Charette Reflection

Over the past two weeks I really enjoyed collaborating with my group members to develop of final branding project of The Kit and Tidings at The Kit. However having only two weeks did put constraints on our project. We tried to cover all of our bases — the logo, brand colors, general feel, idea, and concepts, and visuals for our event — but we could not experiment as much as we wanted with our ideas. I felt like we didn’t have time to figure out the logistics of how the paper boat would go down the river or the animation with the logo that was discussed during our critique.The two weeks forced us to graze the surface of our brand, but it did not give us time to dive deep into how it would all work and true make a brand that was completely faithful to our ideas. If we had more time we could have tested our idea on waterproof paper to see if it would work and maybe even float it in a body of water.
Having a topic assigned to our group narrowed down what we could do and how far out we could go with it because we had to stay with the idea and feel of “Raleigh Riverwalk.” I felt like because the title we were given had “river” in it, it had to be about the water, but when I visited the site I got more confused because it was just a tiny, dirty stream on the side of the road, not a grand riverwalk. However, I think this was needed because of the time constraint. Having a topic assigned to us allowed us to dive straight into the area instead of brainstorming different ideas of what we could do for hours.
I think working with people made the project a little more difficult. Everyone has their personal preferences, opinions, and styles. Normally this would cause a lot of issues and debates about where we should go with the project, however, I think my group had the same vision of our project from the start and I think our different styles complimented each other. However, I will say that working with people who all have different schedules does make it difficult to find times to meet and work on the project.
This project definitely helped me grow as a collaborator. It made me feel more comfortable sharing my ideas without feeling self conscious and worried that people will think it is a horrible idea. It also made me feel more confident when I back up the reasons for my ideas, because I do have good ideas. Paired with this, it has helped me be able to give and receive criticism without attaching emotions to it because I know it is not personal and people want to help me be the best that I can be. It has also showed me my strengths as a collaborator: I think I am good at conveying ideas in a way that makes sense, compromising, as well as immediately going with an idea once it is decided on.
This project has taught me how to make quick and sure decisions while still having enough research to back them up. As well as being able to orally back it up when people as why these were the decisions. It taught me how to better use my imagination during a project and showed me that it is okay to let your imagination run wild; if we did not imagine that a beautiful and popular Riverwalk was already set up and thriving, we would not have been as successful. It also taught me that my final idea can completely stray from my first impressions, which how it should be. It taught me how to look further than just the dirty stream and see potential in a forgotten area.
Because of this project, I know that in the future when I approach a new design experience I need to keep an open mind, not ruling anything out until I finally see potential or a direction to go in. I will go in with a knowledge that my idea will stray from the first ones that come to mind, as well as the importance for researching the background information of my beginning ideas, as well as different aspects of my projects that I come up with.
I think working in a group made me more motivated to do my work because I knew that others were counting on me to do my work and have it ready for our next check in during class because I did not want them to suffer because of me. Sometimes when I work alone on projects I get distracted, however, I feel like I was a lot more focused and productive during this project, I think this is because the motivation and productivity of other members of my group rubbed off on me and made me want to be focused and productive as well. I also like that since there were five people in my group there were five peoples’ minds continuously turning out new ideas, which kept us imagining and excited when working on the project.
I think working with people elevates the level and quality of the end design deliverable. Everyone is their own expert. Each group member has a different specialty that they worked on in the project so it could be the best that it could be. For example, we all worked on the brainstorming, and since we are all different people we developed different ideas. After we decide on what we needed to do we broke up the project between each of us.
Sarah and I co-designed most of our contribution to the project because we know we work well together and have similar ideas and styles. We worked on wayfinding: deciding where we needed wayfinding points, the style of the wayfinding system, and the look of this system. I also designed the stationary that would be used to write the tidings on and then Sarah and I made mock ups by going through the process for writing the tidings, folding the boats, unfolding the boats, responding to each other’s messages, and then pinning them up in an installation. Sarah and I also co-managed the instagram account Tidings_at_the_Kit that would advertise for the event as well as update followers with new information about the event as well developed the hashtags #shipoutgoodtidings so that we can further advertise for the event through other people’s instagrams and their followers. All in all I think the stress that came with a two week project was definitely worth it because everything I gained from this experience.