Instruction
Give the gift and record the recipient opening it.
Purpose
Document the process and the gift-opening for proof.
My Interpretation
I drove down to Columbus from Cleveland to hand off (not literally, we he picked it up after I set it down, social distancing and all that) the gift directly to Rhys. I informed him to take a video as he opened the gift, and his wife recorded him as he opened it. I had to run home immediately after as I had a class and needed to make the drive.
Instruction
Finish the final physical form of the gift as well as the digital aspect.
Purpose
Finish the project.
My Interpretation
See above and previous progress posts.
Instruction
Mock opening your gift with another member of the class. Refine the process.
Purpose
Get an outside perspective on your progress and see what needs to be refined from presentation to the gift opening process. Have both the physical and digital aspects analyzed and critiqued. Refine and improve all aspects.
My Interpretation
I “gave” my gift to Shaylee, a member in my group. I was unable to give my gift to her physically for obvious reasons, so we stuck to a digital format and showing off the physical form through video calls. I shared with her the digital aspect of my project, the site I created with the photos I edited to make them seem like they were displayed in a white museum gallery. Shaylee helped me refine the site that the figurines were displayed, streamlining the process and making it easier to access. We also talked about changing descriptions as well. Additionally, I showed her how the gift would open and be presented and we refined that process as well. Finally, I also allowed my sister to open the gift, giving her free reign of the project with little instruction. She figured out how to open it with ease, and understood the gift being the figurines. The way to get to the digital aspect will be via QR code on the back of the theatre.
Instruction
Create the gifting form that will be the outside box to open before the gift is revealed.
Purpose
Allow the design to transcended the gift itself and also include the box. What is something someone may want to keep? What does it mean to deliver a gift in a more extravagant way?
My Interpretation
Continuing the theme of Marcel Marceau and his mime career, I decided to make the gift-box reflect the silhouette of a traditional French theatrical stage. As is the case for mime performance, the environment is designed to be extremely minimal, all focus being emphasized towards the actor performing and how they convey character and story through their movement. To reflect this, I made the entire stage, inside and out, black to abstractly convey the idea that the lights are off and you are watching a performance. The sixteen holes on the stage are the locations of where the sixteen figurines will rest, four of them in front of the curtain as the stage is intended to be used curtain up and down. Any figure can rest in any hole, in any order. there is no correct way to organize the figurines. The curtain itself is fully functional and rises and falls with a simple mechanic on the side that can be rotated to simulate it’s movement.
Instruction
Continue work on the physical portion of your gifting design project.
Purpose
Work towards the final deliverable.
My Interpretation
I created all sixteen conventions of character in wire forms and tested out how the final forms will look with clay. I plan to use different shades of yellow, red, and blue to accompany each form. The more intense and dark the color, the more it represents the overarching feeling. Yellow figures symbolize different aspects of hope. Blue figures symbolize different aspects of sadness. Red figures symbolize different aspects of ignorance. The light pink form here is Pride, the least ignorant of the red figure series (each series is lined in rows, the top being yellow, the middle being red, and the bottom being blue).
Instruction
Continue progress on the gifting design project.
Purpose
Keep on top of things and continue updating and streamilining your process.
My Interpretation
I wanted to define the sixteen conventions more clearly to aid with the online integration of my gift. I simply drew the poses in a more easy-to-see way and accompanied them with small details about the form all the while researching them and taking personal notes to use for the site to accompany the gift.
Instruction
Start progress on the prototypes for your gifting design final.
Purpose
Decide on what you want to give and begin the hard work towards the final product. Consider what your recipient talked to you about and how that may impact every aspect of the creation
My Interpretation
I was unable to start prototyping the figures as the clay had not arrived yet in the strange times we currently are living in. Instead, I focused on what I could do, the gift box. The idea I had was to use a theatre as the gift box with a moving retractable curtain as the main reveal to the rest of the figures. I wanted to paint it all black with white or ivory or gold detailing alongside the velvety red curtain. I created sixteen holes for the bases of the figures to be places, all identical so they can be interchanged. I started with Bristol but quickly ran out. Using the net I made out of the lighter paper, I decided to use recycled chipboard for the final form, hinting at my recipients field of study and interest in recycling and sustainability.
Research on Rhys Grubel
I have emailed and been in light contact with Rhys, my gift recipient in visual communications. He has replied to me, stating he will answer the questions I have sent him within the week, but as of writing this post, I am answerless. As I already had some ideas in mind, I asked some quasi-pointed questions aiming at a few aspects I plan to focus on in my designed gift. The questions I asked Rhys were:
Since I was unable to get these answers before the time this post was due, I stalked Rhys slightly online. I looked up his name on Instagram and Facebook to no avail but found his name motioned on the Twitter for OSU design. There, I found his MFA thesis proposals and what interests him in design. One of the first things he mentioned about design was “storytelling” in design and how that can reshape things. He has a strong interest in the political space, particularly about sustainability and how we can repair the recycling system in America. He is a family man. On that same Twitter I found out that Rhys also was awarded Global Arts and Humanities Graduate Team Fellowships, further supporting our shared interest in the arts.
Designer Quote
From the wonderful mind of Marcel Marceau, a French mime who revolutionized the craft with his design of sixteen fundamental emotions in silence called The Conventions of Character: “Mime makes the invisible , visible and the visible, invisible.” So often in design do we talk about great design being invisible, and this is no different. In his craft, he deliberately designed The Conventions of Character to be invisible tools within mime, much like how designs goal is to be entirely invisible, to be great.
Attached is my wonderful friend, Taylor Moriarty (a theatre major who studies mime), and her best representation and description of each of the sixteen conventions.
Marceau’s Conventions of Character (Taylor’s Representation)
Narrative/Concept Statement
From the information I have currently received from Rhys (none), I can’t perfectly describe quite what I want to gift yet, but here is my idea for what I plan to do regardless:
I want to show off the invisible conventions of visual communication and design in the most visually communicative way possible, human performance and mime. No words, just deeply meaningful and subtle poses that represent the sixteen Marcel Marceau’s Conventions of Character. I plan to create a set of sixteen (or more – some poses have movement, requiring two figures for one pose) clay figurines as the gift, enclosed within a gift box representative of a stage with the curtain rising to reveal the figures. Oven-cured-clay will be the easiest material to work with from home, and an additional layer of paint/glaze to further emphasize the subtle differences in form would help distinguish some of the similar poses. I plan to create these clay forms in all sixteen Conventions of Character poses, although heavily stylized, the eyes simply being arrows on where they would be looking, and the mouth enlarged for detail. Each figure has an accompanying card (digitally done) that describes the pose, how to do it, what it means, what it is based off of, and why it was included in the conventions.
Instruction
Illustrate or write about the best gift you’ve ever received. Keep it concise, but convey the proper emotions it makes you feel.
Purpose
Understand what gift-giving elicits in others and how it can be perceived. Practice only allowing the most essential elements of something bleed through in your work, think of materiality, style, color, etc.
My Interpretation
I wanted to not only convey what my gift was in words but also style. The sketchy, black and off-white color scheme highlights the memory I have of my best gift, a gray Cleveland Indian’s “C” baseball hat, which is fuzzy, distant, and very melancholy. It is fragmented and I don’t like thinking of that time very often. I was a very different person, specifically much more rude, aggressive, and standoffish. My then-partner gave this hat to me for my birthday in 2016, when I was 16 in high school (the summer I was to become a junior), they were a year older. I wore this hat all the time, to workout, to lounge, when my hair was too messy to bother with. It became worn rather quickly but I still often use it today, it’s a memory of a person I treated poorly and wish I could apologize to, but not someone I really want to see again. Its a strange bittersweet mix of emotions that remind and humble me everyday. The gift itself isn’t necessarily the best ~thing~ I’ve ever recieved, but it has become the best gift to me as it has kept me more grounded and reflective of the past, almost a warning to not be what I was before and that everyday people change. That developing understanding is the true gift.
