Lesson video

Hello, thank you for joining me for your design and technology lesson.

My name is Mrs. Conway, and I will be guiding you through your learning today.

So, today's lesson outcome is I can use digital media to present my design portfolio.

And these are our keywords.

Design portfolio, iterative design process, and digital media.

The first thing we're going to look at then is the purpose of a design portfolio.

A design portfolio is a collection of a designer's work.

It shows how ideas develop from start to finish and includes things such as sketches, research, models, and evaluations.

So, here's some examples from typical design portfolio pages.

Now, the design portfolio is used in GCSE designer technology to show your thinking and your decision making.

It is sometimes tempting to only include the best work, and I can understand why that's so tempting.

And also, sometimes you only wanna put your best ideas in it as well.

But in fact, it should show the journey of the designer, including all of the ideas that were not taken through or were not successful.

So, the ideas that you don't like as much.

Okay, quick check for understanding on that.

What work should be included in a design portfolio? Is it A, only the designer's best work? B, only the final ideas, or C, a mixture of all of the ideas to show the design journey.

Pause the video here, just to have a think about that.

And the correct answer, it was C.

So, even though it's tempting to only put your best work into the portfolio, it should show a mixture of all of the ideas to show the design journey and your decisions.

A design portfolio allows the designer to showcase their creativity and their skills by demonstrating what they can do and also their style and their ideas.

It also acts as evidence of the design process itself.

The design process is a journey, as I've already mentioned, and that designer travels that journey, and the design portfolio should show every stage of it.

It should not just show the final outcome, but instead act as a step-by-step record of how the designer got to that final outcome.

It also helps to communicate the designer's ideas to others, which is really useful for people like examiners, your teachers, but also clients and employers.

It can also be used as a reflective tool, as it can show why the designer chose certain ideas or materials, and helps the designer to improve and understand what worked well.

So, here's an example of a design page from a design portfolio the designer has included.

You can see it includes their sketches and their ideas, and also annotation to explain their ideas.

The designer has used the page to basically work out their ideas, but they've also communicated their ideas to others with use of really clear sketches and the addition of the annotation.

So, this acting in two ways.

One, to help work out what it is they're actually designing and how it's going to work.

And two, to communicate all of that to other people.

Now, there's no set order that a design portfolio must take.

The order that it takes is the order in which the designer carries out the design process.

And this can vary from project to project, from designer to designer.

It should reflect the iterative way in which the designer has worked.

The iterative design process is a cycle of creating, testing and improving a design until it meets the user's needs.

Let's look at that in a bit more detail.

So, here's an example of an iterative design process.

So, the designer will identify the needs of the user.

They may then carry out some research and analysis, some design and development.

They may might test and evaluate these ideas.

They then might go on to refine and improve them, but they then might find that they need more information, after refining and improving or testing and evaluating, they may realize that actually the idea isn't quite working and they might need to go back to the very start in identifying needs or maybe they just go back to research and analysis.

They may find that they only need to go back to design and development for example.

This process is an iterative design process, which means it's not really a straight line.

You keep revisiting and improving your ideas instead of sticking with the first one.

So, you might find that you're actually going almost in a bit more of a circle, going back to some of the previous steps just to get it really right.

Quick check for understanding on that then.

So, what is the main feature of the iterative design process? Is it A, following, a fixed step-by-step plan without making changes? B, continuously testing and improving ideas through feedback.

Or C, creating one final design at the start and sticking to it.

Pause the video here, just have a little think about that.

And the correct answer, it was B.

So, the main feature of the iterative design process is continuously testing and improving ideas through that feedback.

Okay, it's gonna be over to you now to have a go at some tasks.

I'd like you to first explain what a design portfolio is.

I'd then like you to explain four purposes of a design and technology design portfolio.

And lastly, I'd like you to explain how the iterative design process helps a designer improve their product.

Okay, gonna view to you now, so pause the video here to have a go at these three tasks.

Let's look at each one of these in turn then.

The first thing I asked you to do was to explain what a design portfolio is.

Let's look at an example answer.

A design portfolio is a collection of work that shows the design process, ideas, and final outcome.

Just compare your answer to that and see if you missed anything.

The next thing I asked you to do then was to explain four purposes of a design and technology design portfolio.

Again, here's an example answer.

A design portfolio is important because it shows the whole process of designing from the first ideas to the final product.

It also allows the designer to demonstrate the creativity and problem solving skills.

The design portfolio helps to communicate ideas clearly to teachers, examiners, or clients, so they can understand the decisions made.

And finally, it provides the evidence of research, testing, and evaluation, which supports and justifies the design decisions.

Just compare your answer to the example one and check that you have explained four purposes of a designer technology portfolio.

And lastly, I asked you to explain how the iterative design process helps the designer improve their product.

Again, let's look at an example answer for you to compare yours to.

The iterative design process helps the designer improve their product because it allows them to test their ideas and make changes when something does not work.

By creating prototypes and trying them out, they can find problems and fix them.

They can also use feedback from teachers or users to make the design better.

Each time they repeat the process, the product becomes more refined and works more effectively.

Again, just compare your answer to that one.

It will not be exactly the same, you may have included some other points in there as well.

So, next we're going to look at then digital media.

Now it's up to the designer, the way in which they present their design portfolio.

One way to present a design portfolio is to use digital media.

Now, digital media is any content that is created, stored, or shared using digital technology.

Quick check for understanding on that then.

Which two statements about presenting a design portfolio are correct? A, the designer can choose how to present their design portfolio.

B, digital media can be used to present a design portfolio.

C, all design portfolios must be handwritten on paper, or D, digital media only includes printed drawings and sketches.

Pause the video here to read those to you again, and think about your answer.

You were looking for two statements.

The correct two statements were, the designer can choose how to present their design portfolio, and digital media can be used to present a design portfolio.

Well done if you've got both of those.

Now, digital media can make it easier to include things such as, video and audio, CAD models, and also animation.

Using video or animation to show testing of designs and materials really helps to communicate findings very clearly.

Audio can also be used to explain ideas if it's not quite clear, through things like text and images alone.

Now, there are benefits of presenting a design portfolio using this digital media.

Jacobs just explained one of the benefits here.

"When I use digital media, my work looks neater and more professional." Now, that might not be the case for everybody, but it is for Jacob, and it might be for you.

Sophia has explained "I find it easier to make changes or improvements to my design portfolio." That's a great idea.

Sometimes actually correcting written work means that we might have to start all over again, but correcting digital work can actually be done in a very neat and quick way.

Alex has explained 'It allows me to include things like videos, CAD models, and audio more effectively.

Absolutely.

I just gave that as an example on some previous slides.

And Sam has said, "I can share my design portfolio with my teachers and examiners easily." That's another really good point.

Izzy has said, "I like that I can include high quality images without losing any detail, which sometimes happens when printing." That's a good thing to consider.

And Aisha has explained, "I am really happy that my design portfolio is more sustainable as it does not use as much paper or printing." And that's another really good point that you may wish to consider.

Okay, quick check for understanding on some of those benefits then.

Which of the following is a benefit of using digital media to present a design portfolio? Is it A, it makes the design portfolio harder to edit once completed? B, it reduces the quality of images and visuals.

C, it requires the design portfolio to be handwritten and printed? Or D, it allows the design portfolio to be shared easily with teachers and examiners.

Pause the video here just to read through these again as they're quite long, and then think about your answer.

And the correct answer, it was D.

So, it allows the design portfolio to be shared easily with teachers and examiners.

That is one benefit of using digital media as a portfolio.

Okay, it's gonna be of to you now, for a few more tasks.

I'd like you to look back at the work and pages you have completed for your own design portfolio.

And I'd like you to review your pages and consider the following questions.

One, is my design journey clear? Two, could I add extra annotation or pages to make my design journey clearer? Three, have I explained my design decisions throughout? And four, could my design portfolio be enhanced by using digital media? Answer those as truthfully and as in depth as you can, really look through your design portfolio to consider each of those.

And the second task I'd then like you to do is to make any necessary improvements to your design portfolio based on the answers to the questions above.

It's going to be over to you now to have a look back through your design portfolio and see if there's any ways that you can make that journey clearer or enhance that design portfolio.

Okay, pause the video here to have a go at these tasks.

Okay, hopefully you got an okay with that task.

Let's have a little look at Andeep's.

Now, Andeep has explained, "I have a lot of sketches, screen grabs and photos that need to be annotated, explained and presented on a page.

I'm going to focus on this as an improvement to my design portfolio." So, he's considered those key points from the first tasks and picked out that these are the things that he could do to improve.

And here's an example of how Alex has improved his design portfolio by making it into digital media instead of it being just sketched alone.

You can see all of his notes are still clear.

All of the pictures are showing his process, but he's been able to add extra annotation and just smarten and neat it all up a little bit.

He's explained, I've used digital media to organize and share my design journey more clearly.

Hopefully you've made some improvements to your design portfolio, either by including digital media or by adding annotation or imagery to just show the design journey more clearly.

Right, let's summarize today's lesson then.

Today we've been looking at digital media presentation.

A design portfolio is a collection of a designer's work.

It shows how ideas develop from start to finish and includes things such as sketches, research, models, and evaluations.

It should show the journey of the designer, including all of the ideas that were not taken through or were not successful, even though it's tempting to not include those sometimes.

There is no set order that a design portfolio must take.

The order that it takes is the order in which the designer carries out the design process.

And it should reflect the iterative way in which the designer has worked.

Digital media can be used to present a design portfolio, but it is the designer's choice.

And the iterative design process is cycle of creating, testing, and improving a design until it meets the user's needs.

Well done for all of your hard work today.

Thank you so much for joining me, and I will see you soon.