3D design: April 2011

Friday, April 29, 2011

Mass/Creative and functional design: Toy, Game, or Invention

Assignment: You are to design and create a three-dimensional toy, game or invention along with the three-dimensional packaging. Does it need directions? What about advertising for your toy? Is your product market ready? Could your design be easily mass produced? TREAT THIS LIKE A MOCK-UP TO A POTENTIAL BUYER. The program “google sketch up” is a 3d modeling program that is pretty simple to use and is a free download—this could be very helpful when doing your packaging. http://sketchup.google.com/download/ .
Your mission, along with the above, is to employ the formal design elements and mass in your design. Does your design have the capability of being touched or felt tactically?
Do not just think about remaking someone else’s design but come up with a design that has your own unique design characteristics. DO NOT JUST MAKE A CHARACTER FROM A MOVIE, VIDEO GAME OR popular culture. If you come up with an invention, it does not necessarily have to work, but your 3-D design should be believable.
Your design may be any material and scale should be considered in relationship to your target audience.Remember time management. You will be graded daily on your process as well as your final design. Do not come to class unprepared. Your grade will be affected.

Structure/Abstraction: Alter Ego project

Assignment: Create a mask that represents your alter ego. When you are done you will be able to wear your mask and completely transform into your alter ego for the critique (via costume, etc) This mask should be some sort of abstraction. Make a list of attributes that your alter ego has and keep in mind proportion and emphasis - for example if your alter ego has a keen sense of smell, you may want to emphasize the nose in some way: make it larger, look at animals that have good smell, etc... Consider what it means to wear a mask. What does it hide, what does it reveal?

From your sketches, You will be working with cardboard AND/OR SCULPY to create a wearable mask that is in-the-round (DON’T FORGET THE BACK!!!) I do not want to see a plain face that is just painted intricately (ie. no mardi gras masks or anything like that). No superheros, animals, or video game characters that already exist; you can be inspired by these things, but think of how can you alter them to make them yours and yours only. If you plan to do a half mask, make sure it is really well done, is abstracted and transforms you completely.

Plane and Edge: Animal

Assignment: Create a LIFE SIZE animal using cardboard plane and edges. Take pictures, draw from life, Study the animal thouroughly. You can use 3D rendering programs (If you know them) such as MIA, 3D Wings, or Google Sketch-up to help create your planes and edges.

From flat material to volume: Folded Paper project

Assignment: Experiment with paper folding to develop an understanding of planar construction. Start with and 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper, creasing and scoring it along one or more lines and then folding it along the creased lines to raise the flat surface into a series of planes angling away from or back toward each other in three-dimensional space. Do as many as you like. Choose and plan a design to create a low or high relief sculpture using the pages of a hard-cover book. A minimal amount of tape or glue can be used to fasten edges together if necessary, you can also cut the pages as well. The forms do not need to be symmetrical and the fold lines can be either straight or curving.

Line and Space Project (wire)

Assignment: Use wire to create a gestural action sequence in 5 steps . For example: A person runs, kicks a ball and falls. Your sequence does not have to involve a human, it can be an animal or a machine