Monday, September 19, 2011

[Studio III] Designers Love to Create (Design Challenge #2)

It's been a while since I've posted! I deeply apologize to anyone still following my blog; if any of you are, or have been, in an interior design curriculum, you know how busy it gets. Combine that with an active life, and things get a little crazy. However, this will not stand: I will be posting more often. I definitely have things to say, things to share!

Speaking of, today I'm sharing a presentation I will be giving today regarding an assignment given for my Studio III class. (The title of the assignment is the title of my post.) What we did was take an ordinary object we interact with daily, and see what we can do to improve upon it when we strip away our usual expectations of that object and see it with new eyes. Well, I smoke: my object was a lighter. I use BIC disposables, mainly because that's what my husband buys. I'd like to take a more eco-friendly stance to things I use and design, and frankly, *everything* can be improved upon (even the most awesome, seemingly perfect products available).

For this class, we are using, and being encouraged to use, sketchbooks: all the images I've created come straight from mine. This is a great opportunity for me to develop my sketching skills, but it also helps me order my thoughts and get them down on paper. If nothing else, perhaps this will encourage anyone seeing my presentation to use their sketchbooks as well without fear.


Saturday, January 22, 2011

A New Quarter at SCAD

I've thought about writing this update before, but hadn't gotten to it until now. It's a Saturday, which for most people may mean "weekend" but for me means time to work on projects and assignments that I can't, for whatever reason, get to during class times. It's also morning, which means coffee for me to wake up my brain. A blog update sometimes helps me ease into a day's work, as well.

A hiccup in class scheduling lead me to a decision I'd been waffling over but finally took took the plunge: I've officially attached Art History as a minor. Therefore, this quarter I'm studying Ancient Art and Architecture, which for this class means Greek and Roman -- we're in the middle of Greek vase painting and the Labors of Herakles. Another component of the class includes a "Lost Art" project and paper, and I've decided to study the Temple of Artemis at Ephesos. What in particular about it I'm not sure of yet; I've just begun my research and will nail it down as I read further. I'm particularly excited about it due to my beliefs (mentioned in my "About" page) - although I adhere more to Celtic and Norse pantheons, the Greek hold some residual appeal since it was reading Greek mythology that began my studies in general. Artemis the huntress has always been a favorite of mine in the Greek pantheon.

Other classes I'm taking this quarter are Electronic Design (which means AutoCAD 2011) and Studio I (which is focused upon residential design). I'm also excited about these classes for many reasons. The former will be a big boost to my resume, and I'm hoping could lead to an internship or part-time job soon. I'm also a technophile, and having another tool in my box other than drafting makes me feel more competent!

Studio I is the big launching point to me, however. Between residential building code research, learning site analysis, adjacency matrices, bubble diagrams, programming and more, I'm learning quite a lot. The main focus of this class, or rather the end result of this class, is a project wherein we are given elements of a client profile, asked to create the rest, and then create a floor plan, furniture plan, boards and more for this fictional client. I have lots of ideas bubbling away in the back of my mind, so I'm looking forward to seeing the end results down on paper!

Image taken from http://timberandtextiles.com/chesterfield-sofa/  - I'm required to include a leather Chesterfield sofa similar to this one in my Studio I project.