Introducing The StairStepper 5000: a cutting-edge shoe designed for the weary design student on the brink of insanity. This shoe seamlessly blends style with speed to ensure you reach the 5th floor in 5 seconds flat – all while maintaining your breath and composure.
The product I chose for this is a miniature Sanrio Zen Garden that my little sister gave me for my birthday. I created a little world around it with various figurines and collectables I had in my apartment. I also decided to use my cutting mat for the “flooring” in my little world and a game to block out my couch behind the scene. I chose the figurines surrounding the zen garden because I thought that they interacted well with the scene. My ice cream sonny angel is holding the zen garden rake and organizing the sand while the penguin Calico Critters are racing in the background. Overall this was a fun assignment and I enjoyed going through my trinkets and reorganizing them in different ways.
Ads Watched:
Kate Mckinnon Mayo Cat Ad
Pickle Babies E-trading ad
LL Cool J Chill Train Ad
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/11/super-bowl-ads-2024-live-updates.html
Addison Rae Nerds Gummy Clusters
ELF beauty + Judge Judy Ad
Critiquing:
Kate Mckinnon Mayo Ad:
This ad starts with Kate Mckinnon trying to make something with the leftover ingredients in her fridge. Her cat has a meow that sounds like it’s saying “mayo” and it inspires her to create a full meal with the leftover ingredients. The mayo cat ends up becoming world famous and dates Pete Davidson for a moment. I really enjoyed this ad and thought that it was clever and appropriate for a wide range of audiences. It had humor that both older and younger generations would understand and did not come off as super forced or obnoxious.
Pros:
1. It was a funny story with a cute cat.
2. It held my attention the whole time and didn’t annoy me (rare for advertisements.)
Cons:
1. Kate Mckinnon eating mayo from the jar with a spoon. Visceral.
2. Pete Davidson, this is a personal thing but he annoys me.
Addison Rae Nerds Gummy clusters:
This advertisement features a giant animated gummy running to a stage while singing and dancing. The giant gummy sits on a chair on the stage then pulls a lever and a bunch of nerd candies falls on it, creating the nerds gummy cluster. After this scene it cuts to Addison Rae on her couch popping a real nerds gummy cluster into her mouth. I believe this ad is targeted towards a younger audience that would recognize Addison Rae from TikTok.
Pros:
1. It was effective and made me crave nerds gummy clusters
2. The ad was fun and quick and to the point, they also made the giant nerd look very cute.
Cons:
1. I don’t have nerds gummy clusters and I want them now.
2. I think the advertisement is a reference to a movie that was made in the 80s and people that are watching this for Addison Rae will not understand that reference.
Bonus: The Mountain Dew Puppy Monkey Baby super bowl ad will haunt me forever. I would call this good/effective advertising because it is still seared in my brain and will never leave me. (It’s a man-made horror beyond my comprehension.)
Chosen Project Idea: Making my own portfolio website.
Skills to gain: HTML/CSS, Webflow, UX, Responsive Web Design, Creating a Portfolio, Curating works.
Brainstorm List:
For our final assignment in Adobe Aero I wanted to create something using the assets that they already provide in Aero since my computer was able to handle it without crashing. I wanted to create something that would be interesting to interact with once the AR mode is being used. For assets, I ended up using the Dinosaur, Sun, Cyborg, Dead Tree and Jellyfish. I thought all of these combined would create an interesting little “apocalypse” scene and would be fun to interact with. I came up with this idea by just playing with the various assets that Aero provided and seeing what I could create with what is already there. I kept having issues with dragging the objects around and grabbing the wrong arrows accidentally, that was a little frustrating but it was not a huge issue. When I went to record the video I also noticed that not every asset that I used appeared, I was missing my cyborg and dinosaur (or maybe they were behind me.) Overall I had a lot of fun creating this in Aero and even more fun interacting with it on the Aero app.
Background: This is a print that I made in 2020 while I was attending the University of Washington, (right before the dreaded quarantine.) I was very proud of this print when I first finished it because of all the different textures on it. It’s a monotype print so the process involved painting on a clear plexiglass palate and then running it through the press with soaked printing paper, (so the paper can really absorb the color and won’t tear.)
Actions I took: I had done a ton of different drafts of this concept and none of them had originally turned out the way I wanted so I remember getting really frustrated. I had been experimenting on excess scraps of paper since the paper we were required to use was expensive and came out of pocket from students. It took a lot of rounds of experimenting with the amount of paint that should be used to give it a painterly texture but also not look too light, or blobby. I had experimented with borax on prints previously and really liked the effect it created. I wanted to emulate a the look of mold with my print and thats why I chose the dull green looking color. In college a common theme in my work would be brains and that texture/pattern that is behind the illustration of the woman.
Results: the result of this project surprised me in a good way and it encouraged me to continue to experiment and refine common themes in my art.
For this assignment, I decided to revisit a game that I, (like many others,) played a ton during quarantine: Animal Crossing: New Horizons (on the Nintendo Switch.)
I have a cyclical relationship with Animal Crossing, where I go through phases of addiction, playing it every day, followed by long periods of disinterest where I don’t touch it. It had been about a year since I last played, so I was eager to revisit and see where I had left off.
In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, you play as a character who resides on your own customizable island. You can complete tasks, customize your character, fish, catch bugs and build a community of animal friends. My favorite activities in the game include dressing up my character, fishing, and visiting other players’ islands using Celeste the owl. My main complaint with Animal Crossing was stated in the second paragraph where the game can become repetitive once you’ve completed all the tasks, leaving you with little to do besides customizing your island and engaging in daily activities.
While Animal Crossing visually appears to be geared toward children, Producers of the game have confirmed that the majority of players are actually in their 20s and 30s. It’s considered a “cozy,” relaxing game that provides an escape from stress, which explains its broad appeal across different age groups.
Our focus for this assignment was thrift and consignment stores. I chose Big Whale Consignment, located just a couple of blocks away from my apartment. My partners for this project, Walker and Ellery, selected Crossroads in Capitol Hill and Red Light Vintage in the University District. I was excited about our choices because I enjoy thrifting and had yet to explore Big Whale Consignment, making it a compelling reason to finally pay it a visit.
To start our project, we collaborated on a shared Figma file, where each of us contributed three slides focusing on our thrift stores. We decided that the first slide would provide information about the inventory, the second would showcase images, and the third would highlight the store’s amenities. In my section, I created a GIF by compiling an image sequence from screenshots of my Figma file. I used the Eyejack program, which automatically generated the GIF for me. The assets utilized for this project include vector graphics (the whale), JPG images, and the GIF.
Tools you currently have.
Color Matching
3D Art Restoration
Ceramics
Tools you have that need development.
Attention to detail
Organizational
Wheel throwing (I haven’t done it in forever so I can imagine I’m rusty.)
Tools you do not have that you need to learn.
Public Speaking without freaking out internally (and externally)
Overcoming social anxiety
Project management skills
I had this project idea sitting in my notes app for a while. Initially the image was a skeleton in a grave with a tombstone that said “Stoned to Death” in a gothic typeface. I wasn’t 100% happy with it, so I made some changes with typefaces and the size of the skeleton.
The animation is made up of 23 frames, showing a small smoke wisp disappearing into the text. I played with the text stroke to give it a fuzzy look during the animation. I used Adobe Illustrator to create a PNG sequence with my 23 artboards. Instead of using Photoshop to make a GIF, I opted for PNG sequences to see how it would be different. Because of this choice, I couldn’t add audio directly to the poster. Instead I submitted a supplementary video of the poster with audio included.