Twenty years ago I was getting ready for my own sophomore review. I don’t remember much from it aside from accidentally knocking off a piece off the top of someone’s model as we were rushing downstairs. A couple years later, I gave her a book of the collected covers to the Sandman comic series. It was the least I could do to atone for my error.
I was invited to final critiques at UNLV on Monday. In talking with these students about their projects, I kept returning to the primary lesson that was hammered into me twenty years ago. What is the concept? I found myself constantly pushing the students on their story. Not the narrative of how they got there, but the story that crystalizes a design into a cohesive whole.
If the design is good, the story is embedded in the work. How do you improve the design? Interrogate the concept more. It should be flipped upside down, challenged to the core, and understood so intimately that all roads lead back to the product being presented. No decision should be arbitrary, every layer must be investigated. Take a stand and then push it harder.
I’m sure these kids at UNLV will remember as little of my rants about rigour as I remember of my critters from two decades ago. But I was reminded of what I need to do in my own work. I’m pretty sure I got the better end of the deal yesterday.