Unit 4 Outcome 2 | assessment task | Published: November 20, 2024 | Revised: December 5, 2025
Presenting design solutions.
How do designers propose solutions to communication needs?
In the final Area of Study for the SAT in Year 12 VCD, students will create two formats that present their design solutions that satisfy the communication needs from the Brief, written in Unit 3. They use visual language and methods, media and materials to create aesthetic effects and for functional reasons. Each presentation must be distinct from the other in terms of purpose and presentation format.
This Area of Study will continue to use one phase of the Double Diamond Design Process: Deliver. It will refer to Components 11 – 13 on the Target Learning SAT workflow diagram.
outcome
What students need to do
ON COMPLETION OF THIS UNIT THE STUDENT SHOULD BE ABLE TO
-
produce a design solution for each communication need defined in the brief, satisfying the specified design criteria.
(VCE VCD Study Design 2024 – 28 p. 39).
Introduction
Model answer
Students create two different presentation formats to deliver design solutions to clients, audiences, users or stakeholders.
Presentation 1: ‘Greenco’ restaurant design. Alyssa Ngo.
Presentation 1: ‘Greenco’ branding design. Alyssa Ngo.
Presentation 1. Lynstellar character design. Vivian Phan.
Presentation 2. Lynstellar festival branding and collateral. Vivian Phan.
VCD Design process
The VCD design process is a framework that illustrates the process designers use. It is based on a model conceived by the UK Design Council in 2003. There are four stages to the VCD double diamond design process. Discover, Define, Develop and Deliver. Each uses different kinds of thinking. Sometimes designers need to think outside the box. Thinking outwards is called Divergent Thinking. At other times, they are trying to narrow and refine their ideas. This is called Convergent Thinking. The Design Process structures everything a designer does, from generating their first inspiration to delivering a design solution to their client.
Areas of study in Target Learning VCD emphasise different stages of the VCD Design process.
The VCD double diamond design process. Note the positions of Divergent and Convergent thinking.
Discover
Use Divergent Thinking to challenge assumptions and explore design problems and opportunities.
Define
Use Convergent Thinking to analyse, evaluate and present information for Human-Centred design.
Develop
Use Divergent Thinking to challenge assumptions, test and explore ideas with unexpected results.
Deliver
Use Convergent Thinking to evaluate, refine, resolve and present design solutions to meet audiences and users' needs.
Graphic indicators representing each stage of the design process used in Target Learning VCD.
Jump to
Component 11
Component 12
Component 13
Component 11
Select & Design presentation formats
To begin this Outcome, students will design presentation formats to address the communication needs in their brief. They will decide on the form and contents for each presentation format and whether each presentation will be single or have multiple parts.
key knowledge
What we will learn about
key knowledge points for this outcome
- appropriate presentation formats for the delivery of two distinct design solutions
(VCE VCD Study Design 2024-28, p. 39)
presentation formats
A presentation format in Year 12 VCD is a design that presents one or more design solutions in a relationship with each other. The relationship may be created through a common purpose, function, context or the type of design. Some examples of presentation formats used in each Field of Design include;
Messages
- A Branding presentation
- Logo (full colour, greyscale, B & W)
- Branding in simulated contexts
- Style guide
- A wayfinding (signs) presentation
- Blank sign format
- Typography or imagery
- Style guide
- Signs in simulated contexts
Objects
- An electrical appliance presentation
- 3rd Angle orthogonal drawing
- Paraline or perspective renders
- A furniture presentation
- 3rd Angle orthogonal drawing
- High-fidelity 3D printed prototype
- Perspective renders in simulated contexts
Environments
- An architectural presentation
- Plans and elevations
- Site plan
- Paraline or perspective renders
- A game environment presentation
- Urban plan
- Paraline or perspective renders
- A theatre set design
- Plans and elevations
- A scale model
- Furnishing materials swatches
Interactive Experiences
- An app design
- An interactive high-fidelity prototype
- Asset designs
- Typography and style guide
- A website
- An interactive high-fidelity prototype
- Mock-up screens
- A site map
- Typography and style guide
Two presentations
Remember, the two presentations need to be distinct from each other in purpose and presentation format. (VCD Study Design 2024 – 28 p. 39).
Presentations can be single sheets or made up of several separate parts. For example, an architectural presentation could include plans and elevations (Part A) and a model (Part B). Please note: these are not two separate presentations, as they have been created from the same communication need and design process.
For further information, visit the page on Presentation Formats.
Select presentation format
Students select appropriate formats to convey the ideas and information in their design solutions. They consider if their presentations will be single or multi-part presentations. For example, two presentations could comprise;
Communication Need 1
- Design a bushfire safety refuge
Presentation 1A
- Plans and Elevations
- Perspective renders
Presentation 1B
- A scale model
Communication Need 2
- Design an infographic for bushfire safety
Presentation 2
- Infographic
Single sheet presentations
A branding presentation 1. Ann Nguyen.
An architecture presentation 2. Ann Nguyen.
multi-sheet presentation
An architectural presentation, sheet 1.
An architectural presentation, sheet 2.
An architectural presentation, sheet 3.
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Design presentations
Once presentation formats have been chosen students design the layouts. They determine the contents and sizes of each presentation. Students use the design solutions they resolve in Unit 4 Area of Study 1. They may need to create additional designs, such as a style guide or photos in context to be used on the presentations. The images below show presentations in the design phase.
Develop skills in layout
Considering different designs for presentations with manual thumbnail sketches. Olivia Willsher.
Using digital methods to plan the layout of a presentation. Alyssa Ngo.
key skills
How I will demonstrate skills and knowledge
key Skills points for this outcome
- select suitable presentation formats that meet communication needs defined in the brief
(VCE VCD Study Design 2024-28, p. 40)
task
Show I know ...
1.1 Select presentation format
Consider the design solutions you have made, the ideas and information they communicate and propose ways to present them. Consider if they should be single (one presentation including one or more designs) or multi-part presentations (divided into different presentations: Part A, Part B).
1.2 Design presentation formats
Create A3 visual diary folio sheets to design your presentation formats using thumbnail wireframe layouts. Consider using a grid layout to organise components in presentations. At the design stage, consider the structure of your presentations. Make decisions about how they will be displayed (print, online, 3D, relief) and how that will influence your decisions about the materials you will use. Annotate your designs to describe and evaluate the design decisions being made.
Jump to
Component 12
Select & resolve methods, media and materials
In this section, students make informed and sensitive choices of methods, media, materials to address the communication needs in the brief. They use these components of visual language to communicate ideas and information or evoke emotions to audiences or stakeholders.
key knowledge
What we will learn about
key knowledge points for this outcome
- techniques to apply methods, media and materials to deliver design solutions
(VCE VCD Study Design 2024-28, p. 39)
Good to know
Thanks for that
Do Them together
Whilst this and the following component, the selection and use of methods, media and materials and the use of visual language and conventions, can be considered and assessed separately, teachers and students should be mindful that they are interdependent. Therefore, whilst they have been separated here to focus on each other's separate attributes, students will simultaneously work with methods, media, and materials while conveying ideas and information using visual language.
Components 12 and 13 identify a range of tasks to help students demonstrate mastery of these two components. They may be taken together or in an order that best assists students.
Resolve Methods media & materials
Whilst the choices of methods, media and materials were made at the time of refinement and resolution for the students’ design solutions, they need to be mindful that the presentations are design solutions in themselves. The presentations should also continue to reflect the design criteria.
Going bigger
Materials
Students should select and test the substrate (paper or board) to support their presentations. It is customary for presentations at the Year 12 level to be A1 (841 x 594 mm) in size. Apart from aesthetic considerations discussed later, only some students will be familiar with the required support at this size. They may need to test and document the strength and other characteristics of materials before making choices.
Methods
Similarly, if working digitally, the size and resolution of individual design solution images impact the capacity to reproduce them clearly at larger sizes without pixelation or other artifacts. Typically, vector images will scale up quickly and accurately without loss of clarity or an increase in file size. However, raster images of design in context, typically photos, will need careful management if included in large sizes. Likewise, manual methods and media perform differently at larger scales. Students need to experiment with techniques at the scales that will be required in final presentations to meet the requirements of the brief.
These two presentations demonstrate mastery in many different methods, materials and media both in the design solutions and in the presentations. For example, methods include perspective, third angle orthogonal, packaging nets, digital-based illustration and page layout. Media include vector and raster based image making and page layout application. Materials include those represented in the drawings and the paper substrate for the presentations. Harry Tinker.
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Ethical & legal
Students must continue to work ethically and legally when producing final presentations. This means that, as was required in delivering design solutions, students should maintain full, creative control over the creative process of making presentations. Whilst some expert or external assistance is permissible in the production of presentations, with full and clear acknowledgement of where, when, how and from whom assistance was obtained, the use of design assistance templates such as Canva, other mock-up generators and AI images do not allow the student to demonstrate their level of skill in the methods and techniques of design and construction without support. Teachers should consult current school-based assessment handbooks for details regarding assistance, AI and templates.
Students must obtain the relevant licences and acknowledge them appropriately if they use textures, stock images or other assets. For these reasons, stock images are generally inappropriate for use at a large scale or as major components of presentations.
key skills
How I will demonstrate skills and knowledge
key Skills points for this outcome
- select and apply a range of methods, media and materials to deliver distinct design solutions
(VCE VCD Study Design 2024-28, p. 40)
task
Show I know ...
2.1 Apply methods, media and materials
Commence the construction or screen composition of presentations. Pay particular attention to how techniques and physical and functional characteristics deliver ideas and information to meet the communication needs defined in the brief.
2.2 Ethical and legal obligations
Ensure that you address your ethical and legal obligations as a designer. Remember to show all non-original assets in the form that they were obtained and reference them accordingly.
Jump to
Component 13
Resolve visual language & conventions
key knowledge
What we will learn about
key knowledge points for this outcome
- components of visual language, including design elements and principles, used to address distinct communication needs specified in the brief
- visual language used to communicate solutions to stakeholders.
(VCE VCD Study Design 2024-28, p. 39)
resolve visual language
Speak correctly
Presentation formats must be designed and constructed to present ideas and information clearly. Students need to develop sensitively to hierarchy in order to reduce distractions and enable audiences to see the components clearly.
Students are often enthusiastic about the style they have developed in their presentation drawings and want to continue the same style in their presentation formats. However, they need to realise that designers don’t use the style of their designs for the structure of their presentation formats, they use a more subtle ‘house style’.
For example, in the image below there is a logo for game called 'letters'. In the image on the left, I have labelled the logo using the same kind of type as the logo itself. This is not an effective way to draw attention to the logo. In the image on the right, I have shown restraint and have labelled the logo using a different, less decorative style. This is the correct way to label parts of presentations as it creates an effective hierarchy, drawing attention to the presentation drawing, not the presentation format.
Use the house style
Don’t use the design’s style in the style for your presentation format labels.
Use a simple, contrasting style of typography for labels in presentation formats.
Meeting the needs of design criteria
Presentation formats are the final ways for student designers to demonstrate their understanding of communicating with Visual Language. They should consider all the components when putting together their final presentations. Design elements colour, shape, texture, type, etc., design principles balance, contrast, figure-ground, scale and hierarchy along with appropriate methods, media and materials play a huge part in communicating ideas and information, evoking emotions and influencing the behaviour of audiences and users.
Consider how these components of visual language have been used differently to communicate different ideas and information, conveying a different tone, to different audiences in the two pairs of presentations.
‘What a Girl Can Be from A to Z’. Die-cut book design. Deborah Nguyen.
‘What a Girl Can Be from A to Z’. App screen design. Deborah Nguyen.
‘Revolve’. Game console design. Shyam Mahendran.
‘Revolve’. Logo design. Shyam Mahendran.
Consider the fantastic use of Visual Language to communicate information and evoke emotions, persuading audiences for this game design presentation. Navishka Fernando.
A sensitive use of shape, colour and tone in this presentation. Tori Salvagio.
Type sizes and scale
A quick note about type sizes and the scale of presentations. It is best practice to make presentations at A1 size. For example, this gives enough room for many different components in a branding presentation. However, when designing the 841 millimetre wide sheet on a computer screen, students often oversize their type. They should consider the context for the presentation and consequently how big the type needs to be. If it is to be read on a wall, headings could be quite larger but as a viewer walks in and stands close, to read the details, small captions can be the same size as the body type in a magazine; 12 pt. type is sufficient. The catch is, that students are not used to how body type on a large sheet looks when designing on their computer screens. It’s small. Because of this, they oversize captions everywhere. Consider the type sizes shown below.
Here is an A1 landscape presentation. It is 841 x 596 mm. It has 12 pt. body caption type.
Here is the presentation being made on a laptop screen. The 12 pt. body type is really small at this scale. (Image: Adapted from Various-Everythings@shutterstock.com)
Test design solutions
Students print or prototype their design solutions in presentations in place them in real or simulated contexts. If it is impossible to print them full size, students should print parts at 100% for evaluation. Place objects on tables, posters on walls and websites on screens. See how they look in intended places.
Jump to
Evaluate Visual language
To complete their work in the SAT students will provide a detailed evaluation of how they have used Visual Language to evoke emotions or communicate ideas and information to audiences, users or stakeholders. Students can focus their evaluation by focussing on the following key areas;
Visual language
Referring to specific parts of the presentations, identify and describe the components of visual language used, and explain and evaluate how they communicate ideas and information to audiences and users for the intended purposes and in the contexts where the designs would be used or read.
Design criteria
Referring to specific parts of the presentations, explain and evaluate how the use of visual language meets the design criteria set in the brief.
Good Design
Referring to specific parts of the presentations, explain and evaluate the use of visual language was informed by or align with conceptions of Good Design relevant to the presentation formats, conventions, disciplines or Fields of Design
A detailed evaluation of a presentation. Harry Tinker.
The use of reflective thinking for evaluation of a presentation. Alyssa Ngo.
Jump to
Ethical & legal
(Repeated from Component 12 above)
Students must continue to work ethically and legally when producing final presentations. This means that, as was required in delivering design solutions, students should maintain full, creative control over the creative process of making presentations. Whilst some expert or external assistance is permissible in the production of presentations, with full and clear acknowledgement of where, when, how and from whom assistance was obtained, the use of design assistance templates such as Canva, other mock-up generators and AI images do not allow the student to demonstrate their level of skill in the methods and techniques of design and construction without support. Teachers should consult current school-based assessment handbooks for details regarding assistance, AI and templates.
Students must obtain the relevant licences and acknowledge them appropriately if they use textures, stock images or other assets. For these reasons, stock images are generally inappropriate for use at a large scale or as major components of presentations.
key skills
How I will demonstrate skills and knowledge
key Skills points for this outcome
- select and apply components of visual language, including design elements and principles to address the distinct communication needs specified in the brief.
(VCE VCD Study Design 2024-28, p. 40)
task
Show I know ...
3.1 Resolve visual language in presentations
Create presentation formats on screen or in three dimensions. For each presentation consider, select and apply the appropriate components of Visual Language to ensure the presentations meet the requirements of;
- Clients, audiences, users or stakeholders. (To whom is it being delivered and what is the message in the design solutions?)
- Purpose (What is the presentation intended to do? Does it depict or influence behaviour?)
- Context (Where is the presentation intended to be seen?)
- Constraints (Have you met the constraints in the design solutions? Does the presentation format support these constraints?)
- Aesthetic considerations (How do you want your intended audience to feel when they view the presentations? How can the presentation format support the design solutions to deliver their messages?)
3.2 Test and evaluate
Print small sections of large presentations at 100% scale. Place them on the wall and evaluate the use of Visual Language including type sizes. Remember 12 pt. type on an A1 on screen is tiny. 12 pt. type in real life is fine. Make several tests as you go. Record the results in annotations and photos for Task 3.3 below.
3.3 Document presentation formats
Describe and evaluate your design decisions in your presentation formats as you go. Print or screenshot as you make or resolve the presentations. Record the results of testing.
3.4 Evaluate Visual Language
Identify, describe, explain and evaluate the use of Visual Language. Examine how well you have used Visual Language against the following key areas:
- Components of Visual Language
- To evoke emotions or communicate ideas and information to audiences or users
- For purposes intended
- In anticipated contexts
- Design criteria
- Conceptions of Good Design
3.5 Ethical and legal obligations
(Repeated from Component 12 above).
Ensure that you address your ethical and legal obligations as a designer. Remember to show all non-original assets in the form that they were obtained and reference them accordingly.
assessment criteria
The criteria for assessment of the SAT is published annually under the title 'VCE Visual Communication Design: Administrative information for School-based assessment in (Year ...)'. It is usually published in February of the relevant year.
Click here to visit the VCAA VCD page where assessment and other information can be found.
Please note: To achieve good marks in criteria-based assessment, you must include some work for each part of the task. Spread your time evenly across the tasks.