What craft records that a final image hides

Ask each student to bring one finished artefact and the material traces that led to it: rejected prints, file versions, notes, test photographs, code commits, or production samples. The class builds a horizontal timeline from these items.

Students label every point where a choice was made. The label names the available options, the condition that mattered, and the reason for the choice. “It looked better” must be expanded into a visible property such as contrast, rhythm, density, sequence, cost, or reproduction quality.

The critique compares the final artefact with the decision record. Which important choice is invisible in the final image? Which visible feature was accidental? What knowledge could another designer reuse without copying the result?

The outcome is a one-page process account, not a celebration of effort. It must include one failed path and one decision the student would change.

No photograph from the former event is reproduced here. Historical image URLs should resolve to this new written context, not to an unlicensed copy.