VISUAL ARTS
YEAR 11 VISUAL ARTS CAPTAIN REFLECTION
For our first area of study in Unit 3 of Visual Communication and Design, we have been analysing, comparing, and immersing ourselves into each area of professional design practice. For our first folio of the year, we were tasked with picking two of the four fields of design practice - objects, environments, messages, and interactive experience - to develop ideas and create two final concepts for the Cadence Music Festival 2026.
Each music festival was unique to which music genre the student chose, ranging from current pop to R&B and all music from the 60s-2000s. Stepping into the shoes of designers in those fields reflected in the development were methods and design conventions commonly used in each design field, such as environmental designers using elevations and space mapping while object designers use isometric drawing to illustrate their product.
For the second half of the Professional Design Practice study, each student chose two designers, one pre-2000s and one post-2000s. Students compared and analysed the designers’ different design purposes, methods, materials, and media. Then, students looked at how different designers approach their development based on technological, environmental, economic, cultural, and social factors.
In preparation for our final SAT folios, the Year 12 VCD and Year 12 Media students will be taking an excursion in early term 2 to Top Designs and ACMI to gain a broader range of ideas and perspectives for our VCD folios and Media product finals. I am looking forward to seeing some of the best folios on display from 2024. This will assist all students in understanding the folio task and hopefully incite some inspiration.
In Year 11 Media, we have been focused on the representations in media and how parts of society are selected, omitted, and constructed in the media we consume. We use and understand the media codes and conventions to analyse how the media product has been represented. In class we analysed various media products, such as print advertisements as well as Greta Gerwig's film Barbie (2023). We analysed how gender and stereotypes can be represented and reflected in the media as well as how the media can challenge those ideologies.
Our media class has now started on our folio work on a recut trailer. Our aim is to take a movie and recut a trailer into an opposing genre, for example, turning a family movie into a thriller or a horror movie into a romance by manipulating film codes and conventions on what is typically represented in these types of products. In the pre-production stage, we have conducted thorough research into varied genre movie posters and trailers, taking out common characteristics that convey a specific genre.
We then go through creating a mock-up movie poster in the recut genre as well as detailed storyboarding to convey each scene and shot of the trailer before creating the final product. To create our finals, we will be using Adobe platforms at school, creating a professional final print advertisement poster and recut film trailer of the chosen film.
By taking both Year 12 VCD and Year 11 Media, it has opened different perspectives in how different forms of products and any visual messages are created, as well as their in-depth processes, learning how to write and analyse them and the broad pathways any type of design can take you in. Both of these subjects offer a space for like-minded designers to add perspective and unique ideas to class discussions and help each other grow and improve along the way.
Anthe Limogiannis
Year 11 Visual Arts Captain