal discussion with your
friends in class & see how they are arranging their narrative. Things
will go flawlessly once you ensure your basic framework is ready on paper.
Some other useful points:
The Golden Rule:" Less is more" - We will hear this "less
is more" phrase more than often in design school...... For a presentation,
this means that add less on a slide to create more impact. It's not counter-intuitive,
but statistically, the more a slide is filled with content, the less is the
audience's attention span. One dense slide would run onscreen for ten minutes
or so, while you stand there to explain hard-to-read information to your
audience, this will become confusing for you and the audience as well. So, it's
always better to have more slides with less content than putting too much
information in one slide. Here's the best reason for this - our slides are
there to support our research & not to replace our talk. Remember, well-designed
slides assist us in emphasizing our points and the audience in understanding
the key takeaways from the presentation. Condense Information, avoid
writing in paragraphs. Wherever possible, turn paragraphs to bullet points
which convey your key message. Again bullets should not be the length of a
paragraph, keep them short. There should not be too many bullets and ideas on
one slide either, as I explained before, some amount of white space in your
slide makes it easy for your audience to focus on your key points. If you have
a particularly dense slide, try dividing into two separate easy-to-understand
pieces. Not just it will be more clear, the motion created by changing slides
is a good way to keep your audience's engagement and energy in the room high.
Say more visually - Times have certainly changed and with that has
changed the art of presenting. Research says that 65% of us are 'visual
learners' but I feel the percentage could be higher. I've observed that I am
not really entertained when I am seeing someone's bullet-ridden slides, but it
would be easy for me to keep myself engaged if I am watching a highly visual
presentation. This proves that a picture is worth a thousand words, and this
actually means, if you don't have a thousand words to write, you can just use a
picture to convey your thing. A great visual with just a little bit of text
will make your point come better than a slide full of bullet points ever will.
Hence, try to express more with visual aids like images/pictures, icons, infographics,
video clippings, charts like flow charts, diagrams like mind-mapping diagrams,
sketches....anything that can help you to substitute or eliminate long
sentences. Also, you can add your own personal touch in every presentation by
adding hand-drawn diagrams, doodled elements like icons, scribbles (speech
balloons, arrows, ovals). Artistic elements have an unconscious pull but they
also make everything look so interesting and more personalized. Check out this
TED talk by American author, Sunni Brown about the power of a visual language
like doodling. Search by "Sunni Brown: Doodlers Unite!".
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Tip #4 Never skip the conclusion - You have aced the introduction and
the main body but after that you just end with the boringgg!..."THANK YOU"
slide, that's a bummer!. First impression is important and so is the
last. Especially in case of a ‘case study’, a conclusive slide which
summarizes the key takeaways is imperative. A well-written case study would
always have an appropriate final section.
Many design
students in the freshman year would do this costly mistake of not having a
conclusive slide. As I said presentations are meant to be stories and every
story is expected to have a well-defined ending. In our case studies, we were
expected to mention the merits and demerits of the site that we studied, in
terms of the design, décor, location, etc., as a crucial end. But honestly we
would often miss to end like this and instead end with that boring thank you.
Later on, after being repeatedly questioned that "what did you conclude
from visiting this place?”, we realised that yeah… it is damn serious business
to write about the pros and cons. So, there are quite a few ideas (found some
online) to end your story on a good note and make a lasting impression:
A summary slide
your last
slide can be a recap of your main points, this will reinforce your key
messages.
End with
a quote
If you
can't find the perfect words to end with, use someone else's words. A memorable
quotation on the concluding slide is a great way to end. Just look for strong
impactful statements that ties with the overall concept of your presentation.
A strong
call to action
This
mostly applies to presentations that are based on social issues or that are
targeted to motivate certain groups of people to take action. Use powerful,
compelling words that are definitive. Calls to action like "donate
today", "begin today" or "join the fight" will prove
to be weighty and very convincing.
Pros & Cons
There are two sides of a coin and
almost everything else…The great thing which design school taught me was “practical analysis”.
I know that designers, no matter how good they are, are humans nonetheless,
therefore not perfect. Design is as good (or as faulty) as the people who make
it…and that applies to every other thing as well. So, if your presentation is
based upon giving reviews or analyzing something like new policies of your company…say what you felt in the end, by
listing points under thumbs up and down.
That's
it, even I want to finish this on a high note as I’ve been preaching the
importance of ending well....so I am sharing a quote by my favorite
speaker/presenter, yes! you already know it.
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