Accessibility Sketch

                                                                   View from wheelchair

                        View from wheelchair of sink area

  

                        View from wheelchair at the coffee cart

 

When participating in this exercise, everything seemed very large in comparison. Unless objects were lowered it was very hard to access them. In the bookshelves, I was able to reach to the 5th level but it was quite a stretch for me. Another observation I had was that everything seemed more cramped because it was difficult to maneuver around corners in the wheelchair. In the bathroom in Daggy, I had a very difficult time even getting into the stall, but there was no way to turn around. The sign outside the bathroom claimed it was handicap accessible but I found the only accessible part was the sink which was low enough that it was easy to use. Also when looking forward or up, I was not visible in the mirror. The most I could see were a few stray hairs sticking up off the top of my head. At the coffee cart where you made you order I could not see behind the counter and it was very difficult to reach up to put something like a card or cash up there. However, the pick up station was low enough that it was easy to roll up to and with the leg room underneath, this was even simpler. The door buttons helped to enter a interior but if there wasn't one available it was near to impossible to get into the space.

I now more than ever believe the designed environment should be accessible to everyone, regardless of cost. Most people towards the end of their life with develop a disability, whether it is becoming hard of hearing or becoming a wheelchair user. As you age things in life become more difficult and so designing so that anyone can access space is more important. When available, angled mirrors help wheelchair users to be able to see themselves and I found it hard to believe neither Carpenter nor Daggy Hall had them in their bathrooms. I do like the few sketches I did, but wish I had experienced more than the few places we covered. I found the pictures my partner and I took really showed the experience and one of the hardest parts of this sketching excursion was rolling up or down ramps. When rolling down a ramp you had to go carefully and slowly or it would hurt your hand when you tried to stop and when moving up the ramp your shoulders ached at the end. I hope soon every environment can become accessible to everyone.

Home Concept Development

Parti Sketch

 Above are the chosen thumbnails that I developed to embody the idea of home through the inspiration and ideas I found in the song "Coming Home" by Gwyneth Paltrow. I started by analyzing the song and finding what aspects I found most prominent. The most common ideas that I tried to base my thumbnail sketches on were the idea of home, belonging and growth through the home. I played with the idea of the home being a shelter but the ideas started being too literal in nature. The final parti sketch I decided to use to create a 3D concept is shown above. It shows how home is the center and where the heart is and belongs and how all paths take you home. I transformed this into a 3D design by extending the structure upwards and create dynamic changes in heights to show the growth but uneasiness a home can create. Things are not always steady and home so this is shown in the variable heights. The lines on some of the pieces show the unity and anomaly that can be found in a home and how everyone is different but still find ways that they connect. I use color to create anomaly in the 3D design in showing that some can be different but still belongs. The leaf shaped pieces are increasing in size which show the growth found in the home and the belonging it creates. I like the overall plan idea but wish I had found a way to extend and maybe create a standing structure through roots that connect the different pieces. I do also like the natural wood to be used that connects with the idea of the project. I found I was able to come up with many ideas but wish I could have abstracted them more to create more interesting ideas in the 3D form.

Bathroom Design

The task for this project was to create a poster with a case study about a certain topic. We researched the topics in groups and our group's topic was bathroom design including universal design, so I chose the McCoy bathroom designed by Clint M Larkan and his associates. My specific items to cover in my group were the toilet features and ventilation in the space. I like the lines drawing you through the poster, but the font seems a bit out of place for the design. The picture layout works well with the text below, but I wish the text in the picture of the before and after plan had turned out clearer. We were able to brainstorm ideas for our specific topics together as a group and when we were stuck trying to figure out something we would get help and feedback from each other. I found our team collaboration went very well.

Sketchbook Cover and Reflection

 

Overall I feel my sketches have improved through the semester. This can be seen best through the fruit still lives. The first sketch is done in pencil and has some shading but the shading really develops in sketch 6. Texture is also added into that sketch where it was not used in the previous one. My perspective seems to have improved from sketch 3 to sketch 10, with more accurate lines. I feel I can develop it even more through practice. My composition is strongest in sketch 4 and 9 with the use of the entire page. I still need to keep working into the shading and use of color in my sketches. Some of my line work needs improvement, but I have improved my skill with using a pen in sketching throughout this process. The flair pen is definitely my favorite sketching utensil now.

Process Poster

For this project the task was to create a poster of the process work from a project in another class in InDesign. The other project entailed making a 3D model of an abstracted room with a piece of furniture. The design idea was supposed to come from an artist of our choosing and the previous projects we had made, as well as a nature object. So for this project we had to show all the steps we went through to get to that final model including our concept statement. The poster had to employ color theory too. I started with a background knowing it would relate to the ocean, then went into finding a color theory. I decided on using a split complementary to blue, but when I used this on the text it showed up too dark so I tinted both the red-orange and the yellow-orange. For the grid layout I tried to find a way to make the photos of the shell line up better, but could not due to the object study. I found this layout was the best to show both to reasonable sizes. Originally I also had the 2D sketches smaller but there seemed to be too much open space in the middle of the poster then. I tried my best to match the blue in my study model to the image in the background, but could not use the sandy brown since it is not quote yellow orange. Then the yellow orange was too light against the right corner in the title so I decided to add a red-orange stroke around the lettering to help it stand out more. Overall I like how the poster turned out, but wished there had been a larger selection of fonts in InDesign. This one was closest to one I had on my personal computer, but I still feel it doesn't match as well.

Resume

For this design, we were to create a resume which included our logo and a background image. It is supposed to be well organized, readable and creatively designed. Originally I had the logo in the upper left and had my name and contact information in a block to the right of it, but I felt like it separated the pieces too much. So I moved them into this formation. Then when I added the background the logo's white space was too square and detracting. To solve that problem I added a gradient feather that diffused so it didn't stand out so much. I had tried to take out the white background all together but the logo blended too much into the background image. I feel now your eye first goes to the logo then across to my name, going down the page after that. The path in the background can then lead the reader back and can be symbolic of what is in the future. What I still do not like about the resume is that when printed the background image is more yellow than the green seen here.

Logo Design

For this design the task was to create a logo that reflects my design philosophy. Since nature is a big part of my design philosophy I started with a mind map of what I think of first when I think of nature as seen below. When I started creating my logo it mostly had trees as starting points for my name, then I though about trying to create an ocean type with my initials. Eventually I settled on a wolf created out of my initials howling at the world. I tried to display the fur like curves using the M in my initials and once I created the rest I realized I should try to add in fur quality near the face so I edited the K. For the moon/earth I started with the continents being a darker green but found they did not show enough contrast in gray scale and so I made it a brighter green. For the font for my name I thought a curvy or more decorated font would detract from the rest of the logo so I chose to go with a more straight forward typeface and edited the character height, width and spacing to make it more of what I wished for.