Lamp Final

As the process is nearing the end, I think that my lamp finished very cleanly and well defined. I would describe it as "curved whim" due to its many belts on the inner and outer part of the base. Originally, holes were in the plans, but due to many battles for the holes, I eventually had to go with what the "client" wanted-and it turned out very well. Overall, I think it was a very well defined product and the process was very fun and enjoyable.

Lamp Lite

Tuesday's work day went very well for me as I decided what to finally develop for my project. I decided that I was going to pick the cylinder with all the "belts" around it and I am now figuring out ways in which I can fasten it and what form it will take. I think Andrea and I both agreed that simplicity will be best for the design and I should not add any other flouyrsishes to it. Also, I have decided to use the thick inner core and thinner belts - it gave the best quality and I think it will do just fine.

Tuesday

Tuesday went very well with creating the idea for our project. I came in with a whole mess of "pattern samples" to try and I spent most of teh time getting the samples to be in the right shape for my lamp. I also decided to look at different methods of work to determine the right style I wanted. In the end, I think I will either do a ceiling light or a wall light, but I don't know...

How taking a picture matters

Most of when our group was taking pictures, it was from a point of view of straight on shot, or at eye level. It wasn't until we got tired of the same old shot that we decided to experiment with different altitudes. We found out that extreme highs and lows have made EXTEND seem more evident in its meaning and it explained the concept much better. Also, our placement of distance between letters made it more clear as well as placing the letters along extensions like ramps and sidewalks. Overall, I think we showed the meaning through our work.

Group Reflection

Looking back on the entire assignment, it was remarkable how good the end result turned out. To date, this was the most labor intensive project for me personally (including the 250 drawings project), but I learned how interesting a word can be when placed in its own environment. Towards the beginning, I really did not understand why we were doing a word that we would not end up doing in the final process, but once I picked up on how it taught us versatility, it became clearer, especially with the color experiments and refinements. Then, when it was time to work in different groups, it got a whole lot more complex. We finished the letters in a week to start picture taking over the weekend and spent a little more time later finishing up any loose ends that needed to be attended to. As far as the locations, I think it worked really well where we placed the letters and conveyed the meaning without any explanation. In the end, we finished up the book and were ready to turn in the last of the project.

Reading Response Refection

As far as all the readings went for the project, I think the “Photo Ops” article was the most interesting to read and pertained to our group word. The power point did very well to describe letters and vocabulary that I did not even know existed, like serifs and barbs, but they did not work as well to provide ideas that we could use when taking our group pictures. We already had in mind what we were going to do and we used those techniques to help convey the meaning of our word more fluidly. As for the photography essay, it was a lot of words for a visual topic. More photos would have helped convey the author’s point and meaning. As for the content itself, it was very interesting how the author presented his/her viewpoints of how photography has changed the way people look at the world. I also like how the author brought in examples from the American and Spanish civil wars to show they have affected warfare and documentation. Overall, it was a good essay, but it did not initially suggest what a photography essay should be. As for the rest of the readings overall, some were more helpful than others, but they all did their part to bring helpful ideas to the project.

EXTEND

Well it took a very, and I mean very long time to get the word oversized and dimensionalized, but we finally did it and are now ready to take pictures. I gotta say that it is pretty cool having an oversized word, but I'm not looking forward to finishing the color experiment and the accordian book and the process book and the pictures for the words and the......etc. Sometimes I think these projects don't have an ending.

E X T E N D

As far as the group word goes, the sample letters have been made and location scouting has already commenced. Staircases, hallways, and ramps have been used so far and Monday will be scouting more and potentially outside this time. It is a little concerning that we have such a short time to complete this project, but that is what "end of semesters" are all about!

Color Refinements

Well, color has been added this week to our words and it has proved to be more of a challenge than I ever suspected. Day by day the compositions become more apparent in their meaning with the added color, but it is still not there yet. There's promise, though, and this next week will be further exploration.

spuorpt

Once again, it was time to critique the class's work of the color experiment and I went in thinking it was just going to be another heart wrenching critique, but thankfully it was a lot better than before. I don't know if my work improved or I'm getting used to people not liking my work but thankfully I could leave thinkiing I was on the right track!

Troppus

Well now that refining the drawings have been finished, it was time for us to look at them together as a huge class and see what we did well and what we did not do well. I guess I did not do many well because not very many people "starred" them. I gotta say that it is kinda depressing to go from a critique that they did not find my ice cream scoop poster appealing to now another thing that does not stand out. Oh well... I guess I just need to step up my game.

Support

Well, Support is getting underway and I have finished my work on the 20 finished sketches. The first cut/paste models were very difficult at first to find good ones, but I think I found some that can be used with refinement.

Project Three

Well, all of the parts of my project are now finally complete. All I have to do now is put them together and print off my poster. I think I'll put them together on the weekend and print it off tomorrow. Whew! Thank goodness this project will finally be over. I don't like this limbo of thinking about two projects at once-not to mention other class work!

Communication

Well, today I finally finished my last part of the poster and I am hoping that I will not have a lot of extra stuff that needs to be done for putting together the process book. Hopefully it will end up being easy after the awful time trying to get the placement right on the poster.

Illustrator

Well, after taking nearly 3 hours just to fix a few of my drawings on photoshop, it seems pretty apparent that I need a few more lessons on how things are run. Also, doing it on a Mac just helps so much for a PC person like me. Eventually, though, I did end up getting them pretty much done and are now getting ready to start some new drawings and possibly get into Illustrator and put them together in a poster style.

I don't know

I really don't know what to say now. Sketches are still getting up to par and I am very happy we don't have a Hallmark tomorrow.. and I hope I never have to sit with someone for the same lecture for nearly 3 hours- I love the environment very much, but her presentation was not selling it properly and it drew on too long. Gotta give her credit for the effort though.

Tallying up the pictures

Well, after spending Friday finally tallying up all the papers I had of the sketches and organizing them, I realized I had a lot of extra spaces to fill for the weekend. . . and I did manage to get the rest of the required sketches done... Thankfully that part is all done. Now it is time to take a break and put up my Halloween decorations...

Comic Reading

Now that I have finished my overview of the article, I am now going to start one of the many different million drawings I have to do for my project. I did enjoy finding random materials to work with, and I had no idea that a plastic cup holder would be so valuable in finding a good texture for drawing an ice cream scoop!

Comic Reading

Honestly, reading a comic book is a lot more interesting than reading a book. Listening to a cartoon man informing me about why illustrations are important could not have been better expressed, and it was very helpful to see the different aspects of how cartoons are so appealing because they are so rudementray that anyone can see themselves in them. I also liked how cartoons could depict an emotion or feeling just by what it looked like. The thought of triangles representing cold or lightning bolts representing sour do not imediately jump out as go to ullustrations for emotion, but they definitely make sense in the drawing. Another side note I enjoyed was the whole section on this is not a pipe, this is not a person, food, number, etc. It does make sense in the literal tense that things are not real on paper, but it brings to life a great idea to what a icon is and what it does.

Drawings

Getting my preliminary sketches done and using the ideas presented in class today to get it done!

Sorry this took so long-couldn't find my computer cable!

IDEO

The IDEO video discusses a thinking and prodding technique called the Deep Dive. In it, people are immersed in the process of idea making to create a solution to a desired problem. In this case, the problem was a shopping cart and the solution was that it needed to be redesigned. A very varietal team came together to present facts, problems, and good ideas for how to improve the design. Then, they had to create models/prototypes for the design and eventually came up with a basic idea of having a "cart skeleton" with detachable baskets for ease and convenience. In the end, it proved that the Deep Dive technique worked well and the finished product was something very useful.

My design improvement

I'm sort of glad that my wooden spoon is so simple because it makes it that much easier to find all the possibilities of what it could be. Something as simple as sanding it down or even the complex like adding mechanisms like springs or handle heating/cooling for convenience make all the difference.

Design Project 1 Over

Well, my design project describing a harpsichord is over and I am very happy to be moving on to project two.

Interesting Design

Dieter Rams Biography

Click Here for a biography of Dieter Rams

First Blog

My first post on a blog ever!