Rationale
I chose to highlight two world fairs because they were a great jumping off point for connections. They were truly showcases for the locations they took place in and they both welcomed international influences which demonstrated what this period was all about as it came out of a high time of industrialization and globalization. I think that I gathered images for the Great Exhibition of 1851 that really captured the feeling of what the event was like. I chose to show paintings of the scenes at the fair to really get a sense of the whole fair was about. It was a showcase of Victorian grandeur.
I chose a smaller event —William Morris opening his decorating firm because it actually had a lot of impactful influence on many things. The Arts and Crafts Movement found its momentum there and went on to influence the Art Nouveau period (which I didn’t get to go into with this assignment). There was no shortage of connections here as Morris was well-connected and his firm worked on many different projects which gave this section a good sense of his style and work.
The Exhibition Universelle de 1889 was an event that also had many connections to the global community from Paris. I tried to capture what the style of the times were and show that this fair differed from the first. There were photographs at this time and technology had really took a leap forward compared to the fair in London three decades earlier. The way the fair was advertised also looked different and we’re over in Paris now where the fashion and graphics were vastly different than the first fair.
Grade
I’d give myself a 7/10 for this. I think I did the assignment as briefed. The writing could have been more engaging which is where I’d leave marks off. As a visual person, I sometimes think visuals speak for itself and I find it hard to articulate the words I feel for it, but as moodboards are often shared with clients/other team members, I understand that it’s best to add words in to clarify the exact feel you’re going after so everyone is on the same page. Though it wasn’t asked of for the assignment, I decided to pull some colour swatches from some of the photos to give each section a certain palette. It also worked nicely to fill in awkward gaps from the different sized images.
It was a challenge using InVision for the first time on this assignment as it had its constraints. What was the most frustrating was that the portrait-oriented images would always be cut off. I’m used to the complete freedom I get when making moodboards on Illustrator so this felt quite limiting, but I did what I could!