100/400 Collaborative Project [One Dollar a Day]

            My group, for the 100 and 400 level collaborative design project, consisted of me, Andres, Derek and Danielle. During our fist day together, we decided on a concept of a non-profit deliverable that would be given to a person after he or she would donate to the cause. The cause we decided was based on an organization called ‘Plan’, which is sponsors children in underdeveloped countries by providing education, water supply, and health care. We based our project on the same sponsorship model, in our case on the concept of donating a “dollar a day”. 

            Overall, our group worked pretty well together. We did a good job of dividing the work into categories according to our specific strengths. For example, while Derek and I did most of the work on illustrator and computer based design, Andres and Danielle did more of the tactile hands-on work creating the box. Even though we each had our own parts of the product to work on, we were able to express our opinions and have some influence on every part of it. My contribution to the group was mainly the graphic design of the inside face of the box, color selection, info card creation and the 3d number 1 keychain.

            In terms of compatibility and division of labor, I thought our team was great. I was, along with my team, very excited about our idea and was determined to make a great project. But, when it came time to deliver the final product, I felt that our team fell short of its potential.  Looking back, I think making more prototypes of the physical box design would have been very beneficial. And I think our biggest error, which made our final design we presented look like just another prototype, was that our whole group wasn’t present for the final step of project. It was late, and we were all tired from working on the project all day, and we were assured that constructing the box would go smoothly. Unfortunately, at the critique the next morning, I was surprised with the look of our product and had to present something to the class I wasn’t proud of.  It was tough, but it was a good lesson for future projects.

            Even though we didn’t end up with a great project. I really enjoyed the collaborative and open-ended nature of the project, and learned a lot. 

Reflection on Collaboration Project: ONE DOLLAR A DAY

For the collaboration project, Derek, Danielle, Will and I crated a non-profit One Dollar a Day box that a person would receive after they had already committed to the non-profit. The Box included the logo on front and the "One Dollar a Day" title on the side flap. Inside the box, there was a pamphlet about the non profit organization, a card of the country which the child is from (that the person who committed to the non profit is helping), a thank you card to the person, a card to pass on to a friend to get involved in the non profit organization, 2 stickers with the logo of "One Dollar a Day", a key chain and a picture of  the child. The box itself can serve as a picture frame for the picture of the child.

Throughout this entire process, we all made decision together in terms of what colors to use, what to include in the design of the box, and much more. What was really good is that we constantly communicated with one another. We also met up on weekends to work on the project and made sure that we were on task with the assignment in terms of the deadline of the project. Overall  I felt that I could express my opinion or make any suggestions within the group and not be intimidated. I felt like I had a voice in the project.

Despite the final product not being as good as we had hoped, the process of this project made me really consider how designers work in the real world. It also made me consider a potential future in design and perhaps even take more classes to really enhance my skills in design. I truly enjoyed this group, the fact that we were able to all have a say, make final decisions together and work really well together was awesome. I really liked my group and this project overall.

Cooperative work: Cool Book

Cool Book is a book that collects fun staff. And we show these fun things in a way that things are shown on Internet, like Tumbler. We try to make some games that readers can actually play with their hands, like flipping, folding, cutting and drawing. We focus on the concept to make people notice more about fun things in real life rather than information from Internet. We make games that readers can direct play with simple but fun designs in this book.

My main jobs are pages below. The first one is a 3D figure I drawn. We originally want to put a pair of 3D glasses in this page so the reader can use the glasses to see this figure.However, because the limit of time and money, we do not completely finish this page.But the concept is really fun and is very suitable for the concept of the whole book.

This is a page of eyes that people can doodle on it. We provide a pen with Cool Book.

I got this idea from flipping works that show two opposite scenes on two pages.

I also did some other pages like animal models with simple colors that readers can cut them down and fold them to let these animals stand on the desk, but I forgot to take pictures. 

Overall, this is a book of real games that readers can directly have fun. And I mainly did pages of games that readers can play with their hands like cutting and flipping. However, because of the limit of time and money, the book itself is less attractive. If we could have more time to focus on the material of the book and put other tools like glasses and pens in the book through a fun way, this book must be better.