Structuring a Sustained Project

One project, four objectives

Component 1 is your **portfolio**. There is no exam and no time limit: it spans the whole course, and it is a **single sustained project** rather than a folder of separate pieces. **Four assessment objectives are marked, each worth the same.** All four have to be evidenced **within that one project**, which is what makes its structure matter so much. This specification covers **six titles** - art craft and design, fine art, graphic communication, textile design, three-dimensional design and photography. Everything in this module applies to all of them, because it is about how a project is **built**, not about any particular medium. You will see examples from several. ⚠️ **The work must be your own, completed under your centre's arrangements.** What follows is about making a real project evidence what it is marked on.

What sustained actually means

This is the single most useful thing to understand about Component 1, and it is where portfolios most often go wrong. **Sustained means DEPTH along one connected thread.** It does not mean a large quantity of work, and it does not mean covering a lot of different ideas. **A portfolio that jumps between unrelated ideas cannot evidence the objectives as one journey**, because the objectives describe stages of a single process: you investigate sources, you refine by experimenting, you record as you go, and you realise the intentions you formed along the way. **Break the thread and the later stages have nothing to refer back to.** So a project that begins with an investigation of a photographer's use of shadow, experiments with several ways of producing that quality, records what each attempt taught, and ends in a final piece that answers the original question **is worth more than four unconnected pieces of higher technical quality** - because it can show the journey and they cannot.

Which portfolio is sustained?

Two students submit portfolios of similar size. Which is better placed against the objectives?

• One that begins from a single starting point, investigates it, tries several approaches including some that did not work, and ends in a final piece answering the original question
• One containing six polished pieces on six different themes, each technically strong
• Whichever contains more work overall
• Whichever has the better final piece

The four objectives

Each is worth the same. Learn what each one is actually asking you to show.

Match each objective to what evidences it

The journey in order

Put the stages of a sustained project into the order they usually happen. Note that one of them runs throughout rather than sitting at a point.

• Initial engagement: a starting point, a question or a source that genuinely interests you
• Investigation: studying other makers' work and gathering your own primary material
• Experimentation: trying several media, materials or processes to find what suits the idea
• Refinement: narrowing down, repeating what worked, and changing what did not
• Realisation: producing the outcome that answers what the project set out to do
• Recording, by drawing and by annotation, which runs alongside every stage above rather than being done at the end

Evidencing refinement

Select the TWO things that genuinely evidence AO2.

• Keeping the experiments that did not work, with a note on what you changed as a result
• A sequence of attempts at the same idea in different media, so the choice of final medium is visibly a decision rather than a default
• Including only your best pieces, so the portfolio looks strong
• Producing as many finished pieces as possible

A thread, not a scrapbook

Two portfolios of the same size, doing very different things.

Building the portfolio

Component 1 is a single _____ project spanning the whole course, and all _____ assessment objectives must be evidenced within it. AO1 asks you to develop ideas through _____, showing critical understanding of sources. AO2 asks you to _____ your work by experimenting with media and processes. AO3 must be evidenced by drawing and by written _____, both of them. AO4 asks for a personal response that _____ your intentions.

Find the evidence of refinement

A description of two pages from a textile student's workbook. Tap the TWO details that evidence AO2 rather than simply showing finished work.

• The left page shows a finished sample of machine stitching on cotton, neatly mounted.
• Beside it are three earlier samples on different fabrics, two of them puckered, with a note explaining that the tension had to be reduced for the lighter cloth
• The right page shows a photograph of the final piece.
• An annotation records why hand stitching was chosen for the border after the machined version lost the irregularity the source work had
• Both pages are dated.

One project, all four

A photography student's project, described so that each objective is visible. **The same shape works for any of the six titles.** **Starting point.** The way light falls through a stairwell at her school at one time of day. **AO1, develop through investigation.** She studies two photographers known for handling available light, and records what she takes from each: one for the decision to shoot into the light, the other for cropping tightly rather than showing the whole space. **AO2, refine by experimenting.** She shoots the same stairwell across several weeks at different times, tries long exposures, then tries printing on different papers. **The prints that were too dark stay in the portfolio, with a note on what she changed next.** **AO3, record as you go.** Drawings of the light shapes she is after, made before shooting, alongside written annotation at each stage explaining what she was trying and what she concluded. **Both, because the objective requires both.** **AO4, present a response that realises intentions.** A final sequence of three prints that answers the question she opened with, presented as a considered set rather than as three images. **Notice what makes it work.** Every objective attaches to the SAME project, and each stage grew out of the one before. Swap photography for textiles, ceramics or graphics and nothing about the structure changes.

Write an annotation that counts

Most annotation describes what is already visible and evidences nothing. Build one that does the job.

When a portfolio drifts

A student is halfway through the course and their portfolio has lost its thread. Work through what to do.

• They have three unconnected sets of work, all reasonably good. What is the first move?
• Their annotation is thin: mostly captions saying what each image is. How should it change?
• They want to remove the experiments that went badly, to make the portfolio look stronger. What do you say?

Your turn: plan the project

Plan a sustained project for your own title, and show how it would evidence each objective.

• State your starting point in one sentence, specifically enough that someone else could tell whether a later piece still belonged to it
• Name two sources you would investigate and say what you would be looking for in each
• Describe three experiments you would try, and say what you would record if one of them failed
• Explain how AO3 will be evidenced in your project, naming BOTH of the forms the objective requires