Folio With Beautiful Sketches, No Decisions
A folio contains 38 pages. Pages 1–12 are mood boards of 'inspiration' images with no annotations. Pages 13–30 are 18 polished marker renderings of the same chair concept, each slightly different in colour. Pages 31–38 are the final orthographic drawings. There are no dated entries, no rejected alternatives with reasons, no client or user research, and no tests of materials or ergonomics. The student says the folio 'shows development because there are many versions'. The assessment requires evidence of investigation, experimentation, and refinement toward a resolved design.
1. Explain why 'many versions' is not the same as 'development'. Identify the specific folio evidence that is absent.
Read the worked answer
Development is decision-making made visible, not variation. Eighteen colour variants of one form show iteration of surface, but the underlying form never changes, so no design question is being tested. The folio is missing:
- Problem definition and user research: who sits in the chair, for how long, in what context; any ergonomic data (seat height, lumbar support, popliteal clearance).
- Rejected alternatives with reasons: a variant is only development if the folio says why it was kept or discarded.
- Material and structural testing: joint tests, load-bearing sketches, cost or manufacturing constraints.
- Dated entries and a clear sequence: without dates or a stated order, the marker cannot see progression.
- Reflection: no page says 'this failed because…'.
A useful test: could a reader reconstruct the reasoning that led to the final chair? Here, no - they could only see that the student likes drawing chairs. The mood boards also lack annotation, so they function as decoration rather than investigation.
2. Design a folio structure that would convert this material into evidence of process, reusing as much existing work as possible.
Read the worked answer
Reuse the 18 renderings and 12 mood-board pages by re-framing them, not discarding them:
- Front section (new, ~4 pages): design brief, user profile, and 3 measurable constraints (e.g. seat height 430–450 mm, 120 kg load, flat-pack under 30 minutes).
- Investigation (~6 pages): annotate the existing mood boards with what principle each image contributes (joinery, proportion, colour), not just 'I like this'.
- Experimentation (~8 pages): group the 18 renderings into 4 families, each testing one variable (seat depth, back angle, leg splay, colour). Add a short test per family: cardboard mock-up, load sketch, or ergonomic overlay.
- Decision page (~2 pages): a comparison table scoring each family against the brief's constraints, with the chosen direction justified.
- Refinement and resolution (~6 pages): the final orthographic drawings plus a change log showing what was altered after testing.
- Evaluation (~2 pages): what the constraints forced, what would change with more time or budget.
This converts existing pages into evidence and adds roughly 12 new pages of reasoning, which is a realistic workload.