So much to do! And it's great!

It's been a while since I wrote a real blog post, but I'm really busy now (you'll see in a sec) so I'm going to try to keep this short.

What's been going on at CSDS in the last few weeks is that our original recycling-for-starbucks project morphed into designing a recycling bin/system for corporate and school cafeterias. We're now at the phase where we're making sketch models for flat-pack bins, and looking at the possibility of it being something people can download the plans for and cut out their own retrofit bin system for elementary schools and the like who want to adapt our system.

Last friday there was a HUGE design jam (my first one!) with UNESCO and Deb Johnson's design incubator about designing an HIV toolkit for specialists in social communities (UN/UNESCO workers) to educate people about HIV and AIDS. It's sort of like the medical book we did last year, only this focuses on HIV specifically and is a toolkit rather than a book. We (the lucky CSDS interns who were picked to work on this project and do less of the starbucks thing) are going to be designing this toolkit with Smart Design, which is SUCH an amazing opportunity to work with a great design firm in the city... and might lead to future projects with Smart, if you catch my drift.... hopefully :)

In the middle of the design jam I had to step out for a few hours to head into the city, through all the CRAZY snow we got, to the Wedgewood showroom. We were introduced to their lines of dinnerware, their formal and casual divisions, and got a packet of information about the histories of each of the companies within the umbrella company, of which Wedgewood is only one of maybe 6 or 7. The competition is to design 4 pieces that we, as a young new york living demographic, would find necessary when having/serving dinner. There's a separate division between designing 3D forms and designing 2D graphics, and there are separate (and quite hefty) prizes in each category, plus the potential for Wedgewood to pick up and produce your design if they like it, even if you don't win. I'm going to be working with Jenny on this competition, since we have pretty much the exact same taste in these, as with most, things, and I'm really excited for that too! As she said, "I don't think we'll disagree on anything." And our designs will be the best and we'll win. (Hopefully!)

So despite only having class basically twice a week, I have plenty to do and spend my days off working hard, trying to finish my portfolio and website so I can get a job, and working on all the above projects as well. I'm so happy to be working on all this stuff, and it gets me excited (rather than frightened) to graduate so that I can do this type of stuff all the time, and not have homework on top of it. And get paid for it. It reaffirms that I'm in the right major and the right place, and I couldn't be happier about that.

Oh, and for my final design project I'm doing an exhibit design of Dr. Seuss and his life and works, so there's that too.

-A

We've Expanded! Well...

...sort of. I made a Tumblr, which I heard about from Jeremy at iwasbombed.com. Tumblr is a great hybrid between twitter and a blog (like this one) but its function is definitely more than the sum of its parts. I'm going to try to make my tumblr posts show up here, because these posts, plus my twitter feed, show up on tumblr, which shows up on facebook... but I'm not sure it'll work right, so besure to check it out if you want to keep reading my blog posts, which, I might add, are vastly more frequent than my posts here on blogger. Which is the point of tumbler, which is awesome.

Check it out!

**EDIT** As you might notice, if you go to my blog from the actual website and not on an RSS feed, I've created a Tumblr widget (thanks to this article) that now appears above the blog posts. We're all connected, now! Although, I'm pretty sure sidebar & other apps don't show up on the RSS, so be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed from the actual tumblr page if you still want updates. Let me know if you need help with this (lookin at you, Mom...)

A:D