Lizette: Derieve

I did my derieve assignment on Saturday, after dropping off a friend at the bus station. My thought at the moment was "I should probably go write my final paper for architecture." Instead, I walked up Benefit Street and then on Pratt Street. I found some pretty neat houses there. The kind of stuff I wouldn't expect to find in Providence.

Then things got ridiculous as each house reminded me of a building we covered in architecture class.

 

At least my mind was calm and distracted for a little while. I'll probably stroll around the area again when I'm done with finals. And allergies.

Kati: Final Project

For my final project, I decided to create a laptop holder for the gym (I get nervous with my computer on that little ledge).

I started out by building a rough prototype, which actually worked okay.But there were a few modifications I wanted to make to the design-- it needed to be wider, the side arms were awkward, I wanted a cut out in the front panel to use the touch pad, and I wanted a holder for my water bottle and a handle to carry it.

Next, I built this version, which is exactly what I want. I've used it a lot since I built it and am really happy with it.

Ian suggested that I try making a digital version for the website Ponoko, which allows you to upload 2D and 3D design files and then will make them for you, for a fee.

I downloaded a program Google designed called SketchUp, which is really easy to use, and after a few tweaks, I successfully managed to upload the design to the left to Ponoko.

As you can see, the estimate for making the apparatus on Ponoko is a little steep for a college budget. Ponoko is a lot cheaper if you design in 2D instead of 3D, so I decided to try to design a 2D version of my laptop holder that could be made functional through bending and interlocking pieces.







I experimented with a number of interlocking pieces and finally ended up with the flat design on the left, which assembles into the design on the right.

It wasn't the right size and the construction wasn't perfect, so I rebuilt it again. As in the last image, the design on the right cuts out and can be assembled into the apparatus on the left.

While I got the dimensions right, a lot of the pieces of this version were cut the wrong way along the grain of the cardboard in order to maximize space. So I built it again, rotating some of the pieces and trimming them.   

   

















I felt like I had my design the way I wanted, so I went on to Ponoko to build a digital version. However, 2D designs must be built on templates, and the largest template is 15.1 inches by 31.1 inches (the smaller dimension of my project is 16"). My next steps now are to build another cardboard model out of a piece of cardboard no bigger than 15.1 by 31.1 inches, then build that on the computer, figure out the best material, and get a quote.

Lucy: Final Project

My original project idea was a book with both portraits and the subjects' responses to how they express themselves on each two-page spread. I have finished a book of 25 or so subjects! But here are some things I struggled with:
1. I wanted to pay attention to the hierarchy of images, prioritizing first the portrait, then the name, and then the "expression" image(s). The formats available to me were much less flexible than I would have liked. A lot of the time I couldn't fit the expression images on the page without choosing a layout that simply didn't allow for large enough font sizes. I'll be interested in hearing how close I came (or how far I failed!) in achieving my goal.
2. The expression submissions were often of very low resolution, which meant I could only make them quite small on the page.
3. It's not ideal to ask lots of friends to do an assignment during the end of the semester. Especially after finals started I began to feel worse and worse about asking people to get their submissions in. Ideally, this would have been in the back of my subjects' minds for a long time and they could have taken their time to provide the most thoughtful and creative submission possible. I tried to help people develop their ideas, but this was difficult because I really wanted people to submit whatever they felt was right--and my input only tainted the purity of their responses. Something that goes along with that: I looked for quotes to place on the pages, explanations as to why each person submitted what they did. But for the most part, people had a really hard time responding, and I couldn't ethically put words in another person's mouth. Also, when I did get solid responses, the layout issue came into play again.

As these issues came into play, I started to get frustrated with my book. So, I started a second iteration that includes only the portraits. This brought up even more graphic design questions. Where to put each face in the book, which ones worked together and which ones didn't, how to format each page. These are aspects of the final result that I hope to discuss in my critique. But at the end of the day, I have to say I like the second iteration better, and it is the one that I will be ordering. After becoming so attached to the portraits, I really like how this book allows them to speak for themselves. The expressions book is still an idea that I am really attached to and would like to continue thinking about, but I do think the process of approaching a book that requires so much genuine, thoughtful contribution from a lot of outsiders should be reconsidered. I'd like to talk about how to improve that, as well.

One side note is that I now have two slightly different iterations of the same idea for a cover, and I want to talk about which one is more effective. I have two different first pages as well. I wish I could provide a link to the books! But there's no way to do that without allowing anyone who looks at them to edit them, and it's a little too easy to accidentally make changes that get auto-saved (a lesson I learned the hard way, unfortunately).

Kim- final project

I spent the afternoon in the studio today, and emerged with my first finished oil painting! This is from a picture I took at the National Botanical Gardens in Washington, DC. The colors are much darker than I first intended, which is partially due to my  inexperience with mixing colors and the consequence of working from a printed photo. Still, I am happy with how it turned out, and would like to try another one. 

  

Working up to this, I did a couple of practice still-lives with Genevieve. She has been so helpful, and I really appreciate all the time she spent with our class.

Amber - Final Project

My final project has taken a new direction. Instead of using my previous ideas, I've decided to mix painting and graphic design to create a new project. This idea stemmed off of looking for something unique I could work on that no one else in the class was doing. After watching Exit Through the Gift Shop I've been drawn to street art and the way an artist can create such strong images just from a spray can. I decided instead of using paints I'd rather do spray paint, and make my own stencils. Next year I'm living in a quad with 3 other people and I decided to make something that could be hung up on the wall. I'm planning on spray painting a stencil of each girl on a separate small canvas and then have all the pieces go together. I've Photo Shopped a picture of each of us and have simplified the face - finding how I can minimalize parts of the face but still have it be recognizable and contain a certain style. I've used the Gestalt Principles to help me create designs. The tricky part is knowing that I have to make a stencil out of the image - which is hard since the pieces have to be connected to each other. Here's an example - this is the stencil I'm using for myself.

Here are some other projects I've worked on in the past that have given me a basis for this project. The first one I took a picture of myself kicking a soccer ball and turned it into a design - adding other pieces to give it movement. This was from a graphic design course I took. The next picture was me just messing around in my basement with spray paint this summer, I made a skyline but it's not quite finished yet.



Leah: Final Project

Carmen - Poster!

I thought I'd upload this to the blog since I spent all day making it yesterday instead of writing a paper...this poster is a compilation of three images that I edited together in Photoshop. It was a great distraction and I had fun revisiting some of the skills we learned earlier on in the semester.

Props to Jane for being a great model!