Assessment Preparation

Because I'd produced an assortment of items for my assignment (two books, a calendar, some slides) I wanted a way of bringing them together, visually, for the assessment. I decided the best solution was to put the different sized items into hand-made boxes. Luckily I'd recently been on a book binding workshop and gained some useful information on where to get the materials.

I had to buy sheets of stiff card for the boxes and cut them into bases and sides. These were then glued to form a basic box. I was going to use black book cloth for the box lids (to match the texture of the two books) and silver paper for the box bases to provide contrast.

A lot of experimenting was done at the early stages to make the boxes look neat but also be as simple to cover with the book cloth as possible. The glue for the cloth gets everywhere so it was important for there not to be to many separate steps or pieces of cloth to wrap around corners. In the end I devised a template that would fit all the outer sides of the lid, and wrap over, to cover the interior sides. I then placed a smaller piece inside the lid to cover the base.

All the boxes were different sizes, so lots of measuring, experimenting and problem solving for each one! This box is for the slides and slide viewer. The basic interior design was sketched out first so I could see how I wanted the interior layout to appear. There would be the viewer in the middle with the slides arranged either side.

I made some of the easier book boxes first, before tackling the slide box.

The interior slide box pieces.

Lots of modifications had to be made to stop the slides from moving when the box was shaken. I knew that the box would probably end up thrown around in the post and didn't want the assessor to open it and find a mess! I've done some vigorous shake tests so I do hope it arrives intact.

Once I'd made all the boxes I collated all the assignments notes, essays, tutor reports etc. I used the binding machine I bought for my last course assessment to make a spiral bound book for each assignment. I used black covers to match the box lids and the cover of my physical learning log. I also made a navigation card with all the relevant info for the assessors to find their way around the assessment materials. This is a format I've used for the last two courses and not had any negative feedback on it - so I'll stick with it.

Two hand-made books, a calendar, Slides with a slide viewer, a critical essay, and an online video presentation. Plus all the bound associated research notes and physical learning log. It doesn't look like two years work sitting there. All that's left to do now is to pack all the materials into a box and post it off and wait.