Tuesday

So yesterday we got moving on some more of the sketch parameters for our project. I got about 20 finished for the functionality one, and started a few for the textural depictions of our object. My object, sadly, was broken by my roommate at my house last week, but I'm able to get some more angles on it that were harder to see before. Im still in the process of figuring out which parameters I need sketches for, but I'm excited to start using illustrator to refine my best ideas so far.

My other classes are going well, I feel like I had a strong test performance in Art History this week and had a solid first writing assignment. I need to read the book more though.

Thats how excited I am about having to read more.  That's also the face I make when David Cateforis tells jokes (kidding, he's a nut)

This Week

This was a good week of school.

Yesterday in class we worked on some more sketches, such as sketching our object using only one line, using straight lines, not looking, etc. My object is a toilet scrubber (dish scrubber) by the way. I can tell that my sketching abilities have already improved from this project only. I have about 60-80 sketches so far.

Comics

I enjoyed reading these comics online. It was much more enjoyable than reading a text. There were many great points made, such as the notion that something as simple as a line can have many different connotations behind it. It was also pretty interesting how they pointed out that in a comic, smoke from a pipe has the same lines that come from the stench of a garbage can, and that even when taken out of context, the reader can understand these lines - that they mean it reeks. Illustrating the invisible happens when artists (or anyone for that matter) continually use a certain symbol until it becomes REAL. This is similar to what we're going over in my english class (intro to poetry), we've gone over a chapter about symbolism in poetry, and many symbols become what's called "conventional symbols" - which are exactly what is being talked about in the comic: symbols that are used so often that they acquire a standard significance.

In 2002 when I was in sixth grade, my brother showed me some of the basics on Adobe Photoshop. I had always loved drawing and sketching, so this was a completely new medium to express my creativity. I searched around for tutorials and starting making amateur abstract designs, and looked around on message boards and compared my work. I started making larger things in photoshop around '03 and '04 such as:

http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/9216/dilute.jpg

and

http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/5258/synapse.jpg

and then moved into more Illustrator related design work in about 2005

Now I make stuff like this:

http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/3373/lokedownpreview.jpg
http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/56/shirtgridpreview.jpg

I've always been inspired by people like Justin Maller

http://www.justinmaller.com

and other freelance designers with lots of different styles. I'm excited to expand my skills beyond Photoshop and Illustrator and work with 3D programs, animation programs... whatever. I think it would be cool to try animation and video production, and of course I would be pleased to do almost any sort of design work as a career.

Reflections on our Project

I am glad that we (Caitlyn, Stephanie, Taylor and I) finished our project so successfully.  It was a nice team effort to come together like we did and create a poster and prototype.  I feel like we did a nice job of communicating our ideas and coming to a conclusion of what we wanted to do with our project.

Now its time to move on to the next project, and the first step is to find five "hand-tools" and sketch them out.

Thanks to Margie for letting us out early so we can enjoy our weekend!

peace
-Caleb

I interviewed 5 boring people

Here are my interviews for a 60 cent watergun

Questions:

1) How would you use it?

2) What are the object’s flaws?

3) What’s nice about the object?

Interviewees:

-Derek - age 18

            1) To play with kids

            2) Water leakage, hurts to hold, cheap material, bad trigger

            3) Atleast it didn’t cost much

-Jackson - age 18

            1) To spray at people

            2) Water leakage, trigger is bad

            3) Fills up quickly, shoots far distances

-Samir - age 23

            1) To shoot people but not kill them

            2) Water leakage, gets water everywhere, trigger is too small

            3) Small and portable, shoots far

-Kelly - 30something?

            1) To have water fights

            2) Sharp edges, doesn’t shoot if you don’t hold it straight up, hard to fill

            3) Shoots easily, shoots far

-Jake - age 18

            1) To shoot it

            2) Color sucks, its ugly, water leakage

            3) Doesn’t cost much, fun to shoot

Might as well post about IDEO

Since everyone's doing it, i'll join in.

The IDEO video was a little documentary about how the employees at their company go about their work on a day to day basis.  The guy in a tie and mustache seems like the best boss ever, he's always going from place to place and noticing all the changes to people's cubicles (like hanging their bikes from the cieling) and he seems really enthusiastic about everyone's ideas.  He points out that even the most outrageous ideas are helpful because a more realistic idea can spawn from it.  Some interesting things from the video was their brainstorming process and how they actually build their prototypes.
-As they brainstormed, they put up a big chart and place sticky notes with their ideas in the corresponding category (we tried this in class).  Basically, this helps them figure out the strengths of the product, what needs to be improved, and how they can start improving its design.
-Once their ideas were organized and they figured out what they wanted to do, they visited the grocery store and took pictures of people struggling with the current carts, and took one for a test drive to help find even more problems with the design, asking people's opinions as well to get more perspectives.

In the end, their new cart was built with all of the features they wanted to include, helping improve the function of the cart and giving it a modern look.  Some of the features like hanging the bags up inside the cart, and having temporary boxes for their cargo to prevent theft were really intriguing to me.

When we finished watching the video in our class, I went to my 2:30 entrepreneurship class and we watched the same video and did a case study on IDEO's new shopping cart.

how weird.
-caleb

Art History

So far I've really been enjoying David Cateforis' lectures.  I also feel like I've learned a lot about ancient history (not just art) and I haven't even gotten down to a rigorous study schedule for the class yet.  I like the Greek portion so far, more-so than the Egyptian stuff... and I feel a little inspired by the designs of their architecture (parthenon).

Headed to his class now
-peace