Research

We started this project out in class by looking through the history of chess and researching how each respective piece of the game was evolved over time. We then got together in our groups and brainstormed ideas out to determine a theme on which to base our chess pieces. My group was in a unique situation, as there were three of us, so we had to find a point of collaboration between three viewpoints instead of two. Among our first ideas were the three original Star Wars trilogy; the three main Columbus cities of Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati; Harry Potter theme of muggles, death eaters, and wizards, and Greek Gods theme of Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades.  We decided to go with the Greek Gods theme, because all three of us had some background with it and enjoyed mythology. I took a mythology class last semester, so I was already very familiar with ideas I could use and when we settled on each. The God I selected was Poseidon due to my affinity for the sea, and I had a concept of how his story could influence the pieces. We all got together after some research and decided we wanted all of our respecting pieces to have a correlation of similar roles, i.e. the Queen piece for each would be the God’s weapon of choice.

Iterations

I started my iterations out by sketching out my ideas to get an idea on how they would look. I first wanted my pieces to look somewhat realistic and to have them all have a similar base.

Once I was done sketching I then took my ideas and made them in Illustrator. 

Once they were cut I realized that my pieces were way too realistic and it did not transition well to when assembled. Another issue I had was the sizing was completely off and there was no real order to anything. I went back to the drawing board to completely redesign some pieces and resize all of them.

 

Concept Statement

Our trio of chess sets is based on the three main gods of Greek mythology and the power struggle between the three of them. Alex had Zeus, god of the sky; Sarah had Hades, god of the underworld; and I took Poseidon, god of the sea. To create a sense of unity we all used the god themself as the King and their weapon of choice to be Queen. For Poseidon, I used his trident for the Queen, as that is his main weapon of choice. For the bishop, I choose to use Orion, a son of Poseidon, who could walk on the waves, although he was placed in the stars after his death. That relates that a piece that is confined to a specific color on the board. For the knight, I choose Pegasus to play on the natural connection of it being a horse. I also related with the knight being able to jump and the wings of a Pegasus. For the rook, I went with Atlas, also a son of Poseidon, since the rook as a castle is historically a depiction of strength, and I related to Atlas’s strength of ethics. The last piece was the pawns, which I choose to represent as dolphins. In some myths, Poseidon has a fleet of dolphins. I also felt a dolphin could accurately depict the pawn’s ability to become Queens upon reaching the other side of the board because of their intelligence. I based all the foundations of my pieces on the traditional mounts seen on chess boards. I used bristol to construct my pieces and glued them down to the base piece using rubber cement. Each piece was cut using Sarah’s Cricut machine.

 

Production

My production of the pieces was rather simple, I built the final silhouettes in Illustrator and was lucky to have Sarah cut them using her Cricut machine. Each piece was designed with slots that met in the middle so they could slide into one another. On the bottom of each piece, there were tabs that were folded into a base plate and sealed by gluing another plate on top of them.

Link to Portfolio

Research

When starting this project I reached out to my gift receiver, Xueqing Wang, to see what are her main interests. We corresponded over email and I looked at her Instagram. Her two major interests were photography and plants. Other research we did as a class was read The Gift by Lewis Hyde and D.H. Lawrence the Shape of Design by D.H. Lawrence.

Exercises

One exercise we did when starting the project was to learn about the actual reveal of gifts and how opening them can be a major part of the experience. My first concept was inspired by NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and NBA Topshot card opening sequence, and I sought to incorporate that idea into Xueqing’s passion for photography.

Iterations

I quickly realized that wasn’t a very original idea, and I wanted to incorporate her passion for plants in the project as well. I sketched a few different ideas out but was not in love with them and wasn’t sure which new technology I would use. I struggled coming up with an idea until I was browsing Snapchat before class and had the idea that I should use their Lens Studio to create a virtual garden using her pictures, combined with flowers.

Concept Statement

My gifting design project was based on the quote, “These are the elements that resonate with the audience, because the work becomes a link between two,” by D.H. Lawrence in the Shape of Design. I wanted to relate the wording of the link between the two as my gift recipient, Xueqing Wang, had a passion for photography and plants. I wanted to make it personal, so I used her own pictures from her Instagram, and I had the pictures grow out of a plant to a flower. For each flower color, I tried to have it relate to her pictures. In this age of COVID, the gift had to be virtual, so I made the flowers appear in virtual reality using Snapchat’s lens studio. With it being in virtual reality it can be taken anywhere and she can view the plants and pictures anywhere she is. When publishing a lens there is a QR code to share the lens, and I glued it to an actual flower pot to bring the flowers to life. The graphics were made using a mix of Photoshop and Illustrator. The QR code on the pot was glued on a bristol back using rubber cement.

Production

I first started my production by taking pictures from Xueqing’s Instagram (@xuueqiingwang) and finding flowers that I thought fit each color scheme. I then took them and made a collage of flowers surrounding each flower in Photoshop. My next step was building a pot and stem in Illustrator. I then combined both graphics in Photoshop.

My next step was importing them into Lens Studio, where I placed them with a foreground shadow so that they stayed on the ground. It was difficult to conceptualize  at first, but once I figured out the first one it was fairly easy to do the rest.

My last step was to go to Lowes and get a flower and pot to put the QR code of the lens on. I made the mistake and got a pot that was too small for the code, since the code has to be a certain size to be able to be activated. I then went back to Lowes and got a bigger pot but I ran into a different challenge: It was curved, and when the code was curved the code was unable to be read. I decided to go back to the smaller pot and add a bristol backplate to the original printout of code to give it more support. I admit that aesthetically it might not be the best but it was the best option for functionality.

 

I loved the end result of this project, and it was inspiring to learn how to use Lens Studio to create something in virtual reality, which is something I had never done before. You can download the filter here and you can find a video of the filer being used here.

Link to Portfolio

Research

When starting out the process, Ian and I both had the idea of selecting a type of technology and showing its evolution between the two eras. We used a miro to collaborate on ideas.

 

Ideation

We started with examining phones from different eras because we thought it would be a great way to showcase the contrast of the times. Our first thought was to compare a flip phone with a modern-day iPhone, but we ultimately narrowed our focus to contrast a rotary phone with the iPhone. Our next step was to conceptualize how the piece would actually look and move.

This is when Ian and I divided up work. Ian mainly focused on how the piece would move and function, while I worked on the design and feel. We met on Zoom to make sure everything looked good and to make sure it was reasonable to create.

Concept

Investigating relationships between diptychs, we thought it would be most interesting to explore contrast. We developed a concept using a rotary phone on one panel and an iPhone on the other, as the subjects of the mechanisms. The two panels explore the older technology’s dependency on its chord and its “analogue” dated feeling, versus the digital, minimalist, and futuristic iPhone. Our diptych presents these contrasting qualities through distinctly different compositions and aesthetics in the two panels. The rotary panel’s brown and beige palette produces a purposeful old-timey feeling, opposing the iPhone side’s crisp and undecorated white-on-chrome palette. To represent the analogue nature of the rotary phone, an abstracted wire pattern sits behind the phone and provides physical texture to the work. It is unevenly glued down, so some sections come up towards the observer. The minimalist ethos of the iPhone presents itself in the opposing panel through less decoration and fewer paper parts. The chrome backing endows a futurist feeling to the panel, the iPhone leading the digital age. In terms of mechanisms, the inside number dial of the rotary phone is really built to rotate with an understated tab. A sliding paper mechanism sits behind the cut-out screen of the iPhone, built to be tangibly interacted with (swiping with a finger) to move horizontally between screens. Both panels’ mechanisms move in a similar way to how the real objects are interacted with.

 

Process

I started by making all of the Illustrator files, so we could run it through the laser cutter. Our main issue was getting the numbers to align with the cut-out circles. 

We were finally able to align the pieces but realized that numbers fell through, so we redesigned them using stencil fonts.

 

Our next step was designing the iPhone sleeve. We kept the design simplistic, so all the lines were easy to cut. The one challenge was the pattern, but once we figured out how we wanted it to look the cut went well.

Once we glued everything, we realized that the paper did not slide easily together, so we added plastic between the two to create less friction.

Video of Movement

Link to Portfolio

Research

When starting this project, we had a group brainstorming session and the song “On Top of Spaghetti” came into conversation. I decided to run with it. It’s a song from my childhood, and I thought it would be a fun story to run through each page. The song can be found here:

I made a few changes to the original story to fit the infinite narrative. The song goes “It rolled in the garden and under a bush, and then my poor meatball was nothing but mush.” In my version, I have the meatball roll around Columbus and in the end, it finds its way back onto the man’s plate and the whole story starts again. I decided to do a few quick storyboards to find the direction of the piece.

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Ideations

I started trying to figure out the style I wanted to use and mocked up the style of my flipper. I decided to go digital style with realistic and hand-drawn mixed together to create a semi-realistic kid’s story. To create a sense of unity I applied a sticker style to each object that I think goes well with the folds and paper component of the project. I had trouble finding good images of people, so that went into me deciding to draw them. I used a Shutterstock model on which to base my main character, so I could have multiple poses to use throughout the story. 

After I figured out a style I wanted to use I mocked up each slide. I used a grid to simulate where the cut and fold lines would be to place all the images.

Links to pictures can be found here:

• Bucca di Beppo
• Columbus Arch
• North Market
• Nationwide Arena
• Schottenstein Center
• Ohio Stadium
• Ohio Union
• Ohio State Oval
• Meatball
• Spaghetti

Process

The next part is the construction which I found to be the most difficult, I was originally using the wrong type of glue, and it was taking too long to dry. I also messed up and thought the images had to be glued on before folding them together. I made around five iterations before realizing my mistake.

Once I realized my mistake the construction process was pretty easy and I ended up loving the final result.

Link to Portfolio

Research

From the start when I chose the juniper tree, I knew I wanted to play with the form of the evergreen. I thought it would be interesting to tie story elements into a base and keep a central focal point from which to build. I started by just doing some rough drafts to see the direction I wanted to go in. 

One main issue I had when I started looking into images was that I could not find a tree that fit the direction I wanted to go in. I started sketching out a few ideas to see if I could find a tree that fit the look I desired. The next part I wanted to focus on is just the general placement of images and I see the direction I wanted to go.

Ideation

Once I developed different sketches I took them into Photoshop and found images I wanted to use. 

Image Links:

• Juniper Tree Image
• How To Draw a Portrait Old Woman _ Realistic Drawing (Time Lapse )
• Demon Horns Clipart
• Bonfire Image
• Big Gold Chain Necklace
• When Your Kid’s Life Becomes Their Own (running kids)
• 5 Songbirds To Invite To Your Yard
• Songbird image
• Vocal Learning Similarities in Songbirds and Humans
• Songbird flying images

The next part I wanted to focus on is just the general placement of images to see the direction in which I wanted to go.

The next step was my final composition. Playing with color was my toughest creative decision. Once I cut out all the images I played around with different color variations. I liked the way black-and-white looked, but I felt like it was a bit dull. I ended up going with a version with limited color to add a bit of color to the image and added a texture to add a bit of black contrast on top of the image for cleaner lines.

 Concept

For the composition of this piece, I want to play symmetry and balance, while basing the whole composition on the juniper tree itself. Each element of the piece balances out the other. It starts with three apples on each side of the tree and five birds positioned, so there are two on each side with songbird wings spread on the top. The old woman and evil horns are sublimated on top of the leaves centered in the tree. The gold chain was originally intended to do the same, but I had to move slightly over to make it look more natural hanging down from the tree. The next part of symmetry was a bit trickier. The bend of the trunk was pretty asymmetrical, so I positioned the two kids next to it to create a sense of unconventional symmetry. I chose to do primarily black-and-white to contribute to the mystique and deaths of the story. I think this was a great effect, with fire and fog to simulate the loss of the children. Originally, this was just black-and-white, but I realized it was missing some pop, so I decided to color the chain and apples to highlight important parts of the story.

Process

My process was to first sketch it and then cut out the images, and then arranged them in Photoshop. I added a black/white filter on top and masked out areas to add a pop of color to the piece. To create the grain on the image I ran my image through Topaz Adjust 5 Blue Print then multiplied blend mode on top of it.

Link to Portfolio

Research

For this project, I started off with a list of homonyms that I thought would work well for the project. Some of them were:

• Band – a musical group / a ring
• Bat – an implement used to hit a ball / a nocturnal flying mammal
• Lie – to recline / to tell a falsehood
• Match – to pair like items / a stick for making a flame
• Rock – a genre of music / a stone
• Pound – a unit of weight / to beat
• Book – read a book/ book an appointment
• Duck – the animal/ duck for cover
• Nail – fingernails/ hammer the nail
• Park – Grassy space/make a car stationary

I decided on “rock” because I thought the relation of music and geology would be a fun concept with which to play. I started gathering images and worked in class on the miro board about what “rock” means to me and my classmates. (I’m not sure why Aegeas’ name is on all the images on the miro board)

Through my research, I realized that when dealing with the musical definition of “rock”, most people think of the combined energy of a band and the audience. The mineral rock part was a lot trickier to consider and conceptualize. There were many different directions I could go in, go with a traditional sense of pebbles or small boulders, play into the gem motif of rocks or even talk about mountains, caves, and other rock formations.

Ideation 

I messed around with a few different sketches first to find a good combination of both senses. Once I figured out the direction I wanted to go in, I started creating on Illustrator. I made a few different versions to make sure my concept worked with the laser cutter. 

 

After talking with Deb and the rest of my class, I made the realization that my concepts did not fully fulfill the conceal and reveal by just revealing music, since that already goes with the band. I decided to enlarge my rock formation and move it to the back, so when the light hit the book it would reveal a grand rock formation.

 

Concept

The objective of this project was to take a homonym and represent the dual meanings through form and light. The foreground is a pop-out book that showcases the first homonym and when light is revealed in the back it shows another one. The homonym I chose was the word “rock.” Merriam-Webster defines the music sense of rock as “popular music usually played on electronically amplified instruments and characterized by a persistent heavily accented beat, repetition of simple phrases, and often country, folk, and blues elements” and in the geological sense as “a large mass of stone forming a cliff, promontory, or peak or concreted mass of stony material.”When I think of rock and roll music, I feel that there is excitement and a great deal of energy. Using the silhouette of the crowd and the flowing music I wanted to create a sense of exciting energy. The main focus of the piece is the band, and I emphasized that by putting it on a pedestal with stage light coming out the back to continue the theme of bursting energy. In contrast, I wanted a jagged look for the geological rock, the last layer is made of rock to create a sense of a stage to play into the rock and roll theme. The hidden image when light hits the rear of the rook will showcase the rock arches of Utah and create another natural backdrop of the rock concert. The design elements used in this piece are symmetry, contrast, and motion. The depth cues are built on framing and overlap. This piece will be made up using bristol and glue, using a combination of laser cut and cut using the Exacto knife.

Process

I started by building my image on Illustrator and then I sent it to get a laser cut. The following step was to cut out the rock formation that would be part of the reveal. After talking to Deb I knew I wanted it to be bigger but did not have enough time to send it back to the laser cutter. The next step was building the book to contain all the slides. On each side of the book, I created a spring that holds the slides so they pop out. 

 

Link to Portfolio

In the beginning of this process, I decided to just play around with some monochrome color schemes to see how I could manipulate tone to enhance my composition. I had a general idea that I wanted to use a blue monochromatic theme and a triatic coral color scheme.

For my first composition, I really wanted to play with a monochromatic scheme. With keeping in the ocean theme, I decided to use blue tones to keep a water feel.

I started with the darkest tone at the center and go lighter as the tones go out from the center to create a sense of depth in the center. On the outside, I wanted to create a border by using a dark blue group of fish. I then decided to add some more tones and have a more natural transition.

Originally, I kept the seahorse, stingray, and sea star a tone of blue, but I realized the composition felt flat. I decided I wanted to add some pop by adding the complementary of blue, orange, to create some contrast.

For my second composition, I was inspired by one of my favorite colors, I am a huge fan of pastels. I liked how it related to the coral theme of the composition and decided to use a triadic color scheme to use a variety of colors.

I wanted to keep blocks of colors because I feel that it looked very messy and random. For each section of color, I used a few different tones to add some laying. In contrast to my monochromatic piece, I wanted the colors to go lighter as they go it so create a bursting effect to play off the bright colors of the composition.

Link to Portfolio

For the beginning of this project, I started out by finding two emotions to go with. I decided to do two opposites: calm and stressed. I then did 50 quick shapes to see what I could come up with. 

The red starred shapes I found best represented stressed while blue represented calm. My next step was a few sketches to see how I could fit all the shapes out together without worrying about any color.

 

I wasn’t sure which idea I liked more, so next I made a better draft version of both feelings to see if I preferred one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For my stressed piece (red) I wanted it to be disorganized, random, and chaotic, which I achieved by throwing shapes on top of one another. I tried to crowd shapes around the brain and mouth, because I feel like those are your two hardest parts of my head to use when I’m stressed.

For my calm piece (blue) I wanted to represent even, complete, and clean. I wanted every piece of this to feel deliberate and have a symmetric feel to the head.

I decided to settle on my stressed piece and to add some more pieces that improve on the shape of the head, and put more detail into the base shoulders.

Here you can see where my original shapes are in the piece.

And here is the final piece:

 

Research

When picking my focus, I decided to select a natural theme of a coral reef, because I have always loved the ocean and especially sea creatures. I wanted to showcase the patterns you can find around a reef. 

 

For my man-made, I pondered about what is the exact opposite of a coral reef, and that would be a ship on top of the water. In this direction, I wanted to focus on a block-like feel and similar chunky shapes. 

 

 

Exercise

The next part was taking images I had found and putting through the abstraction process. (Fun fact: during this process, the Adobe Illustrator app reset and both abstraction sheets were deleted, along with my rough draft mandalas, so I had extra practice remaking both of them.)

Where I found images:

• Coral reef
• Boat
• Coral
• Coral
• Star Fish
• Sea Shell
• Octopus
• Fish
• Stingray
• Seahorse
• Anchor
• Wheel
• Figurehead
• Ship
• Fish Hook
• Knots
• Life Preserver

Ideation 

I first started doing quick sketches of the primary elements I think about when pondering nautical culture and the coral reef. I also tried to see what patterns I could find that fit the theme.

Concept

I decided my digital mandala would be my natural theme. I was inspired by my love of coral reefs and wanted to play on the natural patterns you could find around one. I sought to use curves to give this piece movement and give it a free-flowing feel. Starting from the center I have a coral pattern inspired by the ever-folding bud of coral. Out of that, I simplified an octopus down to a single tentacle with a few towers of coral and a couple of simplified seaweed grass plants. Emerging out of it, I used the pattern of a sea turtle shell and added a sea star and stingray. The next part is a shark fin to add a motion to the piece. To round out the mandala, I added a school of fish andtried to spread them out to make it seem like the mandala is fading away. For my analogue mandala, I went with my man-made theme. I decided to play off the coral reef as a home for fish below water and I went with a nautical theme of a human’s home above water–a boat. I wanted this to be structurally stiff. I start at the center with a steering wheel, which I loved as a focal point because there is so much radial symmetry to it. Next is an extreme abstraction of a ship’s mast and sails. I then round that off with a circular life raft. I wanted this piece to have a burst feeling in contrast of the digital piece, so I use anchors tomake it seem like it’s exploding out. I use nautical knots to help the piece feel more connected.

Process

My production of the digital version was fairly simple. I took what I drew in Procreate and traced it in Illustrator. It was a time-consuming process but I liked what I had made in Procreate and this was the most effective way to make vectors. 

Analog was a bit more difficult. Originally, I planned on printing out my Procreate piece and tracing it on a light table, but I found that I could not print it out big enough to accommodate the size requirement. Instead, I printed out one-fourth of the piece and rotated it. I then traced each section separately on the same piece of paper using a Sharpie pen. 

I realized for my natural one I really did not like outer rings and it did not go well enough together and I really wanted to play more on patterns and see how they could merge the piece more. For my man-made mandala, it was way too representational so I had to go back to the drawing board to see how I could play with a shape more and give it a more abstract look.

 

Research

When I started this project I wanted to pick somewhere personal to me and to find that place I decided to go for a bike ride. When crossing the bridge on Lane Avenue from campus over the Olentangy River, I knew when I found that place: the Jerome Schottenstein Center, home of Ohio State basketball and hockey teams. I have been going to this arena since I was a child, attending games for both teams and even skating between periods on the hockey ice. It is a place that holds wonderful memories for me. I decided to make a web of words I would associate with it. I found the two feelings I have primarily about the Jerome Schottenstein Center are homey and towering.

Iterations

I then decided to just quick sketch over some pictures of the arena to see what angles and views I would want to showcase in this piece. I went around and took different photos, trying out different angles. 

Process

For “towering,” I decided to focus on the corner towers themselves and wanted to use a low angle to amplify the height of the building and to make the viewer feel diminutive. I enlarged the halos on the top to make them dominant and stretched the height of the towers in general.

For “homey,” I used a mid-shot, which makes the Jerome Schottenstein Center look smaller than it actually is and makes it seem more inviting. I decided to squish it a bit to make it more house-like and put a grass yard around it to simulate a front yard at a home.

This project was made using Procreate. I used an imported brick brush for the texture on the building. The clouds were made using a soft brush and edited opacity. The grass was made using the plant brush default with Procreate. 

Link to Portfolio