Integrative Studio Final: Representing Our Hometowns

Due to the dis-satisfaction I felt from the previous project, I felt determined to produce something with better quality for this assignment. This assignment tasked us with creating a pop up book that incorporates memories of your hometown as well as some sort of historical/contextual background to the area. I’ve lived in several locations in New Jersey throughout my life, I could however center a large portion around this one town on the Jersey Shore known as Avon-By-The-Sea. I’ve spent approximately 15 years of my life out of the 19 I’ve currently lived, to say a large portion of my development occurred here would be an understatement. With this idea in mind, I knew I wanted to incorporate my experience with Avon as well as the history of its sort of “former glory” days.

and with that, I began to conceptualise the way this book would be constructed.

For one thing, I knew that I wanted the size to be square, so I sketched out the basic layout and fold machanic, this would later be changed to 8 inches instead of 9.

Additionally, I wanted to establish my personal experiences by using my several old houses as a symbol.

With that, I began to design the pages

Throughout my designing process, I wanted to achieve an abundance of mechanics that paper and tabs has to offer, such as the third page:

I however could not include such intricacies due to the limitations of the material I was using (bristol paper) as well as the lack of “pull” the pages had, since they would only open to a 90 degree angle. There was also an entire page I removed because of supposed time restraints (really I had a full extra week to do it), but when we came to this realization, the glue had already dried.

Despite this, the final product looked like this:

Overall, I was much happier with the way this turned in comparison to the assignment prior to this, as I feel I put much more effort into the layout and presentation of the subject matter, it is my home after all, I had to respect it.

 

 

Our Experiences in a section of NYC

In terms of all the projects we carried out during this course, I think this one was my least favorite. Not because of what we were assigned to do, but because of the group I was assigned to complete the project with. The project itself was a great idea, exploring an area I’ve never been to a transcribing the most interesting parts about it, I greatly regret not fully committing to that idea. The reason I didn’t particularly enjoy my group was because of the widespread lack of motivation, I didn’t want to be bossy and constantly tell them to work, it just didn’t seem like they felt enthusiastic about this assignment. When one is surrounded in this environment, getting work done yourself is difficult. There’s absolutely nothing unpleasant or wrong with the people within my group, it’s not that I think they’re bad people, as they demonstrated great work in the previous assignments. I suppose that’s what bothered me, the fact that I knew they could produce great work but didn’t share the same effort for this one. additionally, the visit to our location was a bit irksome because it felt so rushed, in terms of time we spent there we only spent approximately two hours walking around, when really we should’ve stayed a whole day taking in the atmosphere. It was difficult constructing a project out of so little experience and material. Am I guilty of not trying to stay longer? Absolutely, I suppose I was a bit afraid of being the one to take initiative, because they’re often thought to be the most pushy and annoying within a group. However, during this trip, I was able to capture some of the atmosphere in: Coney Island

In full honesty, I don’t have any pictures of the product, however, I do have some sketches pertaining to the dimensions of the book.

Overall, I definitely regret not putting enough effort into this assignment.

An Interview to Explore Our Masks

After our masks were constructed, we were partnered with someone in our class to inquire about their masks, such as their design choices or perhaps more information into certain details. I was partnered with student Sofia Morett, I jumped right into the creation of the final product shortly after the interview.

The Many Masks of Many Selves

For this assignment we were tasked with creating a faux-visage that symbolically represented one of the many identities we put up in the different times of our lives.

the first phase of this assignment was to come up with five designs that you felt represented a facet of yourself:

As mentioned, I found it difficult to construct the first design I had in mind, so I shifted my focus to my fifth design. The image here displays the mask in the middle of construction:

I decided to take some liberties in the middle of the mask making process, such as the writing and illustrations on it, which were taken from things I had written for the integrative seminar course. I also added horns for a more visually striking effect.

The Finished Product:

I didn’t intend for the design to come off as too on the nose or preachy, however in terms of construction I’m happy with the outcome.