Gifting Design: Process

Within this assignment, I aim to create a personalized gift that explores the design elements of form and space. Doing so will allow me to build a design experience through both the interior and exterior attributes of the gift and container. To accomplish this, I intend to use professional materials and construction techniques. By learning about my chosen mentor, I will craft an individualized form that can be used in her daily life. That being said, my most prominent goal is to be able to create something that will be applicable in her life as a cook, sister, designer, and more.

To begin the ideation stage we started with defining what exactly a gift is and the best gift you have ever received. Illustrating this in words and images allowed me to narrow down my ideas of what a good gift is. Some of my least favorite gifts included tacky jewelry and clothes. These gifts were not personalized and did not last the test of time. However, some of my favorite gifts were a puppy, a laptop, and a vacation trip. Each of these had the emotion of love attached while being experiential and thoughtful. These are qualities that I eventually wanted to incorporate into my final composition for my mentor. We then constructed a container that arose anticipation while partially or fully enclosing a random object. When tasked to pick a random object, I wanted something that had both curved and straight lines in order to challenge myself with planar materials. I ended up choosing a spray paint can because I was intrigued by the shape and sound it makes. Doing so allowed me to explore different types of paper folding as well as the type of container I wanted. I debated between creating a cylinder container with a handle or a rectangular prism container with a lid but both of these ideas seemed too simple. Instead, I decide to merge the two ideas and created a base with a square and a lid with a circle. This morphing of shapes created a container that viewers would be unable to tell what was inside. To begin building this shape I used a compass to measure out the radius of the bottom of the spray can. Once this was complete, I used the height of the can to create a larger circle which would become the sides of the container. I then cut this out and began folding each of the sides in order to achieve the square bottom I desired. To create the lid, I repeated the process of drawing a circle that was the same size as the top of the spray paint can and then created a large circle around it. I then cut small slits for the shape to become circular and then glued a small handle onto the top. That being said, the element that arose anticipation in this creation was the shape of the container and the sound it makes when shaken. Because the spray paint can makes a loud rattling noise, I decided to use this as inspiration for the colors on the exterior surface. The sound reminded me of maracas so I found common colors of the countries where this instrument was common. I then created a design out of the red, green, and yellow colors that would resemble a musical instrument. This ultimately sparked many ideas for my container of the gifting design.

Upon interviewing my mentor, Kayla Goins, I was able to come up with several ideas based on her interests. One of the biggest questions I had for her was whether she would rather have something pretty to look at or functional. This gave me a huge insight into design within her life as the answer was aesthetically pleasing. In addition to this, she has a love for cooking. This is something that we have in common so I was especially drawn to this idea. During the interview, I also found out small details about her life (seen below). She is very organized and her favorite music genre is RnB. She played basketball, volleyball, and track in high school and is a coffee and tea kind of girl. She doesn’t like surprises or compliments but enjoys living alone. Her favorite food is salmon and she would rather adopt than have biological children. She has a big family and is obsessed with the show, The Flash. Her favorite quote is “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.” (Corinthians 13:4). This quote spoke to me because of all the truth behind it. That being said, I wanted it to play a large role in the creation of this gift.

All of this information had me bouncing from one idea to the next, but I truly wanted to create something that would be functional in her daily life. Combining this element with aesthetics is a priority for me because I think all gifts should hold deep meaning while being useful for the recipient. Many of these ideas centered around the kitchen because of her love for cooking. I contemplated a decorated mug, oven fit, flower case, and spice jar set. I loved the idea of the spice jars because it truly represents how cooking can be a love language, particularly an act of service. In this situation, the jar would be the container while the gift would be inside. Love is the gift that spice is able to give to others which directly relates to Kayla’s favorite quote. When researching materials for this idea, I struggled to find high-quality jars this didn’t break the budget. I also wanted to personalize each jar by adding branded labels on each using the laser cutter. However, this also broke the material maximum number so I had to switch directions. Similarly, I thought about creating coffee and tea jars for her apartment since she enjoys both. These would be larger-scale jars that would be filled with coffee grounds, tea bags, and hot chocolate powder. The concept would be similar to the spice jars as the container would be the jar itself and the gift would be inside. But, I also ran into material cost issues so I had to change ideas once again. Following her love for cooking, I wanted to create a cookbook where she could store all of her favorite recipes. I found an Instagram page that she created called “Kayla’s College Eats” where she shares various recipes made during her college years. Using this as inspiration, I created a cookbook cover that was personalized by using her Instagram page’s username and favorite colors. The materials I found included a purple leather notebook ($7.99) and mini hot glue sticks ($6.59). I planned on using the hot glue sticks to secure a paper-made pocket on the inside of the cookbook. To construct this I folded paper accordion style then folded it in half to create an enclosed area. I then used the hot glue gun to glue all of the edges together. I repeated this process with drawing paper and adhered it to the inside cover of the cookbook (shown below). This gives Kayla a spot to place other family recipes, food inspiration pictures, and other scraps. This ultimately complies with the three-material maximum as well as the $15 budget.

Throughout this assignment, I was able to overcome challenges that I did not expect. Having issues with the laser cutter was the most prominent among these. However, I was able to figure it out through communication. Looking back, I would change the power of the laser cutter when etching the front. It is a deeper cut than I was expecting which resulted in the burning of leather that should not have been. Understanding the laser has been my biggest accomplishment throughout this year and this project. Finally being able to successfully use the laser by myself is something I didn’t think would happen this year. But, I was able to do so and am proud of the designs I was able to create using it. Within this process, I was able to learn that many tasks took longer than I originally expected. This required my time management to become more efficient and spend out-of-class time wisely. That being said, if I could improve upon this composition I would love to incorporate removable pages. This would allow for recipes to be torn out cleanly and given to others. However, I am proud of the cookbook I was able to create because of how personalized it is.