This exercise was to help understand the role of a designer at the very beginning of a design process. It was to learn how to start at the grass root level and generate content and possibly in time a design brief.
It laid emphasis on collecting content through observation that is free
from biases and preconceived notions and ideas that influence the designing mind.
The process of this exercise began with choosing a high street of London and recording our observations in writing. Thereafter we had to develop a visual representation of the data such that the content was open to
interpretation for the viewer.
I chose the blackboard as a medium of communicating my observations. It embodies the true nature of the observations which were recorded in spurts, flitting attention and while moving within that space. The blackboard like the street is a palimpsest. Similar to the writing and erasing function of the blackboard, the street too has a sense of temporariness. Both the blackboard and the street exude a sense of the usual and routine and a space where anyone may have written or walked respectively.
The postcards are essentially small blackboards that the user can engage with by writing and sending it to a friend. The journey of such a postcard ail be interesting in terms of what is retained and what is lost in the journey.