External Projects

Learning Outcomes

Subject Specific Practical Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Creatively resolve problems utilising appropriate current and emerging technologies, skills and equipment to a professional level

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Reflect and engage with critical feedback to enhance your work for an audience

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Test concepts, strategies and experiments to investigate, and problem solve through effectively interacting with others and knowledge exchange

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• How Diverse and Equitable perspectives, relating but not limited to race, ethnicity, age, disability, gender, class, faith and sexual orientation innovate and enhance civic society and social engagement

The External Projects module is designed around project briefs and competitions that are set by industry partners or organisations outside the environment of the graphic communication course. In this context you are given the opportunity to begin to measure yourself against peers locally, nationally and in some cases internationally. The module requires you to consolidate all elements of your practice into a professionalised process by understanding more about the efficiencies of thought and process required in a professional environment. In addition, the module asks you to employ critical, conceptual and contextual thinking to your working approach and research. The module also offers the opportunity to engage with specialist practitioners at the forefront of your discipline through guest lectures and workshops.

You will be encouraged to be independent and self-motivated, and to strive for ambition and confidence in the presentation of your work. You will continuously question and evaluate your work to arrive at increasingly focused creative outcomes through pitches, critiques and presentations. These will communicate qualities of originality, coherence and a detailed understanding of how to apply specific media and techniques, appropriate to your ambitions as either a specialist or interdisciplinary practitioner.

The quality and depth of discipline contextual awareness will be markedly higher than previous years of study. The work and outcomes of this module can inform and influence the focus and thinking of the Final Major Project module in semester 2.

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching methods include:

• Project Briefings
• Group tutorials and discussions
• One-to-one tutorials
• Critical Reviews
• Seminars
• Creative and technical workshops
• Visual presentations
• Industry insight from guest speakers

Learning activities include:

• Research and concept development workshops
• Creative and technical workshops
• School resource based learning
• Seminars
• Peer group learning
• Group critiques
• Self-assessment

Resources & Reading list

Textbooks

Jost Hochuli (2015). Detail in Typography. B42.

Klein. N (1999). No Logo. New York: Fourth Estate.

Wally Olins (2008). The Brand Handbook. Thames and Hudson.

Bringhust, Robert (2012). The elements of typographic style. Hartley & Marks Publishers.

Formative

This is how we’ll give you feedback as you are learning. It is not a formal test or exam.

Portfolio

• Assessment Type: Formative
• Feedback: Feedback on project brief. You will experience formative feedback during the module in different learning situations, for example: tutorials, crits and written feedback, contributing to the written summative feedback given at the end of the module.
• Final Assessment: No
• Group Work: No

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.