OUGD502 - Studio Brief 2 - Wayfinding / Environment Pitch - The Pitch Evaluation

The Pitch Evaluation 

Individual Responsibilities 

I was responsible for collecting visual research about the features of current and new building so that we could see which features were successful currently and how we could enhance these in the new design. I also collected visual research about the current wayfinding to see the problems with this and how we could improve it. Everyone individually cam up with initial ideas based on all of our research which we then brought together and combined and discussed. The presentation was created collaboratively on Google slides with me and Holly putting the finishing touches to it and ordering it so that there was a flow to the presentations when presenting. Both Holly and me presented the pitch, to help with this we practiced together in front of the rest of the group to get a sense of the order of the presentation and how much we needed to say in order to make it the right length. The rest of the group gave us feedback while we were practicing.

What was successful

In terms of the final pitching Holly and me worked well together as we both knew parts of the project better than the other did, which meant we had a rounded knowledge of the idea / concept. Having lots of images on the presentation guided and prompted what we were going to say making it easier to present. Also having a partner to present with meant there was less pressure on an individual and meant that we could bounce off one another if one person got stuck. Collaboratively the group worked successfully. We worked out a timetable of when we were going to do things so that we had a thoroughly planned idea. We all agreed to meet each week to do a new part of the project and we set tasks to do individually between meetings which we then discussed when we met. By breaking down elements of the project so that everyone did bits individually before we met, meant that we all contributed ideas and research.

What I took from the process

Part of the process was to work collaboratively to come up with a solution to the brief. For this to work well delegating jobs allowed everyone to work equally and know what they were doing. The brief was quite vague which made it difficult originally knowing how to approach it and not having restrictions meant that it was hard to know where to start, which meant we placed our own restrictions on it to make the design a functional idea. It was found that pitching was more successful when unscripted and having less text and more images made the presentation more engaging. Having a structure to the presentation when pitching is important as this helps the audience understand the concept and also makes it easier to talk about as there is a natural progression. The importance of building up the idea / concept was also highlighted, rather than getting straight to the final outcome, as this helps to convince the audience it is the right idea.


Overall

Overall I think the presentation and concept were successful. We presented within the time limit and had a flow throughout the pitch which led to the final idea making it easier to understand where we got our idea from. We worked together as a group well by splitting jobs up and coming together when needed. The idea itself, which was based around the Arts and Crafts movement gave us a strong foundation to work from. This represented the heritage of the institution and reflected an original aspect of the university that no other group had considered. Our idea considered both the wayfinding and furnishings and fittings within the university which would affect the environment within the building. We took elements of the Arts and Crafts movement and make them contemporary whilst enhancing successful features of the existing building and features that students thought were important. This meant that the final idea reflected the needs of the target audience as well as reflecting the heritage of the building and institution. Potentially the idea could have been a little more out of the box when compared with other presentations however the idea was based strongly in research and considered and met the target audiences needs. Also we could have better considered what the studios would have been like and how they would have fitted into our concept as well as being functional places to work.