Return to the UK (nearly) and reaction to 506 brief

Having just returned to the UK for this week to get up to date with the briefs it feels nice to settle back into the workspace and be greeted with fairly straight forward, if logistically hard, deliverables. The way I understand it is that this module is a large mixture of COP and a self-chosen project with an external collaborative partner. With regards to the COP essay, I believe we can choose our topic of interest within the broad field of graphic design and just need to write in-depth exploring the context. With this being a 2500 word essay I've never really done anything of this length before but its clear that the starting point will be to go to the library and take out some books to work out my specified field of interest by the end of the week. It also needs to be linked to our collaborative work that accounts for the other half of the project. It will be in my best interest to choose a fairly general topic that could apply to multiple mediums of graphic design. Straight off the bat typography is a bit of a go-to for me but maybe I should broaden my repertoire and branch out.

It is also important to search around for live briefs and national competitions that could be of interest as these are listed as the focal point for any collaborative work. I need to ask if this is strictly important and how niche I can go with my competition sources as after a quick look at D&AD a lot of these briefs are very boring and commercial and aimed at creative advertisers. I would be really interested in collaborating with a fashion designer.

So the next step over the course of this week and when I return in February (as I won't have much time to work on this in Rotterdam) is to start reading and researching possible questions for the essay and to find potential collaborators based on competition briefs that I feel might fit our collective skill set.