For an assignment in my class, my partner and I would travel around a part of the campus in a wheelchair and experience what it was like for people in wheelchairs. First of all I would like to say that while this assignment was a good experience and really allowed me to view the world from a paraplegic point of view, I feel bad for making people think I was really in a wheelchair. Everyone was so nice to me and I felt like I was lying. I did have fun though using my arms to wander around, especially in the library; I felt like a kid again. Secondly, it is so hard to roll around campus; there are many stairs and hills that a person in a wheelchair would have too much of a burden trying to get up a hill. A lot of people I see though that are in wheelchairs on campus have an electric wheelchair, which is better but scary to maneuver around the hills. It is difficult also to roll on carpet, there is a lot of friction. Bathrooms were also difficult to get into because of how heavy the doors were and also how little space I could maneuver in. When I did get to a spot where I could park my chair onto the side of the toilet, Ariel told me to get on the seat of the toilet but it seemed impossible! You really have to have strong arms to pull yourself around! Washington State University is not meant for people with physical limitations, it is more of an endurance exercise to get to class! I feel like I learned a lot on this assignment and I also strive to make places more accessible. My grandfather was in a wheelchair at one point and I never understood how demanding it is. I really hope to make people’s lives better and hope that I can weave this universal design and accessibility factor within all the designs I will be working on. I really understand now how important that is and how much easier it will make everyone’s lives.
When told I was going to be designing a kitchen, I was completely lost. When picturing my future career in interior design, I somehow glossed over the fact that I would be designing kitchens. This was probably the most challenging project I ever had to do. My own kitchen, back home, is small and compact and sort of crammed with many cookbooks, random stuff, and there's dirt in cracks and mouse traps by the fridge. It is nothing at all glamorous but because it is my home, I love it so much. But thinking about a new kitchen with materials of my choice, I got excited. I immediately chose an apple green quartz counter top and ordered the sample online. I fell in love with the warm fresh green and went on to the rest of the design. At first I focused on functionality and accessibility within the 18x16 foot kitchen. I was designing for a woman in a wheelchair and I had to make sure she would not have trouble moving around; thus the majority of my project was dedicated to figuring out how the kitchen would be laid out. This caused me to forget my concept and only bring it in later on when I would come to the project's close. The most difficult part of this project was figuring out how the kitchen would work together. I had picked the green countertops, a beautiful material, but there was also a big brick wall that would dominate the room. Red and green made no sense to me and seemed almost impossible to put together. I added a yellow to the countertops as bamboo but again it was just so difficult. As you can see from the thumbnails above, I tried to experiment with color to try to figure out a solution to my problem. I ended up with something remotely decent but I still feel dissatisfied with the project's outcome. The one thing I do like though is the layout I had created. But I still feel like I need a lot of practice when it comes to kitchens; they are so difficult to lay out. Overall I like the shapes and layout of the furniture but I am still troubled by color. These sketches were supposed to be rendered but I simply could not bring myself to do it. I feel like I should have been given more time for this project, being so new to kitchen design, I had never even thought about it. I have issues thinking "outside the box" creatively and it is a struggle I fight to overcome. I see magnificent kitchens and spaces by other interior designers and my classmates and I admire their imagination and ability to create something I would have never even thought possible. I want to be that good, I want to be able to catch someone's breath as they look at their new home and savor the moment knowing that I created it. I know it will take time but I am ready to take on the challenge.
This is one of the trace process sheets that I created for the Kid's Bedroom. First, I began brainstorming the needs the children would have in the space and began exploring different layouts for it. I was designing for two 6 year old twin girls and had to find a balance between public and privacy. Being sisters living in the same room for most of their life would be difficult if they cannot get away from each other. I knew siblings that shared the same room and it can get scary. Unfortunately, the layout I chose in the final is not on this sheet. I had decided to put a bunk bed against the back wall in the center of the room and one desk and dresser on each side, sort of a symmetrical layout. Again, brainstorming helps me come up with ideas I never knew I had! It's really liberating. This concept model was created from one of many partis going back to a children's book called "Welcome to the Greenhouse;" I picked it for its wonderfully colored pages of the jungle and animals within the jungle. I used to love dinosaurs and rain forests when I was little because it was something I had never seen before and it was quite the stretch of imagination. So I used the quote written on the photo above as my inspiration and took three words from it: transformation, layers, and freedom. The layers I got from the layers of foliage. Freedom I got from the feeling you would get in the outdoors where there are no walls. And transformation I got from a page in the book featuring butterflies and I associated the caterpillar and pupa with it; also because these twin girls will live in this room presumably for a while, they will get to learn a little about growth and development from when small to out in college and even into the working world. As the photo shows, I wanted to symbolize freedom and transformation through the green strips of paper flowing out farther than the opening. The blue origami star in the inside represents the feeling of safety, innocence, the core of imagination. I'm very happy with this concept model. I probably would not change anything about this model because I really consider it successful.This bedroom way the model of the final layout of the bedroom. Constructing it in 3D really helps me process the information of what I'm doing and what it will look like and I use it many times for my perspective drawings. I originally had two doors on the far left wall of the bedroom leading to a closet and bathroom but decided to take out the closet at the last moment because they just was not enough room to make a comfortable bathroom for two girls. They would each have a dresser and a desk for their homework and clothes and a chest on the right wall. Thus they each have their own space on either side of the bunk bed and share a common space around the bottom of the bunk beds; this concept of separate but together was very important. Next the ceiling: the skylight is a direct abstraction of the narrow slots of light on the jungle rooftop and the propped down soffits represent the layers of leaves and foliage. Overall the limited space in which to design the bedroom was a bit disappointing. And I do wish I had put more storage space in the room but I did adore the design of the ceiling. This is the final presentation of the Kid's Bedroom. I took a picture from the book portraying frogs and redrew them here, changing the composition as I wanted. My main colors in this are brown, bright orange, green,and white. I really liked how it came together although the transition from the parti and bedroom got a bit lost as I struggled in coming up with a functional room. I tend to put function before design whenever I design. Since I did not want to overpower the room in the rain forest theme and leaves, I left it as pieces they could easily be taken down once they moved in. Many of the pieces of furniture and the bed coverings with the paper lanterns are custom made. I struggled also with designing for teenagers and kids because of how trends change and how the two age groups differ from each other. It was a struggle that I had to push through though. I am satisfied with the results although there are so many things I would change if I did it again.
This is one of the trace process sheets that I created when trying to find a decent parti to go along with my concept of "home." I took the lyrics from John Denver's "Country Roads" and took from it the key words: memories, crossroads, layers, and anxiety. You will be able to see in the drawing what looks like a mountain, red zigzag lines to represent anxiety, and organic shapes that represent the country. I got stuck a couple of times but pushed on, in hopes of coming up with something better. I finished with 40 squares of ideas and chose one from it. It is not shown on this sheet but it incorporated ideas from this. I am very proud of my finished concept. Brainstorming is a great way to get ideas down and now I utilize this effect when starting anything. I feel more focused and on track this way. This concept model was created from a parti taken from John Denver's "Country Roads." It was supposed to utilize the key words: layers, motion, and zigzag. The layers come from the memories within the song and how they appear in layers and not uniform. The motion comes from the road and how the author is in his car the entire way through the song. The zigzag represents the anxiety the author feels when in his car when he needs to make decisions and is far from home, making everything that much harder. The way I constructed this concept model was to have organic shapes, symbolizing the country, hung side by side onto a stick with zigzags on it. The shapes are colored red on the edges to represent pain in the memory but blue on the insides where the good feelings reside. When in your hands, you can twirl the shapes around the sticks; the oblong structure makes the motion appear more varied and inconsistent, like life. This was a wonderful way to get my concept off paper and aided in my design of the kitchen I next turned to. If I were to do it again though, I would put more time in the materials and make the stick out of wood. Funny thing too, when I was setting the model down, to keep it from falling to one side, I opened it up like the photo above and it looks like a human heart a little!
For this project, I chose an old single cut onyx as my object that represents Coco Chanel and her work, then I conjured up a 2D model which I then used to design the 3D model with. My concept statement describes exactly what the concept was for it. It was a fun project which was so much fun putting together but the concept of the 3D model becoming a room was confusing and turned out to be just another concept model than a room. However, when I look at the work put into the model, I could see it as a monument, sheltering people from the rain as they draw or listen to music, and they can look up at the sky and see the rain collect. The tilted motion of the cover would also help the rain run off and not collect and cause tension. This is a possible design for my future career and I take pride in knowing that I designed it.
Friday, April 16, 2010
This is my resume, done in Adobe Indesign. I had fun with this, finding a picture of flowers and making them two colors on Adobe Illustrator and using that as my basis. I pulled the colors out of the print and even gradated the image to soften it up and draw more attention to the words of the resume. I am very happy on how it came out. I did not want too much pink to distract and irritate the eye so I made the colors darker. If I were to do another resume, I would want to try different themes. I enjoy how easy InDesign makes it and I would want to try out different formats for my resume.
This logo was inspired by my love for rabbits. I chose blue and white as my primary colors because of my love for them. My favorite color is white but it is hard to have a white logo with no other colors. I chose Tataouin Studios as the name because of my Deviantart website where I am most known for and if i was ever to make a company, it would have to be called Tataouin. The clock was added in as a reminder to not let time hold me back. It could also hint to the White Rabbit off of Alice in Wonderland which I have loved ever since i was a little girl. I am quite proud of this, being my first time using illustrator. If I were ever to change it, I would try to make the rabbit's edges rounder. I look forward to working with Adobe Illustrator more!
