Industrial Lamp

The industrial lighting aesthetic is all about functionality and simplicity. It emphasizes the raw and rugged look of industrial design, with materials such as wood being the key elements of the aesthetic. To incorporate this aesthetic into a lighting project, I decided to use fixtures that feature wood guards, an exposed bulb, and other industrial…
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The Missing Links

Inspiration & Vision I was inspired by the crafted art found in my family’s lake cabin. This led to my decision to utilize a rustic aesthetic that fits hand-in-hand with the inspiration. This means I wanted a subdued hue, natural materials, rough texture, aged appearance, and casual fabrication. My vision for the project’s form is…
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Cardboard Rocket Ship

Presentation and Critiques When I first thought of what I should make for my upcycle project, I wanted to use whatever discarded material that I already have to save time and money. With this in mind, I looked around my place and found several cardboard boxes that are just sitting there waiting to be thrown…
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Upcycled Collage Vase

For my project, I decided to upcycle a decorative vase I had by using leftover magazines, newspaper, and other paper material lying around my house to form an art piece that fits the Merz paper mache collage aesthetic. I have been interested in the Merz aesthetic ever since I found out about and researched it’s…
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Upcycle Spatula

  Completing this upcycle project has definitely been a fun and interesting experience. It is always fulfilling to use low value materials to create something valuable and/or useful. I don’t mean to detract in any way from the value of creating pure art, but I personally find the upcycle process especially fulfilling when one produces…
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Mid-Century Modern Coffee Table

  The conservation slogan that I remember most from my childhood is the 3 R’s: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. These R’s are supposed to be applied, in order, to all consumable products that people use. So where exactly does Upcycling fit into the R’s? Is it reusing? Recycling? If you make something that you would’ve bought,…
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Miami Vice Nerf

Just a little recap for my original plan for this project… I bought some Nerf guns at the beginning of quarantine to curb my girlfriend and I’s boredom. It quickly devolved into being paranoid of walking into a room due to the fear of catching a Nerf dart in the eye. As the months progressed,…
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Melting Into the Keyboard

Making art from trash is an interesting experience, it incorporates creativity and recycling to generate something amazing. For my upcycle project, I used a combination of the minimalist aesthetic, but instead of leaving it devoid of emotion, as minimalism usually is, I tried to introduce some connection to my life to it. I chose to…
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Polaroid Picture Frame

For the final artifact for the Upcycling Project I created a polaroid picture frame. The inspiration for this artifact came from a poster I have in my apartment that is shown below. From this poster, I wanted to combine the classic / retro aesthetic of old hockey sticks with a modern aesthetic.  How I envisioned…
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Climbing Mobile

As mentioned in previous progress posts, I constructed a mobile out of old climbing gear.  The aesthetic that I was striving for was that of the climbing gear itself.  I wanted to both show the beauty of it due to the inherit simplicity, and the fact that it hadn’t changed much over the years.  I…
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A Modern Style Upcycled Table

https://vimeo.com/user134296562/review/515596643/2d35099ce2 https://vimeo.com/user134296562/review/515596643/2d35099ce2 Presentation Video: https://vimeo.com/user134296562/review/515596643/2d35099ce2 Did you know that recycling is bad for the environment? It takes a lot more time, energy, and resources to recycle a plastic bottle, aluminum can, or glass jar than it does to produce new ones out of raw materials. Even after the tedious sorting, transporting, and distributing of recyclable…
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Saturn V Rocket

VISION The aesthetic that I chose to base my upcycle project around was spaceflight.  Spaceflight is unique in that its aesthetic is one that arose out of feasibility rather than design. When designing spacecraft, rockets, shuttles, satellites, and stations companies were more concerned with how things worked rather than how they looked. There are some…
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Orlog Board Game

Intro to Viking Aesthetics Viking art is estimated to have started at the end of the 8th century. It was first developed by the Viking tribes of Scandinavia in territories that we now know as Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. Vikings decorated almost everything with elaborate carvings and contrasting super-positioned materials. Currently, Viking art is mostly…
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