Macro Unit Review

Five weeks doesn't sound like a long amount of time; however, the five weeks of Macro are some of the most intense I have experienced professionally. The isolation from the rest of the cohort, the timer ticking down to the final presentation and the expectations we had placed upon ourselves meant that this was a rollercoaster all the way to the end.

It was unfortunate that the group I worked within encountered so many setbacks, twists and turns. With some time to reflect and unpack this, I have identified some of the contributing factors to the challenges we were confronted with.

There was a conflict surrounding who we were designing for, that started right at the beginning of the project. Axa were clear that we should follow our own path, with no restrictions from them, however the tutors were keen on Axa's areas of cars and healthcare. The project brief was querying risk management, but we were continually asked by tutors about how our design integrated with insurance policies. Axa tended to 'solutionise' each design challenge, and the tutors wanted weird, dark, twisted responses.

Sat in amongst this was myself and my team, trying to design for the lovely over 65's we'd been speaking with.

Another challenge we faced was having a very down-to-earth, client focussed, professionally experienced team, paired with an open ended, abstract brief. Whilst all of us are creative, we aren't used to applying it in this manner. I think that this is something I have been struggling with overall on the course; learning how to let go of my pre-disposition to design for real-world installations, and I think that better framing of the expectations in a brief would help to overcome this.

The brief itself was fascinating, but so lacking in tangible outcomes that I couldn't see where we were meant to be heading. The other teams had a sense of what to strive for (pluriversal object, transmedia campaign, engagement methods), yet ours did not have anything concrete. We were left to define the elements within the brief ourselves, and this in turn, allowed us to change and modify it multiple times when research or advise prompted us.

I can be proud of how we prioritised the primary research and held fast to it whilst everything around it changed, and I do think our eventual outcome satisfied the brief. It was however a project in its infancy, which needed more time and attention to fully expand into the potential it had. Given the opportunity, I think both myself the team would jump at the chance to continue to explore this, now we have a direction and some more confidence in pursuing it.

The team and I in our final presentation, talking about why we care. Image by Munira Kazi