Integrate, Customize, Curate, and Make-Believe

Choose meal based on color (Combos: color themes)

Restaurant for graphic designers

Forum that collects wacky artic les- puts a spin on them

Fantasy environment with all favorite cartoons

Indiana Jones on images

Harry Potter fan street fair

Aesthetic bug pizza

Art exhibit that features bugs

Aggregation of preferences based on culture

Make airport fun for kids

Fake woolly mammoth riding around the city- Mammoth facts

Conveyor belt of chicken wings

Trade old costumes for personalization

Ant farm airplane that travels around

Ability to customize social media

Trade personalized costumes

Bar for chicken wings customization

Bar of nostalgic foods from childhood (millennials)

Social media for people with glasses

Virtual reality experience where kids solve mysteries with cartoon characters

Fine tuned control of social media notifications

Some sort of publication(?) about how culture and pizza are related

Scheduling for your week put onto a pizza diagram with your events as toppings

Window display that points out how you are unique

Satirical newspaper that reports from utopia

Kid in need hang out with their favorite cartoon characters

2-way mirror, interactions with people on both sides.

Signage at airports for kids to learn about insects

Monthly Subscription Box for young aspiring magicians

L.A.R.P.-ing on a plane

Design Charette Reflection – Anina van der Vorst

Constraints

The constraints of this project require you to jump straight in get going. The time constraint forced us to focus in quickly. We were given this relatively large piece of land to conceptualize with little to no knowledge about the history or culture of Durham. After visiting the site itself, things began to fall into place for me. I found it easier to envision what this space could be and let my mind run free with possibilities. After the visit, my group was able to throw out a bunch of ideas that could be possibly points of intervention. The two week time period made me not take the project as seriously. I wasn’t worried as much about the feasibility of our interventions, but was able to focus on what the future could hold. Having the topic provided worked well for such a short project because we didn’t have the time to research all of the other options. There are millions of things that need a bit of a revamp, and trying to narrow down a sea of options would have taken so long. I think that our group worked really well together. Although we were not always able to all meet up outside of class, we worked efficiently in class and then worked in smaller pairs or groups to make sure we were all on the same page when designing. Splitting up tasks also helped us to get out work done quickly and also made sure that everyone was contributing their strongest abilities to the group.

Opportunity

Working in groups will most likely be an everyday occurrence for careers, so getting that experience under my belt was useful for me. I found that it is important for group members to check their egos at the door and focus on the task at hand, and when ideating, there is no such thing as a bad idea. I also found it useful that each member of the group was able to articulate their strengths and weaknesses as well as their interests and disinterest when we started dividing up the work. We were open about when we were feeling stuck, and all joined together to help get unstuck. This helped everything run much smoother. This short two-week project sparked my interest for the endless possibilities that can be thought up in a short period of time. I also felt more comfortable thinking outrageously when it came to solutions. I would definitely be open to doing more of these charrettes to keep my inspired and get out of the everyday routine and focus on what life might be like 5, 10, or 20 years from now.

Application

Working in a group always motivates me to work harder and better. This motivation increases when all of my group members have a team attitude. Knowing that others are counting on you not only makes me work harder, but also makes me more passionate about my work. I am more motivated to create an environment where everyone feels appreciated and needed. I think motivation also increased when everyone feels the same excitement about what they are working on. Working in a group also helped me not lose interest our idea. We were constantly throwing ideas around, changing things, and pushing each other to create the best work. I think that our group dynamic helped us to create a project that we were all proud of and all felt connected to.

We all worked collaboratively on ideation and developing our idea. I worked closely with Kayla to establish our brand colors and typefaces. Along with the rest of my group, I documented our process both in images and in video. I also created the final presentation poster.

Presentation

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BwcIIfqQRpPFdEFXTnFrd3hDY2M?usp=sharing

Future Recommendations

I would suggest that each designer should approach the project with un-biased eyes and leave your ego at the door. Understand that everyone has something to contribute to the project, and be willing to help you group members along when they are feeling stuck or uninspired. Also, find ways to inspire your group members. And don’t forget to work hard and work fast.

Situation Comprehensive Concept Map

Jevon Hodges, Marcie Laird, Anina van der Vorst

Chapter 5: Situation-Concept Map

Jevon Hodges, Marcie Laird, Anina van der Vorst

In the chapter, “Situation”, Thackara argues for shifting the importance of design from the material things and created places to instead focusing on people and creating communities. He states that people connect with people, not things, and that in order to create opportunities for innovation, we must create opportunities for ideas to be shared and discussed rather than focusing our time on creating the places in which people interact. He also tackles this idea that modern spaces are complex and alienate us from the “real world.” Often times architects (and other designers) approach a project without any clear knowledge of who or what they are designing for, and this leads to passer-throughs to feel completely lost in space.

The word community appears frequently in this chapter. Not one individual can solve the world’s problems, so when we are able to come together and create good design as a community, there will be a bigger impact. But we also need meaning a purpose to create good design, and this meaning is given by people, not the formal and aesthetic qualities of design. Thackara also talks extensively about the importance of knowledge over material possessions, as well as simply having knowledge in your head as opposed to being able to apply that knowledge and do something. Designers can only do so much, and at the end of the day, people must learn things by physically doing them.