Plastic Prototyping

Study of a custom typeface in 1/2″ frosted acrylic. Each letter was cut to be 12 inches tall.

Study for a commercial booth in a 1/2 scale model to test the assembly system.

While at NC State University’s College of Design I was encouraged to consistently prototype. Even though we had access to a full machine shop and a laser cutter, I always prototyped in paper. I loved the quick success granted by playing with some post-its and markers (I have to say my friend Valentina was the grad-school queen of markers who got me into the habit of using them again).

Now, a few months after leaving NC State, I am still consistently prototyping. I have to say that now, because I am trying to establish a multidisciplinary practice, I require more quick iterations than ever before, be it to keep my mind fresh or to be able to collaborate with another designer on a project.

Here I want to show a few images from two projects that are currently underway. In each of them I have prototyped using a laser cutter and some acrylic.
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::] Social Studies Conference ][ MICA ][ The presentation [::

Photo by Caroline Prietz

On October 18 I had the opportunity to make a presentation in the Time+Motion panel at AIGA‘s Social Studies Education Conference, held at the Maryland Institute College of Art.

The panel, moderated by Lily Maya, graphic design faculty member at MICA, included:

Transforming Programming into “Fungramming”
by De Angela L. Duff,
Assistant Professor, Multimedia Department, The University of the Arts

The Language of Motion
Jan Kubasiewicz, Professor, Dynamic Media Institute at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston

and my presentation,
Understanding Interaction through People, Settings, and Scenarios

This was my first presentation at an AIGA event, and as such, I wanted to follow all the guidelines that had been set. The most important one, as you can imagine, was a 15 minute time-limit to my presentation. I followed it, but had to write, re-write, ask for feedback, re-write, and write one more time what I was going to say. Even the night before, at 1am, I was still in the lobby of the hotel touching-up on the final details (Thanks to Cady Bean-Smith for her company and support in those wee hours of the morning).

What is the best part of having done all that? Now I can share with you exactly what I said since I have a slide-per-slide script, but before moving into the presentations, I want to thank Rebecca Tegtmeyer, Marty Maxwell Lane, Cady Bean-Smith, Lauren Waugh and Caroline Prietz for all their support, fun times, photos and memories from this conference.

Click on the jump for the presentation.

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