Epic Event

David and my class are planning an event next wednesday evening after our final review to showcase all of our work for this workspace project. We’re even using our work stations AS part of the event, such as our salon station being used as a photobooth. We’re inviting anyone and everyone we know, so if you can be there, please be! you can check out the details on our facebook event. Hope to see you there!

team split ends

like our group name? we got a new group blog set up through tumblr showing our process of constructing the full scale model of our redesigned salon station, the obstacles we often come across, and a few jokes about our project we can’t not laugh at. come check us out at teamsplitends.tumblr.com. let us know what you think.

i want an artsy design family

so David recommended we go see his stylist friend who designed his own salon in the StudioPlex lofts. it’s called Studio Philisa and is run by Phil Dale and his wife Lisa…oh, i just realized where the name came from…haha, duh. anyway, we went today to meet them, and they are real cool artsy people with an even cooler artsy daughter. she’s like 9 years old and is the design-iest little girl i’ve ever met, with her blue highlights and artsy style. she even designs and makes jewelry that her parents sell at their salon – she has her own setup and everything! and I bet she makes some real good money too.

Anyway, enough about this little girl who already has a successful career and is pretty much set for life. let’s talk about the salon. their space is beautifully designed, with a lounge for customers to wait, a shop where they sell hair products and their daughter’s jewelry, two hair cutting stations and a color lab in the back. you can check out pictures of their space through the photo gallery linked to their website. they even have a kitchen and a small office space/bedroom/fort. yeah that’s right. a fort. for their kid to hang out in. while they work. i want a fort.

Off topic again. we talked mostly to Lisa because Phil was working with a client. we explained the project to her, told her some of our ideas and showed her our designs so far. I’m glad to say she was impressed. Thank God! She even helped us with a few ideas about the chair, such as a back that can either detach or shorten for people with much longer hair. She told us that if her client’s hair falls past the back of the chair, she’d have to ask the client to stand so that she can cut it. That’s something we never even thought of.

i have more to say but ill say it later.

good sesh

so glad our project has been moved back a week. now i feel like i can actually design something.

my group had some good sessions this weekend, and we figured out our workspace, which pretty much breaks down into three parts – the chair, the mirror, and the drawers. we want the chair to have a planar form with appliance holsters, electrical outlets and a magazine rack. we also want to have a platform that raises and lowers for the chair to rest on. this way we would be able to remove the chair and place a wheelchair on the platform so such a customer would not have to move from one chair to another. for the mirror, we want it to somehow integrate a display for  the various hair products the stylist uses on the client. as for the drawers, they will be a modular system of stacking, butterfly-hinged drawers that can be positioned as a counter or as a movable tray.

we did some fun research today too. we went to borders to look at design books and architecture books looking for ideas and inspirations to better improve our designs. the three of us sat on the floor in front of the art and architecture section looking at books and drawing various designs for our mirror/display case. we would just bounce ideas off each other, playing off each others drawings and came up with a bunch of iterations. we did this for hours and developed a pretty solid idea for the mirror. this process was real fun AND real productive too, we decided to we’re gonna do this for the rest of the project. it makes sense after all. it is a group project. why not work as a group? breaking the work up is dumb.

good sesh, guys.

what’s been going on, aside from adventures

working on a new project right now. work spaces. more specifically, haircut stations.

it’s a group project. working with sarah and adam. they’re swell.

we went to see a couple salons. the one in the student center (forget what it’s called). got to watch awkward tech kids get their hair cut. they were SO uncomfortable. i don’t think staring at them made it any better either.

we also went to the Aveda Institute in Buckhead. they were supercool. gave us a full tour. it is a school afterall. they’re a much higher-end salon. let us wander around, observe and ask people questions. learned a lot here.

found some common issues beween the two places:

• being hair stylists for many years can really damage your body. back pain, arthritis, etc. caused by long hours of standing and repetitive motion. is this preventative at all?
• organization. lots of equipment. no specific place for them. power cords in the way.
• chairs aren’t anchored to floor. saw a guy almost topple the chair over trying to get into it.
• the blow dryer is THE tool of the stylist. it dries hair, it blows hair off customer, it cleans off counters. what more do you need?
• stations are NOT wheelchair accessible.
• not-so-conversational customers feel uncomfortable/awkward. can we eliminate this feeling?

it’ll be a challenge, but i got a good group. we have 12 days left, though, to redesign the station, build a full-scale model, do a skit, build a scaled-down final model, make a presentation, present it, then die. not to mention i need to make a portfolio and take a materials test…

[ugh!]

comes to an end.

It’s been almost a month since my last blog post.  So much has happened since then that I’ve found it hard to settle down and find time to update my blog. In my last post I listed the back-to-back trips I’d have starting right before spring break – Sweden, NYC and then New Orleans. I’ve just returned from my final trip, and now have the time to tell you of my experiences this past month.

Sweden is such a amazing country with its old European architecture, cobblestone streets and trendy inhabitants. Tyna and I stayed in a small college town called Lund, located at the southern tip of Sweden near Malmo, with Colleen. It was really great seeing her again, as well as Krystal and Wes. It had been way too long. I can’t wait until they return to the states. Transportation was a nice change. No need for cars. Everywhere was either walking or biking distance, and visiting other cities was only a train ride away. During our stay Tyna and I visited other cities including Copenhagen (where she and I got epicly lost, btw) and then Stockholm with Colleen. We had such a great time seeing the sights and absorbing the culture. It was sad to say goodbye.

Two days after I returned to Atlanta, I left on a 15-hour bus ride to New York for my class’s ATLtoNYC trip. We arrived in NYC the next morning (tired and unshowered, btw) and started our trip off with Crush+Lovely, who served us breakfast and gave us notebooks – a great way to start the day (thanks, guys!) Throughout the trip, we say a total of 11 very different design firms, each one teaching us something new, and we even ended up on Core77! Epic. I’d have to say that for me the most important thing I learned on this trip is to never lose sight of what you love to do but also not to turn down any opportunity because you never know where life will lead you. This trip was a real eye-opener for all of us, and experiencing it together really brought us closer – as a class, as friends and as designers.

So New Orleans was a crazy way to wrap up my adventures. This year the IDSA Southern District Conference was held in New Orleans, LA, and our display this year consisted of a table of project cards for grabs, blue foam shirts for sale and messanger bags for silent auction (the seniors are raising money for a trip of their own to Design Week in Milan, Italy. Check it out here.)  It kind of looked like something you’d see in a mall or at the GAP. Overall everything sold pretty well. The hotel we stayed at was called the Buiscit Palace (not kidding) which had a beautiful courtyard with a coi pond and very interesting (slanted) rooms, and it was right off of Bourbon Street…but let’s not talk about Bourbon Street. I will say, though, that every morning was NOT easy.

But like all adventures there must eventually come an end. It was fun, maybe a little too fun, and each trip was a great experience that I’ll never forget, but it is nice to (permanently) be back home to settle back into things. However, it doesn’t mean I have time to relax. I have 3 weeks of school left and a lot to accomplish by then. And I still need to figure out what I’m doing for the summer…and next fall…

Man, then again, maybe it never ends.

…and the adventures begin!

SO STOKED!

Spring break has finally arrived, and so begins my month of many travels:

• First up – Sweden, home of Ikea, to pay a visit to my study-abroading studio mates. I’ll arrive at Copenhagen on Saturday, March 14 at 8:10am, and meet up with my bestie, Miss Colleen Jordan!  I’ll be there for 9 whole days, returning on that Sunday, March 22.
• Next – ATLtoNYC, a studio adventure to experience NYC’s design world.  The 15 HOUR BUS RIDE begins on Tuesday, March 24 at 4:30pm.  Mind you this is only 2 days after I get back from Sweden, and we stay until the following Sunday, March 29.  I’ll probably bring the same luggage of clothes.  Thank God both places are cold right now!
• Last – New Orleans, for IDSA Conference.  We’ll be leaving April 2, the Thursday after our return from NYC,  until the following Sunday, April 5.  YAY PINK FOAM!

Wow! My trips are very design-related.

Epic.

haha…oops!

so i decided to take a break from the internet (facebook, tumblr, stumbleupon, and the like) because i found myself spending way too much time on it, and i kinda forgot about my design blog…oops!  Well to catch you up on things, here’s my final appliances renderings.

the brand name lillipy derives from the word lilliputian, meaning “little person,” and these little helpers will be a great aid in the kitchen.

and the winner is…

toons!

more people seemed to have responded better to this design idea, so i’ll go with it.

i’ve got the solidworkings pretty much figured out, but i still need to make a physical model.

i got three days. i can do this…

toons VS zen

so i have two design directions (yes. i know. im behind in the game. what else is new?)

i have this toonish design set based off of cutesy character forms:

• their shells would be made from plastic
• handles would be rubber
• forms are playful
• colorful but not obnoxious

and this zen design set made from very clean, geometric forms:

• forms are cylindrical
• handles are rubber
• outer shell is wood
• steel accents
• neutral colors

either way, i do know i want the forms to be simple, so not to intimidate the user.  I also know i want the pot to be clay like this one (thanks phil!). it’s better for the rice:

so right now im solidworks-ing (glad that’s become a verb, and an akward one at that) both rice cooker designs to see which one is more appealing because right now im pretty torn. im gonna have a busy week a head of me of course, but then again when do i not? ugh. i need a vacation.