VCE Visual Communication Design Questions Thread

[Joseph41]

VCE VISUAL COMMUNICATION DESIGN Q&A THREAD

What is this thread for?
If you have general questions about the VCE Visual Communication Design course or how to improve in certain areas, this is the place to ask! 👌


Who can/will answer questions?
Everyone is welcome to contribute; even if you're unsure of yourself, providing different perspectives is incredibly valuable.

Please don't be dissuaded by the fact that you haven't finished Year 12, or didn't score as highly as others, or your advice contradicts something else you've seen on this thread, or whatever; none of this disqualifies you from helping others. And if you're worried you do have some sort of misconception, put it out there and someone else can clarify and modify your understanding! 

There'll be a whole bunch of other high-scoring students with their own wealths of wisdom to share with you, including TuteSmart tutors! So you may even get multiple answers from different people offering their insights - very cool.


To ask a question or make a post, you will first need an ATAR Notes account. You probably already have one, but if you don't, it takes about four seconds to sign up - and completely free!

[Prudent]

Hey all,

I'm kind of stuck in a rut at the moment with where I'm heading with my folio. The pitch is coming up, but I am yet to select my finals for both presentations- the reason being not having enough in my folio. That and the direction my teacher would like me to go in wouldn't suit my brief culturally. My brief has a focus on promoting Asian culture to the people of Melbourne.
Could I possibly have some advice on creative ways to promote culture through a brand identity + poster? Without losing any significant meaning if I'm manipulating Asian characters?
(Packaging would be easier once those two are done.)

Please and thank you!

[Joseph41]

Hey all,

I'm kind of stuck in a rut at the moment with where I'm heading with my folio. The pitch is coming up, but I am yet to select my finals for both presentations- the reason being not having enough in my folio. That and the direction my teacher would like me to go in wouldn't suit my brief culturally. My brief has a focus on promoting Asian culture to the people of Melbourne.
Could I possibly have some advice on creative ways to promote culture through a brand identity + poster? Without losing any significant meaning if I'm manipulating Asian characters?
(Packaging would be easier once those two are done.)

Please and thank you!

Hey Prudent, welcome to the forums. Great to see some activity on the VCD board.

Definitely feel the whole folio rut thing haha. Don't worry - you'll get there in the end, even if it feels like ages away atm. 👊 If you're concerned about pure bulk/mass in your folio, something that worked nicely for me was just trying out a whole bunch of different methods. I even used tea and coffee at one point to test out some new stuff! Haha.

Re: finals, have you spoken about the cultural sensitivity with your teacher? Could you elaborate on the brand a little more?

[Prudent]

Hey Prudent, welcome to the forums. Great to see some activity on the VCD board.

Definitely feel the whole folio rut thing haha. Don't worry - you'll get there in the end, even if it feels like ages away atm. 👊 If you're concerned about pure bulk/mass in your folio, something that worked nicely for me was just trying out a whole bunch of different methods. I even used tea and coffee at one point to test out some new stuff! Haha.

Re: finals, have you spoken about the cultural sensitivity with your teacher? Could you elaborate on the brand a little more?

Tea and coffee sounds like an exciting endeavour, I have been experimenting with watercolours recently!
I have spoken to my teacher about cultural sensitivities and she seems to have left the decision making to me.
The tricky part is that she's the one marking. 

My client is an association which aims to promote, embrace and educate about Taiwanese culture (to sum it up). Earlier in the year I've decided to do a brand identity for a Taiwanese festival that will be presented on merchandise and a poster (pres 1), and a children's activity pack (pres 2) with the aim of encouraging children to engage with other cultures.

So far I have played around with symbols on the national flag, national animals/flowers/food, aboriginal patterns, and folklore to a degree to name a few. Taiwanese culture is a little complicated to pinpoint as they do not have a 'distinct' national identity, I have found.

Are there any helpful tips to stay motivated and put yourself in the VCD mindset when at home?

[Joseph41]

Tea and coffee sounds like an exciting endeavour, I have been experimenting with watercolours recently!
I have spoken to my teacher about cultural sensitivities and she seems to have left the decision making to me.
The tricky part is that she's the one marking. 

My client is an association which aims to promote, embrace and educate about Taiwanese culture (to sum it up). Earlier in the year I've decided to do a brand identity for a Taiwanese festival that will be presented on merchandise and a poster (pres 1), and a children's activity pack (pres 2) with the aim of encouraging children to engage with other cultures.

So far I have played around with symbols on the national flag, national animals/flowers/food, aboriginal patterns, and folklore to a degree to name a few. Taiwanese culture is a little complicated to pinpoint as they do not have a 'distinct' national identity, I have found.

Are there any helpful tips to stay motivated and put yourself in the VCD mindset when at home?

Hey, sounds like a really cool project!

Watercolours are cool. What else have you tried? For one of my presentations, I was designing really compact backpacker accommodation, so I went out and found samples of different timbers and stuff. I actually included those samples in my folio. I also tried spray paint to get different textures, even though it wasn't really relevant to what I was doing. Plus paints, crayons, Photoshop, Copics, pencils - basically anything I could get my hands on, just to show I was trying lots of different options and being comprehensive haha.

I don't know heaps about Taiwanese culture, but could you work with geography a bit? For example, from memory most of the population lives on the west coast, with many mountains down the middle and to the east (out Hualien way). I wonder if you could use this as inspiration for certain designs? Or looking at the contrast between, say, Taipei around the Taipei 101 area, and the more mountainous regions like Alishan? I think some cool stuff could be done focusing on this sort of contrast.

Re: motivation, I honestly didn't do heaps of my VCD stuff at home. I tried to get to school a little bit early and did a lot of it in the library (or through other classes lol - don't recommend this). But as far as the mindset stuff goes, I've found just sitting down and doodling can get me in the mood. One doodle leads to another, which leads to something else, and then you've stumbled on a new idea. Include these sketches in your folio, too - it's nice to include the entire process, even if you think the initial sketches look terrible haha.

[Prudent]

Hey, sounds like a really cool project!

Watercolours are cool. What else have you tried? For one of my presentations, I was designing really compact backpacker accommodation, so I went out and found samples of different timbers and stuff. I actually included those samples in my folio. I also tried spray paint to get different textures, even though it wasn't really relevant to what I was doing. Plus paints, crayons, Photoshop, Copics, pencils - basically anything I could get my hands on, just to show I was trying lots of different options and being comprehensive haha.

I don't know heaps about Taiwanese culture, but could you work with geography a bit? For example, from memory most of the population lives on the west coast, with many mountains down the middle and to the east (out Hualien way). I wonder if you could use this as inspiration for certain designs? Or looking at the contrast between, say, Taipei around the Taipei 101 area, and the more mountainous regions like Alishan? I think some cool stuff could be done focusing on this sort of contrast.

Re: motivation, I honestly didn't do heaps of my VCD stuff at home. I tried to get to school a little bit early and did a lot of it in the library (or through other classes lol - don't recommend this). But as far as the mindset stuff goes, I've found just sitting down and doodling can get me in the mood. One doodle leads to another, which leads to something else, and then you've stumbled on a new idea. Include these sketches in your folio, too - it's nice to include the entire process, even if you think the initial sketches look terrible haha.

I haven't considered physical geography before, thank you for the inspiration! I shall experiment and see how the outcomes look. I think so far I have tried Photoshop, Illustrator, Copics, watercolours, brush strokes, pencils, mashing geometric shapes together, something like that. Spray paint sounds fun to try...

Thank you so much! (:

[Joseph41]

I haven't considered physical geography before, thank you for the inspiration! I shall experiment and see how the outcomes look. I think so far I have tried Photoshop, Illustrator, Copics, watercolours, brush strokes, pencils, mashing geometric shapes together, something like that. Spray paint sounds fun to try...

Thank you so much! (:

Do you love Copics?!

[Prudent]

Do you love Copics?!

Quite so... I am yet to find a place with student discounts! (Have been building a collection.)

[Joseph41]

Quite so... I am yet to find a place with student discounts! (Have been building a collection.)

I could literally talk to you about Copics for an indefinite amount of time hahaha.

Which are your faves?

EDIT: By the way, you might find this thread I made useful?

Making a 100% Folio: A Guide (With Pretty(ish) Pictures!)

[Prudent]

I could literally talk to you about Copics for an indefinite amount of time hahaha.

Which are your faves?

EDIT: By the way, you might find this thread I made useful?

Making a 100% Folio: A Guide (With Pretty(ish) Pictures!)

Ah yes! I loved that thread and have been using some of your recommendations as guidelines throughout the year- so far successful, haha.

I can't choose which colour I like as my favourite just yet, as a the combination of multiple colours can make something truly amazing.
In saying so, I love to use Y11 and Y17 for highlights when blended with undertones of blue/pink/green.

Do you have a particular favourite Copic colour or combination?

[MrAce531]

Hi, my folio is due next Wednesday and I'm a bit behind and would really appreciate it I could get a few pointers on how to complete the development and refinement stage.

So for presentation 1 I'm designing a Year 12 Common Room building for my school (can be either one or two storeys) and for presentation 2 I'm creating a poster/advertisement for the common room.

For my first concept for presentation 1 (which is a one-storey building), I completed different variations of floor plans/plan views on Visio where I annotated my process and design thinking. After choosing the three that I liked, I conducted a survey/poll and further developed the most voted option, where I designed the interior using The Sims 4 (in one of the folios I saw at Top Designs, someone had used Minecraft to develop one of their ideas so I thought hey why not do something similar).

For my second concept for presentation 2 (which is a two-storey building), I created a few plan views for both the ground floor and the first floor on Visia (not as many as my first concept though). After I was satisfied with my plan views, I began developing ideas for the elevation by experimenting with colour and texture using Illustrator. I also intend on using SketchUp to also develop the exterior. I may also use Illustrator to create one and two-point perspective drawings of my building.

However, I am confused as to what I'm supposed to include in development and what I'm supposed to include in refinement. I originally was going to create instrumental drawings/designs of the plan views and planometric using the technical stuff outlined in VCAA's technical guide (such as including the dimension placement in plan views) but one of the vis com teachers (not my vis com teacher, she's currently away) at my school said that technical/instrumental drawings should only be included once I get to the refinement stage, so now I'm confused as to what I'm supposed to include in development and what I'm supposed to include in refinement. Should I manually create a planometric in development and then render it on computer in refinement? What are some other ways I can develop my ideas in terms of materials, methods and media? Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.

If you're confused as to what my final's supposed to be, my brief states that the presentation format for presentation 1 is a plan-view, elevation and planometric (scale 1:100) as well as a 'computer rendered 3D layout' (which I could probably create on SketchUp).

Also, with presentation 2, if I explore type, colour and design elements and principles in the development stage, then do I just adjust and finalize the tracking, leading and kearning of the font in the refinement stage?

Sorry if this is long but I'm just really confused right now.

Thanks in advance

[Joseph41]

Ah yes! I loved that thread and have been using some of your recommendations as guidelines throughout the year- so far successful, haha.

I can't choose which colour I like as my favourite just yet, as a the combination of multiple colours can make something truly amazing.
In saying so, I love to use Y11 and Y17 for highlights when blended with undertones of blue/pink/green.

Do you have a particular favourite Copic colour or combination?

Hey, glad to hear it's been useful!

Copic colour - sooooo many to choose from haha, but I'm a big fan of BG10 Cool Shadow. You could throw a blanket over about 300 of them, though.

snip

Hey, good luck for the rest of your folio! How have you found the process so far? Sounds like a nifty project.

It's honestly been a few years since I did VCD now, so this is all based on memory. But for mine, there's quite a lot of overlap between development/refinement. In saying that, I'd say refinement is for more specific/minor adjustments to a concept you're broadly happy with. Colour, size, maybe textures - stuff like that. Development, on the other hand, is a process used before you've chosen the core idea you're going to run with. Not really sure if that's helped; can definitely remember having similar frustrations when I was doing my folios.

[nm2xo]

Anyone know what I should actually be doing in terms of exam prep?

I am writing up notes now but don't know how to go about studying for the exam.

My folio was pretty well done and think I'll be getting quite a good mark for it. How can I ensure that my exam won't pull down my folio mark and hence my study score?

Thanks!

[Joseph41]

Anyone know what I should actually be doing in terms of exam prep?

I am writing up notes now but don't know how to go about studying for the exam.

My folio was pretty well done and think I'll be getting quite a good mark for it. How can I ensure that my exam won't pull down my folio mark and hence my study score?

Thanks!

Hey,

I'd definitely practise doing exam stuff under timed conditions as much as possible. I think this was my biggest challenge in the actual exam. Like, I felt I could render pretty well, but only with what I was used to and with no time conditions. Some things just aren't possible in the exam (for exam, I prefer using Copic markers, but they'd easily seep through the entire exam paper), so be prepared in that sense.

[nm2xo]

Hey,

I'd definitely practise doing exam stuff under timed conditions as much as possible. I think this was my biggest challenge in the actual exam. Like, I felt I could render pretty well, but only with what I was used to and with no time conditions. Some things just aren't possible in the exam (for exam, I prefer using Copic markers, but they'd easily seep through the entire exam paper), so be prepared in that sense.

Thanks for this! Do you recommend memorising any definitions or sentence starters? Like I have written up my notes which are very content heavy- I think that I need to spend more time on this more than anything as my technical drawing skills are pretty good.