Month: March 2022

Research

To begin this project, we got to know our partner through a micro board activity, then completed research about the history of chess and the rules of the game.

Iterations

Form Iterations

The iteration process began with testing how sliceforms may be created so the pieces fit together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beginning to iterate my own forms, I created boxes that were the intended dimensions of each piece to provide boundaries for the sketches of the forms.

My partner, Nik, and I then worked together to decide on a specific color for each type of piece. We assigned the colors by matching the energies of the colors to what we believed to be the personalities of the pieces. We also divided our separate sets into warm versus cool colors; my set was to be made in the cool color scheme.

Next, I began iterating forms for each piece.

For the king, I intended to make it feel royal and like a prized-possession by creating many curves and a crown-like form on the top.

For the queen, I used sharp curves moving in all directions to represent the aggressive nature of the queen piece and the way in which the queen is able to move in all directions.

For the bishop, my iterations included diagonal curves and indents to represent the diagonal movement of the bishop pieces.

The form of the knight was the one I struggled with the most. I experimented with two pieces crossing over each other and eventually moved to idea of a more simple L-shape to represent the movement of the knights.

For the rook, I drew two curves at the top of the flat 2D form so that when two of the forms are put together into a sliceform, the top of the form will consist of four curves representing the vertical and horizontal movement of the rook pieces.

Since pawns are easily expendable and the smallest piece in traditional chess, I decided to make them a very simple form. I began with the design of a simple oval, but ended up adding a curve in the middle so the pieces fit better with the rest of my set.

Cutting Iterations

King

Viewing this sliceform after it was assembled, it is visible that the form has gaps at the bottom and showed me that the lines through the middle are too thin causing the paper to be manipulated instead of being able to slide together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Queen

I created the first cut file for the queen with the inclusion of two extra forms to slide onto the curves of the main form. However, these did not end up working and this version of the queen revealed to me that the line in the middle was once again too thin and the sides near the end of the middle lines were too thin as well, causing the paper to warp and tear when the sliceform was assembled.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rook

The first rook design I tested included slits and four small pieces to slide into them. These pieces ended up being too small and I didn’t think the form communicated the personality of the piece correctly, so I ultimately changed the design entirely.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Concept Statement

Elements and principles are the foundation of every design, but the concept behind the designs of
our chess pieces were inspired and developed by them. Our designs specifically activated a variety
of shapes and colors that best match the personalities and actions of traditional chess pieces. One
set of pieces is made in a warm color scheme and the other is made in a cool color scheme in order
to develop separate sides of the board that challenge one another. We assigned each piece’s color
on the basis of the energy they give off, and the personalities that we believe they represent. The
different shapes of the pieces resemble the ways in which the chess pieces move and we specifically
utilized vertical and horizontal lines, as well as wavy and curved lines to aid in the depiction of those
possible movements. We also aimed to convey the aggressiveness of some pieces, such as the
queen, using sharper and curvier lines. With the less complex designs, we aimed to convey the
minimalist nature, such as the pawn.

Production

The first step in the production process of creating my final sliceforms was to finalize the adobe illustrator cut files for each piece that would then be sent to the Cricut to cut out on card stock. The most significant change I made between my iterations and my final forms was making the cuts in the middle out of squares instead of just a line in order to create more space for the two forms to slide together without being manipulated.

To assemble each form I used tacky glue to adhere two pieces of card stock together, making them thicker and sturdier. Then, after sliding the two flat forms together to create a sliceform, I put the very edge of the bottom through the circular base with the cross in the middle. Lastly, to secure the base to the sliceform I glued a second solid circular base underneath.

Final Deliverables

King

The final form of the king is done in a purple card stock because purple represents royalty and is a different color than the rest of the pieces because it is the piece that is sought after to capture. The form is also made of soft curves to present it as a less aggressive piece and an inviting form that players would want to obtain.

Queen

The final form of the queen is done in a bright lime green, being the brightest piece on my side of the board. The curves that make up the form are also much sharper and project out in all directions to represent the aggressiveness of the queen and its ability to move in all directions on the board.

Bishop

The bishop is done in a light blue because blue is a common color and is in the center of the cool color spectrum and the bishop is a simple piece, being able to only move across the board diagonally. The top of the form also has two curves cut on a diagonal representing such movement.

Knight

The final form of the knight is done in a turquoise, green-blue color because it is a vibrant color that jumps out at the viewer, resembling the movement of the knight which includes “jumping over” other pieces. Although the turquoise color is vibrant, the lime green color of the queen remains the brightest out of all the pieces because the queen is still more aggressive than the knight. Also, the form of the knight is an L-shape with miniature L-shapes coming off the sides to emphasize the L-shape movement of the knight in chess in which the piece can move in the direction of what looks like a capital L.

Rook

The final form of the rook is done in a royal blue card stock to represent the prestigious and protective nature of the rook. The form also includes curves projecting straight out from each side of the piece to mirror the way in which it can move forward, backward, left, or right.

Pawn

The final form of the pawn is done in a dark navy card stock because it is not a very pretty or eye-catching color. This color matches the nature of the pawn because there are more pawns on the board than any other piece and they are the most expendable. These characteristics also influenced the form of the piece to be very simple and the least complex out of the entire set.

All Six Pieces

Full Board

PDF of Final

Link to Portfolio Project

Research

The majority of my research process consisted of texting back and forth with my mentor, Giulia, to get to know her, researching quotes for design inspiration, and learning about Giulia’s favorite styles of design.

During my research of design quotes, I chose to focus on the quote, “make it simple, but significant”, because I thought it provided a good description of my own design style. This quote served as a foundation for the rest of my ideas because I already knew I wanted the gift to be something both functional and sentimental/significant. I knew I wanted this quote to serve as my initial inspiration, but I also decided to ask my mentor what her favorite quote was to aid in further development.

Ultimately, I decided to choose,  “The best design is invisible”, (which has seemingly been quoted by Dieter Rams and Jared Spool in a couple variations) as my final quote for inspiration because it was a good combination of both my favorite quote and Giulia’s’. Both quotes explained that the best design is unnoticeable, yet still significant and therefore serves the customer or viewer in a certain way.

After continuing to talk to my mentor Giulia, I did research on her favorite design styles and her favorite designer in order to influence my future decisions.

I also did research on possible color palettes according to her favorite colors. Her favorite colors include green, beige, and brown because these colors make her “feel so happy/peaceful”. Since these are two feelings I thought were also important to have my gift invoke in her, I decided to use these colors as the main color scheme of the gift.

Exercises

Exercise 1: Best Gift

Exercise 2: Container

For this exercise, the object from my tool kit that I decided to create a container for was a bottle of tacky glue. Since tacky glue is non-toxic, I decided to cater my container towards children by using an eye-catching, colorful design in the form of a hexagonal prism so the shape was more interesting than a rectangular box.

After creating the template, I decided to make each face of the prism a different color of the rainbow to draw a child’s eye to the box. I also created a tab as the closure method so it would be simple for children to open.

 

Iterations

My first iteration of a concept for my gift design was a collapsable travel journal inspired by her love of traveling and plans to study abroad in the summer.

After communicating with Giulia, I learned that she hasn’t journaled about her experiences in a long time so I began to sketch some other possibilities. The first idea I looked into was sewing a passport journal with a personalized cover. I planned to sew the holder together using faux leather and put her name on the cover with vinyl using a heat transfer process.

After looking at materials at Joanns and considering the logistics of both learning to sew and putting it together within the time restrictions, I decided it wasn’t the most reasonable option. This led me to thinking about my third idea which was a personalized luggage tag.

Since “evoke inspiration” was second on my list of “hierarchy of importance” for the gift, I decided the luggage tag didn’t accomplish this as well as a different gift could. I decided to to shift back to my idea of making a travel journal because I believe it is both sentimental and functional. However, since Giulia hadn’t journaled about her travels in a while, I wanted to make sure the spreads in this journal specifically inspired her to begin journaling again like she used to, through the use of easy prompts to follow and the design fitting in with her personal aesthetic.

Front Cover Iterations

I designed multiple iterations for the front and back cover designs before choosing the final version. In all of the iterations, I used the font, Helvetica, to incorporate Giulia’s love for typography and tested multiple design compositions that reflected elements of Swiss International Design.

More Design Tests and Back Cover Iterations

The font Helvetica organized in a design that was inspired by the work of Massimo Vignelli, specifically a brand poster he designed for “Knoll International”.

Journal Page Iterations

After testing the first layout on the “best memories” page, I decided that the lines provided too much pressure on Giulia to fill out all of them and spend more time writing than needed. I wanted these prompts to inspire Giulia to begin journaling again, so changing to boxes with empty space allowed for more freedom within her responses. I also decided to change the font for the titles of these pages from a cursive font to the font, “underground”, which is also in the sans-serif family, in order to stay consistent with the text on the front cover and the overall style of the journal.

Then I created iterations of a weekly highlight page to go after the daily reflection prompts. I designed these to have my previous typography designs saying “Giulia” and “travel” in the bottom right corner. However, I only had two prompts I wanted to include on these pages so I decided to sketch two famous monuments in Italy, the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Colosseum, to add to these pages and fill the space better.

Link to reference image for my Leaning Tower of Pisa sketch.

Link to reference image for my colosseum sketch.

Next, I added the vectored sketches to the weekly highlight spreads and also designed a blank “Notes and Sketches” page to go after each weekly highlight so she can fill the pages with anything inspiring she encounters during her travels and use these sketches as future design inspiration.

Container Form Iterations

My original idea was to make a rectangular box that the journal simply slid into, however, after speaking with Emily, I realized I needed to better connect the container to the ideas present in the gift. I decided to look back on previous concept iterations in my sketchbook and decided to add triangular flaps to the rectangular box I had previously considered to make the container resemble a luggage tag and connect directly to the theme of travel.

To begin constructing the container, I sketched test versions of a template on drawing paper.

Then I worked on putting together the template, connecting everything with tape to temporarily hold it together while I made final decisions on the form and template creation.

Container Design Iterations

Concept Statement

Production

Final Cover Decisions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Page Production

To prep the layouts for printing, I added circles marking the places I wanted to hole punch so the pages fit into the binding and a dotted-line outline to mark where to cut the border of the pages. Then, I organized the pages into pdfs so they were ready to print and put two of each page layout on one 8.5 by 11 art board to print more efficiently. I printed the cover pages on a glossy card stock to provide a thick protection on the outside and the inside pages on regular printer paper.

Next, I attempted to hole punch the edges, but the hole puncher I was originally using created circles that were too large, so I learned how to use an alternative hole punching tool and a hammer to individually make them the exact size I needed.

Container Production

After choosing the design I wanted on the outside of the container, I created a document of three templates that I planned to print at Fedex.

Although I had planned to print these templates at Fedex, the dimensions of the templates would only fit on a poster board option, but this option wouldn’t be done by the project deadline. Instead of printing the entire template, I decided to make the template out of Bristol paper instead and print each face of the design separately, then glue them on with tacky glue. This resulted in precision that did not meet my ideal standards, but was the best answer to the problem at hand and in order to complete the project by the deadline. I printed all of these files on glossy card stock to make the container more sturdy.

Final Deliverables

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Gift Giving Process

Final PDF Link

Link to Portfolio Project

Research

To begin thinking about the feelings that can be associated with different instruments or songs, we did an activity in class where we listened to 5 different songs and drew what we heard using symbols consisting of shapes and lines.

The next activity we did was a competition in a class miro board to get to know our partner. I had not known my partner before this project so this was helpful to get to know some of their interests.

Next, my partner and I began to collect samples of instrumental music and used sketches to analyze these selections. The sketches helped me create connections between what I hear and see in relation to the top 4 songs we chose from our samples.

After looking at the surface level details of our top 4 songs, we narrowed our choices down to 2 songs and we each made lists of vocabulary that we thought of while listening to the songs.

After looking through both of our sketches and vocabulary lists, we decided to use the song, Decay, by Blood Estate, for our project. To further analyze the song and begin thinking about ways we could represent it through paper mechanisms, my partner and I created a chart mind map.

For the last step in the research process, my partner and I each created a sample color palette and a list of ideas as a form of brainstorming the 2 separate parts of the song.

Exercises

The first exercise for this project was to follow a class demonstration of how to create a pull tab paper mechanism. This exercise got us thinking about how paper mechanisms could potentially work and how they could reveal or conceal certain images and ideas.

The second exercise was to create two paper mechanisms from the templates on the list provided to us on Carmen.

Iterations

When beginning to test paper mechanisms for the final product, I looked for templates that had a contracting aspect so that it could condense into a small object, but also flatten out out. This is because the part of the song that my half of the diptych was representing, has an echo of voice notes, so to translate those sounds into visual means, I needed something circular that creates circular motion as well as an element of contraction to demonstrate the transitions between many voices to one prominent voice. For the first mechanism, I created one that looked like a spiral and opened flat when the sides are pulled.

After failing to get the last mechanism to work properly, I decided to experiment with some other techniques like the waterfall mechanism and shapes lined up in a way that uses a domino effect.

My next idea was to place pieces of paper in a spiral and have them fold over onto each other creating a domino effect to emphasize the echo and atmospheric aspects of the song.

Concept Statement

Production

After multiple attempts at using templates from the sources provided on Carmen, I ultimately could not get the mechanisms to work as smoothly as I wanted them to, so I began to try some new ideas for my final design, mixing together different elements from other mechanisms.

I decided to test using fishing wire to keep the triangles connected to the circle so that they didn’t entirely disconnect each time they’re pulled out. The fishing wire also allowed the triangles to move completely outside of the circle, yet not detach.

Then, I decided to add layers of other shades of blue to each triangle piece to create an effect similar to an echo and have the colors each line up in a circle when the pieces are all touching in the center.

Final

Final PDF

Link to Portfolio Project

Research

To begin this project, my partner and I began brainstorming by creating a list of things we dislike about masks as well as a mind map about masks.

Then, we built off of those ideas by brainstorming ways masks relate to the current Covid-19 pandemic.

 

After deciding to focus our design on the topic of nature vs. man as related to the pandemic, we answered the questions of who, what, when, where, and how to further develop our idea.

Exercise

The exercise for this project was taking notes on a podcast about the history of masks to acquire some background knowledge and spark new ideas.

Iterations

10 Speed Sketches

Often when beginning to brainstorm for a new project, my brain works best when sketching with pen and paper so I first drew 10 mini sketches of different mask ideas in my sketchbook.

Then, I redrew these sketches on an image of myself in the app, sketchbook, on my iPad so that I could see how the possible forms would look on a human figure.

Paper Mask

The first physical iteration my partner and I worked on was a rough creation of a couple aspects of our concept using a thin paper material so that we could focus on concepts and brainstorming rather than craftsmanship.

Leaf and Flower Templates and Test Cuts

After deciding that I would create a mask revolving around the idea of nature as related to the pandemic and my partner would be creating a mask revolving around the idea of man during the pandemic, the first design I knew I would new to create were leaf forms that could be cut out of paper. I drew templates for three different shapes of leaves in adobe illustrator which I planned to have the Cricut cut and score so I could attach the individual leaves to my mask.

I also began to draw flower templates in illustrator and then transfer those files to the Cricut for them to be cut and scored in preparation for gluing together. For my first iteration of flowers I directly used a Cricut template as inspiration, but I soon figured out that I needed to make changes to the designs before the final iterations so that they were my own drawings.

Next, I did some test cuts to see if the way the templates were set up would work and what type of glue would work best. In the end I decided to use tacky glue and the format of the templates seemed to work well so all I had to change in the next iteration was the design and shape of the petals and center-pieces.

After changing aspects of the petals and center-pieces, I drew new flower templates that were eventually used in the final production.

The next step in my process was doing some test cuts with the leaf templates to see if any changes needed to be made in the design or size.

Base Structure Tests

After figuring out that the leaf shapes and sizes would work, I tested multiple ways of creating a base structure that the leaves could connect to by using green floral wire.

 

 

Putting It All Together

Before attaching the leaves to the wire base I constructed, I decided to create a third iteration in which I made a mask form around my eyes and fanned the leaves out of the top. In the end, I decided against using this method because it didn’t represent the concept of growth as well as I intended and it didn’t allow for any movement, creating a closed composition which ultimately wouldn’t communicate my portion of the narrative best.

 

Focusing back on the wire base structure I built, which fit almost more like a hat, I taped leaves to the base wire to see if I would like the composition. I also tested this method with the addition of the eye mask.

 

Ultimately, I decided the eye mask made the design too much of a closed composition, so I decided to use the wire base structure and just attach leaves and flowers to the wire pieces. Without anything covering the face, it allows the composition to move or “grow” outwards off my head. This emphasizes the flourishing growth that nature experienced during the pandemic. Also, the three wires meeting at the middle in the front allows for the leaves to be placed in a way that they fan outwards emphasizing the expansion and growth qualities.

 

Concept Statement