Foundations Reflection.

As I've already mentioned my enthusiasm for next semester and my growth in designing, I will not mention it again. To date, I feel there is so much I still have to study and retain if I want to become not just a designer, but an effective one as well. This blog will now in turn become a blog for either my Presentation Techniques course, or my Residential one. I am considering creating another blog for fun alone. Happy Holiday's everyone and have a great new year.

Poster: Final

Poster: Pt. 1

For our final assignment, we are to work on 2 11x17 posters showcasing our past projects due tomorrow! I've been tossing up an idea of working with a concept, but I'm also trying to keep this simple. The semester will be done within a few days and I also plan on attending some of the senior capstone projects. I'll be posting 1 more blog of my posters, and a final post to reflect on this semester.

Kiosk: Final

Here is the presentation board and our final kiosk. For our class presentation, we also presented 3 elevation drawings, all 3 study models (the 3rd study model hasn't been mentioned, but it had all our final revisions for the final kiosk, so it looks just like the final kiosk), the larger version of our display (3"-1'-0" plexi glass wall) complete with a little model person to scale, holding a packaged postcard. I enjoyed contributing to this assignment as with our previous assignments. It isn't quite perfect, but I look forward to hone my communication skills.

Kiosk: Part 4

After the crit with Professor Volchansky, she gave us a different way of seeing our kiosk: a more accurate depiction of minimalism. Because of this we are killing off the TV's and agree that another set of pillars where the clear wall would be doesn't have to be necessary.. but the ceiling has to stay in place too! We wrestled with the idea of cutting actual glass, and somehow fibbing with thin plexi glass, but thanks to Richard, we got a nice quarter inch thick plexi glass cut for us in no time. He then took apart our original wooden model and put it all back together again. I have it home with me now and I have been sanding, cleaning, and caulking in, so it looks a little more polished now. Alicia is working on the plans, and I'll be working on a 3rd little study model representing our current final model (this one), and cutting the plexi for the larger display. Richard is getting the clear sheets of paper printed. Yao had his hardwork chucked, taken apart, and painted on, but his postcards look great and we look forward to the packaging.

We are narrowing down our concept and considering the concept of "1", since there is one object in the space, one skylight window, one shadow it creates, a oneness to this space. If we decide on this then our slogan will be changed from "Sent it Home" to "Send One Home". Thinking of the concept now does have it's flaws, perhaps we should have had some kind of idea at the very beginning, but the group and I like where this is going regardless.

Kiosk: Part 3

We had a constructive critique on tuesday about this wooden model, our final kiosk. We are considering taking the drawers out of the wooden cabinets and maybe taking out the display (with the foam cushion) out of the kiosk all together. This way, it be more in tune with our minimalist gallery concept. We also intend on making all the pieces white, with only the floor having some color because of the cork Richard will be laying down. The wall adjacent to the clear wall, will be a solid white wall (no more canvas curtains). The logo will be on the face. Yao will possibly be able to create some light packaging for the postcards as well.

Kiosk: Inspirations.

I have been thinking of some past exhibits I saw at the Hirshorn Museum of Art here in Washington DC. The first photograph is of a light installation by minimalist Dan Flavin. The second photograph is a lighting/photograph installation by artist Guido Van Der Werve. This exhibit was memorable to me. He used light sounds in juxtaposition with the lighting which made the photographs in front of it appear to be glowing, 3- Dimensional. This is making me consider that my group and I use lighting as well through the ceiling roof, since this is now an indoor kiosk, and natural light will not be going into it directly as planned. There was a coldness to this exhibit as well, but a beautiful one. In the room adjacent, there was a large screen showcasing several (long) short videos of a man standing out in the white arctic cold day through night.

Not much related to this assignment, I know. But I thought his usage of white was successful.

The third photograph is Yves Klein's "Le Vide", a rented floor, in a building on a busy street, with nothing in it, intentionally. He also created quirky sized monochromatic blue paintings and at first wasn't considered a credible artist.

"Why produce a work when it's so beautiful simply just to dream it?" - Y. Klein.

I like his crazy little quotes. I think he either sincerely meant this, or sincerely did not mean it.

Kiosk: Part 2

After creating several sketches of the revised kiosk, we settled on the 2nd sketch (2nd photograph). That Sunday, we created the model and added a person to scale and the TV sets.

Kiosk: Logo / Postcards

We've decided that the 4 of us each create 4 postcards each, totaling 16. Richard is doing night life DC, I'm doing "day life" DC, Yao is doing DC and children, and Alicia is doing DC gatherings and special events. The photographs from top to right: DC Arboretum, Botanical Gardens, Natural History Museum, and the Smithsonian Zoo.

Our slogan is "Send it Home."

Kiosk: Part 1

Simple

Minimal

White

Air

Gallery

Reflection

Winter

Cold

The Beauty in coldness

Stillness

= Capturing quiet moments

These are all traits the group and I are trying to embody with this kiosk. Many of us are minimalist-minded as well.

For the 5th assignment in this class, we have been instructed to create a kiosk with a display and register It would represent a place where a person can buy and sell their objects. Think of the tents at Eastern Market! We decided to go with a new object, a postcard. Our kiosk would be a place where you can buy and sell DC postcards.

The Sunday after we were given this assignment, we met up to construct our first models. We started out wanting to make this kiosk collapsable and able to be broken down and put back together, which would be practical in real life. At first, we were going in an organic approach. So we created a fluid like roof and considered working with silkscreen on canvas fabric. At first, we considered to make the display almost like a partition, but you could "push pin" (cringe..) the postcards on the display. During the process of making the models however, we decided o make the displays with storage space, and therefore created cabinet models. We loved the roof idea, but at the end of the next class, we realized it had no real purpose or real intention. We made a new model the next Sunday.