Documentation

documentation_1
“take a photo” by Bruce Aldridge. License: CC BY 2.0

The final goal of most creative endeavors is to share it with an audience. Of course, good images/videos of a final piece are essential, but documenting the different stages of your process – both visually and in writing – is important too.

Why document?

  • Help others understand your work.
  • Deepen your own understanding and collect resources for future projects.
  • Enhance your portfolio / open up career opportunities

What questions should good documentation answer?

  • What is the name of this project?
  • Who worked on it / in what capacity?
  • When was it made?
  • What technology/materials were used?
  • If the project is heavily influenced by an object or technique, please list your sources.  Post images, links to blogs, videos, etc.  Give credit where credit is due.
  • What need is being addressed / what is the goal of this project?
  • Who is the target audience / user?
  • Is the piece interactive? If so, how does the user interact with it?
  • What was the creative process like (prototypes, challenges etc.)

What tools to use?

  • Photos (for raw materials, mid-process images, final piece)
  • Video, Stop-motion, GIFs (for documenting interactions)
  • Scanner (for works on paper/flat documents)
  • Screenshots (for software)
  • Text

How to assemble/share your documentation?

  • Create a digital portfolio – this could be a website (you can easily create one with WordPress, Tumblr or Squarespace) or an account on a popular media sharing platform (i.e: Behance.net, Vimeo)
  • Short posts on Instagram, Twitter and other social media platforms can be a great way of building an audience. You can always link to more in depth documentation from there.
  • Make sure you also save all your documentation and files for your projects on an external hard drive and on a cloud based storage (i.e: Dropbox, Google drive). You want to make sure you can reformat/reuse them in the future). Create folders and clearly label all your files.

Further reading/resources: