Update (16-01-17/1-03-17)
Ok where to start……
Let’s start with, when the idea of graduation with a graduation system came to me.
16 January 2017
An idea was born.
[For the record the official kick-off for the graduation is in three weeks from now]
Because I was bored I was scrolling through Netflix and stumbled upon the documentary “Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World” by Werner Herzog. The film caught my eye because it was about the internet and its history, two things that I like ;). So I started watching it with a big bag of Doritos chips. During the film the project EteRNA came on as a subject. The project shows really the power of the internet used for good. EteRNA is a project made by The National Science Foundation. The group ran into the problem that they found a molecule that could fix their problem, but that specific molecule was able to be folded in many many ways and they were not quite enough people to try it all out. So they made a game where all the people on the internet could help them fold the monocle. And that gave me the idea to create my graduation project together with the people of the internet. So I would be the director and the internet will give me the content.
31 January 2017
The start of putting my mind into words
Fifty percent of our graduation is/excists of the competency assessments, where we explain in a report who we are as a designer, and that we are competent as a student (fixed by law) to get our diploma. This week I started writing down mine. Each portfolio (read, text document) contains seven competencies; Creative ability, Ability to reflect critically, Ability to grow and change, Organisational ability, Communicative ability, Context awareness and Collaborative ability. In this portfolio it was the first time I had to write down what my graduation project was going to be. So I had to put my idea that I already had for a few weeks on paper. This is how I did it; Inspired by the documentary I thought why wouldn’t I crowdsource my graduation project. First I need to advertise my project so that as many people as possible will see my project and hopefully give me enough data input for me to work with. This is the ultimate way for me to combine my two powers (advertising and data design). For my research I want to look into alumni and school/law criteria in the hope I would find a common theme which I can fit into my crowdsourced project.
1 February 2017
First thoughts
I want people to make their own choices, so they will see how the data is created. In my end result is it important that people can trace back which decisions were made, and how people gathered more information.
08 February 2017
Feedback after first talk whit graduation adviser Hans
He likes the idea.
He asks me if I could graduate tomorrow if I had the answer to the right question.
On which moment do I want to communicate to which people?
What do I expect from the crowd?
Be careful that your question doesn’t become your main subject.
09 February 2017
Interview with Ruben van Dijk
When I first told my idea to my teacher (I sad that I wanted to graduate with a project about graduation), they said that a few years back a student advertising already graduated with a project about graduation and that student was Ruben van Dijk (this is his project)
I decided that day to contact Ruben so I could see what he did and most of all why he did it. Ruben now works at JWT (an advertising agency in Amsterdam), so we decided to meet there. Ruben’s project is quite bold, that’s something that I would never do. So he asked me to show him some of my work. Looking at my work he could see that my graduation project would be more of a way to give people insight than to shock people. This is when I realized how important the competency assessments are. You need to know who you are as a designer/creative, to figure out what works best for you during your graduation project.
13 February 2017
What’s on my mind??
I now think the most important thing of graduating is the “why me?”, why should I make this project, why is this project so me? And the process off it all. I feel that because I’m studying graduation I’m far more aware of each step that I take. If you could show who you are and why you make the choices that you make as a designer I think you are graduated. I think all the people that struggle with graduating, just didn’t figure out who they are and what they wanna tell to the world. I think that after four years of art school, you didn’t learn to be an artist but you learned who you are as an artist. As my school loves to call us “creating pioneers”.
20 February 2017
50% of graduation completed
Today I had my competency assessment, where I have the chance to extra defend my report. So the examiners already read my report and now I had to present it for 10 min and then answer some question for 10 min. Than I had to leave the room and wait for 15 nerve wracking minutes to hear if I made it or not. When I was called back in I couldn’t be more happy with what they told me. They said that I made it with a 100%. They saw how much I had grown the last year and they were happy that an advertising student finally was going to make a real data project (I still kind of wonder today what they meant by that).
23 February 2017
Another win
A few weeks ago I also applied for the young talent spinawards competition, and today we had to present our work. I had competed with my project the Crowd Counter.
After everybody had presented and the judges came to a conclusion they told us that there was one winner and one wildcard winner (meaning you have to earn votes to get to the finals). And jeeej I won the wildcard, but also Oh oh, now I have to win some votes. Between 1st and 15th of March I had to win the votes. Spamming all my Facebook friends and family, I sadly did not win.
24-28 February 2017
Holiday to Sweden
1 march 2017
Interview with Esther Jong
A week before the interview I was looking through the school library and found the graduation books from the school. There was only one book that caught my attention and that was the one from the year ‘09/’10, the book had small data visualization next to the student’s name. Which make me think there would have been a system to gather that data. I googled the creators of the book and saw Ruiter Jansen. His portfolio had a lot of data visualization, so I emailed him first hoping that he could tell me more about the data. He replied that he was very busy till the 9th of March and that I had to try the girls (Joany and Esther). So that’s why my first meet-up about the book was with Esther Jong. She now works at Fabrique (Rotterdam), I made an appointment with her over there at the end of the day. Preparing for the interview I took a look at her work and soon figured out that she was as much digital driven as me. That’s why talking about my project, with her really helped. She had the same idea I had, like; that my end-project would change every day and that the end result could be really ugly but that’s ok. She also gave me the book so I wouldn’t have to drag it around from school to house all the time (the school library only let me borrow the book for one day, because they only have one). That book became my data bible, because it was the only whole database of students and their graduation work that I could find (and the other books of course but they were older). Because sadly enough after 2012 the school stopped making the books.
