DESIGN RESEARCH DISSERTATION - FINAL PROJECT
DESIGN RESEARCH DISSERTATION
Instructions
Practical
We were instructed to refer back to the design research methodology module from previous semesters to use as a topic for this module. Develop the topic for the draft dissertation.
First week, I have to read through the old selected references again and gain bearings again for the content of the previously selected sources, as well as add any new sources if necessary.
For this week, the first thing I had to address was to catch up with work that was given in the first week, particularly the structuring of the dissertation as I hadn’t joined the Google Classroom and didn’t acquire the template for the dissertation.
The deadline for the Literature Review portion of the dissertation was also due this week. Therefore I have to refer to the studies done in my previous semester and make some adjustments according to the new sources acquired for this module.
The work required for this week was to add the methodology section of the paper. Much of the information that is to be added to this part of the paper has already been gathered from the Research Design module from previous semesters. I was also instructed to touch up the literature review of the paper by adding reference stamps.
Taking the material that was gathered from the previous module, the information given in regards to the basic aspects of the research was lacking. Therefore, I am required to expand upon the research problems and objectives.
After I have completed the Methodology section of the paper, I should focus my efforts on the Findings portion of the paper. Discussions of the paper requires a little more extra research to gather some external opinions on the subject matter, and thus is on delay on my to-do list for this week.
Considering the minor hiccups of the research collection module from the previous semester, I had to make up for it by evaluating a few extra sources. It was slightly more difficult accounting for new sources as some of them were a little less aligned to the study in terms of coverage on practical techniques.
After the lecture, I moved on to the Conclusion section of the paper. When comparing the newer sources that I had gathered against the data that I have collected, I noticed inconsistencies between the information provided from the academic sources and general opinions. This could be attributed to expertise in the field allowing for better understanding compared to the average person.
As this week was a holiday, I had just finished the rest of the remaining parts of the paper. Creating a conclusion was more difficult than I had anticipated. The sources I gathered in this semester did help to create a more cohesive explanation when making a case for how realism is supposed to be portrayed in the media.
Finishing up the abstract was rather simple as it was basically a summary of everything that was covered in the paper. Afterwards, I added some more content to the body text by going more into detail and expanding upon my findings and how it differed from my expectations, and expectations imposed by the literary sources.
As I had, for the most part, finished whatever that was required for the research paper, the work for this week was more relaxed in comparison.
While compiling the references and appendices for the research paper, I felt that the study could be further supplemented with another study to be used as appendices. The study itself was quite lacking when it came to defining the objective of the dissertation as well as using examples to reinforce the conclusion.
This week was the submission date for the research dissertation. Having completed the dissertation in the previous week, all that was left was to just convert the work into a PDF file for submission.
Afterwards, the next assignment begins, which was to begin the design process for creating the e-book. Initially, I was quite lost in terms of the direction and theme that I wanted to use for creating the e-book.
We were left to work on the moodboard due to Ms Hayati feeling unwell this week. It did provide ample time for me to collect a good number of references that could be used in the e-book’s design.
For the typeface selection, I did take what I had learned in the previous typography module and applied it here. As the topic at hand was to discuss the principles of animation, I felt that it was appropriate to take a less formal approach to the design. Opting for a sans serif font, I think it would suit the theme of movement quite well, as serif fonts looked too stiff and formal.
Following the materials that I’ve gathered to use references for designing the e-book. Presenting them to Ms Hayati, it did provide a solid base on how to design the cover of the e-book, but the color scheme did look a bit too corporate than a student-made publication.
According to feedback from Ms Hayati, there have been quite a number of shortcomings when it came to formatting and labeling the different sections of the dissertation, not to mention the content that hasn’t been evaluated yet.
Trying different combinations of colour schemes for the book, a mix of navy, white and orange appealed to me the most, and it wasn’t overly formal, thus I continued with this particular colour palette.
This week, Ms Hayati checked out the designs for the cover for the e-book that we have presented. Most of my designs were not final yet, and so was the rest of the pages I had completed so far.
For the first few pages of the e-book, Ms Hayati commented that the choice of typeface for the e-book was quite appropriate, and I could consider some similar typefaces too. The arrangement of text columns of the pages were interesting, however I should keep in mind that having different numbers of columns in each page could lead to the composition of the pages to look inconsistent when viewed in a spread.
For this week, I had to begin working on adding the body content of the dissertation into the format of the e-book. While it was simple enough as a job of copying the content, I found it quite difficult to come up with a fresh new composition for each unique section of the e-book. Otherwise I thought that it looked much too uniform.
In the end I settled with having 3 unique designs in terms of composing each page, and rotating between them over the 6 sections of the journal. When adding the text to the pages of the journal, I had nearly forgotten advice from the previous typography module suggesting that fonts in InDesign should be between 9-11pt size for body text.
As the final week of the semester approached, much of the work across all the modules were soon due for submission. Thankfully, the final article to be published largely uses existing material from the previous journal.
Exporting the e-book in PDF format proved to be quite a pain. I hadn’t realized that assigning a different paper colour only meant it would be displayed as such in InDesign, and this change is not reflected in the exported file. I spent a good day fiddling with the settings to figure out a workaround.
I was quite confused with how to structure my content when it came to preparing the article in KREATE format. As much of my dissertation was made to reference other presented points as much as possible, I found trying to extract a short excerpt to be quite problematic as it wouldn’t make much sense out of context.
For the last week of this semester, I had to complete the KREATE format of the dissertation. While it was simple in the fact that the content just largely consisted of excerpting existing content, it was still rather time consuming for me.
I noticed that much of the work from other modules were quite back-loaded when it came to this semester, as some assignments were given in the last week or two, throwing me for quite a loop in terms of managing my working pace..
Juggling all the work across all the other modules, I felt that the work schedule of this semester was a large step up from previous semesters. Overall, the workflow of this module did flow well from one assignment to the next, and it was smoother to complete. While trying to extract the most important examples and pieces of information to be used in the article, I found it fairly difficult to properly distinguish the hierarchy in terms of relevance.
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