Student Work

My upcycling project is a sculpture of Kirby, laser-cut from cardboard boxes taken from my workplace’s recycling. After further consideration of how this sculpture will come together, I realize I will likely want to find scrap acrylic and wood from the cutters’ location as well, to give certain features a bit more flair. Here is…

The only progress on my upcycle project so far has been obtaining these large pieces of cardboard. They were sitting somewhere in the house and after a while it took me a while to find where they were hiding. These large cardboard sheets will make it very easy to cut the pieces and layer them…

With Greg Whiting we explored an ideation technique in which we picked a noun from one small box and an aesthetic from another. Regardless of their randomness, our task was to pair them together and redesign that noun with the aesthetic that we drew. After 10-15 minutes we were asked to draw our new design…

My two-way leather wallet is well under way. For the wallet’s materials, I acquired a leather purse from goodwill and got some pretty strange looks from the cashiers… This purse had nice leather, however was a little lighter than I was hoping. I took the purse apart and drew out the template for each side…

The first step of things was to restore the sawhorses. I used a wire brush and sandpaper to clean the rust off of the brackets and clean the wood before staining. Raw sawhorses cleaning the brackets cleaned sawhorse right raw sawhorse left. After restoring the sawhorses I played around with how I would orient them.…

On Monday 02/03, we had Prof. Greg Whiting as a guest speaker. He presented us with an aesthetic game where we had to connect two random things into a drawing. In a team of 4, we were given the following topics: electric toothbrush + Kaiju (strange creature or giant monster in Japanese), and the final…

We did a design exercise using a product and an aesthetic. Product – Snowblower Aesthetic – Biker Culture

So far everything has been going well with my mycelium aka I haven’t killed it and I haven’t contaminated it. The following image is a depiction of my planned fabrication process. Mycelium Fabrication Process Unlike the picture above, I already started growing mycelium from store-bought oyster mushrooms. This meant that I could skip step 1…

When I started brainstorming on aesthetics and concepts for this project, I had a few ideas come to mind. Namely, I thought of using wine corks to create a koozie, broom bristles and rubber bands to make a pencil holder, a wine rack made from old cans, and plastic spoons and plastic bottles to make…

In class, we selected an aesthetic and an object from a hat. As a team, we brainstormed ways to combine the two. Team: Danny Straub, Sarthak Bal, Will Tse, and Max Armstrong Our team drew the Harley Davidson aesthetic and a Snowblower as the object. We thought this was a good pair because they both have…

Group Members: Kyle Neubarth and Fiona Bell Object: Set of Screwdrivers https://www.lumberjocks.com/mafe/blog/25939 Aesthetic: Shabby Chic “a style of interior decoration that uses furnishings that are or appear to be pleasantly old and slightly worn.” -google dictionary http://www.home-decor-ideas.com/2017/04/tips-to-take-your-shabby-chic-interior-to-the-next-level.html  

Group members: Justin Engbrecht (myself), Patrick Bodine-Ellison, and Benjamin Robles For the Aesthetics Game this semester conducted by guest lecturer Dr. Greg Whiting, our table received the object “Coat hanger” and the aesthetic “Novelty Architecture / Roadside Vernacular Architecture”. We initially had no idea what this aesthetic was, and had to google it to find…

Group members: Ethan Elshyeb, Kaiya Wahl, Xiang Luo Here is our designs for the Aesthetics Game during the guest lecture. Our topic was to create soda/beer drinking hat with holder and straw in nerd culture style.

For my upcycling project, I draw inspiration from my day-to-day need of a folding table. This table has various functionalities and is used for a wide variety of applications. I have decided to draw ideas from the readily available products in the market and to further modify it in a way that it addresses many…

For my upcycle project, I am creating a side table that fits the industrial-modern aesthetic. The table will be made from square steel tubing for the structure; the top will be made of varnished pine wood. The aesthetic that I am trying to emulate with this project can best be shown by the following image:…

We were tasked to find a way to upcycle something preexisting to be art or something useful for our first project in this class. I have a passion for indoor houseplants and wanted to make something that would fit this theme. Originally I thought of making a trellis for my plants but that wasn’t  quite…

Today we went over the specifications and due dates for the Upcycle Project. We talked about the critique method we’ll be using for the presentations: Lerman, Liz. Critical Response Process: A Method for Getting Useful Feedback on Anything You Make, from Dance to Dessert. EBook., 2002. Then we looked briefly at the difference between traditional…

The advantage of using a computer to make art is that you can achieve the precision of complex designs with ease.  I have not completely decided on my project yet, but I would like to use a laser cuter to do some cuts and engravings on recycled cardboard, wood, or paper. My first inspiration came…

The Project Magic the Gathering is one of the world’s most popular trading card games. It incorporates the strategy of other card games with solid world building and breathtaking fantasy artwork. The main inspiration for this project was the admittedly predatory pack system. Magic cards are ranked by rarity, with “common” cards typically being less…

To be honest, I was not very sure what I wanted to do for my upcycling project until yesterday. What I struggled with the most was narrowing down the ideas I had because the project has almost no restrictions or guidelines; we can do almost anything we want. Two weeks ago when we first were…

In my original post, I described a lot about how I want to build my project, but my inspiration for this comes back to Tolkien’s books I read over break. As I was reading The Hobbit, and the Fellowship of the Ring I was amazed with the detail of his descriptions of his characters and…

For my upcycle project, I wanted to work with fast food wrappers in some manner. Ultimately, I’m tentatively deciding on building a sculpture of some sort – I think this will be one of the striking ways to transform something which we consider useless and essentially trash into something that is visually pleasing or meaningful.…

Mosaic Art     My inspiration for the upcycle project is mosaic art. Not only does the history of this art form fascinate me, but the creation of mosaics makes me really excited as well. Mosaic art originated from Mesopotamia, and is compiled bits and pieces of colored glass, stone, clay, and others. The very…

For my upcycle project, I drew inspiration from the internet. I searched the internet for ideas on upcycling and came across an idea that seemed artistic yet functional. The main material I am planning on using will be plastic spoons. I plan on creating a lamp using the heads of the plastic spoons as decoration.…

This project of the upcycle has been an interesting challenge thus far. I’ve thrown around ideas about many different types of materials and designs and haven’t felt content with any one idea. I then started thinking about who I am and what materials would make sense from a standpoint of what I already have and…

The inspiration for my upcycle project is my mom. Being that she loves trendy art that is suitable for display in our house, I figured I would create her a wall piece to hang in our house. My mom is originally from New Zealand (hence the reason the featured image is the New Zealand flag)…

For the upcycle project, I immediately thought of using wood as one of my main materials because I have a lot of scrap wood in my garage, plus the ITLL has plenty of scrap wood in the shop downstairs. I also knew I wanted to use the laser cutters to become more familiar with them…

I’ve always been a strong proponent for sustainable living, therefore the idea of a project focused on reusing material excites me. I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to do for the Upscale project, and I’ve landed on the idea of making my own wooden beads for bracelets. It may be biting off…

When Professor Hertzberg mentioned in class that a key component to many upcycling projects is the volume of materials used, I knew I had to use a material I could get a lot of for cheap. It just so happened that my roommate had a hamper full of plastic bottles from a failed recycling project…

Featured image credit: Ghana ScrapRegister   To make money while in college I picked up an Information Technology job 4 years ago and have been surrounded by computers and electronics ever since. As a result of both my employment and my interests I have a considerable amount of scrap electronics or “e-waste” sitting around my…

My inspiration for the upcycle project started with the abundance of old wine bottles that I have sitting in my apartment (as a form of trashy decoration). This means that I took the material first approach. My ideas started with light fixtures and maybe making the wine bottles into something of a chandelier. I thought…

For my upcycling project I plan to create a piece of wall art from an old brake rotor off my dirt bike.  Dirt biking has been a defining hobby of mine since sophomore year of high school. I started off riding a trail bike, but quickly realized I wanted to do more than just putt…

The story of my inspiration came from two weeks ago… One of my classes is called creative climate change, in this class, we have a professor named Patrick Chandler, who presented one of his past work experience, of working with the Washed Ashore Project. The project itself is about reusing the marine debris, trash gathered…

For a while I had my mind set on making something useful. I kept struggling to find materials to efficiently replace, enhance, or re-imagine things that I already owned so I decided to settle on making a sculpture of some sort. Again, finding sufficient materials has been a limitation but I eventually decided on making…

For my upcycle project I started with looking at making some sort of clothing out of other clothing that I no longer wear. This idea led me to the internet where I started looking at other upcycle projects. This is where I stumbled upon people making planter boxes out of old household items, so I…

The inspiration for my upcycling project started with the numerous stuffed animals I have lying around my house, particularly the cute, mouthless style of Hello Kitty. Hello Kitty has a very iconic style: bright colors with various amounts of embellishments, cute black, simple eyes. I heavily enjoy the playful, childish appeal of the products and…

Coming into this class, I already knew that one of the first major assignments revolved around upcycling and reusing materials that we had readily available around us. So it was no question in my mind that I could create something with the bottle caps that I had been saving for quite a while. I had…

For my upcycle project, I drew inspiration from a recent aesthetic exploration that Christopher Lehr, a fellow colleague in our course, observed [¹]. This aesthetic: “The Peter McKinnon Aesthetic” centers around the photographer Peter McKinnon, one of minimalism, simplicity, rusticity, yet modern. Looking into McKinnon’s videos, I came across his documentation of all the wallets…

Today we reflected on real vs ideal design processes, then looked at the plethora of types of sketches used in industrial design. Lecture notes

My inspiration for my Upcycling project came from the art collection I started this summer. Driving around Denver I always so there incredible and colorful street art and wanted to explore this aesthetic for a while now. I don’t know if it will be enough to do a painting. For the upcycling portion of the…

For my upcycling project I am hoping to create a two-way wallet out of recycled leather. The inspiration for this project originally came from duct tape wallets that I used to make and sell in middle school. The type of wallets I made were able to open in 2 directions, where the geometry of the…

I felt lost when first assigned this project.  Without a set of constraints, I had trouble narrowing down materials, what to make, and where to start. I looked at what I recycle in my house, but there’s only junk mail, some cardboard, and food compost.  Neither the paper nor the cardboard sparked any creativity, and…

I want to build a roller-coaster for my upcycle project. The material used in the project will be mainly cardboard. This is the base of the roller-coaster and will act as rails for the “roller coaster”. I am going to utilize the double cone so that the “roller coaster” will stay on the track and…

For my upcycle project I initially had a very hard time thinking about what material i wanted to use and what aesthetic i wanted to incorporate. To me choosing the material would some what point me in the right direction for what I wanted to make, and what aesthetics to use. I knew that I…

My upcycling project thankfully came pretty naturally to me. I’ve always had an affinity for Japanese culture/aesthetics, so coming up with a way to materialize the “Kawaii” aesthetic was an endeavor I’ve already been working on. I recently picked up the hobby of drawing digitally after being laid off from my previous engineering job, to…

For my upcycle project I was inspired by the multitude of boxes sitting in my basement due to us recently moving into the house. I wanted to take advantage of the cardboard boxes with it’s ability to create solid objects when stacked on top of one another. By cutting the boxes into various shapes in…

For my Upcycling project, I searched for awhile for inspiration. Artistic expression is not one of my strong suits, so I decided to search my hobbies and favorite pass times in order to find the answer. I finally arrived on my idea, which combined my deep state pride for my home-state of Maryland, my love…

For this project I am inspired by two things; my need to store books and plants and the tables made from planks and piping that you see in many of the wonder beer producing institutions here in Boulder. It is my understanding that the main draw to of these particular tables is the fact that…

For my project, I decided to just go to Goodwill and see what I thought was interesting. I spent a while looking through all the trinkets and realized that a lot of what I was seeing reminded me of my late grandmother. She loved going bargain diving at Goodwill and I felt that these items…

My inspiration for my upcycle project was a vintage/romantic aesthetic. I love the way that old typewriters look and the entire aesthetic surrounding black and white films. I was particularly inspired by the following image: Photo by Tyler Golden/NBC   This is Leslie Knope from NBC’s Parks and Recreation. Her last-minute wedding dress came together…

Talked about various techniques for generating ideas; what students already had experience with, plus linear techniques ‘False Faces’ and ‘SCAMPER’. Then we did a guided visualization as an example of an intuitive method. Lecture Notes  

We looked at a few examples of upcycling, including Simon Rodia’s Watts Towers, and didn’t have much time for the Aesthetics Tour, so please see the rest of the tour in the Lecture Notes

While we were discussing the importance of doodling within lecture the past week, I realized that while I have a full-size notebook in my backpack dedicated to this course, I may want another smaller sketchpad that I can carry in my pocket for whenever inspiration strikes me. In the context of upcycling, creating pages for…

For the past couple weeks, I have been struggling to find something to build for the Upcycle project. I have had tons of materials come to mind, but not a lot of applications. After scouring through the internet, I have found a couple ideas that have inspired me. My favorites as of now are the…

          For my upcycle project I decided to focus on mycelium. What is mycelium? Mycelium is the vegetative part of a fungus (aka mushroom roots). Mycelium is a key element of our ecosystem because it helps with decomposition and absorbs nutrients [1]. I learned about mycelium while working as a graduate…

Today, “boho” is a style often characterized by the eccentric, lacey, floral-patterned, earth-toned, flower-crowned style that is often spotted at Coachella. But moreso than wanna-be hippies, the bohemian style goes back almost 200 years. Photograph by Dani R Photography (http://theonedayhouse.com.au/boho-beach-picnic-styled-shoot/)   The bohemians began as a counter-cultural movement after the French Revolution when artists were…

The term “psychedelic” as an aesthetic has broad implications and has shifted significantly from its rock and roll origins in the counter-cultural 1960s to a more technologically influenced ideology with the invention of modern electronic music and glitch art.  Although my eye is drawn to both aesthetics, the original movement takes priority in my mind…

Video games have come a long way since the mid 1900’s, and they certainly aren’t on a road to end any time soon. As the technology of video games come more advance, so does their ability to match realism inside them. The aesthetics of video games as a visual art have become so popular that…

Johann Fanzo is a famous Australian firearms manufacturer. One very unique and a state-of-art shotgun they have manufactured is a four-barreled rifle-shotgun. Personally, I have never seen a firearm that combines a rifle and a shotgun with four barrels, let alone the extremely fine design and fascinating engravings. The firearm is being called the vierling,…

Since the Wright brothers first took flight aircraft have caught the public’s eye. In the beginning this was mainly because of the marvelous feet that these machines accomplished, but as time progressed the aircraft themselves began to get attention. In the era of World War II inventors like Howard Hughes revolutionized flight with the introduction…

Perhaps the word, “vaporwave” or “synth-wave” is familiar. Currently, the art style is associated with these music genres. I will refer to this aesthetic as “Retro wave”. This style originates from the ’80s and ’90s and symbolizes hope, youth, and futurism. The color scheme for this “Retro wave” are usually very bright or neon colors…

Mountain biking is an activity that is well known to many people, especially those here in Colorado. The premise is simple: ride trails with natural terrain on two wheels using your own leg power or gravity to propel yourself forward. In practice, however, mountain biking has a lot of intricacies which make it a challenging,…