Concept Statement
My mentor’s name is Cori Seifert, she is a 4th year Interior Design student. Our shared love for personal connections, old houses, plants, design, and stained glass is what drove my inspiration for the gift design along with quote selection. Cori and I got along quite well, and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know her and creating the final gift she will receive as a mentor before graduating. Typically, stained glass is seen telling a story or creating an image. Because she is a senior this inspired me to create a stained-glass picture that tells/shows her journey at Ohio State. The images I choose to represent her journey at Ohio State consisted of her own old home that she loves, her family’s racetrack that they own, her first interior design project, her dog Millie who she adores, her stain glass project that she did last semester, and finally Hayes Hall where design students spend most of their time. I chose these images by getting to know her and finding out what important things in her life have made her who she is today. The quote I chose goes hand in hand with the stain glass theme. The quote is, “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” – Steve Jobs. I interpreted this quote as; stain glass isn’t about how it looks or feels but how the pieces work together to tell the story of the image. The 3 materials I used included acrylic, magnets, and acrylic paint. I used an additional dissolving material to weld the acrylic together and hold the magnets in place. I used the laser cutter to etch and cut the acrylic. I obtained all the acrylic from Hayes and already owned acrylic paint. I acquired the magnets from fellow design students Aliina and Joe. They already purchased the magnets and had extra to spare, the price per magnet is around 10-20 cents each. I ended up using 6 magnets bringing my budget “total” to around $1.
Iteration
Once I selected my mentor I immediately reached out to begin getting to know her. My mentor and I got along immediately which made this process very smooth. Below are some of the notes I took about my mentor.
Before starting our design process the class conducted an experiment to practice product packaging design. At random we were assigned a specific object that we would have to design packaging for. Below are images of my sketches for the ink bottle packaging design.
After sketching out my ideas I picked the idea that I thought to be the strongest and began constructing my design. The purpose of my design was to create a package that could hold the ink while also holding a pen and ink well to dry off the pen. Below are images of this construction.
Following my idea of drying the pen off before placing it back in the pen holder I grabbed a bandaid out of the first aid kit and began ripping the cotton off of it. Below is an image from this process.
After assembling my platform that was intended to hold the ink, pen, and ink dry well. I added paper to one side of the triangle packaging. This design was intended to sit on a desk and be a fully functional and transportable ink / pen holder and note book. Below is an image of my final product design.
Ideation and Production
After getting to know my mentor I found a lot of commonalities between us. Including a love for stained glass, old houses, animals, and traveling. From this I began to sketch gift ideas based on this knowledge. Below are images from this process.
My first couple ideas revolved around the idea that she liked to travel. Below is a prototype from my early ideas.
Thinking back to our common love for stained glass I decided this was the route I was going to pursue moving forward. While looking for quotes I came across a quote by Steve Jobs. The quote is, “Design is not what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” Using this quote I decided to create a stained glass piece using acrylic. The concept of my design was to use acrylic for both the packaging and gift. I planned to create a picture frame by layering the acrylic to create a box.
Below are images of my sketches for the main design.
After creating the sketches for my design I began creating a prototype. Below are images of my prototype.
After building a cardboard prototype I decided to use the laser cutter to determine if it was capable of performing what I needed for my design. Below are images of my design printed onto wood.
After realizing the laser cutter would not be able to etch into acrylic enough to create a divot I changed direction to find a different solution. The solution to my problem was to incase a magnet in between the different layers of acrylic.
To create the stained glass gift of her journey at Ohio State I pulled pictures from a powerpoint she sent me about herself and then traced the images on Procreate. Once I traced the images I took pictures of them and uploaded the images into Illustrator. Using the image trace tool I was able to create an outline of the images.
Below are all the images I used as references and also the traced images.
The images I selected symbolized her personal story through college.
Below is the laid out version of my design on illustrator.
I wanted the design to be multifunctional so I made it the packaging to be able to fit a 4×6 Picture. My intentions were to add a design to one half of the frame that way she would be able to also flip the frame around and still see the image through the side without a design.
After preparing my files I cut the acrylic.
Aftwardwards I began assembling the different layers. Below are images of me testing the acrylic glue.
I reached out to my mentor to find out what her favorite plants are. I knew she loved plants and wanted to incorporate them into her present. I went to pinterest and found an image I traced and used the leaves from. Funny enough I have the same plant incorporated into my SKetchbook design.
Below is the source of the leaf artwork and the design I created from it.
Monstra Pinterest Art Inspiration
After preparing the files I etched the leaves and personal images onto the acrylic. As I intended for this to resemble colorful stain glass I flushed the engraved leaves with green paint. Below is the result of this process.
Once the stained glass picture was engraved I painted over the lines with acrylic paint. Below is the result of painting the acrylic picture.
After assembling all the pieces I came across a huge bump in the road. For whatever reason the magnets encased in the acrylic frame would not hold together. The magnets were not dead and I did not put them in backwards. This left me gutted as I had to restart the frame the same day I was meant to give it to my mentor. Below is an image of the final frame.
Instead of encasing the magnets in acrylic the new frame left the magnets exposed to promote more magnetism. Below is the final result of the frame I had to redo the day it was due.
Reflection
Going into this assignment I had high hopes for it to go smoothly and turn out exactly the way I intended.While I was still able to deliver the present to my mentor at the gift exchange party needing to reprint the entire acrylic frame set me back on starting on my portfolio process. Struggles aside I truly enjoyed getting to know my mentor and I think it’s safe to say I made a new friend during the process. Moving forward I will try to plan for unexpected errors but ultimately this critical error fell out of my control. Overall, I am very happy with how the gift turned out. I hope in years to come after Cori graduates that she will be able to take this gift with her and look back at her journey at Ohio State.
Final Work
View the final project at Gifting Design