Month: October 2023

10/21

9-9:30 – phone time

9:30-10 – breakfast and coffee

10-10:30- text

10:30-11- meditate

11-1:30- AR panels design

1:30-2-get ready

2-10- lunch and time with friends

10-11- bed ritual

11- go to sleeeeeep

10/22

8:30-9- phone time

9-11:30- breakfast, workout, and laundry

11:30-1:30 – brunch with friend

1:30-2:30- groceries and finish laundry

2:30-6- mind mapping and sketching for combination mark project

6-6:30-stylized design sketching

6:30-7:30-meal prep and dinner

7:30-8:30-watch SNL

8:30-9:30 pre bed ritual

9:30-10-go to sleeeeeeep

10/23

6-6:30- phone time

6:30-7:15- workout

7:15-8- shower and get dressed

8-8:30- breakfast

8:30-9- walk to school

9-history lecture

11:30-11:45- eat lunch

11:45-12:00- coding Yale site

12-1- work on art nouveau presentation

1-1:15 print stylized design images

1:15-2:30- sketch combination mark

2:30- 3help Jordan user test

3-3:30- meet with Erik Fadiman and coding on Yale site

3:30-4- sketch combination mark

4:30-5:30 sketching for stylized design project and email to jason

5-30-6- walk home

6-6:30- dinner

6:30-7:30- watch illustrator videos

8-9- drinks w friends

9-11- G Flip concert

11-11:45- pre bed ritual

11:45- sleeeeeep

10/24

7-7:30- phone time

7:30-8- get dressed

8-8:30-breakfast

8:30-9- walk to school

9-10- critique

11-11:30-lecture

11:30-12:15-lunch

12:15-1:15-lecture

1:15-2-create history study guide

2-2:40- finish combination mark sketches

2:40-2:45-log hours for New Media blog

2:45-3:15- walk home

3:15-4:15- read for pleasure

4:15-5-nap

5-6-chat with parents on the phone

6-7:20- make din and listen to podcast

7:20-7:50-put laundry away

7:50-8:30 -watch tv

8:30-9:30 pre bed ritual

9:30-10-sleeeeeep

10/25

6-6:30- phone time

6:30-7:15- workout

7:15-8- shower and get dressed

8-8:30- breakfast

8:30-9- walk to school

9-10 lecture

11-12 logo sketch iterations

12-1:30- lecture

2-6-coworking sesh with friend

6-9-dinner and tv with friend

9-10-pre bed ritual

910- sleeeeeep

10/26

6-6:30- phone time

6:30-7:15- workout

7:15-8- shower and get dressed

8-8:30- breakfast

8:30-9- walk to school

9-11:15 – lecture on generative tool project, hamburger nav, and slideshow coding

11:15-11:45- lunch

11:45-12-finish Cafe Soleil panel artwork

12-1-lecture on final checklist to finish yale site

1-1:30- build eyejack panels

1:30-1:45- log hours for New Media blog and post blog

1:45-2:30-record eyejack panel video

2:30-3- walk home

3-4-Therapy

4-4:30- new media blogs

4:30-5:30- work on stylized design sketches and email to jason

5:30-6:30 – combo mark iterations

6:30-7:30- dinner

7:30-8:30- tv

8:30-9 pre bed ritual

9-9:30-sleeeeep

Link to video

Our group wanted to hype mom and pop restaurants that have survived ongoing gentrification and a recent pandemic. We feel it’s so important to preserve these long standing businesses to retain some of Seattle’s old character, one that is much more down to earth and even quirkier than the current culture.

I built my panels in Adobe Illustrator and my gif sun animation in PSD. I sourced my imagery from Yelp and Google reviews. The restaurant is so Mom and Pop that it doesn’t even have a website! So I had to scour the internet for information on the ownership and it’s history. I’m sure there is much more to it than I could find online. All the more reason to go eat there again soon and show the owner the panels :).

Barbie’s passion is
graphic design

You’d have to be sleeping under a rock to be unaware of the resurgence of Barbie in the cultural zeitgeist. Over the last year as her popularity shot to unimaginable heights, I had the opportunity to revisit my own collection, housed in my parents’ bay area home. I chose Belle, the Barbie hitting markets during the animated classic’s 1991 film release, to bring back with me. I wanted to eventually bring her with me when I saw the Barbie movie last summer. I didn’t realize she’d also have her moment for a New Media blog assignment, but here we are!

Using the polycam app was mostly intuitive, although it often took quite a while for the AR functionality to scan the space that I was attempting to place my 3D scan within. Luckily, I figured it out and made my own movie magic. In the scene, you see Barbie, standing at the front of room 5140, sharing slides about her passion for graphic design. In the film, you see resident SCCA instructor, Jill Vartenigian, exclaim, “wow!” at Barbie’s compelling presentation.

Let’s get Kreativ

When setting off on this project, I quickly discovered the app formerly known as IKEA Place no longer existed and now is housed within the main IKEA app. Brian Totty, CEO and Founder of Geomagical Labs, the person tasked with leading the effort shared,

“We’re working hard to help people imagine a better life at home, by fusing real technology advancements with fun and magical user experiences. We are super excited to share our first products and look forward to making these capabilities even more helpful and awesome in the years to come.”

I was drawn to this software as someone who’s brain is extremely spacial. The tool seemed genuinely fun for me, a self-proclaimed furniture junkie. And while I certainly stock my home with vintage and thrifted pieces, I definitely am the proud owner of a few IKEA fixtures. I love Scandinavian interior design. So this choice just made sense!

I was excited to try it out, and after going through the initial dance of tracking down the tool (I had initially searched IKEA Place in the App Store), I found her! Several additional barriers presented themselves after enabling the app access to my camera. I had to go through the rigamarole of resetting my IKEA account password (using the tool requires a log in), and most unfortunately, I had to wait eight whole minutes before my scan has uploaded to the software and I could start my design. That is 480 seconds worth of opportunities for me to completely abandon ship, as a user. Luckily, for IKEA, this was a homework assignment, and so I multitasked with those eight minutes the app had gifted me.

When I remembered I was in the middle of a task (got super distracted by my falafel lunch), I navigated back to Kreativ and started to play! Overall, the experience of setting up a space (you are limited to the furniture based on room tags: living room, dining room, bedroom, etc.), was intuitive although some of the larger pieces like couches and chairs did not interact well with my scanned space. I did like the feature it offered to remove unwanted visual noise from your space, in my case it was random boxes and classroom clutter.

Once I finished my space and saved the design, the app obviously tallied up the total cost for all the items I had selected so if I had wanted to make an in-app purchase, I could have. As a spacial person, I likely wouldn’t use this app feature as I can generally do all that in my own brain. I could see how it would be very helpful to folks who don’t have that skill, or who just want to zone out and relax by decorating fictional and real spaces.

I don’t particularly love drama in the relational sense, however I do love the Chicago-based duo, DRAMA. I felt fortunate to be randomly assigned a music act I genuinely enjoy and actively listen to. Their disco beats and lush R&B vocals, paired with their lyrics discussing, you guessed it, relational drama, hooked me immediately. Through the design, I wanted to capture the feeling of being on a busy dance floor, engulfed in the warm sounds of DRAMA, the maternal lights of the club gently flashing as you sway to the beats, melody, and lyrics.

I wanted to feature the band name, DRAMA as the main focal point, in massive bold font that feels timeless. Could it be from the future or from the age of disco? It doesn’t actually matter, because drama is a timeless experience among humankind. I play with scale as well, since the experience of drama can feel all-encompassing, as well as hearing a live set at a venue, the sounds engross you. I use a limited, warm color palette to help recreate the above scene and to create a bit of a tension between the idea of drama and the actual sounds and feelings a disco club can provide, ones of joy and liberation, of being embraced. I also used a gradient and a few light flashes, adding a subtle feeling of shimmery club lights. Lastly, I incorporated two lines of lyrics from DRAMA’s discography, set above and below the band name, in a news-ticker style, giving the static poster a bit of a digital vibe. To me, this fit the band’s more produced/digital sound.

Listen to 3 AM by Drama, on YouTube.

Theme

I chose the theme of Bat Mitzvah celebration both because I have been called to the Torah as a Bat Mitzvah in the past, and also because it felt like a less common form of greeting card. I tend to be drawn to things that are on the fringes or are a less normative part of the culture I occupy. I enjoy giving those topics a platform. I also enjoy adding my own brand of humor to my work, both to make it more “me” and also to increase my own enjoyment in a project.

I selected two prefabricated started assets in Aero: the Urban flat graphic and the directable character, Marion. I was drawn to the Urban background first as it uses a color palette similar early 2000’s Bat Mitzvahs I attended in childhood. I also recently watched the Adam Sandler film, You’re So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah, and the theme of the protagonist’s party was New York City. So this background felt like a perfect choice. I was drawn to the character, Marion, as she had a youthful look, and her name had Hebrew origins, meaning bitter, and is actually gender neutral, which I love.

I wanted to be sure to include some Hebrew in the greeting, as well, so the words you see state, “Mazel Tov” in Hebrew. The rest of the greeting is in great contrast, tonally speaking, in that is adopts a lexicon that is much more contemporary and rooted in queer culture. I find such contrasts in tone feel somewhat ridiculous which is my brand of humor. I matched the color of the greeting to the blues and purples I saw in the Urban background image and grabbed a pink and yellow for the jumping Stars of David.

Lastly, I chose a free version of Hava Nagila, a typical celebration song played at Bat Mitzvahs and JewishWeddings, where guests step in a cross over foot pattern, being connected in one big circle by holding hands with dancers on either side, and moving around the guest(s) of honor, in this case, Marion!

Troubleshooting Aero

While the creative vision came very easily, I definitely ran into some issues navigating the Behavior Builder in Aero. I think the main issue, that honestly, just practice and some additional tutoring could help improve, would be understanding the interactions between the specific Subjects, their Triggers, and their Actions. I also struggled with the overall placement of the various Subjects, some being scaled way to big so that an initial attempt at trigger, Proximity Enter, felt unworkable given my skillset. Instead I opted for the music to begin playing upon the start of the scene. This felt easier for me to figure out. Additionally, I don’t have directions (like an arrow or closed box) on how to interact with the subjects to trigger the actions for the greeting to drop down or the stars to appear. I’m relying on the intuitive nature of AR and hoping the user will play around and tap various subjects on their phone to enact the various triggers.