Choose one essay from the list below if you are taking the module for 15 credits (MIT3121) or for 20 credits (MIT3221).

If you are taking the module for 20 credits (MIT3221) you can either do a second essay, on a different subject from the first, or another logo or packaging design, with critique.

If you can't find an essay question you like, see me and we will work out another.

All essays must be presented with a bibliography of the material that you have read in preparation for the essay - the essay mark will be affected if it is absent! You are expected to read material both in printed form and on the web.

Be aware of the rules against plagiarism. Refer to the student handbook for the section on plagiarism and read the guide to presenting essays. There are severe penalties if you plagiarise!

Essays should be approximately 2000 words, excluding bibliography and notes, but can be longer if you wish.

Marking Criteria

The things I shall be looking for when marking the essay are available as a Word file.

1. What can we learn about graphical communication from studying children's art and design?
2. Computer graphics are just an expensive alternative to pens and paper. Are they?
3. Computers are machines. Art is produced by the subjectivity of a human mind guiding a moving hand holding a brush or chisel. Can therefore computers by themselves ever produce graphic art?
   Graphic art here means pictures and sculpture, not performing art or music. Make sure your discussion includes the role of artifical intelligence in the generation of art, e.g. by the computer painting program Aaron, and particularly relevant here is a 30 minute video on Aaron and computer-based performance art (even though in respect of the latter this essay is about graphic art).

4. Should computer graphics seek to copy traditional visual forms in art or set off elsewhere?
5. Computers never lie. Should this also apply to computer-generated graphics?
6. Discuss the issues of publishing pictures that have been altered using a computer.
7. "The greatest thing is to get the true picture - whatever it is" (Winston Churchill).
   Discuss with computer manipulaton of pictures in mind as well as other forms of picture.

8. Some organisations put much effort and money into designing and adopting a logo. How can they justify this?
Under 'organisations', you may want to be broad in your approach and consider companies, non-commercial groups and charities. The last category would be particularly sensitive to justifying such expenditure.
9. 'Too much detail confuses rather than enlightens'. Relate this view to presenting information or ideas graphically.

10. It's not the contents of a product that sell it, but its packaging. Do you agree?
Under 'packaging', do not discuss advertising, but the physical aspects of products, e.g. colour, material, typography and imagery on the packaging.
11. People buy the wine label, not the wine. Do they?
For bibliography, see under 'packaging'.
12. Assess the role of colour in packaging.
13. 'The typography used on packaging is as important as the visual elements'. Discuss.
14. 'Letters are the clothes that words wear' (Erik Spiekermann in Typomania, from BBC2 series Into Print 1990). Discuss in relation to the use of type in commercial graphics.

The video can be borrowed from the Pallas Office

15. 'To be simple is the end, not the beginning of design' (C. Voysey, 1893).
    Discuss in relation to the design of graphics-based material.