Exercise 1.5: Research & development

Brief

Firstly, review your visual ideas based on from the previous exercise through a process of critical evaluation. Which ideas are you drawn to? Which ideas have ‘legs’ – possible interesting outcomes which are worth pursuing? Often the ideas which are strongest are those which have depth, or many layers of association. Perhaps you are intuitively drawn to a particular idea. Select a few ideas you would like to push further. Use your learning log to record your thoughts.
Now, do you need to undertake any research to help move your selected ideas on? The form your research will take depends on the individual elements of your idea. Find source material that helps informs your ideas. For example, by doing objective drawings or taking photographs, to understand your subject better, and to consider aspects of composition. You can use both primary and secondary sources of research in this way. Research feeds into the development of your visual work, informing and advancing your ideas. Document this phase of the work accordingly.
The developing your ideas stage is about building on your initial ideas by reworking them, adding the visual or other insights gathered through your research, and testing out different versions or possibilities. Spend 45 minutes developing the possibilities of one of your ideas. How many different ways can you visualise this?
If you want to develop a broader range of ideas, then repeat the previous exercise to generate more possibilities, potentially using a different phrase as a starting point. Use your learning log to document this process of review, research and development.
Visualising your ideas is the culmination of all your preliminary work in which you work up some more developed visual sketches and ideas. This artwork can be hand-drawn illustrations, photographs, and/or include typography. The presentation can be a little rough around the edges but should show the main elements of your designs. Select the strongest variation of your ideas from the previous research and development exercise to start exploring how you can visualise them within a mock-up.
Use your learning log to document these research and development stages, and to reflect on the process and your results.

Research

You can’t judge a book by it’s cover

Wikipedia: The English idiom “don’t judge a book by its cover” is a metaphorical phrase that means one should not judge the worth or value of something by its outward appearance alone. For example, “That man may look very small and insignificant, but don’t judge a book by its cover – he’s a very powerful man in his circle”.

The Cambridge dictionary: You can’t judge a book by it’s cover said to show that you cannot know what something or someone is like by looking only at that person or thing’s appearance.

Collins dictionary: You can’t judge a book by it’s cover said to mean that you should wait until you know someone or something better before deciding whether you like them, because your first opinions may be wrongYou can’t judge a book by its cover. Just because someone looks strange doesn’t mean they’re not a nice person.

Judge

Britannica: judge, public official vested with the authority to hear, determine, and preside over legal matters brought in a court of law. In jury cases, the judge presides over the selection of the panel and instructs it concerning pertinent law. The judge also may rule on motions made before or during a trial. In countries with a civil-law tradition, a more active role customarily has been assigned to the judge than in countries with a common-law tradition. In civil-lawcourts the procedure is inquisitorial—i.e., judges do most of the questioning of witnesses and have a responsibility to discover the facts. In common-law courts the procedure is adversarial—i.e., the lawyers for each side do most of the questioning of witnesses and the presentation of evidence. There are many kinds of judges, ranging from an untrained justice of the peace to a member of the U.S. Supreme Court or of the Court of Queen’s Bench. In the United States judges are elected or appointed. Most federal judges are appointed for life by the president with the advice or consent of the Senate. The highest-ranking judge in the U.S. legal system is the chief justice of the United States. See alsojudgment; judiciary; magistrates’ court; Missouri Plan. The role and power of judges vary enormously, not only from country to country but often within a single country as well. For example, a rural justice of the peace in the United States—often untrained in the law, serving part-time, sitting alone in everyday work clothes in a makeshift courtroom, collecting small fees or receiving a pittance for a salary, trying a succession of routine traffic cases and little else—obviously bears little resemblance to a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States—a full-time, well-paid black-robed professional, assisted by law clerks and secretaries, sitting in a marble “palace” with eight colleagues and deciding at the highest appellate level only questions of profound national importance. Yet both persons are judges.

From the thumbnails, I have made, I thought 3 of them have got some potential to work on. So I found some photos on freepik and took them to Photoshop.

I’ve made some designs in Photoshop, having my thumbnails in my mind. Tried to experiment with different images, fonts and compositions. At the end the last design with a halftone effect looks more appealing to me. And I made a mock-up based on that.

Self-reflection

For the subject that I chose, I could just think of judges and judges equipment. I don’t think that my designs are very creative, but I think that it would be something that can be seen on ordinary book covers.

References

Cambridge Dictionary. you can’t judge a book by its cover. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/you-can-t-judge-a-book-by-its-cover (Accessed: 25 November 2021).
Wikipedia. Don’t judge a book by its cover. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_judge_a_book_by_its_cover (Accessed: 25 November 2021).