Flight Color Palette | 1: #9ce4f6 | 2: #77b3dd | 3: #819579 | 4. #a67c5d | 5. #2e405e
Photo taken somewhere between Orlando and Pittsburgh.
Thawing
Spring is on the tips of our fingers and I CAN NOT WAIT. While patiently waiting for spring in Pittsburgh I’ve been doing house cleaning of the digital variety. Digging through files I found these photograms. I think they were from a college design basics class.
I love them – their moody and watery feel are like my mind during this time of year. I’m in-between seasons and running on the fumes of last year’s summer memories. Spring can not get here fast enough.
hapn.at
Hapn.at is an APP that provides a users with a personalized event list based on events their friend’s are going to, created and like. Essentially never miss another event you never knew about.
This APP was created during Steel City Codefest, a 24-hour “hackathon” held at Google’s Bakery Square Office. During said “hack” teams created civically minded APPs. Hapn.at was created with the help of some friends Geis, Shoff, Brent, Rob and Jake (check these guys out – they are all awesome!). My role within the team was that of User Experience and Visual designer – I created light user journeys, built wireframes and then skinned those frames with simple design elements. There was a bit of “logo” design and “branding” mixed in there too – bu the focus was getting the main screens completed. During codefest our team was on fire – I think we were all nervous that we wouldn’t complete our APP within the time constraint. It was truly amazing how far this APP came in just 24 hours. We love our APP so much we are continuing our development on it so it can become even more awesome and usable.
Check it out : hapn.at
I thought I’d include some of my process for this project, my sketches, chicken-scratch and all.
Glittered Critters Ornaments
Every year I make most of my christmas gifts – this year I decided that I would make some smaller more manageable projects so each of my friends and family would be able to receive something… Behold the Glittered Critters Ornaments.
I’m not sure if all families have this tradition – but in my family we try to make most of the gifts we give one another. There’s usually one monster project that took forever to finish so you need to mark it as such. These glittered animals will serve as a cool marker and later be placed on the tree! The project is pretty easy – and very forgiving for the less craft savvy.
Supplies:
1 package of bakeable white clay, I used Sculpey
Rolling pin or something to rollout your clay evenly
A few cute small cookie cutters
White Craft Glue, I used PVA glue however anything that doesn’t yellow as it ages would work
Glitter
String
Plastic wrap
aluminum foil
oven (for baking the clay)
A general warning before I begin – Bake-clay is usually not food safe so make sure to clean your tools throughly after use.
Start by cutting a piece of plastic wrap that covers the general area that you will be rolling the clay on. I find that this helps with clean-up and aids in picking the shapes up after they are cut out. Take a wad of clay from the package – rolling smaller amounts of clay is advised – this clay is HARD!! Once you have your clay rolled out to about a 1/4 inch thick, cut your shapes out with your cookie cutters – it’s exactly like making sugar cookies! After you have your shapes cut pull the extra clay surrounding the shapes away and save it for another project. Next peel your shapes from the plastic wrap clean/smooth the edges and poke a hole at the top of the ornament – this will be used to hang the ornament after it’s baked. It’s really up to you how smooth you like the clay – since most of my ornaments were getting covered with gillter, I didn’t spend a ton of time worrying about small imperfections. Place your shapes onto some aluminum foil and bake your clay based on the instructions it came with. Once cooled “paint” the shapes with glue and sprinkle with glitter! Once completely dry shake or lightly brush off the excess glitter. Pass a piece of string or ribbon through the hole in the ornament and you’re done!
I did a few variations to my ornaments – some are copper leafed and others only have glitter on their edges. This project is super versatile – I hope this inspires some variations of your own.
Fall Prisms
It’s hard to say what causes inspiration. The sudden temperature change in pittsburgh made me cold and cranky so a few nights ago I carved a block with a prism on it. I find that flattening the 3-dimensional has become a recent trend – I debated what to print first and after a lot of humming and hawing landed on notecards. The inicial prints were not faceted enough for my tastes so after a bit of playing I doubled the print and started painting them…
I really love how the watercolors overlap and lend themselves to layering colors without getting muddy. Love love loving the result – going to try printing some fabric next – any suggestions on fabric paint that plays nicely like watercolor?
The above cards are available for purchase in my etsy shop!
Building a home
Recently one of my friends got engaged after waiting for a [really] long time. I was so excited for them and since they are such close friends I wanted to make them a little something to celebrate.
I borrowed the idea from sayyestohoboken.com (a ridiculously great blog for crafting and life inspiration). I changed around the design a bit and monogrammed their names. Since a vase without flowers is a bit of an awkward gift I made pom-pom flowers to go with. I think it turned out pretty fantastic. For those who are not so craft-inclined you can purchase one of these from my etsy shop! 
Color Found
Intimate Color Palette | 1: #e6cdae | 2: #bbb1a8 | 3: #beb99c | 4. #af7744 | 5. #6c5e55
Photo pinned via http://joannagoddard.blogspot.com/. Not sure who the original photo credit goes to – email me if you know.
Anthropologie Fashion Guide Proposal
In the Winter of 2010 I interviewed at the Anthropologie office in Philadelphia. The night before they sent me a design proficiency “test”. I was asked to : “Design an interactive module that allows customers to browse our cold weather outfits. Choose a suitable media to support your concept (Flash, Ajax, HTML, etc.)”
The user interface created was a simple html look-book in which a user could view the outfit pieces showcased in the image and purchase the items without leaving the guide experience. For good measure I scanned some ink washes, frost photos, and fabric textures then layered those on the photographs to enhance the layered, cold weather theme.
Mill Hollow Cafe
Mill Hollow Cafe was looking for a mild brand enhancement for their web presence. A small family owned cafe and grocery store they offer a modest selection of catering and bakery items in their grocery store. They aren’t a flashy company and have an older clientele so large simple navigation was key to their site’s success. In addition to the clean color palette a static navigation piece with the company’s phone number, location and email address are available on the bottom of the site – so no matter what the contact information is visible.
If you’re ever in Luzerne PA – stop in and get some all natural food.
Alternative Search Website Concept
RISD “thesis” project for a website search engine that uses non-traditional methods to gain Artist Book results within Rhode Island School of Design’s Artist Book Collection.
Let’s go back to 2007, I was in my senior year and searching for a project that would be A. interesting/ complex enough to work on for 3 semesters and B. do something for the community at RISD.
RISD has a giant collection of artist book and journals within their library collection. Unfortunately they are cataloged in such obscureness it’s almost impossible to get a “hit” on them within the school’s card catalog system. For the lucky few that actually magically find them – they are the holy grail – these journals and books are literally one of a kind masterpieces. Since many of the books are donated by past students – some actually spell out how to survive specific classes. Sadly, these books rarely see the light of day – they are tucked within the special collections area of the library and don’t show up within the computerized search system. I spoke with the “head” librarian and was informed that many of the books are unserachable becuase they are sort of uncategorizable… some of these books are literally made of leaves or can only be read backwards…they don’t fit into the standardized system and to make it even more difficult since they weren’t published they don’t have ISBN numbers (obviously).
Such and interesting problem… I decided to devise a sort of non-traditional search tactic. Since the books didn’t fit into a regular searchable database I established a more organic search. It’s a bit estate sale meets dating service, basically the library’s search system would have a series of non-traditional questions that the searcher would answer. For example I search for a book that is “accordion fold” rather than getting results about how to construct an accordion fold book or how to play the accordion I actually get a book in accordion format. The search went more untraditional still with the ability choosing objects or pictures – I liken it to rummaging at an estate sale – You know what you’re looking for when you find it… and have no idea what you’re looking for… like I said untraditional.
The end result is a site that allows for both methods of searching and leads to organic search results. Demoing this system yeilding some exciting results – the results a lot of the time were not accurate [fail!] however the books themselves were so interesting students didn’t seem to mind[win!].