Jan Week 2-3 → (Coaching)
Re-thinking, Re-organising & Re-conceptualising
The two coaching sessions before Plenum 2 were actually missed because I was drained from the intensive theory week and along with the lack of new progress.
Before starting any new visual research, I took a long pause and spent a lot of time at my studio, reviewing all the feedback I received from semester 1, re-conceptualising my master project, reflecting my role in the project and what voices I want to convey, writing my new direction. I also made a draft for the Plenum 2 and did a rehearsal as how Reg taught me to in my premaster’s year.
The rehearsal of the presentation includes four parts: updated questions, reasons for the topic, next making plan, and possible final form, and mailed this report to Sander.
First, I reopened my research questions. I began with the draft line “Is a design ever truly finished, or do I stop simply because a deadline, a rule, or someone else / myself tells me to?” and wrote many new versions:
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By creating more, can I find the point where it is done?
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When does a design become finished: when it meets a brief, when an acceptable print appears, or when the designer decides to stop?
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What makes a design feel finished: a deadline, a standard, an instinct, or the moment the result appears?
- How can process-based making show different kinds of “done” in graphic design—assigned, emergent, and chosen?
After testing these lines, I kept one clear question for this phase:
How do graphic designers decide when a work is “done” — by requirements, by a decision, or by what emerges during making?
Why this topic matters to me? It comes from both personal and professional perspective. I often fear ending a project, edit tiny details for perfection, and lack trust in my own decisions. The standard of “finished” moves between outside and inside rules. Sometimes I see that an earlier version was already good enough. Endless or polarised feedback from others also makes the stopping point hard to see. These daily tensions form the real fuel for my study.
Last but not least, making imperfect prints is not my main point anymore.
For execution I planned one process path, running from now until the final jury. I will make a series of posters about completion and keep editing them to create many interpretations of completion:
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Digital file that meets all requirements → finished?
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First “ideal” print → finished?
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Destruct, reform, scan → finished?
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More “ideal” prints → finished?
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Add small patch pieces → finished?
In the end I will ask: do I really finish a design at the last minute decision, or did it already reach its peak somewhere earlier?
The final production will not be one single outcome. Instead, one poster will exist in several finished forms. The work becomes an experiment: maybe we should stop once outside rules are satisfied, maybe we need endless rounds to satisfy an inner rule, or maybe we must trust our intuition, call it done, and defend the result.
These notes were mailed to Sander together with the rehearsal presentation, and the upcoming visual research will follow the plan above.