Uncategorized – Page 3

Post 3 – Personal Responses

Q: At this moment, what aspect(s) of your thesis are you most excited about, and why?

A: Researching and learning and making and failing crying and creating! I can’t wait to keep digging into the concept of sadness and watch my project surface. As of now, I’m not sure what direction it will take – every article I read gives me a different idea – but that’s what’s so exciting to me right now – the unknown.

Q: At this moment, what aspect(s) of your thesis are you most concerned about, and why?

A: The unknown! She shows up again!

I’m keeping this at the very forefront of my my mind in order to get myself to STOP being so worried about it – I’m most concerned because I don’t know what this will end up looking like. I haven’t done many projects like this. I know a lot of that fear is just my past knowledge of what people have made for theses and the fact that I’m a designer. My fine arts/conceptual self/writer brain has fallen out of use so I don’t usually work this way. But this is a growth opportunity, and one I know I need to latch onto.

Q: What can you do in order to alleviate your concerns, your answers to question 2 above, and how will that help you?

A: Just keep researching. I need to narrow down a direction soon so that I can continue researching. I want to get surveys out to people so I can learn more about the population (whatever that means. Winthrop students? Rock Hill? South Carolina?) and what they think of sadness. Maybe I’ll make a collaborative sad music Spotify playlist. I don’t know. I need to dig deeper personally, too. I should probably write about my own experiences so that I can work through them. I should figure out how I would define sadness and then learn how others define it. How does sadness sound? How does it smell? How does it taste? How big is it?

Q: Five years from now, when you look back on your Thesis, what do you want people to say about it, and why?

A: That it made them think, and hopefully that it made them feel. I think making people feel something is one thing that helps makes a design “good.” It’s hard, but I want to try it – I don’t want to just make something pretty. What’s the point?

Q: What do you want to say about your thesis five years from now, and why?

A: That I was able to take a weird, vague, incredibly personal concept and turn it into something visual, whatever that looks like. Or sounds like or smells like. Who knows? I want to explore sadness in a way I haven’t explored it before. I hope I can do that.

I also want to say that I had a lot of fun and didn’t take myself too seriously (even though I’m talking about sadness).

Something Doesn’t Feel Right

So far, all of the work I’ve done for my thesis has been so tentative and wary. I haven’t been set on anything from the beginning and it shows. I haven’t contacted anyone but Jesse because I don’t know what I need and I don’t know what I want out of this.

Working in a studio setting as an intern has been great. I’ve gotten lots of experience and I have a lot of fun at work. I think it’s what I wanna do when I graduate, but I think the way we do things there is creeping into my creativity. I like making style guides and logos at work- but is that what I want to do in my free time? I don’t think I should. I don’t think I would still find it fun if I did it all the time.

I’ve been feeling like this since I gave my first presentation. I realized how difficult the project would be but I wasn’t sure if it would be a good idea to just abandon everything. I knew I was going to give myself so many parameters. I knew I could make something nice and polished, but I didn’t know if I would really enjoy it.

I was about ready to give in and just make the city identity when Jesse approached me and mentioned the first email I sent her. I talked about how I wanted to figure out something weird and way more conceptual than a constrained city brand. That’s why I talked to Jesse – she knows how to get me to crawl back out of my comfort zone and do what I want to do the way I want to do it. And that’s what she did.

I don’t think I’m going to stick with the project I pitched. I don’t think I’d enjoy it as much as I would trying to do something more conceptual. I still want to create some kind of visual identity – I genuinely like doing that. But I think I need to find something different and less normal. Best to catch it early. I need to go look out a window for a while.

Post 2 – Inspiration

Topic – City Branding

By Landor for the city of Melbourne, Australia

By Werklig for the city of Helsinki, Finland

Look and Feel Inspiration

By Eduardo Aires/Whitestudio for the city of Porto, Portugal

By Anna Núñez for a boutique hotel/apartment

My Own Work

VEEERY rough concepts – Somehow blending old and new imagery to reflect the nature of the city (old town and new town) and pay homage to its rich history as well as its modern growth.

Post 1 – Committee Ideas

I will preface by saying that I have not settled on an idea for this project yet.

I’ve had random ideas floating around all summer but none of them made me excited. They were all too focused on the materials I planned on using instead of the concept, which is something I wanted to play with more for this project.

My current idea is to rebrand (rebrand? Brand? Depends on the place) a city or a country. I’m currently thinking about Edinburgh, Scotland, which has been my favorite place that I’ve ever been in the whole wide world. This would allow me to exercise my branding brain as well as create/explore different types of design, from print pieces to photography campaigns to user interface designs to tone & messaging. And more- we’ll see what I think of.

I haven’t really fleshed the idea out yet, but here are a few people I’ve found and thought of that may be able to help me.

VCOM Faculty: Jesse Weser

Jesse is a professor in the design department at Winthrop University, and someone who has helped me realize my love for design throughout my years here at WU by giving me space to do essentially what I think looks good as long as I can tell her why. She has a knack for pushing opportunities at me and tipping my ideas a little farther than I originally planned – something I’m grateful for, given my tendency to stay in the visual and conceptual places where I’m most comfortable.

I haven’t actually seen a ton of her work, but I understand that she has worked with brands/branding/identity in the past. I know she has a great grasp on concepts and the way that they play out which I could use help with for the project.

Winthrop Faculty: History?

Honestly, I have been sort of at a loss for which department to look to for help on my thesis. Until now, I didn’t have much of an idea for what I wanted to do. Now, since I’m thinking about branding a city, I think someone specializing in the history of that location/region would be helpful. This could either be traditional or art history, since my project would be visual. I’m not sure of the city I would want to rebrand yet, so I haven’t been able to find anyone specific at Winthrop.

From this history faculty member, I’d like to be able to get some information about the location that I may not be able to get just from googling- information that would help me make the brand I create reflect the city’s feel and spirit.

Regional Subject Matter Expert Idea 1: Hannah Maschoff

My first idea for a regional subject matter expert was Hannah Maschoff, who is also an adjunct professor here at Winthrop. She’s taught the corporate identity class in the past, so I know she has a good grasp on branding and identity projects. Hannah runs her own design project called Goldenrod Design Co. that helps create identities and brands for businesses. From what I’ve seen in my research about her and her work, she likes taking the brand’s story and visually manifesting that. I think Hannah would be able to help me really nail down some of the visual aspects of a brand.

Regional Subject Matter Expert Idea 2: Tamara LaValla

When she heard about my project, Jesse said that Tamara was the first person that came to mind. Tamara helped found Social Design House, where I currently work (Social is also the place that introduced me to branding). She Tamara is more of a fine artist these days it seems, but I do think she would be able to really help steer me in a new and interesting direction with my thesis. She truly seems to have the mind of a raw creator, which I think could be really interesting and insightful.

She’s started up multiple ventures in the past. I believe she currently is in business for herself at Batch Co, through which which she makes art and chocolate. Winning combo.

Subject Matter Expert Outside the Carolinas Idea 1: Studio Eduardo Aires

When I came up with the idea to brand a city or country, the branding for Porto, Portugal immediately came to mind. This brand was created by Studio Eduardo Aires (White Studio) located in Portugal. I’m not sure if they’d respond, or how easy it would be to communicate with them, but I think being able to pick their brains about the experience of creating such a fun and interesting brand for a whole city would be very valuable to my project. I think learning about that process would be invaluable. In general, though, their work is really great and I think they would overall be a pretty positive influence on my process and final product.

Subject Matter Expert Outside the Carolinas Idea 2: Edinburgh Historian

My other idea (that I think would be very helpful) is to have someone living in the place that I plan on branding. Somebody that knows the city well and can advise me on the real feeling of the city and what they value as a community. The population of the city is, obviously, really important for this project so having someone advise me who lives there would be great.