Major Textiles Project: Managing, Documenting and Evaluating a Design Project
What you must understand
The Major Textiles Project is assessed on the quality of the process as much as the product. You must be able to describe how a project is initiated, planned, developed, realised and evaluated, and how evidence is documented throughout.
Know the components: a project proposal linking to an area of study and a design brief; a design specification with measurable criteria; research and inspiration with source acknowledgement; experimentation and sampling showing decision-making; a management plan covering time, materials, cost and risk; production records; and a final evaluation against the specification and original intent.
Understand the areas of study and how a project is situated within one, and the role of the supporting documentation in evidencing the design process rather than merely displaying the finished item. Documentation should show iterations, failures and modifications, not a tidy path to a predetermined outcome.
Evaluation must be honest and criterion-referenced. Identify what worked, what did not, why, and what you would change. Link judgements to evidence.
Traps in questions
- Describing the product only, without the process that produced it.
- Presenting a specification that cannot be measured, making evaluation impossible.
- Omitting risk management, cost or time planning.
- Writing an evaluation that lists strengths only, or that ignores the original brief.
Rule of thumb
Apply Plan → Do → Record → Evaluate → Modify. Every design decision should be traceable to a specification point, and every specification point should be evaluable. If you cannot measure it, rewrite it until you can.