Tonight is the night for..... deisgn home work :/

Tonigth was hallmark symposium, and i have to say i really enjoyed going. It was enlightening to hear the storyies of the two ladies journeys through college and then into the job market. its daunting. I feel like i felt as a freshman in high school thinking about what i wanted to major in. i am still not sure what exactly i want to be, or do. its a big world and i want a piece of it, but how do you do that? for the two that spoke tonight it seemed like it all just fell into their laps. If i may be honest witth the people who do not read this blogg, i do not feel i am creative enough to be in the design world. i usually dove tail off of everyone elses ideas. not a good way ot live. :/ oh well i am finishing up my process book tonight and thinking to myself i wish that when this year draws to a close i will be able to see that i have made progress, i cannot see it yet. to dribbling....

PROCESS BOOK START

As the first part of our process book we were told to write a response on the design project as a whole. This project challenged me. Never before have I done so many different different sketches on one subject. I dont think i am alone is saying that I began to get fed up with drawing the same object over and over. It was tedious to say the least, but I can see the value of the intense designing. After taking hours and hours to study my object, a skateboard truck i found a couple different things. the first being that after so much study of one single object i could draw it in my sleep. i know where to put each line and how to depict the shadows. I think the concept of studying one single object taught me the value of focusing. I believe the same might be true for any object, so studying helps rendering. Second I found that by forcing myself to continue looking at my project I began to see it in new ways. the quantity of different sketches helped me to find new ways to represent my original idea. I was forced to step outside of my comfort zone and develop new alternative means of creating. I can now see that the project as a whole has challenged my abilities and my creative mind. It has forced me to expand my horizons  and taught me how to look for new ways of representation in the future. 

new new new... so so so happy

new project starting thursday! cant wait. stil gotta get my process book finished for the last project uhg so much to do.... any way my new word!!!!! drum roll please....................



DRIBBLE!!!

here is the def as requested from black board

dribble |ˈdribəl|
verb
1 [ intrans. ] (of a liquid) fall slowly in drops or a thin stream : rain dribbled down the window figurative : refugees from central Europe dribbled into Britain.
• [ trans. ] pour (a liquid) in such a way : he dribbled cream into his coffee.
• [ intrans. ] allow saliva to run from the mouth : his mouth was open and he was dribbling.
2 [ trans. ] (chiefly in soccer, field hockey, and basketball) take (the ball) forward past opponents with slight touches of the feet or the stick, or (in basketball) by continuous bouncing : he attempted to dribble the ball from the goal area | [ intrans. ] he dribbled past a swarm of defenders.
noun
1 a thin stream of liquid; a trickle : a dribble of blood.
• saliva running from the mouth.
2 figurative foolish talk or ideas; nonsense : don't believe a word of that dribble.
3 (in soccer, hockey, and basketball) an act or instance of taking the ball forward with repeated slight touches or bounces.
DERIVATIVES
dribbler |-b(ə)lər| noun
ORIGIN mid 16th cent.: frequentative of obsolete drib, variant of drip . The original sense was [shoot an arrow short or wide of its target,] which was also a sense of drib. Sense 2 of the noun may have been influenced by drivel .

Printing....

PRINTING SUCKS!!! i finally finished my design work... well not quite. i have been in the print lab since 9 30 working on printing out the images i did on the internet. it sucks!

a late night

i'm up... can't sleep but i finished 20 more design sketches... the word ideas. They turned out pretty good. I came up with quite a few interesting ideas but the tiff wont up load so i guess ill have to remember to get em up later. only 40 more to go. yes!!!

broken decks

so i stayed up super late last night working on my design project. we were told to choose an object we could hold in our hands. i decided to do a truck off of a skateboard. the first assignment was to do about 60 different sketches . then after the day i missed casue i  was sick, we had another 80 to do. so i was up last night cutting  and pasting... i hate arts and crafts... :/ i havent been able t oget m yscanner to work yet so i am kinda behind in getting it all together but once i do i can up load a couple images to this blogg to show it off. For now i  can just put up a picture of a truck! :) cant wait to get into photoshop to get some of this done.

Desined out... to many!!

i am getting overwhelmed!!! I have done over 60 different concepts for my object, a skateboard truck, toward our final project. Now i have just been informed we get to do another 80! yeah! :( uhg i don't completely understand the assignment due to skipping class cause of a fever. well here goes nothin, gotta get it done :)

Designing some junk, yeah its the shhhh.h..

So i got the urge yesterday to get a tattoo after being told by our instructor, jeremy Shellhorn, that we needed to get some indian ink for class today. When purchasing the ink some girl commented that the ink was what people used to give home made tattoos. so well.. i got one!! :) tell me what you think abotu the "design"

Broken frames, broken hearts...

well now this blog is going to be in response to the crazy vid we saw last class that came straight out of the 90s. i have to admit i loved it :) the crazy "semi" hip hair styles and "cool" clothing designs. any way there were a couple ideas i really gleaned from the video that i hope to put into my own designing process. So the design company made it a point to show that within the design process there is no hierarchy of who is "over" who. Seniority doesn't come from time spent in the company, its based off of ideas. if someone brings good ideas to the table and continues to do so time and again then they will be recognized for their ability and given the attention they earn. Also i found how when first looking at an object it needs to be decided what are the key ideas the old design would need to become better. in the case of a shopping cart like they did the team decided safety and security were the prime ideas the needed to keep in mind when designing the cart.

     The team also talked about the "deep dive." it was described as "controlled ciaos." total emersion in the problem, being open to new and inventive ideas.By staying open individuals are able to voice the craziest of ideas which in turn lead to newer more practical ideas. One thing to keep in mind is that its very long hours to do the whole process, but it seemed like a very fun work environment. One where i would like to work :)


So our assignment for this week was to take a bad design, i my case a stupid hook that doesnt hold very well and is awkward to hang things on, and redesign it to make it more pleasing to look at and use. first i identified a couple major problems by asking a few different people what they thought was wrong with it. I did this to identify with my audience and figure out what the "consumer" wants to see. A few common things about the hook were:

-Kinda boring, a plain white design that is dull to look at
-Awkwardly shaped, "looks like a mouse trap."
-"almost to basic." looks simplistic but its very dull and boring
-A hook that is shaped awkward, hard to hang things on if its bent out. "you almost have to bend the object your self to ge it to work"
-Flimsy plastic, no back, the sticky is not sticky enough. ( that could pose a problem, i dont know how to do that)
- No backing for it, its just plastic to sticky to wall.

So here are a few things i saw majorly wrong with this product in action
Here is the result of the hook holding up one of my paintings. it sits away from the wall and kinda makes it look like the painting is about to fall on you

 

Then the hook that is a bit odd, why would you need the hook to swivel up and down? make the picture harder to get off the wall

Then pulling the sticky off it snapped in my hand, eventually it came off but the whole tab needs to be redesigned. 

  

the ultimate result...

The army makes bad designs....

so today is the first day the rotc program at KU is supposed to "dress up" in our ACUs. I walked out of hashinger my dorm, and was met with so many stares. Hash, as we hashies like to call it, is the artsy dorm with a whole lot of "alternative" individuals. so needless to say i was the odd man out. but the uniform gave me a good idea for a blog. the army sucks at designing clothing. this uniform is first of all hot! its not breathable at all, so at 4 am when your up about to start a ruck march your sweating already. The uniform uses Velcro as a major part of it's design. every pocket and patch are Velcro. The original design problem came from the BDUs, basic dress uniform. designers saw that it was to much money to have to sow every patch onto the uniform, making each one of the uniforms very costly. however in cutting costs the designers sacrificed function. After only a couple times in the wash the ACU's Velcro loses its ability to stick causing pockets to remain open and patches to fall off. Along with being poorly made, thne velcro is also very loud. when detaching and reattaching the pockets or any patches a loud ripping sound resonates over everything. not very stealthy when your are operating in the field.

Thank fully a new uniform is being designed currently, specifically for the destert regions we are occupying right now. it still uses Velcro.... :/

Designing the creation of a li.... oh gosh!!!!! BLOOODD!

i cut myself today working on my project for class. :( i didn't even notice it until blood started dripping on my project. it was pretty deep... oh well i just nabbed one of my room mate huge band aids, i had to cut it up to fit my finger. So i think its all coming together. the movement of my project is very evident.

  well there ya go. my first project as a college kid! :) cant wait for this new project "design for 5 bucks"

A chaotic mind begins to calm

So today i was late to design class... :( oh well i came in on the most important part of the video the class was watching about what design is and how it is applied to the world around us. it was the creator of the mac book speaking on how the unibody design for the new models of the mac book were a new innovative design. it was enlightening to learn that when designing a new product, apple attempts to eliminate every unnecessary part until it is as simple as possible.

       so today was the first day i began to actually delve into the project assigned to us. we were told to get a piece of foam board 18x24 in and grid it off. then to choose one of the objects we previously sketched out, i only did three of the 5 :/, and study what makes that object such great design. so i chose to do the coke bottle.

so i was able to find some pretty cool images that describe what coke is. so after spending about an hour after class working on the project i believe i am ready to start applying my images :) cant wait for the weekend...

Peace,
Andrew Locke 

Day first time

so i am not sure if this thing puts a date on tht epost, i guess since this is the 2s century things on the internet are kinda smart. so this is day one of my design blog for my KU intro design course.  our first assignment is to figure out what good design actually means. after watching the assgned vids i figured out that a good design is three things:

     > Aesthetic, it is beautiful and pleasing to look at

     > Useful, productive. the design fulfills some purpose.

     > reflictive, it shapes the individual, and is used to present their personality 

so after concluding that a good design fufills each of those requirements i came up with five designs i believe exemplify those characteristics. The assignment was to find and sketch five objects or logos and sketch them out to present to the class. so here are my five ideas 

the apple logo

A coke bottle 

A pair of vans!!! the best shoes in the world :)

A BWM, some very sexy cars that offer luxury at a price

And last but not least, my favorite instument to play because of its beauty and creative use. the Uke!

well this is it for now. i need to actually start sketching this all up. so untill next blog. peace....

                 Andrew L