What was this project?
For this project, we had to create a gift for an upperclassman in the major we were going for. We had to get to know the person from a distance either over text, zoom, or email. We then needed to find a quote, either from the upperclassman or from reading and the quote had to be something to do with design. After finding our quote we needed to create a gift for our upperclassman that was related to our quote and to our person. The gift could be fully digital but had to have some sort of analog craft to it. It could also be fully analog as long as it was given to our person from a distance.
Where did I start?
To start this project off, I wanted to get to know who I was giving this gift to. My person for this project was Mary Gibson. She is in the major for graphic communications and her dream job is branding or package design. Her favorite colors are Burnt Orange, Light Pink, and sage green. She is passionate about sustainability and likes to compost and upcycle things when she can. her favorite thing about design is how subtle it is. She likes that everything around us had to be designed by somebody to solve some problem, but most of it we never even think about or directly notice. I asked her what’s something she struggles with within the design. She told me that she struggles with getting inspired sometimes and that having constant projects means that you have to constantly be creative. I could relate to this as well. Sometimes it makes you feel burnt out or just at a blank for ideas.
After getting to know Mary a little bit, I needed to find a quote. I ended up reading through the reading The Gift, by Lewis Hyde. My favorite quote from this reading was, “the spirit of an artist’s gifts can wake our own.” I liked this quote because this almost describes design in a way. Designers are always bouncing off each other and ones designers’ spirit or idea can help awaken idea in ourselves. This gave me the idea of giving mary a gift that would help her gain inspiration by things that I have done or things that I find interesting while also keeping it about her. I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to deliver the gift at first but I felt that this was a strong idea. I also was sure how to deliver the analog part of the projects until later when I was told that even drawings on digital apps counted. In class, we talked a bit about what others had done for this project. I also looked into what mary did for her project. My favorite project was one where someone used Instagram to give their gift. This gave me the idea to use Instagram as the base of the delivery of my gift.
Concept
My concept for this project is to create a gift for mary that relates to her while also relates to the quote I chose. I want to create a gift that can help him gain inspiration when she needs it. I want to create a gift that gives mary objects and ideas that she can turn into her own. I want to create something that she can come back to every day to gain a little bit more creative energy. For this project, I want to use a mix of all of the elements to give mary more variety for thought. The message I want this gift to give comes from the quote. I want the spirit of this gift to awaken her creative spirit. The tools I will use are, google, ProCreate, Photoshop, Instagram, a spin the wheel website, and illustrator.
Designing the Gift.
To design the gift, it took me a little while to come up with how I wanted to present it. Until I received information about what counts as the analog part of the project. My idea for the delivery of the gift was a drawing that I made from a photograph that I took. I transformed the photo into a drawing to deliver to her. I wanted this drawing to have some meaning to her. Since one of her favorite colors is burnt orange, I decided to integrate that into the image. To create this image I took a picture of my hand holding a paper box that I crafting for a previous project. I then brought it over to Procreate to start drawing. I made a timelapse video of this to help document it. I would then use this image and break it up into 6 different frames and post it on Instagram. Each post on Instagram would be a college where you could slide through and see different images that I would put together for inspiration. This Instagram would consist of these images and a link that would bring to a website to spin a wheel of objects. This wheel is for mary to come back to every day or whenever she needs the inspiration to spin it and get something random to draw. I felt that this was a good way to help boost her creativity.
Creating the wheel was an idea that I got because it is something that I have done before. I used to go on good and search for a random word generator just to find things to draw. When trying to draw, the hardest part for me is always coming up with a theme. This wheel that I created has a few colors that she likes and I hope she enjoys the aesthetic of it. In the middle of the wheel, it has my image of the gift to show that it is part of the gift that I’m giving her. The next part of her gift is all of the inspiration posts on the Instagram account. The first post consists of different branding ideas because her dream job is to be a package design or branding. I gave her a few ideas that she might not have thought of. I know from experience that twitch is a big place for branding. People are always wanting their twitch profile brand to look better while viewers are watching. This would consist of camera overlays, logos, transition screens, and more. Youtube is also big in the same way twitch is with branding. I also gave her some package designs that I thought were very interesting and creative to me. The next post would consist of memes. I put this post is mostly to brighten up her day but also because emotion is a big factor in inspiration. If you feel good, or happy, or even bad, it can spark some type of inspiration. The third post has some quotes that I found inspirational. I also created some of my own. Quotes never really get me hyped up or inspired but for some people, they help. The quotes that I inserted into this post I feel are just good knowledge that anyone can take and apply to themselves. The fourth post is made up of pictures created in ProCreate and illustrator. These pictures are usually very easy and fun to make. In her free time, she can go into illustrator and create her own version of these images. These two apps are also my favorite places to just mess around and get my creative juices flowing. The fifth Post has photography inspiration. Mary mentioned that her favorite gift that she was ever given was the same as mine and that’s her camera. She also says that she hasn’t really kept up with it recently. So I decided to give her a few of my images as well as a few that I found on the internet that I found really nice and easy to do. In the last post, I inserted pictures of some cool DIY projects that she could try because she likes to upcycle. These DIY objects are pretty easy and also have some cool aesthetic to them.
After creating this Instagram account I needed to deliver it to her. I chose to make the account a private account. This would raise some suspense to it and make it more personal to her. I made it so that she was the only one that could see what was posted. To signal that the account was ready for her to receive, I sent her a follow. This would signal to her that I have followed her and she could then follow me back. As soon as she followed me, I accepted and sent her a dm. This dm gave her information on the account and what it was for. She told me that she really enjoyed the meme of the duck and that she was s excited to start drawing from the wheel of objects.
Conclusion
My favorite thing about this project was getting to know the person and being able to create something special for them. It was also fun being able to design something of mine that would be examined by someone above me. For this project, I struggled with inspiration myself. The quote that I ended up choosing applied to me for this project. It was the spirit of someone else’s design that awakened my own idea to do this. I also struggled with the thought of wanting the gift to be perfect. I didn’t want to design something that they didn’t like or didn’t really care for. Once I got over the fact that this was more for me than them it was easy to progress forward. I think if I were to do this project again, I would want to find more things that would help inspire her. I would also want to involve more of my own content and designs. I would also maybe explore a few more websites that could help make my project more interactive. From this project, I learned that sometimes you have to just take your initial instinct and go for it. It might not be the right idea but it can evolve into greater things. I also learned more about how to design something to help a problem. I took the intel that mary gave me and applied it to a design that could help her.