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

Today, plus the last first day of class.

WHOA what a long day. First off, I was out of my room from 11:00 am until about an hour ago, running about with meetings and classes and whatnot. I had a CSDS meeting before my design class at 2, and we got a lot done on the second phase of the health handbook whatever its called project. We have a final meeting on sunday to work out kinks such as what side of the page hole punches will go on, etc. Deb, my boss, bought us lunch (which was extremely nice of her-- falafel from zaytoons!) and pretty much sat there the whole time in case we needed an executive decision made, and let us work iron out the wrinkles of the projects, like heading icons and the like, which is a HUGE change from our first deadline for this, which saw us scrambling to get illustrations in and pages in order, whereas now we're pretty much done a week ahead of time (due feb. 1st at the printers).

Design was good, we went over each person's drawings from the MET (I had more than a lot of people in my class, though they're not great since i'm not a fan of sketching and ovals are my nemesis when it comes to drawing) and didn't comment on the q uality of anyone's, only the amount they had if it was insufficient, and what we learned. We all finalized our country to base our "restaurant" on, meaning what we're going to research to use the culture to direct our tabletop designs. I chose Greece, because i like the flowery patterns and shapes of the ancient pottery and the nature motif, and the colors of the cities by the sea how everything there is white and bright turquoise and terra cotta (like in mamma mia!) I think I'm happy with my choice, I wasn't really passionate about any countries in particular, and Greece had been in my head since the beginning.

Astronomy-- Ok, so this class could have gone one of two ways: either super boring and mathy, or super interesting with lots of pictures. My teacher, who is hungarian (shout out to heather! -there's more for you later too- ) but is from Transylvania ("which is a legit place" according to her, lol) decided to take the latter route. Phew! But she is foreign, so she has kind of a heavy accent, but she's really knowledgeable and works at the particle collider out on long island when she's not teaching. She loves showing us pictures, and we watched the universe song from Monty Python too-- did i mention she's got a sense of humor? She also teaches like Chaky did last semester, with a quiz on the reading each class (but its only once a week) but with not much real homework, which is good. I don't really know anyone else in my class today, so i sat in the back next to this nice looking irish girl, and when we had to partner up and find out basic info to present to the class about the other person, we were paired. Turns out her name is Heather too (!) and she knew how to spell my name because she works in the gym with - get this- the one other Allegra at pratt (and probably in all of brooklyn). How weird is that! Heather, this full circle business is getting kind of ridiculous! But she is nice and i'm just glad to have someone to sit next too, and to seem cool because now i know someone who works at the gym when i go there (which reminds me.... i should start going back to the gym.)

After that I headed to my studio to finish up my 3d homework, which i had started before my meeting this morning, again making more gosh darn rectangles out of that god forsaken plasteline, which I HATE. It turns my rings black, smells horrible, gets everywhere, turns mushy when you overwork it, is rock hard if you don't work it enough, is oil based so is impossible to wash off all the way from your hands on the first try-- did i mention how much i HATE this stuff? Anyway, around the end of my astronomy class i heard from Benjamin, yes, the very same from home, and it turns out he was in town today (i remembered him telling me it was thursday) for an interview at the New School, to which he's applying (as a freshman). He said it went really really well, and he's pretty confident he'll get in. He's planning on only staying there a year to take art classes, so he'll have something for a portfolio to apply to transfer to parsons, which he loved. Needless to say, having Ben in the city (and at art school!) would be pretty awesome next year. He stopped by for about an hour (it took him 2 hours to get here-- one hour on the train, one walking from there to Pratt, in the wrong direction mostly) and we caught up and shared a few laughs from way back when (we still have the same sense of humor- it's great) and he's doing pretty well and is (finally) making something of himself. I was just glad to see him so happy.

So that was my day, and now I'm exhausted, but no rest for the weary, as I have tons of design homework for thursday, so i need to clear out the rest of my work and homework due before then. And tomorrow morning I have my new 3D class (which meets in the cafeteria 'because it's a nicer atmosphere'... uh, ok?) so i'll probably update about that too tomorrow. Ta!

First Day of Classes (part IV)

Thursdays I have design studio (large-scale product design) from 9:30-4:30 with an hour at 12:30 for lunch. John Thayer, who I had last year, is great because he got us once a week studio instead of 3 hours twice a week, and because he's a great teacher, and he's hilarious. For example, today he took a survey of the box cutters people were using, and returned one saying "I think I may have caused this one to break" (he didn't, but it looked like it).

Anyway, our first project is great- for the next 4 weeks we get to develop a chair! Yes!! It has to be cut from 4'x4' 1/2" thick ply wood, and use 4' of 1/2" steel tubing (or less than those measures) and it has to pack flat, no more than 3" high, Ikea style where you put it together yourself. I already have a couple of ideas, but I don't have a lot of homework for next week because we had to make our models to 1/4 scale, which I did from teh start (the point of the class is to make scaled models for very large products, like buses or a class-wide water park project). It should be a good semester for design, and I even like most of my classmates.