Charette Reflection (Jevon Hodge)

This two week project was slightly stressful but the end result of what we came up with was very rewarding. I believe two weeks is not enough time to fully complete this project  but I was amazed with how much we got gone in such a short period of time. The location we had was hard to create a solid brand for because we did not have much to work with. It was really run down, the water was not accessible and the building were always empty. If it were up to me, I would of selected a location with more people, wide landscape, and better attractions.

I enjoyed my team members during this two week project. Everyone contributed to the brand assets, the deliverables, and the overall presentation from start to finish. I dont mind group projects but we all know that there be some slight constraints along the way such as, availability, lack of communication, or other personal distractions. This is all apart of working in a group; However, I felt like we managed to keep everything in tack while we work on this project.  I was responsible for redesigning the brand logo, sub-brand logo, collecting images for the video and completing the final 36 x 50 inch poster. I definitely utilized my group members feedback to guide me throughout the process, which made this whole experience much easier.  It was very enlightening to see each person’s design process and how they tackled specific design challenges for the first time. They definitely encouraged me to put my best forward and leave a good impression within the group.

Since we had a short period of time to complete this project I was extremely motivated to get a head start on our process work.  I wanted to be an active team player and support my group member if necessary, so I was open to volunteering on certain portions of the project that was not initially assigned to me and  provide feedback to make sure everything flowed together.  I believe we had a focused and dedicated group because everyone was willing to work late hours and work from home to make sure we met weekly deadlines. In the end, we produced a great deal of work and I feel like everyone did their best to make “The Kit” an unique brand that people would respect and love over time.  I really don’t have any suggestion for future design collaboration but I will suggest to other young designers to archive all of your process work because it will come in handy when constructing your final deliverables and even other future projects.

poster

theKit_WallDisplay

The Kit_Poster_Opt

Process Work:

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/0B5YOhOxwDkoyN1U4bEJmX0J4MDg

Design Charette Reflection

This project was a good experience by taking a given scenario and coming up with a new idea for it in a short amount of time. Our group came up with The Kit, and it’s festival, Tidings at the Kit. There were some constraints while handling the design charette. We unfortunately didn’t have enough time to expand our ideas as much as we wanted to. For example, the functionality of the boats was not discussed much for our project. We didn’t think of how the waterproof paper would work, if it would fold well, and how ink would hold up on it. But if we had more time we most likely could have found a solution to those technical problems. We could have also spent more time thinking about how the businesses in The Kit could have participated in Tidings at the Kit as well as how they could have collaborated with advertising for the festival. We could have had more iterations for the installation for the festival which displayed all of the tidings at the end. It was also difficult because we had to solve the problems given to us since the topic was assigned rather than something we could pick. The “river” in Raleigh wasn’t really in the best location, so we had to deal with certain constraints of what would be feasible for the project. It was hard to visualize what it would actually look like and seeing this as an actual thing that could happen in Raleigh. As a group, I think we really worked together as a team and made really good decisions. It wasn’t hard to come up with a concept for what we were doing for our project.

I feel that this was a good opportunity to see how this short project could effect my future design projects. I think our group worked great together, but I also think that some groups will work inherently better than others. I think it’s good to find the strengths in those in your group so the best potential work can be produced. It’s good to look at wicked problems while designing systems and branding so you can create a plan that works well for your project. I think this project was a good experience for thinking of a lot of ideas really quickly to find solutions to our problem. We looked at the project from all angles and it was important to research everything that we were working on.

I think I’ve found it a lot easier to work alone rather than work in groups, but I do know that working in groups is an important aspect of design. I think it is useful in a lot of ways, such as having a collection of many ideas from a variety of different people. I think the hardest thing about group projects is finding the time where everyone can work on the project all at once, other than studio time. This makes it difficult to collaborate on what we are doing and what we should know what to work on. Overall, though, I think we had a great team. We were agreeable on all decisions that we made for The Kit and we all knew what we wanted out of our project. It was easy for everyone to get on the same page for our project. Being in a group project motivates me to do good work because I don’t want to let anyone down in our group, and I hate when all the work gets put onto someone else. I think that I should speak up more often on how I feel on certain things. In general, my group made me more productive during class and I was much more focused on getting things done quickly and efficiently. Being in a group makes you see the project in a different light, and if we had done this project individually, I don’t think we would have gotten as much out of it. I was happy with our final deliverable for this design charette.

For this project, I worked on wayfinding and signage for the event Tidings at the Kit, which included wayfinding signs and checkpoint signs. I worked on making the actual boats for the tidings, writing the tidings, and making a mock-up of the installation for the project. I also helped create the color palette for our branding, as well as made an outline for the script and created simple animations for our final video. Social media was also something I worked on, and took photographs and created a hashtag to promote our project. Many of these things I worked on was in conjunction with Anastasia, because we worked well together and knew we could be productive and could efficiently work well together.

 

Presentation:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BxvENCLjf8DAZTVlblloSjZCLUE

Charette Reflection

Because of the time constraint, I think my process was affected in that I could spend less time overall at each step along the way. This meant less thorough research, less consideration of the context, and less exploration of possibilities. This really forced me and my group to work quickly and with a comparatively minimal grasp on the project itself and our own personal framework. I think it taught me to learn how to work with what I have and to push those few things even further. It also transformed my process into a very co-dependent one. I feel like I really had to rely on my group members to compensate for the fact that none of us would usually work this fast. All of our heads put together were able to generate more, and that’s what really allowed us to ideate and make decisions quickly. Additionally, there was almost no room for hesitation. Once we had a plan, we really had to stick to it, almost to the point where I felt trapped in the concept. This was difficult to overcome because I feel like my usual process is very reliant on trying something, then going back to the beginning, starting from scratch, and trying something else.

I think that being provided a topic for the first big project of the year was kind of a blessing in disguise. I think it got my head in the right place and provided much needed framework for how to think about branding, interaction, and service design. I think in this case, the chosen topic fueled my process and allowed me to not worry to much about finding something that interested me. That being said, I feel like my group found a context in the project that did spark our interest and I think it’s easier to do this kind of design work when you’re invested in it.

Working in a group is always such a learning experience. I think in terms of process, it’s most valuable for the idea of passing things off to your teammates and playing to each other’s strengths. I think my group got to a nice point where we would work on our piece of the project, then consult someone else, or maybe even hand it off to them so it could be improved. I ended up actually enjoying that type of workflow, which I was surprised by- I tend to want to be in control of all the details, and this taught me a valuable lesson in letting other people do their thing. I think that collaboration made our work better and kept us from getting to attached to things that were ours. That’s an important part of the process I think- sacrificing that idea of “mine” and working for a common goal.

In the future I will try to foster that sort of intercommunication and sharing-based workflow within my group. We’ve all head bad group project experiences, but I think the reasons our group turned out to be a success was because our willingness to be a ‘team player’. This experience has made the idea of design challenges or charettes less daunting. It’s really kind of a beautiful thing- that a group of people and their brains can get together to tackle some really complex issues in such a short period of time. That’s a lesson in itself! Tackling new design problems with a new way of working and new people to do it with is so valuable.

Working in a group served as motivation to do better work. It also held me accountable to meet deadlines and hold myself to the work I wanted to get done. I think knowing that people are working right beside you towards the same end game is inspiring and helps me feel more productive. However, I think there is a certain point in group work where it comes down to one person on their laptop just doing the work- there’s no use in the 5 of us crowding around one screen to monitor someone’s every move. That’s when the group gets less productive. So, I think trusting each other and giving each other space is crucial. I think in this case, working as a group definitely improved the quality of our final project. I would’ve never thought of some of the things my teammates were thinking about.

My contribution to the project included designing the original logo for The Kit, (which Jevon later helped vectorize), creating the event poster for Tidings at the Kit, writing the script for the video and recording the voice-over, finding appropriate images and clips to be included in the video, creating the map of The Kit as we envisioned it, putting together and designing our presentation, collecting a board of images from which our aesthetic was inspired, as well as participating in group brainstorming about the name, brand, and interaction design.

The following link shows our design process, deliverable, and reflection:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B5YOhOxwDkoyN1U4bEJmX0J4MDg 

Charette Reflection

The constraint of time, for the amount of work we had to do, was challenging to my design process. We had to schedule around the available time of four other people, and for me personally this was a challenge. Not only with my availability outside of studio, but also in terms of being on the same page with my other group members at each stage of our process. So, it was necessary for us to check in with each other every chance we got in these two weeks in order to make sure we were set on how to move forward. Having the topic of the riverwalk provided to me rather than picking my own wasn’t a problem to me. I would  rather have a prompt, and I wouldn’t have been opposed to more direction. However, I think this lack of direction or an outline has prepared me for future projects. With group work I expect things like compromising in order to come to a consensus on our solution and I think my group’s decision making in regards to this was good.

I think this experience will impact future collaborations because I know that in the future I will have to work more in teams with my peers. I think my group had good communication and were welcoming of each others ideas about how we individually would want to approach this project and it was easy for us to come to a decision as a group. I think initially we made good progress in trying to identify an area, revive it, repurpose it, and create an event and installation to remember it. However, as we were working towards the final deliverables for this project, I think we underestimated the framework of getting things done within these two weeks. This may also be due to the confusion that came with lack of direction at the beginning, but moving forward with new group members, I think I’ll be more prepared.

When working in groups I feel more pressure to get things done than when I’m on my own. Someone is expecting me to have something the next time we meet up so I can’t go off on a tangent or spend time on more research like I would if I was single handedly doing a project. And so, I think on my part I work to get things done quicker. I know when working in a group every member doesn’t work at the same pace, so to combat this we tried to split the work up. In hindsight, we probably should’ve thought more about our solutions and the logistics of our event. Given more time, I think we could have worked that out, by finding materials and testing them.

I compiled our initial research for our proposal for this project into the presentation. I was responsible for getting footage and editing the final video. Initially, I started designing the final wall display but concerned with time, I passed that off to another group member to finish, so that I could finish the final video.

 

Presentation:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BxvENCLjf8DAZTVlblloSjZCLUE

 

With any collaborative effort, I think you and your group members have to have an understanding of the end goal you are working towards. Things may change along the process but I think setting up a framework and deadlines on how to approach this end goal will help the cohesiveness of the final solutions. Also, ensure that how you communicate or market your work is clear, because it is in fact just a proposed solution.

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.