For the class, every student wrote a critique of a fellow classmate’s work. They were assigned a week before the actual project was due, so we could all get some feedback on our work.

This critique required us to assess three main points:

1. How assigned class readings on design informed their compositional strategy and choice of imagery
2. How they hope the final image describes, references, or evokes dystopia or utopia, or 1980s culture and technology
3. How specific Photoshop tools and techniques influenced their creative process

I chose to do Joslyn’s work. Joslyn took a creative approach to her project – she used the background of a postcard, and used the images she collected online as makeshift postcard stamps. She has a variety of sizes of images (stamps) on her postcard. This creates interesting contrast for her project. For example, her scanned image of tissue paper is quite big, while her Rubix cube image is much smaller. Her card also has a lot of depth to it. She stacks the stamps, putting some on top of others. She seemingly splits the card in half, using the faint midline as her guide. But they aren’t halved to the point of being boring – it is a good source of balance in the work. It is boring when a piece of work has the focus slapped right in the middle of the page – using varying sizes and shapes of objects keeps the work interesting, which Joslyn does well on. The little Pac Man at the edges of the post card creates a sort of border to bring it all together, adding unity to the work.

Joslyn touches heavily on the 80’s/pop culture aspect of the project. Her stamps are old school, some of which include a Led Zeppelin logo, a Rubix Cube, an old camera, Michael Jackson’s signature – all relics from a different, older time. This also makes it a great collage. She uses lots of images to make a whole new work. However, the work does not have much to do with the dystopia/utopia characteristic of the project requirements. I believe it would be wise to incorporate something of the like, some sort of stamp that would fit with that requirement. Or perhaps the postcard could be dystopian/utopian themed. Overall, I absolutely love this idea and Joslyn is doing a great job.