The research and communication module tasks were interesting to learn about, despite the fact that I struggled to find relevant research for some of the tasks.
Through this module I have learnt how to reference all types of medias correctly, including websites which has helped me to be able to go back to the websites to find more information if needed. This module has also helped me to break down images and not just look at them as a whole in order to find further research but to choose an element of the image as a research starting point.
Task 1&2 was a good warm up task as it made me utilise the library and online websites to find primary and secondary resources.
Task 3&4 was online based, I used online newspaper articles as I found that journalists can be very opinionated and to the chase in terms of their own critique as well as it being a way of finding interviews. I found this task quite easy as it was just about analysing the topic through my own thoughts rather than having to analyse the topic through the opinion of others.
Task 5&6: For this research task my designer of interest was Alexander McQueen. I used the Victoria and Albert Musem webpage as well as encyclopaedia to find inspirations for his collection Plato’s Atlantis. I found this task quite difficult to gather a variety of image inspiration as McQueen was merely inspired by nature and his own conceptual thinking. However, this allowed me to get into the mind of McQueen and research further into the references that I did find which really helped me to get to know McQueen as a person rather than a designer. This also allowed me to look into interviews of McQueen which I will use in the future when looking at other artists as it helps to get a personal feel of the designer. Resulting in me beginning to think about the designer I would like to become.
Personally, I enjoyed task 7&8 the least as I would not consider myself a book lover as I find that there can be too much information to take in at once and I lose concentration. For this task I used webcat to find other resources to help analyse Malcolm Barnard’s Fashion as Communication book. I found that webcat is really helpful as it directs you to similar books on the same shelve. Because I had to analyse more than one book I found that making notes on each book was helpful as it meant that I had all my notes on one page so that when I came back to writing it would be less of a hassle to find quotes.
For task 9&10 I had to analyse an advertisement based on whether I thought it was ethically correct. This task has made me realise that there are a lot of issues in the world that are there but we may not think about as being ethically wrong because it can be very covert in appearance allowing it to continue. This has changed the way I first view advertisements, images and designers work, as I will now look deeper into the message rather than just looking at the image.
Overall, this module will help me in my studio practice as I will try to be more quick and efficient in my research skills as I now know where first to go when looking for reference inspiration.