Research
When starting off my design process for this project, I brainstormed what comes to mind when I think of masks. My group members and I shared what we all thought about and the word emotion was a common idea we all shared. I mind mapped about emotion individual, sketching/jotting down the first idea that came to mind. After sharing and collaborating with my group, we decided to go in the direct of Covid 19 as our pandemic and emotions as our concept; a very broad start.
Exercises
For the first exercise we did to take the next steps after coming up with a narrative, was to sketch 10 or more ideas we had that supported our concept. We established a who, what, where, when, ad how for our narrative; based on that I was able to sketch different possibilities to show emotion during the time of the pandemic. After meeting several times, we decided we were going to express emotions and feels that we each felt the strongest at that time. Instead of the masks being so direct, we focused one chosing one feeling and representing the through our masks.
Iterations
When it came to approaching iterations and material tests, I created a design I wanted to test that embraced the feeling of being trapped. My intension with this design was to use wire to create a framework around the head, down the arm, and hand. This frame work would restrict the wearer from moving, causing them to feel trapped/stuck. I was then going to take cloth and weave that through the wire being more dense around areas that related to the five senses.
As I began to play around with this fabric, I noticed quickly it was not laying how I expected it too and it was tearing me in a direction where I lost sight of the requirement of having a planar design. I knew based off just this iteration that I wanted to explore more planar materials. What I did take away from this material study was that the way the fabric was colored and how I unintentionally placed it, the piece reminded me of a straitjacket. I made the connection with a feeling and a physical object which lead me to brainstorm about more objects that were related to being trapped.
Through my second material test I used paper mâché. I reiterated my concept design after making the connection of being trapped to the saying “stuck in your own bubble”. I focused on more circular spheres the create the illusion of a bubble. However, I was still not totally grasping the planar element it needed to portray.
In my next material studies, I continued with the bubble-like spheres but used paper to create them. With using paper such as Bristol and card-stock, I could create a sphere that had planar side which successful met that requirement. As I began doin different templates and measurements, I noticed how much more efficient this material study was for the magnitude of elements I needed.
After creating my first paper sphere template, I wanted a template that was more linear instead of triangular. I also made the design decision to remove the mask from restricting the hand and arm. The focus was to express the feeling of being trapped and stuck with yourself and those personal thoughts. There was no intent behind having the mask be anywhere but the head. I tested a second paper template that gave me what I intended visually. It was also more efficient so I was able to produce more elements.
Production
I first drew out what my vision for the final composition was going to look like
I then created a template that consisted of six pieces for one sphere. I created the template and layer sin illustrator and then uploaded it to the Circut app so I could use that as a resource to score and cut each piece. Once I had Enough pieces to make 2-3 spheres per a certain diameter, I used tacky glue to glue the 6 pieces together. I made a draft large 20inch diameter sphere for the main head piece to understand how I wanted to cut it so it could be wore.
I then created The final large 20inch diameter main head sphere out if a thinker poster board. In the first draft of this scale sphere I cut along each seam go the bottom layer as shown above in the second photo of the final piece. The edges were sharp making git hard to remove, so for the final piece I just rounded the pointed edges.
I used spray paint to make each sphere black. Then used masking tape to attach and reattach the smaller spheres to the large sphere to see where I wanted everything to lay.
I struggled with attaching the the smaller spheres for the final time. I used three different types of glue but ultimately use a velcro tape to inhere the pieces together.
Final composition.
Concept Statement
The devastating pandemic of Covid 19 has been lurking around in our lives for the past 3 years. As we travel back in time to the first few months, when we were all struggling to get through a quarantine stage while our brains were filled with so many emotions. As we sat in our homes, restricted from leaving and coming in contact with your once normal life filled with interactions; everyone around the world felt a certain way. No contact with others, face to face communication stripped away, stores closed; struggling thoughts were running through heads. We were all trapped in our own bubble-like state of living. The outside world was out of reach and we were all restricted from seeing other people and the wonders of the world. It felt as if we were stuck with only our own personal thoughts. While being trapped, we all started to lose a piece of ourselves through this unknown pandemic and “new normal”. This composition expresses a physical representation of this deep dark emotion. The black color of each individual piece and the composition as a whole, lends to this idea. The dimensional spheres bring the imagery of “trapped in a bubble” and the composition as whole is a physical representation of just one of the countless emotions felt by everyone through this pandemic.
Portfolio Project
View final project at Mask Up Project