Location: Enger Tower Park

Each person from the group went to the location on different days and took different pictures of the
place trying to capture 'spring'. We thought the best way to show the whole park would be through
the Enger Tower. We wanted the photographs to come out more and so we decided to draw the
tower out of charcoal. To unite the whole image together we printed the flowers and buds on the
same type of paper that we drew the tower on.

2. Describe how you worked as a team and divided the tasks of typography, photography and illustration:

Maria Heartel did typography, Maria L. did photography, and I did the illustration, but in the end of
the project we all came together and worked on it together.

3. Describe problems that came up as you worked with the physical qualities of materials and size...
How did your team solve these issues?

The only problem that kept coming up a lot was the glue issue. The flowers and photographs
wouldn't stay down and so we kept using glue stick, elmer's glue, and then finally super glue
whiched worked.

4. Reflect on how the diverse design elements work together and create unity in the final piece:

To start out, the illustration of the tower is from charcoal, the photographs are printed on heavy
matte photograph paper, and the flowers are printed on the same paper as the illustration. To help
unify this, we marked some charcoal on the photographs and around the flowers so that it would
pop out more and relate all together.

5. In what ways does your design generate visual or conceptual surprise?

I think that when you look at the tower in charcoal, you would expect to see the inside of the tower,
but instead you're looking from the inside view of the different levels of the park.

6. How does your work represent impeccable craftsmanship?

The Enger Tower project overall shows a lot of hand drawn instead of digital work and because of
that it makes the whole thing work together.

I think that Nancy Bernard, who wrote on reality branding, brings out some good points about graphic designers and what we do. She says that "design is at the bottom of the capitalist food chain." Hearing that makes me wonder if what I'm doing will become beneficial for me later on, but then as I continue to read on she brings up her do-what-you-can-with-what-you-have manifesto. With that I came to realize that this is what I like to do and if I'm willing to except that fact that we may be at the bottom of the capitalist food chain, we CAN still make a difference.

I think that's how reality branding comes into play in designing and my morals. Reality branding is about committing "yourself to seek the truth, illuminate it with decent ethical standards, and advocate it." Overall, this chapter became informative for me and made me realized about how designing can become something bad or good depending on what we make it to be.

For the client assignment, I've chosen to take part in the Greenman Festival project. I chose to take part in this, because it sounds like a fun client to work for.

I felt at times that working for the client was pointless. It made things hard for me, because I felt that as a group we weren't able to come together and design ONE poster, flyer, postcard, etc. for the project and instead ended up with individual works. I don't really have much to say, but that this project, even though much wasn't been done, was probably the hardest, because there was a lot of miscommunication and not enough time spent together as a group to make the project more whole.

The challenge of this project is to explore and learn what I as a designer can do to an ordinary box that can become effective in terms of eco-friendly designing.

First coming up with more than 50 ideas of what this box can turn into, I narrowed down to five ideas that I thought could possibly be expanded upon. The ideas were: 1) post-it notes, 2) postcards, 3) doll showcase, 4) plant pot, and 5) a sewing kit. I choose the sewing kit idea for the box, because I saw that it might have potential in green design as well be something fun to do. I wrote some more ideas on the sewing kit to expand more than just a sewing kit. Eventually I came up with the concept of reusing old things and keeping it for later use.

Describe your solution:

The kit was to become almost like a recycled box, salvaging old patches and buttons. In order to do this, I sketched out some thumbnails of how I pictured the box to be like. I knew I wanted to get some old buttons and old patches of cloth instead of buying it, so I asked my friends who I knew were interested in sewing. I bought some threads and needles as well safety pins and pins as part of the kit. I also wanted to include an instructional booklet of steps-by-steps and give the purpose of the kit. Originally I had the box covered in cloth, but after the critique, it was mentioned if I best approached it with something else besides covering it and try to unify the whole kit as one, meaning in color and materials.

List the box contents + design elements:

The kit includes: 8 threads in colors of gray, red, brown, black, light blue, white, yellow and pink, safety pins, different colored buttons, assorted needles, pin wheel, an thimble, cushion, needle threader, a measure tape, pair of small scissors, 6 small patches of cloth in different prints, and an instructional booklet.

Outline the green design features:

The mending and caring kit's green design features is it's purpose, in which the user or the person who is going to buy this product, should be aware of the reuse of old things and recycling. Besides the booklet that is handmade, by using the buttons and fabrics it becomes eco-friendly, because it promotes the idea of living waste free without having to always buy new things when we can still take old things and renew it.

List specific eco-friendly materials used in this project:

Although there isn't much eco-friendly materials that are being used within this project, besides the instruction booklet that is hand made, the idea of it is to promote the use of reusing and reducing materials, especially the ones that we wear.

Please include name of material / where you can find it / how much it costs

o Paper Daisy; UMD Store (upper level), cost: $0.29
o Threading kit: Michael's, cost $3.00
o Tin bins; Michael's, cost $4.00
o Buttons; friends and myself, cost $0.00
o Fabrics; friend, cost $0.00
o Wood box; UMD Store (upper level), cost: $3.00

my thoughts:

Hearing about the graphic designer's manifesto, when presented in class, was kind of exciting for me, because it made me feel like what I was doing with my major might mean something more and that it wasn't just something totally made up when I came into the design program.

We critique the designer's manifesto in class and students gave their inputs on what can make it look better, so now here's the final and revised version of the First Things First: graphic designer's manifesto: