oh hey comics.

so, parent's weekend, yes? i'm sitting here in a hotel room with my 3 other family members, typing as quietly as i can because, why? because i'm not good at sleeping. love it, but i'm just not good at it. the mountain dew i had may be to blame for part of that. everyone else is just quietly being consumed by their dreams.  i have a lot to do. i have my computer. what's on my to-do list? blog, that's what. i figure that midnight is the best time to type. get your thoughts out. consequently, i'm here. blogging.

i'm quite excited for the $200 worth of art supplies we just bought. it's a tad late, but i've got them :) if only people knew how much better art supplies were than therapy, you, me and the economy would be in such a better position. shrinks, however, would find themselves out on the street. i'd still choose art supplies.

anyways. bds homework reading number whaaa?
comics. read them. a lot of pages of them.
and read them i did.
i found them to be surprisingly interesting, too. regular readings are just like blaaaah. but the pictures made the reading all doable and enjoyable. the three year old in me appreciated every second of it. to be honest though, i felt like they were too long. like the pdf just got longer and longer and longer and longer, and i had to take a ramen break before finishing the last 7 pages. asides from the tediousness that accompanies any sort of reading 'assignment', the comics were relatively insightful and presented a fair amount of useful information. admittedly, i skipped over a few thought bubbles to pay more attention to the pictures. comics aren't too good with someone like me. i think i got the main jist of things though. we'll see at the discussion on monday.

plan for tomorrow: commence 80 additional drawings due on tuesday. no big, you know.

i also still have to buy whiteout and 485730827 reams of paper. and white artist's tape. and rubber cement pickup. though, i'm still not clear as to what exactly that is. i suppose we'll find out.

process photos.

group / process photos.
excuse the shotty iphone picture quality.

object discussions and a big batch of fun.

so, i guess i`ll give a relatively brief synapsis of our class work from the past few days.

we`ve been working on project number 2 ( ooh, aah ) : make it better! design for 5 bucks.
we broke into teams. our team ( which i believe to be superior, no lie / offense ; i`m quite biased ) consists of myself, melissa, cody and joe. aka, the dreammm teammm. w00t.
after we all chose and reflected over our objects, we decided to redesign cody`s paper clip holder.
a series of mind maps and communal brainstorms, as well as some out of this world sketching, etc., led us to agree upon one design ( final product, tba ) and started prototyping it thursday.
tonight we`re all getting together to complete it.
so, for your amusement, here are some pictures, courtesy of melissa meyers :)


joe. deep in thought, as always :)


our mostttt beautiful mind map, v1.


cody`s drawing of the original product.


final mindmap ! so organized and glorious.

the deep dive.

thursday, september whenever, i believe it was the second, we watched the deep dive.

i found it to be exceptionally interesting. we watched it last year in my civil engineering & architecture class, but it was even better the second time around.

though a relatively old film, all the methods of design and engineering used are still alive and present, perhaps even more so than ever.

now. time for the analysis. please, contain your excitement.

Where is IDEO? 

i believe it was palo alto california. silicon valley to be exact.

Who is the founder? 

they call him david, david kelley.

Who is on the team, what are the roles?

 multiple persons were on the team, each with a completely different job. there was a linguist, a psychologist, an engineer, a designer, etc, etc.. their roles differed, yet they were all viewed as an equal to the other. welcome to the wonderful world of democracy.

What is the deep dive process? 

well. abc approached the ideo team with the " challenge ". ideo accepted. filming commenced. the ideo team examined the shopping cart to determine the characteristics that could be changed to more enhance a shopper's experience with the cart. idea after crazy out of this world idea is thrown out, everything is accepted and is then post-it-noted on the wall. some designs are then rejected. ( ejector buttons determined to be unnecessary. ) the best designs are then determined, and prototypes are thus created. more ideas for development are thrown out there. models are enhanced. further study then allows for a final product to be made up. testing then ensues.

What are the rules (montra) written on the walls around?

defer judgement : reject no ideas during the brainstorming process. 

encourage crazy ideas : nothing is too crazy. got that ? nothing.

the ideas of others can lead to bigger, better ideas.

go for quantity : again, nothing is too crazy. put it out there.

verbs, not nouns.

What is the motto? 

" fail often in order to succeed sooner. ( but fail quickly, as andrea put it )

How can this process work in your major? (it can work in every major).

i don't necessarily think that any one aspect of the deep dive process relates directly to industrial design, but the entire thing is relatable. the brainstorming, the crazy ideas, the acceptance of everything, all of it can be used throughout any - design - career. 

well, that`s all for that.

onto 10 redesign sketches of my cablecuff, and 5 interviews.

oh the anticipation.

this is how i spend my labor days :)