CONQUER: Word Description Assignment

 This part of the project we had to pick a word off a list and then in a 6x6 square take the word, my was "conquer", and use it to describe what it means.
Rules: only black and white, cannot be too illustrative, can only use the words that are printed from the class site, and cannot use the word more than once within the composition.
Originally we had to come up with 20 different ideas, cutting the words out of paper, and cutting out black backgrounds or whatever shape wanted. After making those 20, we were critiqued and the top 5 were chosen by the class. We then had to make any changes needed to those and make 10 more different ones. But these were made on the computer instead, with Adobe Illustrator to be exact. Those were then brought to class and critiqued again, the best five moving to the next round. Those five were critiqued, fixed and brought back as finals printed on epson paper and a 10x10 matte board.

Coco Chanel

Coco Chanel was born August 19 1883 and lived until January 10 1971. Her real name is Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel. Her accomplishments include revolutionizing the woman’s black suit and the little black dress. These designs are still popular and used everyday. She also was famous for other jewelry, purses, and the famous Chanel No. 5, which is also still very popular today, and this was the first time a name was used in a perfume brand. She had a very sophisticated style and became iconic for it with her suits and pearl necklaces that she constantly wore.

Although she was not just born into the fashion world, she had a brief career as a singer, which is where she got the nickname Coco. And she met two men that helped her into the fashion world and supported her original business. Her business originated from when she made a dress out of a jersey one chilly day and many people asked where she had got it, so she offered to make them one. And the rest is history. 

My costume as Coco was based of her legendary black women's suit. So I wore a black blazer, black pencil skirt, and a chained necklace where the design is also a timeless Coco design(Ignore the Keds, not part of costume). 

Original Make It Better Poster

This is our original poster we had. We is just not pretty. We had put this together with all our stuff just throwing out ideas and we realized we had to present this to the class so this was our first poster. It is very elementary and we knew that. It is too symmetrical and doesn't focus on our final prototype enough. Our final was a great improvement.

Make It Better Poster

This was our final poster design for our Make It Better project. This poster was a little tricky because of all the text and trying to highlight certain aspects of it such as our  final prototype and hiding other aspects such my group and I's name. We were required to also include our concept statement over our prototype which was also tricky because of the length of it. But this was the product of all this work, and if I'm being honest I don't LOVE it but it looks much better than our original which I will post next. It does it's job though and I'm satisfied with that.

Understanding Comics Reflection

A lot of different types of drawn objects are used as icons. There are different types of icons such as pictorial icons which are fairly realistic, then there are more simplified icons. Cartooning is an example of simplifying a picture. It doesn’t really take away the details of an object but focuses on specific ones. Most people looked cartoons as a child and even when they are older and the reason is that we see ourselves in the simple features of a cartoon face. The fea- tures are so vague that we are able to put ourselves into that cartoon character. We do the same with inanimate objects. We become almost “part of them” or it becomes “part of us” while we use them. Such as driving a car or using crutches we are able to use these things and we subconsciously consider them extensions of our bodies. We also tend to make faces out of almost any shape because of how we see ourselves. But with these simple characters if usually a more detailed background. Pictures can also show emotion or senses. They can give a picture or even object in the picture a certain feel. This is called expressionism. Lines, thickness or shape, color, testures all have adifferent meaning and add to the feeling of the picture. Written words can also add to the atmosphere of a picutre a lot. 

Objectified Reflection

This was a very cool film because for once you were able to see the designers behind the everyday items that we use and take for granted, that are actually genius designs we just don’t notice them. Design is truly used everywhere, as they point out, and almost everything was designed by man. 

It was very cool to see the designers of popular products such as Apple. And he made a good point of saying that although a design is simple and doesn’t look like it took much work, such as all of the sleek Apple products, lots and lots of brainstorming and processing has gone into that product. That just really made me think about all my everyday possessions that I never thought of someone taking the time to design, brainstorms, and work out the kinks. Now everywhere I go I see design and what kind of work that designer put into that object. 

IDEO Deep Dive Video Reflection

Seeing real people in the design world who really love their jobs and are good at their jobs is very inspiring. So before I even saw the final project of this design team, I already knew I was going to like this video.

            Watching their design process was good encouragement to me for this project. They seemed very enthusiastic throughout the whole thing, which I think showed in the end with their final object. I love how they are constantly thinking outside the box, and coming up with crazy ideas and saying them, no matter how crazy they are. Using that in our redesign process helped us come up with some good ideas I think. Group brainstorming I believe also is more accomplishing than individually and they also showed that in the video.

            The final shopping cart design was absolutely amazing. They had so many creative ideas that are much needed to make shopping carts better.  I wish more stores would have used those. Very good idea. 

The Writer's Toolbox Summary

The Writer’s Toolbox was very helpful for brainstorming ideas, especially useful for brainstorming for our “Make It Better” project right now. The Concept Maps and Freewriting were both terms I had never heard of and I think both will be help provoke creativity. Concept Maps are similar to Mind Maps except you start with a general term and work down to more specific characteristics and ideas. Freewriting it just writing down all eh thoughts you have, even ones you don’t, just anything you can think of constantly for a certain amount of time. I have already used the Mind Maps and Word Lists, Mind Maps is just starting with an idea or concept and branching off ideas from it, then Word Lists are just making a list of random things you think of when thinking of your topic. All of these seem very helpful and will encouragement out-of-the-box thinking.