absorbing visual research

It was great to finally see a big emphasis about the dummy books in one of the readings! (aka a “maquette”) I’m not sure why, but I was very excited about this!

The reading placed a huge emphasis on the process. There’s just as much technical thought you’d use to structure a research paper, not only our creativity as artists. Collecting data & organizing it is something that we’re all too familiar with (or just sick of), but what I loved was Holleley’s way of expressing this; “…you are not a blank slate. You are constantly being influenced”.

It’s true -maybe our resources don’t have to be from the Herald Washington Library or an all-night google search binge in order to finish a paper or project. The key may be much simpler than we’d like! I think that what he is trying to emphasize is that if we are prepared to go the extra mile and do a double-take when we can, our research will be done within a day or two. After I read this & went out for the weekend I tried to keep this in mind (although I did forget often) and found myself looking over the layout of our menu on Friday night, noticing the size of pictures, graphics & all of the typography as if it wasn’t meant to price food. After the doctor said to stay home all weekend, I did “research” looking through all of the travel brochures & pamphlets for my upcoming honeymoon. Sure enough, it didn’t take long to take in the visual information & think of ways to use it. Even an instruction manual helped! Who knew?

“Your book will be much richer if it reflects a thoughtful process of research & reflection”.

And the dummy books! Again, there was no doubt in the importance of preparation. Creating at least two of the “maquette” books seems to be the way to the most successful solution. I agree. Just doing one is setting yourself up for disaster (my dummy books OF my dummy books). It leaves the option to rip, tape, cut or glue something before finding the perfect solution…without a second it may be like being almost done with a puzzle & saying “close enough” & framing it.

We’ve almost got all of our pieces, the rest we can get by opening our eyes!