#ku design

[breeclaire]

Some pages from my last project!

[kristinafosterdesign-blog]

A New Year, Another Blog Post

Since I’m starting my sophomore year at the University of Kansas this fall, Fall 2016, I have to keep up a blog about my adventures... and struggles as a Visual Communication student. This year is going to, and already has been filled with tears, stress, small and big victories and, unfortunately, procrastination. 

At the end of the year, I really hope to have developed better time management skills. This is going to be my biggest goal for the year. Another HUGE goal is survive sophomore review at the end of the academic year.

We’ll see how the year goes...

[ellesamazingblog]

Emmeline Pankhurst's speech “Freedom or Death” is easily recognized as one of the greatest speeches in the 20th century. Advocating for British women's right to vote, she is known today as one of the most notable suffragettes in history. Her fiery passion and dedication to this cause is overwhelmingly apparent and is inspiring to me even one hundred years later. Obviously there is major emphasis on the later portion of the speech particularly in the iconic line “give us freedom or give us death.”

[ellesamazingblog]

I deserve a lot of gifts from Santa because this girl has been working hard. This post shows off my final application for “The Big Meltdown” food truck brand. Not shown is a to go container and the fully mocked up business cards. I hope to add those soon.

[kfosterthinkandmake]

Beautiful Solutions Project Reflection: 

Although this project was not my favorite of the projects we have done so far in this class, I still enjoyed it a little bit. I was not my favorite mainly because it focused on Industrial Design. However, I did like how this project taught me more about brainstorming techniques and how to act in a group brainstorming setting. This project, way more than the others, taught me how to think creatively , critically, analytically and how to focus on the main task at hand. I learned that I found it hard at first to keep my criticisms of ideas in. This was particularly difficult to do in the second exercise, Deep Dive. I think it was hard mainly because I was having a hard time grasping the idea that our desk redesign did not have any limits. The limits that would normally exist in real world applications had no place in this exercise.

    This project has set up a solid foundation of critical and creative thinking processes. I learned more about brainstorming techniques in this project than I ever have before in my life. The brainstorming techniques I learned will help me in my future career and the group brainstorming sessions I will partake in the future. I actually really excited for the opportunities in the future where I can discuss my ideas in a proper manner and express myself and my ideas.

    I also learned a lot about different materials and properties of those materials. For example, wire is obviously made of metal, but it is also very hard to manipulate or make into straight pieces. That is the main reason I do not like using wire in my projects. It is way too unpredictable and I cannot work with materials that are that erratic. Cardboard is the worst, mainly because of the corrugated layer in between the two sheets of flat, thin layers. Canson paper works really well when trying to make quick little prototypes to illustrate the main idea. This project taught me so much that I can and will use in the future and I sincerely value  those lessons.

[kfosterthinkandmake]

Inside/Out of the Box Prototype and Final Design

First photo: This prototype used Canson gray paper, wire and our light bulb.

Second photo: This is a photo of the prototype we created to show our general idea to our classmates.

Third photo: This photo shows how the light bulb looks when the tin can is lifted up, exposing the light bulb.

Fourth photo: This shows, ideally, how this light bulb packaging would hang on a shelf in Home Depot or a specialty lighting store.

Fifth photo: This is the final prototype we created with a metal tin can, twine and our light bulb. We used a vintage-looking logo because our light bulb was kind of retro.

Sixth photo: This is just another view of how the light bulb looks when the can is lifted up to show the light bulb.

[kfosterthinkandmake]

Inside/Out of the Box Exercise Reflection: 

I enjoyed this exercise more than any of the other exercises because it incorporated all of the little exercises’ goals that we did before this one. Maybe it was because I really enjoyed working with Josie and Madison or maybe it was because of the idea of designing packaging seemed really cool. The mind maps that we made in the beginning of this exercise were a lot more fun than the mind maps we did for the Desk Redesign exercise. At first, the thought of completing a prototype of light bulb packaging seemed daunting and hard to complete on time, but in the end, it all worked out. I think the limited time frame forced us to go with a simple design but because we incorporated unique and different materials in our packaging, it made up for the simplicity of the prototype. I think, as an additional section of this exercise, completing a brand profile for the light bulb prototype would have been really cool. I have a fascination with branding so maybe that part of the assignment would have only appealed to me. I don’t know. I think that when I have a group that I enjoy working with and the group dynamic is flowing and clear, projects have a much better chance of succeeding to their fullest extent. This exercise taught me that mind maps and word lists have a really deserving place in the creative process because they really do bring all kinds of ideas to light and offer up so many options.

First photo: We created this mind map by first focusing on the physical attributes of the light bulb and then going to the metaphorical meanings of a light bulb.

Second photo: This is the sketch of the final idea we went with. At first we thought about using a plastic tub but e quickly decided to use a metal tin instead.

Third photo: I sketched this after hearing someone say that this type of light bulb is dying out. This kind of reflect s coffin for the light bulb with the silk lining.

Fourth photo: This is one of our preliminary sketches of an idea for light bulb packaging. We didn’t go with this one because it would be hard to produce in two days. 

[kfosterthinkandmake]

Improvised Drawing Tools Photos

First photo: This shows Sarah, me and Madison using four dowel rods, four rubber bands and a Sharpie to draw a perfect rectangle.

Second photo: This shows the tool that Madison and I created to draw jagged lines. The movement of our arms mirrors that of using a saw.

Third photo: This shows me using a tool that we improvised to let us write our name on the opposite side of the table. We used a Sharpie, dowel rod and rubber band.