Statement of Intent
For this project, my intent was to create a pattern primarily based on shapes in nature. Once creating a pattern, we were instructed to design a card and envelope paring and ultimately participate in the Department of Design’s annual Winter Market. In addition to our card development, we had the opportunity to add advancements to our project such as collaborating with other classmates, making a color version of your card, making your card design 2D to 3D, etc. The advancements I chose to pursue for this project were collaborating with my classmates with material usage, attempted use of color, and participating in the Winter Market. My goals for this project were to learn how to use the Cricut machine, improve on my craftsmanship, and create an overall, functional card design. In this project the materials I used included the Cricut machine, card stock paper, Micron pens, tacky glue, Adobe Illustrator, precision knife and images found on the internet of different natural shapes. For this project I chose to prioritize the design principles: harmony, balance, symmetry, and repetition.
Ideation
Iteration and Production
Project Advancements: Attempted use of color, collaboration with classmates (material usage), and participation in the Winter Market (sale and distribution of items)
Reflection
This project brought many struggles and advancements for me as a designer. I struggled a lot with sticking to a design rather than starting over a week before the project’s due date. Originally my plan was to focus on the form of a lime, but I ended up focusing too much on copying the design of a line rather than focusing on something such as line, shape, or color change within the lime. Once I scratched the lime idea, I transitioned to a flower and focusing on shape and line. My first idea for the card design of the flower was to have three rows of three in the center of the card and add three cut out circles on both the top and bottom of the cover. Once I would have the six circular cut outs, I would have added three more additional flowers on the inside of the card on the top and bottom. So, ultimately, my card would have 3×5 arrangement of flowers but once the card was opened, there would actually only be two rows of flowers, on the top and bottom of the card (my first arrangement of images under ‘Iteration and Production’ show this idea). Unfortunately, I was unable to instruct the Cricut to cut and draw in the correct location so my flowers wouldn’t line up correctly. Once that didn’t work, I ended up settling on a simple card design with a 3×3 floral grid on the front of the card. I settled on this design because I enjoyed the complexity of the flowers and the simplicity of the grid pattern. I do however wish I would’ve chosen a more complex pattern to add more uniqueness to my final outcome. Overall, this project was a very big learning curve for me and took a lot of time to adjust to new computer applications and the complexity behind the Cricut machine. On future assignments with the Cricut, I do hope to improve on my craftsmanship and continue to learn new features that the Cricut offers.