A Pedagogical Wheel of M.P Verneuil’s Study of Plant in Application to Art Industries
Project Brief
The project I worked on in the Plants and Decorative Art Practices lab is to explore ways of creating a pedagogical resource of the ‘Study of Plant- In application to Art Industries’ by M.P Verneuil. He is a French artist and designer. He is known for his contribution to the art-deco movement and, in particular, his use of bold, floral designs in ceramic tiles, wallpapers and other furnishing textiles. The research project requires to create a pedagogical resource accompanying the book to learn more about the plants that Verneuil has mentioned in his book. The resource will help engage the reader actively with it so to gain a better understating of the book.
I had the opportunity to work on a project that involved creating an interactive wheel. This wheel allowed users to match the flower heads of different plants with their corresponding bodies, while also showcasing how these plants could be used for decorative purposes. Additionally, the wheel provided information about the habit and life forms of each plant, giving users a deeper understanding of their growing structures.
Research process
I started by reading the book of Verneuil to understand the context and content of the book. It was very necessary to decode what Verneuil wanted to say in the book before brainstorming on the ideas of creating a resource. In the process of going through the book. I noticed that the first chapter of the book was solely dedicated to making the reader understand the structure and categorizations of plants. This means the book wants us to fi rst understand the plant before getting to know its presence in decoration. And this was my major learning in creating the pedagogical wheel. I also researched work done in similar fi elds to understand the process. Research also involved reading up about M.P Verneuil and his history as an artist and designer. This little research guided me to understand Verneuil and his work better.
My continuous research process involved learning about how a pedagogical resource can help a learner. I looked at creative resources made by artists and designers in the same context and in a different way of representing data. I looked up many other pedagogical resources such as board games, coloring books, and data visualization projects to place my project somewhere in between those. Simultaneously, I was also learning to categorize a plant and understand the structure of a plant under the mentorship of Dr. Savinaya M S.
Design Process
The project taught me many different things at all levels of work progress. Firstly, it was my first time translating an existing educative resource into another form of resource. Converting briefly the book’s content into an interactive engaging wheel was interesting and full of new learning for me too. I learned how to represent my learnings by taking inspiration from existing works done in the same space. Another thing that I learned was to categorize a plant/flower based on its structure of inflorescence, leaf placement, and growing habit of it. This new way of looking at plants to understand their structure is something that has been added to my knowledge. And speaking of creating the output, the process required me to isolate the plant from the original illustration in Photoshop. Laser cutting was a new skill I engaged with and enjoyed the process of it. The perquisites of laser cutting were to create the outline of each flower and flower body for it to be put into the machine. The laser-cut pieces have added visual value to my project
Future Scope
After completing the project, I step back to see the whole work done and observe the connection I could form during this research project. I see now that although the wheel (pedagogical resource) was made in reference to how I would like to learn about Verneuil’s book, I feel it holds great potential to cater to other age groups too. The user testing is still in process which will give me better insights into the project. It is also very important to be satisfied yet ambitious with your hard work. Based on the output, some details need to be mentioned clearly for the user to understand the purpose of that information in the wheel and why it is important. I also realized that, I can do this form of translation to many other resources and topics and build on it more.