Guys, Brainstorming is INTENSE

We have officially begun a new project! This time instead of exploring good design, we are studying bad design. This project is a group project, and I have been assigned with three other people in my class. At first, I was really nervous about doing a group project because I always feel like I end up doing all of the work. Luckily, I got paired up with a some talented, hardworking group members. We will all be bringing three poorly designed objects to class and narrowing our choices down to one object. From there, we will  redesign our chosen object. We will make a prototype, poster, process book, and PowerPoint presentation explaining our redesigned object (woah all of those start with p's).

To get our juices flowing, we watched a video in class called IDEO Deep Dive.

The video was about a group of people who got together and redesigned a shopping cart within 5 days (HOLY COW ONLY 5 DAYS). It was fun to watch and had several useful tips for brainstorming. It was interesting to see how chaotic the brainstorming process was for the team. I got the impression that a chaotic environment enables people to come up with great ideas. If it weren’t chaotic, nobody would have thrown out a wild idea. It’s important to have these crazy ideas to have a successful brainstorming process. The points within this video that stuck out to me the most were…

-feed of off others’ ideas

-build on each idea

-the more ideas, the better

-think focused chaos

-fail often in order to succeed sooner

If I had to pick one point, I would pick the last one: “fail often in order to succeed sooner.”  I feel like this is the most important point to remember. Sometimes it’s hard for me to understand that failing is helpful. Hearing this group of professionals say that you HAVE to fail to succeed makes me feel much better about failing here and there in design.

After watching this video, our group got to do some brainstorming of our own.

We were told to redesign a clothing hanger. My group created a giant concept map, and we made bubbles for things like: initial issues, materials we will use, shape, safety, aesthetics of our new design, and the form/functionality of storage. It seemed like we had a million great ideas. So we decided to go through the map and star what we would incorporate in our improved design. Then we all sketched out our own idea of our new and improved hanger, and lastly, we put all of our ideas together and sketched out the final redesigned hanger. It was pretty awesome. I wish I could buy the hanger we designed! Here is the picture of our humongous concept map:

Pretty crazy amiright ? I'm glad that we got to practice brainstorming and working with our group before we got to the actual project. It was nice to get a feel for the group dynamics. 

More updates on this project coming SO soon you won't even believe it

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Project 1: Finished

Wow. These past two weeks have been extremely busy, and I'm so glad that this week is coming to an end.

My project is officially FINISHED, and it feels so so SO good to say that. I've been really nervous about entering the design program at KU because I've heard how intense it can be. So, in other words, it's exciting to be feeling confident about turning in my project. I'm anxious to see what I else I create throughout this semester in design. After I printed and finalized my poster I remember thinking, "Wow, that was really fun." I have never thought school work was fun. This must mean that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, right? I sure hope so. I've only got four years to figure it out.

Out of the 5 well-designed objects I blogged about earlier, I ended up choosing the Vera Bradley Wristlet. I chose the wristlet because I loved it the most out of all the other objects, and I wanted to create a poster that showcased the usefulness as well as the beauty of the product. I love the floral pattern on the wristlet. So I decided to make my poster look similar to a flower.

Over time, I developed 5 different ideations using Illustrator and InDesign (sorry, they're a little hard to see):

I had a really hard time deciding which poster I liked. I went back and forth several times. So after my class critique, I decided to ask my roommate. I told her to pick one that looks like an advertisement in a magazine, and she led me to.........

We also had to make a process book for the project. It was pretty simple and straight forward. Mine ended up being 19 pages. Here's a few of my favorite pages:

Saved. Printed. Mounted. It is finished. Have I said that enough? I just want you to know that it's FINISHED. DONE. I'M DONE. I'M FINISHED. IT'S DONE. Boom.

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"Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try"

Inspiration

The new software coming soon to iPhones is absolutely nuts (in a good way).  In this video, I couldn't help but find several terms and concepts that we have been talking about in class. Apple has some genius designers. I would love to be this awesome someday.

http://www.apple.com/ios/

Color Police

Sooooo we've been talking about color in class this past week. Color is pretty neato, and some people get so excited about using color that they end up getting carried away. Sometimes I see advertisements and it looks like a rainbow just threw up on the page. GREAT NEWS THOUGH, color techniques do exist.  It's important to be aware of color strategies when designing anything. Using these strategies creates a sense of unity for the audience. 

Bad color usage:

When I look at these advertisements, I feel confused. Where am I supposed to focus? There are so many bright, vibrant colors. My eye cannot focus on one thing. These colors aren't creating a sense of harmony or unity for me. Instead, the colors are making it hard to understand the main focus of the advertisements. 

See what I mean? A rainbow basically threw up on those pages. There is pink, green, blue, purple, brown, teal, and orange.. that adds up to ROYGBIV amiright?

No worries kiddos, I have some examples of good color usage and the color strategies involved in each.

Contrasting Hues: Colors that are far apart on the color wheel

Transition in Value: Visual change from light to dark.

Limited Palette: Only using a few colors on the color wheel. 

Harmonious Hues: using colors next to each other on the color wheel.

Welp, there you go. I have 24 photos exemplifying color strategies, but I just wanted to post a few. My favorite is the Crown Royal advertisement. I love how well the purple and yellow work together. Even though they are complete opposites on the color wheel, the advertisement is visually appealing. 

I'll be posting an update on my project soon. I'm hoping to post the update sometime next week. It's going quite well, and honestly, it's coming together much better than I had anticipated. Be on the lookout for it!

These studio classes are much different than many of the classes I took in high school. Even though there is a lot of work involved, I am really enjoying them. It always makes me laugh when people say, "Oh, graphic design? That sounds like fun! Must be an easy major." There is a lot more work involved than most people realize, but if you love it, the work is very worthwhile. I can't help but feel like I "belong" in these classes, as cheesy as it sounds. Who knows, I might change my major in a year. Right now though, I'm really enjoying where I am. 

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"There are far better things ahead than we leave behind."