NM3217 - Principles of Communication Design Review

NM3217

Taken in: AY21/22 Semester 2
Lecturer: Tan Kai En
Tutor: Tan Kai En

Grading:

• 10% - Participation
• 10% - 7 Lecture Assignments (All due week 13)
• 3x15% - Assignments 1-3
• 35% - Final Project (Brand Style Guide):
• 5% - Business Card
• 10% - Overall Brand Style Guide
• 10% - Logo
• 10% - Resume

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This is the design module that teaches you Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop, in order of how often you'll use the software. After taking this module, I discovered how much of a gem InDesign is, and grew less scared of working with Vector Graphics. Actually, most of the assignments require you to use InDesign and mostly use vectors. I actually didn't use Photoshop in any of my assignments...

The final project of this module teaches you to construct a Brand Style Guide. This is a relevant takeaway from this module: After this module, I began my summer job as a Creative Marketing Intern and the final project is quite faithful to real style guides you may see. These will vary based on companies, and most BSG's will be more comprehensive than your final project, but it's actually quite close. I don't expect to have to design a brand guide from scratch any time soon (Since most companies have already established theirs), but it helps to know.

I loved this module, because tutorials with Kai were fun, and I got to design my own personal branding for the final project. It was fun to see my classmate's designs blossom and well, a little daunting as well. Everyone's designs look so good!

Workload-wise, this module is very light at the start and heavier at the end. Listen up! Just because the lecture exercise component is due in week 13 doesn't mean you should leave it all til then. Try to do pace yourself and do the exercises as they come out, because you need the time in the last few weeks to work on your final projects so you probably don't want to waste your time on lecture exercises then. Plus, the lecture exercises are usually related to lecture contents of that week. Trust me, you don't want to be rushing out all your exercises last minute.

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Detailed Breakdown

Lectures and Tutorials

There are no live lectures for this module. They're all pre-recorded and uploaded at the time indicated in the timetable. The lectures are mostly theory, and may help you with some design decisions. There are lecture exercises after some lectures. These exercises all due together with the blog in week 13, but I highly suggest you start on them early, as you do not want to rush them alongside your final project, plus the lecture exercises are relevant to the lecture's contents.

Tutorials in the first half (Before reading week) are mainly to learn the Adobe Suite. That's it. No homework. After reading week, tutorials will be for your assignments.

As for the lecture exercises, you may google NM3217 blog and see past student's blogs. You can also see their assignments and final project. The assignments stay mostly the same.

Assignments

Assignments are given at the end of lecture videos, and you'll also be given a brief. You need to submit a 99% done assignment 2 hours before your tutorial for critique, and the final submission is due exactly 3 days after your tutorial.

Assignment 1 - Abstraction (Due Week 7)

The first assignment is issued to you before reading week, so you can get started early (And you should! You only have about 1 week to do each assignment)... In this first assignment, the task is to pick a photo that you took, and abstract it into simpler forms, optimally using Adobe Illustrator to use vectors.

You have to do up 5 stages of abstraction, with each stage becoming more and more abstract. I'd say pick a good photo in which you can envision the final stage, and then slowly work in the in-between stages.

Assignment 2 - Composition (Due Week 8)

In this one, you have to take 6-9 photos and arrange them to tell a story. There'll be a focus on composition (Rule of thirds) and framing.

Don't get too carried away with the story. You only get 9 panels max, and you have to fit them all in an A4-sized document. You cannot edit the photos, but you can optionally use Photoshop to touch them up, just no altering of the source image. I'm guessing the grading is how well the story is conveyed.

Assignment 3 - Infographic (Due Week 9)

This is where you really should start early. Much time will be spent trying to find the information you want to make an infographic on (You're free to choose), a little bit to research, and then actually creating the infographic.

Just choose something simple. I took so long to decide what I wanted to do on, because I couldn't research and draw up an infographic in such little time. So, I just did mine on fun facts about flags lmao. My classmates did stuff about Matcha facts, Wolf vs Dog differences, the various languages spoken in the world (and statistics, percentages). So, go wild!

Final Project

This project officially starts around week 9-10, after your three assignments. Tutorials during this time will also be different. Depending on your tutor, there may be 1-to-1 consultations and fewer class-wide presentations. You get to choose between two options: Personal Branding or CNM Department Branding. I picked option 1.

For both options, you have to make a brand style guide containing a logo, style guidelines, and how you will use the logo (and other designs) in a business card, Resume (Option 1) or Poster (Option 2). I don't know what to say here. You can google for other past NM3217 blogs and see how they do it. To be honest, the samples given to us aren't always good examples. Mine was somewhat rushed because I had so many projects due in week 13. After looking through, it looked kinda messy. Oh well!

Final Note

A lot of my friends averaged 80+ for the assignments. Mine did around 77-80+. Let's see how mine fares.

Also, you can have a look at my NM3217 blog here, if you're curious about the lecture exercises and assignments.

Expected grade: A-

Actual grade: A

Reviewed by: ZH