Erin Gibbs Response

When I think about Design Thinking, I mainly just think about a circle. A circle represents fullness, infinite and the feeling of being complete. It also has no actual beginning or end, much like the design thinking process. Sure, you start with a problem and you end with a solution to the problem (hopefully) but your path to get there isn’t always linear and can involve a lot of back and forth. Or, you get there in one full turn. Either way, each step of the process is connected. Whether you choose to believe in design thinking or not, you most likely have a loose concept of it that you follow anyway.

Let’s Take a Sec Here

So last week, I took my hundred thumbs and whittled them down to three choices. Those three choices didn’t really feel that great so I started working on more thumbs but found that throughout them, I was fixated on geometry. I was drawing cubes, cones, triangles and a lot of circles. I thought that was maybe just me doodling mindlessly.

Perhaps it was or maybe it was my brain compartmentalizing my thinking, literally putting my thoughts into boxes to be taken off the shelf and stacked up later until I had the semblance of a thing. Design, in all of its facets, can be boiled down to one thing: making things. Sometimes our brains make in chunks first and we work so closely with those chunks that we don’t realize there’s a whole big picture we’ve missed until someone else points out what’s been right under your nose all along. 

Last week my prof took my circle design and asked me why I didn’t just continue with that, but with a whole line of slightly wobbly geometry. I want to show you my emotions about that through this excellent clown illustration above by @nerimative on instagram. 

As you can see, it perfectly displays the feeling within when one performs the blunder described by my oma as ‘looking with your nose instead of your eyes’.

Anyway, back to it.

Day Four - Blog Post #5

Today was the end of activity two! 

Although I’m not 100% happy with my outcome, I’m proud of the work I’ve done. I learned a lot about packaging through this activity. The biggest thing was having the proper measurements to work with and having the original package and mock-up made by my partner to show me what was important. 

Every little thing about a package has to be considered. For example, my package had little cut-outs on the bottom flap, and a cut-out on the top flap to make it easier to open. Two of my folded in flaps were also shorter than the other two by a mere millimetre! It was cool to understand this and figure out the best way to adjust for this.

My takeaway from this project is that it’s important to look at the small stuff and to sweat it when it comes to designing a package!

Rough Rationales Blog Post #5A

Project Title: The Nav

The Challenge:

A new visual identity for an 8 issue annual student magazine that should have a new energy but must be recognizable as The Nav.

Should appeal to and embody the whole student body.

Need to be able to leave the magazine layout to the design team with the confidence that they can do it.

Redesigning my own design from the previous year.

The Approach:

Pull it back and give it a cleaner look from the previous year while still maintaining the personality within.

New set of standards and styles

What I did:

Art director

delegated layout, gave standards and rules

Initial design and layout of mag

coordinated a new printer and rules for mag layout

Notes:

Figure out which Nav to focus on, most likely most recent.

Highlight the leadership role.

Project Title: Balanced

The Challenge:

Overwork is a social stigma that promotes an unhealthy lifestyle.

I wanted to change the way that people thought of overworking and give them tools to change their relationship with work/life balance.

Create something usable that could be integrated easily into a busy lifestyle.

The Approach:

Not trying to be a fix-all but guide the user to make healthier choices by offering an integrated scheduling system. 

An ecosystem that learns about the user through use.

What I did:

I created a web app, mobile app, smart speaker (ish), smart watch ecosystem that could be applied to all aspects of life. 

Ish - an ai that learns about the user through conversation and gives helpful tips on a healthier work/life balance.

Brand identity.

Research.

Art Direction

Notes:

Clarity!

Explain this project to someone who has never seen it outside of class.

Project Title: Fox & Koi

The Challenge:

Last year, I realized that I needed a way to reconnect with my passion for graphic design and push myself to create outside of class work. I’ve always loved enamel pins and so along with a business partner, I began an enamel pin shop.

The Approach:

A pin business is a lot more than just drawing pins, there’s a lot that goes into it including the business side of it, like speaking to manufacturers and suppliers, understanding costs, creating a website and a presence in the online world and community.

What I Did:

I run the business side of fox & koi. I speak to the manufacturers, find new manufacturers, coordinate locations and markets for selling the pins, create the websites, package the pins, do the marketing and I also design pins, stickers and prints.

Notes: 

Put focus on leadership roles.

Explain more about the pin process?

Activity One - Blog Post #2

Activity One turned out to be a more fun challenge than I initially thought. I picked up a package that had a hole cut into it and when I unfolded it, I actually found that there were two holes! I was dreading trying to cut it. However, I decided not to worry about it too much and just enjoy the process.

I started out by tracing the package twice on tracing paper. I found I had to be careful with the tracing paper because it crinkled up easily when I used my eraser. I had trouble with tracing the entire package without it moving because it was too long for my hands. Eventually, I realized that if I folded it halfway, it was doable. 

After taking the measurements and making note of all the writing on the little package, I finally decided to draw it out with my ruler using the measurements that I had taken.

Before cutting it, I carefully used my bone tool to create folds in the package. It was actually really good to struggle with getting the same effect in class with a pen lid, only to do it so easy with the actual tool at home. Even so, my tool got a bit ruined by my ruler because it was only hard plastic so I’d like to find a better material to use in the future. 

I decided to opt out for drawing the fold marks, going off the measurements and bone fold lines instead. The hardest part was definitely trying to cut holes into the package and unfortunately, I didn’t do the best job at it. I need to figure out better tricks for cutting holes in the future. 

This time, I tried cutting a pie into the holes, hoping that I could cut them out section by section. This just resulted in a choppy cut.  

Still, it was a joyful experience to fold my little package up and understand just why each flap had to be different, and understand how it fit together. 

While I wasn’t entirely happy with the recreation, I was satisfied with the way it folded together and when I pushed the flaps together correctly, I knew some glue would keep the holes lined up. I decided to leave it unglued for further work in class as it held together perfectly otherwise. 

Reflection: Working with something tactile for the first time in a while was a joyful and happy experience. It reminded me what I love about graphic design, the simple happiness of making something that works. I need practice cutting holes too and I guess I’m going to need a steady supply of fresh blades in order to get through this semester and my fresh pad of bristol paper. 

PROJECT ONE RATIONALE - BLOG POST #9

Project 1 - Environmental Redesign Rationale

ARTG371 - Sara Holmes

Product: Tsubazo Pairing Knife

Project Description: For this project, the goal was to find an overly packaged item and redesign it to create something more environmentally friendly. We were allowed to choose anything we deemed to be overpackaged, even if the packaging seemed alright. My goal was to create a package that could be used again, either as individual components or as one piece. I wanted to make sure that any waste from the project was one hundred percent recyclable. I also wanted to create a package that turned a simple pairing knife into a beautiful gift to be opened.

Environmental Considerations: When walking down the aisle of any store, it is unlikely that you will see more than a couple of packages with no plastic involved. Since the invention of plastic, it has been involved in packaging whether that has been as a plastic sleeve, bubble wrap, slips of plastic, etc. Even if it is made reusable (hard plastic), most of it ends up at the dump where it will take hundreds of years to break down completely. 

I wanted to create a simple enough package that could be completely reused, and if the person has no interest in reusing it, it could decompose naturally. For this project, I used the following:

Scrap Wood - 13 years to decompose.

Wood Glue - 1-3 years. Breaks down over a period of time when exposed to moisture. 

Cloth - 1-5 months to decompose.

Thread - 3-4 months to decompose.

Tracing paper - 1-4 weeks to decompose, could also be reused to wrap a gift, jot down notes, or even as tracing paper!

Recycled paper - 2-6 weeks to decompose. 

While a bit more effort is put into the packaging because of this, my audience could comfortably buy this product without worry of what to do with the package upon opening. The box could be reused to hold paint brushes, pencils, another gift, or even the knife. 

Design Concept and Solutions: 

My goal was to create a package for the product that could do a better job of representing the product inside. I wanted to completely eradicate the use of plastic, make a package that created less of an impact on the environment and was beautiful for the user to look at as well as. The original package that was cardboard and plastic and I did not think that it matched the quality of the product inside, a Japanese pairing knife.

The purpose of the item inside is to be used as an everyday knife for cutting up vegetables and fruit. My goal was to create a package that reflected the rich culture and heritage of the country that it was made in. I wanted to wow the user and make something that they would be inclined to reuse and if not, know with certainty that they could recycle it.

I began by looking at Japanese knives, the beautiful simplicity to the hilt matched with the rich texture of the blade. So much beauty deserved something more. I remembered reading about Japanese joinery a while ago and after reading up about it again, the idea came to me that I should make a box for the blade and use no nails. It would be better for the environment and would reflect Japan. 

I decided that I wanted my audience to be a culinary student or a professional in the industry. I wanted to create something that would give that person absolute joy to open. The idea was that I wanted the person opening it to have the same emotion a design student down when opening their MacBook packaging up for the first time. That feeling of excitement while opening up the layers of the box to reveal the item inside is what I wanted to promote.

Considerations:

Heritage - Japan has a very rich heritage and I wanted to make sure that the design was to that standard.

Environmental - The package should be simple but elegant, easily recycled.

Colour - Japan’s flag is a beautiful shade of red and the initial packaging makes attempts at that.

Typography - Japanese design loves geometrical sans-serifs.

Experience - This should be an exceptional experience for a culinary student.

Using these considerations, I applied myself to this redesign and my goal, which never changed during the entirety of this redesign.

I was planning to seal the box closed with a wax seal to give a sense of elegance. However, someone pointed out to me that this would leave a stain on the box. I also realized as I stood there with it in my hands, that a wax seal was too much, which is why I decided to wrap it in tracing paper instead. A great thing about the tracing paper is the auditory sensation of unwrapping it and the relation it has to actually receive a gift from someone. Suddenly, without me having to nudge anyone into thinking so, the package actually did look like a gift while keeping the box below visible. 

I also considered placing a seal anyway on the paper wrap but decided I loved the simple elegance of the wrap alone. Sometimes, even if you think you have a concrete plan, when it comes to the creation side they fall to the wayside. That is why creating a prototype is so important.  

Initially, I also had lofty plans for painting a beautiful scene on the lid of the box. However, during our feedback week, I had a lot of the students tell me that they loved how simple the box was, that the concept even reminded them of home. One of the girls told me that she was studying in Canada because she wanted to buy and sell products and she would definitely want to sell my product in Japan!

I was pretty attached to the idea of painting, but you learn a lot in design as you go through and build products, that sometimes it’s best to kill your darlings. Getting attached to one concept is a bad idea.

I found instead that I could create a colour pop by taking the wine red from the Japanese flag on the paper wrap and matching it to a fabric, which I then sewed into a handkerchief with the help of my mother and sister. I proudly did the inside seam and ironed it, but when the time came to sew the top, my sister, with her costuming diploma, stepped in for me. 

The end result is a beautiful, simple yet elegant gift. When opening, the user has to first slide off the paper wrap, open the tracing paper, slide back the lid and then finally unfold the handkerchief to reveal the blade inside, safely nestled within the fabric to keep it from moving while in transit.

Final Portfolio Response

First of all, here’s my portfolio website!

I’m pretty proud of my portfolio overall. I remember starting this class and not being able to fathom at all how I could self-brand myself. It has been a period of self-reflection these last few months and while i’m glad to be through it, I know it’s never ever. Despite having the base of my website, there are a few things that I’d like to fix.

So learning Semplice has been a trial and a half. If you want my honest review, if you already don’t know how to use wordpress and you on’t have time to learn a whole new system, do not choose semplice for your first go. Just be a friend to yourself and choose a squarespace or wix template and then try semplice later. I’m saving you a lot of pain by saying this. Still, I’m glad I’ve put in the work and I vaguely get it now.

That being said, there’s some weird spacing that I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to deal with. Semplice prides itself on how easy it is to edit but unless you already know how to use it, it’s really not. So I guess I’m going to figure out how to deal with the big gap between the footer and my information in my about page somehow. 

Otherwise all I really want to do is update some of my images in my project pages. For example, my balanced. project page could use a mockup of the booklet or a shoot of the booklet. I’ll try to get that when the print shop opens again. 

I’d also like to eventually add light boxes to my photography and illustrations page. 

Other than those items, I’m pleased with it.

The biggest challenge I have when looking at portfolio websites is that oftentimes, the user experience is poor because of the amount of focus the designer has put into the user interface. I can appreciate a flashy website with a lot of moving pieces but I don’t think that there’s a place for them on a portfolio website unless it’s serving a purpose. For example, it might make sense for someone whose career is in uiux to show off what they can do, but something that’s been drilled into me as a design student is the concept of function over form.

When looking for a portfolio website that inspired me, I found that I leaned towards websites that used grids, that had a definite branded look (colour, style, etc) and that was easy to navigate.

Kate Moross is a bit of a hero of mine. (Kate goes by they/them) They’re a fantastic designer that has been in the business for over a decade and is based out of London. Their work is vibrant, stylized and unique. 

Their website neatly links to each piece and gives many examples of it in different lighting and with great photography. They lay out their involvement in the project in most cases and Kate’s site seems to update each year.

I really like the way Kate’s site is laid out because while they utilize a grid, it has a couple of quirks to it which stays true to their nature as a designer. Kate isn’t afraid to be themself on their own website and I think that’s important, as it was discussed in class, it’s vital to represent yourself truthfully.

I also really like how easy it is to navigate Kate’s website.

The sidebar is bright and easy to find and it pretty much takes you anywhere you might think to go. Kate also has an extensive background though with a lot more experience than I’ve had. They’re well known worldwide and even if you think you’ve never seen their stuff, you most likely have. While my portfolio will be smaller to start, I think a simple layout like this would be easier to keep building up.

Summary of takeaways for my own portfolio site:

Keep it simple, only use flashy stuff if it’s necessary. As a designer, I tend to lean towards a minimalistic approach so my website should reflect that.

Be honest. Don’t use language that you don’t mean when referring to yourself. 

Give users the information that they’re seeking with minimal effort. 

Try to use excellent photography and avoid unedited/poor quality imagery for the website. Reshoot if you have the time or use mockups for now. 

Explain what you did for each project so that people can understand what they’re looking at and why.

Portfolio Website

The Links I’ll Use

about me, small joys, resumé

Which 3 (or more) projects will you showcase on your site?

Balanced Balanced is a project that I did last semester where we had to choose an issue and then try and solve it as best we could through graphic design. Balanced ended up being an integrative system to promote a healthy work/life balance for the issue. It showcases an app design, web page, smart watch, smart speaker and welcome pamphlet as well as a colour brand.

The Nav The Nav Student Press is a magazine that I have been art directing the past two years and worked on for the last three. It showcases my editorial skills and features two different base designs for me to show on my website.

Place Place is a branding project that I am currently working on for design for business. At the end of this project I will have a fully branded guide for a new business. This will include a logo, a pattern, style guide and branding elements. I will add it at the end of the term.

Fox & Koi Fox & Koi is the enamel pin business that I run with Teigan Mudle. Through fox & koi, we have designed over 30 pins and I have personally been responsible for 15 of them and collaborated on 5. I have also done some illustrative print work, designed backing cards and created stickers.

Where do you need to fill holes in your showcase?

photography

mockups

sketches/roughs for all projects

more active dribble, design instagram

What will you do specifically to fill holes?

write rationals

do photography of products and/or mockups

post more on my design instagram

post more on dribbble

organize past sketches and roughs into something legible.

What platform will you use?

Wordpress, powered by semplice

What is your domain name?

saraholmes.design

Opportunities for Change & Innovation

This seems like a very self-centred approach to this project because I might be one of the select few that faces this problem. But hey, I think it’s important to do a passion project every now and again.