SP20

Gifting Design

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Defining the Meaning of a Gift

One of our exercises required us to think of one our favorite gifts that we’ve received. I wrote about a gift that my friend (who is also in design foundations) got me for Christmas. It was a small gift but meaningful to me because she payed attention months before when I slightly mentioned liking someone’s monkey keychain and she remembered. So I knew that I wanted to give my recipient something revolving around something important to them which eventually came to fruition through the bike.

 

Reaching out

Reaching out and getting to know the gift recipient was the first step of getting an idea of what to do.

From what I gathered from our conversation Liam seems like a very down to Earth guy who finds importance in the little things in life. I highlighted some things that I noted like his aesthetics, his heavy love for biking and WHY he loves biking, music interests, the fact that he’s a senior and is losing his last year, etc.

 

Human Experience Using Design to Compose a Song

The quote that I picked was: “The only important thing about design is how it relates to people” — Victor Papanek

I chose this quote because I wanted to challenge myself to focus on the purpose of design — human experience, and not only my recipient’s personal wants and interests, but making a final product that was designed in a non representational way. My goal was to represent his interests WHILE focusing my design on the ‘unseen’ aspect so it seemed natural. I used intervals and chord progressions to craft a song  that was inspired more by design than making a song.

I wanted the song to be warm and inviting

  • The VII-i-III-VII chord progression that I chose is a common progression for songs that sound hopeful yet serene and not too overly exciting and common in pop music like the chord progression I-V-vi-IV (similar to the chord progressions in the song ‘Riptide’ by Vance Joy)
  • The song is well balance with a higher pitched melody on bells/piano/electric piano and a low/ deep base chord structure. I added in a few elements to accent some moments in the song
  • As far as the intervals, a lot are scales that stepping up or down by major seconds. There are a fair share of major 3rd steps. Major seconds are very positive sounding (like the notes ru-dolph in ‘Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer’ and the beginning few notes in ‘Happy Birthday’) and as are major thirds (like the first two notes of ‘When the Saints’)
  • A few times (to create a more distinct melody) I would include a perfect 4th from C-F but then paired it with a minor 2nd to end that phrase. A perfect fourth is engraved within us as a hopeful interval (here comes the bride) While a minor second is typically a more evil sounding note interval (the duh-duh in Jaws), I find that sandwiching it between a perfect 4th and a minor 7th is an interesting way to create a melody that kind of represents ‘hope in the unknown’.
  • the bridge of the song has a sort of rumpy-march feel that reminded me of the rhythms they used to use in cartoons when someone snuck up on them. I felt like it made the mood more complex and added representation of curiosity and the unknown.

Above is my first draft of when I began to pluck the notes out for the melody. Both versions have lyrics technically, but that’s because when I read music or write it I find it easy to remember the rhythm and inflection that I want when I have something to attach the melody to like words. The words,however, are nonsense and don’t have anything to do with the project.

I want to say that above is my final draft. Although I am a little rusty on rhythmic composition, but it was helpful to put everything down on a staff, regardless of whether the measures were counted perfectly or not. Some things changed while editing and revising the audio version that I did not write onto sheet music.

First Audio Draft:

Above is the first audio draft that I made on GarageBand. I was not happy with this version of the track and the more that I messed with it, the worse it got. It did not have very good rhythm and I recorded a lot of the parts separately because I thought it was easier, but it ended up just taking away a lot from the rhythm and flow of the song. So I decided that design is supposed to be hard, so it can appear easy to it’s user; so I gave up on that version and began the journey of trying to record the melody perfectly within one take on the tiny GarageBand IPad piano/keyboard.

Final Audio:

I was finally satisfied with an audio that brought out all the aspects that I was intending like hope and peace.

 

Packaging

While the gift that I designed is the song above, I wanted to ‘package’ this song in a video that was simple yet interesting. I created a simple animation of the biker’s POV while on a peaceful stroll (on a warm sunny day, which my recipient mentioned in his ‘perfect day’). The animation has the same loop and every once in a while is interrupted by a passing flower or a bird. I kept these loops simple and didn’t add too many extra ones because I really wanted to focus on finding peace through observing the little things in life, which seemed to be important to Liam.

Animation Creation Time Lapse:

I also have a title page (which I won’t insert to save space, but it can be viewed in the final video form) that I kept as a still image with a moving title to further capture peace and serenity.

 

Final and Concept Statement

IMG_1573

“The only important thing about design is how it relates to people” — Victor Papanek

 

Using a muted color scheme with some simple animation creates a calming video to ‘wrap’ the gift which is the song. The meaning of the song and video draws attention to observing the little things in life; this is conveyed through a steady melody (with a few parts that stick out) and a video paired with it that has some small moments of objects passing by. Relating to the quote, the song uses chord progressions and patterns that are well known to catch the human ear’s attention. With hints of the obvious bike, the video shows a both literal representation of what the recipient enjoys, but also includes his reason for loving bike riding — finding peace through observation. 

Analogue Game Design

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Process

For an in-depth  process of developing the gameplay and aesthetics of the board please refer to the pdf below
Hacker 3

Continue reading for a more concise process

Iterations

First idea

My first idea was to make the game security guard vs. hacker where players played mini games to advance in the game.

I decided against this game because I wanted the game to be a game, and not just a format to count points for two people playing mini games — it didn’t fit in with the sci-fi theme of the board

Draft

this is my final draft! At this point I was really excited and had an almost clear idea of how I thought the game play would work.

 

Goal

The goal of the game is to be the first ‘hacker’ to successfully hack your way through blocked pathways to retrieve software, and then escape!

 

Gameplay

Player pull cards that serve as classified “coding” that locks and unlocks pathways. Strategy comes into play with these cards because players can shut pathways on each other, or lock in someone who has retrieve the software!

Once a player reaches the software, if they don’t have a key then they have to take a longer route to escape. This makes the game riskier as you are able to lose the software by being on the wrong space, or getting passed by another player.

Mechanics

You use dice for the turns, you can move in any direction but can not back track within a turn, you can open pathways but if a pathway that is open correlates to the pathway on that card that says “anti code” then it shuts that pathway, the green triangle (the software) fits in the game pieces so players can ‘hold’ it, and red triangles work the same way (which you can earn from landing on a space with a red triangle). Players can exit through where they got the software only if they are holding a key, if not they have to go the long way. Players can steal keys.

One mechanic that I was really excited about and think it would give the game a lot of personality if it was physical was the use of covering blocked pathways with a piece of plastic that slides out from under the board like in the travel bingo that I used to play on road trips as a kid (pictured below)

 

Packaging Iterations

I spent a lot of time trying to get the aesthetics of the packaging right. I studied previous 80s art styles and color schemes (which is included in the PDF at the top under ‘process’). So I knew I wanted to include neons and a perspective grid. I also wanted to include the use of chrome letters and wanted to use the green triangle from the game within the design.

Below are my favorite versions that I came up with.

 

Final Visuals

 

 

Narrative Style

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Short Story

My short story followed the path of stories that have “un-endings”. The ending revealed that my character was being watched and studied because my character was created to be a computer. I then developed him into romance (which I picked eventually), Dystopian (which I didn’t pick because it was arguably already close to dystopian), and Comedy (which I did not pick because of the lack of dialogue in the storyboard frames).  You can view my short story and variations and genre research here: Short Story

 

Defining and Planning my Frames

I really wanted to focus on color and compositional elements for this project. I made sure that what I wanted was defined as opposed to being random. My process for these decisions can be viewed here: Study for Narrative Storyboard

 

I found that futurism and surrealism supported the mood of this story because the girl fell in love with an intuitive AI (which seems like a very possible thing to happen in the distant future). I wanted surrealism to be involved as well because I wanted to capture how love makes one feel everything just a little bit stronger. When you are in love you seem to notice everything a little bit more (especially surrounding the person you are in love with).

 

Final

This project was a great opportunity to challenge my planning skills and execution skills. My personal goal for projects this semester is to not go off the beaten path. Usually I ideate as I go, but I want to be able to ideate and then go. I want the end result of a project to resemble what I initially planned for it to resemble. I am proud of myself for completing the project in a very thorough manner, and hope to continue to develop that skill. You can view my final with the final story description outlined with it here: Narrative Style final

Face Off

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What is the Purpose of a Costume?

Masks and costumes have continually been used through history for plays, storytelling, representation, enjoyment, and so much more. The purpose of costumes are to add something to the natural human body to convey a thought or idea that isn’t naturally occurring on that specific human’s body.

 

What is OUR Purpose?

My partner Liz and I have been ideating things that fit within the realm of duality. In the beginning we focused on aspects that were visually or surface-level opposites. Some ideas that we had were:

  • sticky/flaky
  • messy/clean
  • spiky/fuzzy
  • inside/outside experience on a rainy day
  • blurry/clear vision
  • inhale/exhale (blobby vs. limp)
  • yell/whisper
  • shaky/stable
  • candle/ light bulb

After talking and doing a few mind maps, we decided to go with flaky/sticky.

You can view a PDF of some of our ideas here: Face Off Project

Better Defining our Ideas

After talking in class with Emily, we started to consider more of what the purpose and meaning of our costume was meant to be. We began to change from textures to types of traits in humans. The sticky changed to clingy (which changed to dependent) and flaky changed to aloof (which changed to independent). Then for our narrative, we focused on how these roles interact in a toxic relationship.

Our Narrative

“The time has now come to discuss the nature of toxic relationships. Often there is one partner that falls victim to the other. There is a manipulative individual who projects their negativity and toxic tendencies unfairly onto their partner. They want to taint them by trapping them in manifestations of doubt and insecurity. The objective becomes hooking them in to tear them down and siphon their energy. In an attempt to build their own damaged selves back up, they dangerously depend upon their partner to bend to their will. A developed sense of cunning is permitted to evolve the longer their partner is allowing the cycle to continue. So much pain has been endured through emotional damage, but this cycle will end–as all things must do. 

Never underestimate the moment when the victim begins to find their inner strength. Gradually, steps are taken toward emotional well-being through building their strength of mind. They are hardening against their partner’s persistent attacks. They are building a shield and preparing to strike back, now armed with self-awareness as their weapon. Welling inside them is their true defense, a suppressed version of themselves that is now ready to break out. When it does, a new energy, stronger than any that was taken from them before, emerges symbolizing a newfound resilience. The efforts of their former manipulator are rendered ineffective now and for the future.”

Independence (My focus of the Project)

WHO — this mask is to show the personal growth of independence and show that from independence grows self-love. This mask is for someone to realize their self worth and be firm in it

WHAT — this mask protects the wearer from being susceptible to the manipulations put in place by others who may want to suck their innocent and caring energy

WHEN — One uses this mask when it is finally time to concur its enemy in an attempt to escape to a happier and more fulfilling state

HOW — this mask cannot always be a choice to wear. Others may need to help the victim along the journey, yet very often in this process there becomes a decision made by the victim to split away from the tormentor

Visualizing Independence

You can view my entire Face-Off visualization process here: Face Off Process

What I learned

In this project I learned to work effectively with another mind. I experienced a collaborative design process (which was one of my firsts) and loved it! We were able to ideate very basic ideas and brainstorm lots of ideas from them. I am so glad that our project moved in the direction it did. I love the powerful message behind our narrative, and glad that we were able to represent it in a way that we were both proud of!

 

 

 

 

 

Hidden in Plain Sight

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The Initial Exercises

1. Using fonts to represent several different words helped the initial steps of analyzing context and ‘space’ of something that otherwise seems normal. My group received the word group ‘pronouns’. We used: mine, you, oneself, y’all, and them. Applying those words to places were they ‘fit’ helped us to think about ways fonts and meanings could be applied to space.

 

 

 

2. I chose the letter ‘A’ from my name. The font I picked was a lower case version of a kindergarten-style font. The font, to me, showcases a mindset that I will never be perfect and peak (capital letter) because I try to go through life with the mindset that I am always learning and growing as a person. I filled the ‘a’ with an apple because my small town that I grew up in has a major theme of apples (apple water tower, apple festival, apple orchids, etc.) and think it is important to give tribute to your roots and foundations.

 

Choosing the Space

My three different places are below. A dirty corner in Hopkins, the light table in Hayes, and two windows that were across the way from each other. In the corner in Hopkins I thought I could play on the use of dirt and color of the tile. The light table I figured that I could use the ideas of shadows. With the windows I wanted to create some perspective change while moving on the stairs. Although I ultimately picked the windows, I still incorporated the idea of using dirt from the Hopkins corner.

 

Concept Draft

Initial concept draft before review:

Final Concept Draft:

Ideas for Implementation

Lenticular perspective art

Initially I wanted to try and do an accordion style lenticular perspective change. I soon realized that that wasn’t very possible with the given angle constraints that I wanted to stay in. I began to try and ideate a way where the words “and opens windows” could appear with just the slightest shift. To do this I wrote “and opens windows” with large white letter and then put a grate of a dark brown color in front of it. This contraption rests in between the stairs and the window across from the main window. I then took slivers of that same dark paper and then took a picture of where they would have to be for it to be seen on one step and not the other. This only allows every other shred of the word to be seen, but through the gestalt principles of closure and proximity, you are able to read the words.

The tape with stripes on it helped me to measure exactly where the shreds should be taped on the window so it lined up correctly.

Final

The final reads “Love unlocks doors that have gone unseen”. Yet when you step down a step the other window reveals the words “and opens windows” so the quote finishes “Love unlocks doors and open windows that have gone unseen”. This reveals a window that has gone unseen. In the main window I simply added my own dust (some water and chalk dust) and wrote “Love unlocks doors that have gone unseen” but the space in between ‘doors’ and ‘that’ is where “and opens windows” is seen. Someone has even walked by and underlined the word “that” which I was initially upset with, but I have decided that the fact that they underlined it just proved that it blended in to the space because they didn’t know it was a project.

Although the lens on my IPhone camera doesn’t represent it very well, until I get ahold of a better camera, here is my final:

 

 

 

Dynamic Page

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Morph Exercises

Taking a scuba helmet and transforming it into a snail helped me to think and pay attention to those important middle stages.

Combining three images AND their transitions was a good exercise to get in the right mindset to think and work with that concept of middle ground. Here I incorporated a tree and a bank to give the feel of a stream. I then made the majority of it the river with the ocean in the background.

 

Visualizations

Over the process of ideating, I gained more clarity on what type of transition I wanted to pursue. Some of my more favorite ideas were: childbirth, smoking cigarettes, irresponsibility causing bad grades, and an idea of a change in generations over time. Although I didn’t choose any of those, I kind of took that idea of generation change and ran with it. You can find rough sketches of my initial ideas here!

 

Prototypes

During my prototyping phase, I was still unsure of what exactly I wanted to pursue. I used this time to construct varying mechanics that I hoped would spark some ideas through seeing the different motions and uses of shape and space. During this time I became interested in a cyclical usage (especially because I wanted to deal with a change over time and a circle is common symbolism of clocks and connections). I began to come up with the idea of the transition of the 1920s to the 2020s. I thought I could start with an image that represented the 1920s and then ‘fast forward’ through the decades to reveal the 2020s. During the critique of the ideation draft, the point was brought up that we don’t quite know what 2020 will even be. This inspired me to go down a path of ‘we decide the future’. You can view my prototypes right here

Final Dynamic Page

 

My final model plays on the fact that even though society has changed and warped dramatically over the decades, we have continued to experiment with pop culture, art, and expression. How I achieved this was by modeling the project after vinyl records because the popularity of records skyrocketed in the 1920s.

You can view the breakdown of the mechanics and reasoning here

 

Decades!

In my wheel I modeled each section by its corresponding decade!

1920 was modeled after the record and the black and gold Art Deco color scheme

1930 was modeled after the black and white Oxford shoe

1940 was modeled after the American flag for WWII

1950 was modeled after the popular red dress with white polka dots trend

1960 was modeled after the moon landing

1970 was modeled after the classic teal and white VW van

1980 was modeled after popular patterns that included fun geometric shapes and bright colors

1990 was modeled after the classic disposable cup with the blue and purple design

2000 was modeled after the popular color scheme at the time with popular use of stars and asymmetric pattern

2010 was modeled after the popular use of rainbow zebra print

2020 was not modeled after anything, but does have some abstracted pathway-looking design because I wanted to symbolize that we don’t know what the decade will be so we decide what path to go down.