Presenting your creative ideas to an audience is an experience like no other. The nerve-racking feeling of laying yourself bare to criticism is both exhilarating and off-putting. Yet, that was exactly what my team and I did in our week 10 Making Media session - presenting our magazine drafts.

Looking through the modules on Canvas, I did not look forward to today’s session. Even with my experience pitching designs to several student organizations and small clients, I still find the task of explaining my creative choices to others very laborious. That being said, I am also aware of the importance of the ability to articulate myself to other people, be they my clients or friends or employers.

Thus explains my decision to volunteer to go first in the magazine presentation session. Being the team leader, I was first to speak. I walked my classmates through the decisions I made in creating the cover and content spread of my team’s magazine. I made sure to pay particular attention to justifying the EXPLOR logo design with the arrow element and showed how it played into the overall motif of the magazine. An and Vy each had the chance to present their own spreads on Long Xuyen street food and sustainable tourism.

In the end, it seemed like we did a fair job presenting our ideas and showing our classmates what we had made. A feedback form was sent out to everyone in class and, soon enough, we were receiving quite a few positive inputs as well as some valuable constructive criticism. This was exactly what I wanted to get out of this session, a little bit of motivation as well as a range of comments from outsiders for our group to base our revisions upon. I also treasured the opportunity to see what the other groups were up to, and made my best effort to give detailed feedback so they could find some value in my words.

The constructive feedback for our group's first draft.

At the end of the day, I did get more out of this session than expected. Like a gentle reminder, week 10 of Making Media has brought back to my mind the integral role of idea presentation in helping me become a true communications professional.