Reflective writing in design

Reflecting on practice is an important means of developing expertise in design. Structured reflection involves identifying significant events that lead to learning, identifying their value and considering how they will contribute to your future projects and your practice as a whole.

One example of reflective writing in art and design is the Studio Knowledge Object (SKO), which is a record of learning and insights gained in a design studio course.

These insights can be anything from learning a new method for improving your workflow to a lesson that completely changed your perspective of art and design. Your specific learning moments are individual to you. By articulating them in words and demonstrating them through design, you can communicate the value of your learning to others.

Let's explore how SKOs are structured.

The SKO text has three main sections:

1. Contextualising the field of inquiry that the studio investigates gives a non-expert reader an understanding of the key issues and approaches that your reflection relates to.
2. Reflecting on your learning identifies key insights and learning from the studio, describing specific activities, concepts or approaches and evaluating their impact. You will probably cover 2-4 insights in your SKO.
3. Proposing future application speculates about how you can transfer this new knowledge to other projects and how it might affect your future practice.

The way that you combine these elements will help to tell your story, so consider:

• text (title, headings and paragraphs)
• images (of your work, diagrams or other content)
• design (type and graphic elements)
• layout (arrangement)

All elements should reflect the content of your studio and the learning you have gained.