Paper and Shadows

 

 

Right now in class we are working on our final project. We are making, well, kind of paper lanterns, kind of lamp shades, kinda...sorta...   *ehhem* We are working with paper and cutting it and creating shadows. It's pretty interesting, a little frustrating at times, but fun.

When we started just playing with paper I made my designs starting with paper airplane folds, cootie catchers and making snowflakes. Now I've decided to just work with the snowflake idea but I've kind of turned them into lanterns. I'm thinking it will hang from the lightbulb...but I'm still not sure, it could just sit on the floor or table. 

The design I've been working with has been almost tribal like, or like Indian art with a lot of geometric shapes. Then I started doing just slits in paper that was similar to a print I did in my fundamentals of fabrics class last semester. It's a lot of diamonds and just slits in paper that create diamonds, lines patterns and mountain designs. 

My professor and I started messing around with making some of the slits fold and giving my paper a 2D and 3D effect. And I really like it.

Here are some photos of some of the models I've done.

 

Dribble

For our latest class project we had a small group and constructed words to represent what they were and be an environment that made sense with the word. My group got the word "dribble." The first thing that came to my mind is, "Hey, we're a basketball school. Let's go with basketball dribble," and my group members thought the same thing.

 So we constructed our word in our school colors of crimson and blue and made the dot of the eye a basketball. We decided to put our letters in front of Phog Allen in front of Allen Fieldhouse, and boy was it glorious. I had a lot of fun taking pictures of our word in the environment and later on one of my group members, Amy, and I decided to take pictures with the word in different areas inside the Fieldhouse. So here are some photos of our dribbling journey.

Reaction to Dieter Rams: 10 Principles of Good Design

   I see the different Braun items the first word that comes to mind is sleek. Nothing is over done or complicated; it's simple. That's exactly how Dieter Rams wants things and I agree, to an extent. 

   When he said "having small touches of color makes it more colorful than having the whole thing in color," I initially thought, I like color and bright colorful things, why get rid of that? It's stylish and fun! But then I looked at his products and I understood. He talked about a calculator they had and how the only button that is a bright, different color is the equal sign because that is the purpose of the calculator, you are trying to get an answer. That bright yellow button gives you your answer.

   I think Rams innovative ideas and ways of thinking for design are amazing. They are simple but technical. Objects we always use should be simplistic and handy, why complicate things? Yes, having your own unique style on things is fun and makes you stand out of the crowd. But when you can have something that is modern and sleek that is still stylish but honest and innovative, why mess with it?