Tinfoil Insect Trees
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Looking at the materials I’d have available to me for the up-cycling project, I decided to use paperclips and tinfoil. After some brainstorming with friends, I landed on insects as the subject-matter; I felt the wiry nature of the paperclips lent themselves well to the construction of limbs. I also felt it best to take…
Upcycle Inspiration: Paintstick Mirror
The story of how I found my inspiration for this upcycle project is actually kind of ironic. As I was looking around my room for something “repetitive” as mentioned in many upcycle projects, I realized that my room was not very decorated. I did not have a clock, paintings, or anything hanging on my walls.…
Upcycle Presentation Logistics
Here are the Pod Presentation rooms: Upcycle Feb 11 Feb13 Feb15 Pod A ECME 137B DLC 1B65 (kassie) ECCR 150 Pod B ECME 137A ECAD Clark (YC) ECME 137A Pod C ECOT 317 ECOT 317 ECAE 153 Seebass Pod D ECAE 199 Onizuka ITLL 150 ECCR 150 Backup ECCR 150 ECCR 150 ECCR…
11 Contour Bias vs Cubes
Today we went over Upcycle Presentation logistics (look for a separate post on that), and then continued with sketching practice, specifically cubes, extending to a blocky chair. In contrast, we also started talking about Universal Principles of Design; specifically Contour Bias. Humans react to pointy things with fear and attention, while rounder objects are more…
Upcycle Inspiration
The core of the inspiration for my project comes from my own desire to create sculptural objects that serve a utility but are not ideal for that utility. Their sculptural forms are the largest consideration, but they inform the utility as well. Photo Credit: Tyler de Perrot The utility is better served with something similar…
Upcycle Inspiration/Progress
I have been struggling a lot with coming up with what I will make for this project, or what I will use for it, and I think I have finally decided on making some sort of lamp out of different materials, and maybe trying to mess around with how they emit light to create part…
Upcycle Progress/ Inspiration
My inspiration came from necessity. I simply was in need for a drawer and this project helped me make one with minimum cost. I already have the functionality of my project done. however, I am still working on the aesthetic part. I have three sides that can use some aesthetic design, and if anyone have…
Upcycle Inspiration
As mentioned in my previous post, a lot of my inspiration is the rough design sketches of the ideation phase of product development. With toothpicks in mind as a material, it seemed like a perfect way to represent the rough line-based style with stray lines and hashmark shading in a 3D object. I then thought…
Aesthetics Game: Snowblower/Tiny Homes
Contributors include: Joseph Coulombe, Andres Esteve Our group received snowblower and tiny homes as our aesthetic. At first it was challenging but we soon figured out how we wanted to create our designs.
Upcycle Inspirations: Wooden Cup
When I first began my project I wanted something functional, unconventional, and themed around skulls. One, because I want to you this item after this project finishes, two, because I wanted it to be different, and three, I like skulls which is why my first post was on Calaveras. Thinking further I had gotten a…
Upcycle Project: Inspiration and Progress
Last class we created drawings based off given ideas. My team and I worked on creating a drawing that included minimalism and an electric toothbrush. As seen in the image above, I focused on creating the toothbrush while simplifying the overall design. For my upcycle project I will incorporate plastic trash, cardboard, and other resources…
Upcycling Inspiration: Aluminum Cans
One of the first elements of the project that I considered during the design process was material. It is an up-cycle project after all and the main idea here is to create art out of recycle or old materials. For this reason, one of my first instincts was to think about aluminum cans because they…
50’s-Car style Umbrella Stand
This Design came from the combination of a 50’s Car and an umbrella Stand. This specific design was created by Peilin Yang. Currved windshield, Large tailins and the Space Age look of the exhaust pipe indicates the dawning of the Space Age and Space Race in 50’s American. My team/authors: Peilin Yang; Hans Crone; Hogan…
Upcycle Inspiration: Bear with Panda
Blur Bear outside the Colorado Convention Center. (Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite) My upcycle project was firstly inspired by Lawrence Argent’s art work–“I See What You Mean”, also known as the “Big Blue Bear”. I first knew it when attending a acadmic conference in Colorado Convention Center in 2017. Spotted leaning its paws against building facade embodies…
Up-Cycle Inspiration & Progress
As I stated in my last post the key element to the inspiration of my design is the power line insulatior. I felt that the unique look and shape of these objects wouls open up many doors for the design of my upcycle project. In addition the up-cycle project made for a great oprotunity to…
Upcycling inspiration: Religious Mosaics
In the beginning of January I was on a trip to Washington DC, while there I had the opportunity to visit the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Contained within the walls of this building were a lot of beautiful pieces of art, astounding architecture, and amazing mosaics. Such as the mosaics…
Upcycle Inspiration
When I first began brainstorming ideas for this project, I drew a lot of inspiration from saved posts on my Instagram account. I follow several product design accounts and I am frequently saving posts which I find visually appealing. I stumbled across the works of Associated Architects Beyond Borders work with a very fluid and…
Upcycle Inspirations: Malignant Speakers
After making a pattern of lids last week, I had cemented an image of a sort -of chandelier of repeated circles. Prof. Hertzberg and I have been preparing for an educational demo of flow visualization for the Expanding Your Horizons event, tailored to creative preteens. This will be the second time that I put on…
Upcycle Progress/Inspiration
This week has been hands on for me, I have been making my upcycling project but I don’t know the meaning of it just yet. I built a cardboard frame and I am filling the sides with cut up cardboard tubes. In total I used about a quarter of my latest amazon order box, four…
Upcycle Inspiration: Bottlecap/Nail and Thread Skyline
I covered most of what inspired me to move forward with this idea for my upcycle project in my last post, so I will recap that in this post. Essentially, I wanted to create a project that was based on something we throw away very often, especially here in Boulder. So immediately, I thought of…
Upcycle Inspiration: Speaker Landscape
For my upcycle project, I wanted to make use of a broken bluetooth speaker and make a landscape on top of it. My inspiration behind this project is when I kept seeing those miniature cities in movies, and I always wondered how cool they are on a large, 3-D scale. nb My original intent for…
Upcycle Inspiration: Spiral Staircase
As I mentioned in my last blog post, the base of my lamp is inspired by a spiral staircase. The spiral staircase I was directly inspired by was from a DIY (Do it yourself) video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd-Z7OTAjJ0, by Ben Uyeda on Facebook I saw a couple of months ago (You can find Ben Uyeda and his…
Upcycle Inspiration: Kintsugi
My first encounter with kintsugi was through a creator’s video on the subject matter. Nerdwriter1 is an amazing Youtube creator and storyteller who’s deep dive makes for ultra-interesting content. The video below gives the background on the origin of the aesthetic along with some great visuals and some deeper thought into the method. Mending the…
Upcycle Inspiration: Fabric
After thinking more about my up-cycling project, I decided to let the fabric inspire me into a sketch that makes it serve a purpose. While looking at the clothings I had, I felt the Sherpa jacket lining was begging me to reincarnate it as a polar bear. I then quickly started sketching the bear. I…
Upcycle progress/final report
In my last post, I mostly explained what a zoetrope is and briefly about why I chose the zoetrope over my other up-cycle project ideas. In this post I would like to document the process I went through to build the zoetrope. The reason I chose the zoetrope was due to my fascination of our…
Upcycle Inspiration
The inspiration for my upcycle project was born from necessity and the materials I had available to me. I originally knew that I wanted to turn this assignment into a project that I could use in my daily life. With this thought in mind, I decided I wanted to make a piece of furniture, either…
Upcycle Inspiration: Board Game
CAD Model of Jakaroo Board Game I love most kind of games and I’m addicted to any kind of board game. I started playing board games since I was 3 years old. I play with my friends, siblings, my parents, and my husband. I’m competitive in a good way ( I guess ) and it…
Upcycle Inspiration: Silverware Holder
[1] My main focus for this upcycle project was to build something useful that adds a beautiful touch to my kitchen. I really enjoy cooking and having an organized kitchen is really important to me. Therefore, I started to look at different upcycle projects and I was inspired by the amazing design shown in the…
10 Aesthetics Game
Today the teams played the Aesthetics Game. The names of artifacts and aesthetics were drawn at random from a hat, and teams then sketch versions of the resulting mashup. For examples of what happened see https://www.aesdes.org/category/student-work/2016/aesthetics-game/ The popular favorite was the Disney Princess Flathead Screwdriver Lecture notes: 10 Aesthetics GameDownload
UpCycle Inspiration: Bright Board 2.0
My initial thought process for my project started with me looking around my room for something that I could re purpose into a cool design. I definitely wanted to focus on the design over the function for this project so that gave me the liberty to make just about anything. I am currently working on…
Upcycle Inspo
The inspiration for my project came mostly from the materials I had. It is interesting to think back on the project because I never really had that “ah ha!” moment when searching for ideas. I knew which materials I wanted to use and my inspiration more or less came from there. I then researched industrial…
Upcycle Project Inspiration
For my up-cycle project, I’m making a I was inspired by lots of different examples of parametric design I had seen on the internet, but this light fixture designed by a studio called Path caught my eye. It looked like a technique I could replicate with my own design, and I could easily incorporate my…
Upcycle Inspiration
I was inspired by many kinds of aesthetics that I saw as I was growing up in California. Because of the touristy nature of California in general, I saw many types of “Beachy art”. These types of art pieces often incorporated shells of some type as well as different types of seaglass and driftwood. These…
Upcycle: Safety Glove for the cutting. Inspiration
My inspiration from my brainstorming process. I thought about what I do and what I need for that. My biggest hobby is cooking so I thought what do I need for that. And I always wanted a glove that can quickly wear on and off and keep my fingers safe from knife and spices because…
Insect Inspirations
With this upcycling project I had no specific inspirations, in terms of what motivated me to chose this sculpture topic and style, other than the constraints of the materials I had available to me, and some discussions with friends about what I could do with said materials. However, as I’ve progressed with the construction of…
Aesthetic Game: Martial Arts Bicycle (Xavier, Tyler, Evan)
For this Aesthetic Game, our team ended up with the aesthetic of martial arts and a bicycle as the object. Together we came up with three separate designs as you can see below. The design we have above is based primarily on the classic Kung Fu kick pose that is fairly well known and requires…
Aesthetics Game – Punk Outboard Motor
Aesthetic: Punk Object: Outboard Motor (boat motor) Authors: Jack Plantz, Rachel Bork, Ellie Pearson
Aesthetics Game – Qipao Footwear
Contributors Include: Clare Bork, Hadeel Al Gallaf, and Shen Shu We were assigned with choosing an aesthetic and figuring out what it represented. For our group, we chose Chinese Qipao and Footwear. We chose to design a collette heel with floral patterns, a sneaker with flowers, and a sandal that had curved edges. Overall, we…
Aesthetics Game: Art Deco Shelving Unit
For the Aesthetic game in class we were assigned to create a sketch of a shelving unit created with the art deco aesthetic. In order to do this, we took inspiration from buildings that were created in the art deco style such as the empire state building. To do this, we created a single unit…
Aesthetic Game: Team 8
Team 8: Luke, Shalil, and Josh For this game we picked out 2 slips of paper; one with an aesthetic and one with an object. The papers we picked were “Las Vegas Casino” and “Cafe Chair and Table Set”. The first idea we had was a cafe scene with a chair made to look like…
Andrew and Aziz Aesthetics Theme Game
We received shoe horn and Japanese motorcycles for our object and aesthetic. For this post, we will discuss how we designed our shoe horn with this aesthetic in mind and what our final product will look like We started by looking at how we could incorporate the motorcycle into our design more literally than figuratively.…
Flat -Head Princess
This aesthetic came from the combination of a screwdriver and Disney princesses. This specific design was created by Tyler Cagle and is basically a screwdriver dressed in a princesses outfit. Conrad Trybus had a very similar design to Tyler’s but we chose to use Tyler’s design for the blog post. My design consisted of a…
Team 1 Aesthetics Game
Our team, comprised of Max Buechler, Yousef AlQattan, and Abdulrahman Alnoaim, was given the object of a bedside table with the aesthetic of Telefoni Bianchi. The design of this mashup that we came up with can be seen below: This aesthetic comes from a style of Italian movies from the 1930’s. These movies captured the…
Aesthetics Game: Novelty Architecture/Dog Leash and Collar
For the aesthetics game, my team and I received novelty architecture as our aesthetic and dog leash and collar for our object. With this, we decided to create a dog park that has a ‘dog collar’ as the surrounding fence. The buckle of the collar acts as the gate into the dog park. My team/authors:…
Dannie, Fatema, Chris (Team 7) Aesthetics Game
Our aesthetic was country, western cowboy and our object was men’s winter coat. Our first design is shown above on the right. It features a built in red bandana, holster, and hat on the hood. Next, the design in the middle has a cow print and a built in bolo tie with big, red buckle.…
Upcycle Inspiration: Pennies
As the years drag on, the value of a penny has increasingly gone down as natural inflation decreases the value of a note. In the 1950’s a penny had value and was commonly used in transactions. Today however, if given three cents back in change, many people will not take it or just donate it…
Upcycle Inspiration: Fire Pit
For my upcycle project, I am making a fire pit out of cardboard. I got my inspiration from all the time I spent this summer around the fire with my friends, and my general affinity for fires. After looking at all the circular designs online, and realizing it would be impossible to print these shapes,…
UpCycle Inspiration/Progress
The post that I made last week spoke a little about my progress in decision making, but more about my inspiration. Referencing my previous post, my inspiration spurred from a steampunk aesthetic. Being a mechanical engineer, gears and mechanical components as a form of interior design seems fascinating. As a result, I decided to incorporate…
Upcycle Inspiration
The inspiration for my upcycle project came from these light projectors. Specifically, the green light shown above on the left. I have a family friend that uses one of these inside his home, right when you enter the house, so it looks like a cool, night sky scene. I have always loved the way the…
Upcycle Inspiration
As I discussed in my previous blog posts my inspiration behind my upcycle project is based on this T-shirt. My product will most likely just be a plain white tee with a white draw string. I am most likely going to sew from the outside of the shirt because I am into the urban type…
Upcycle Progress
Source: https://www.delish.com/entertaining/g3815/upcycle-beer-bottles-diy-projects/?slide=1 My First post was about my thinking process about this project. After thinking a lot. I decided to use some o the bottles I have as flower vases. This idea I found while searching for innovations for utilizing empty bottles. Also, I am planing to add some decorations to the bottles such as…
Upcycling Final Report
My vision for this project was to make something that I could use every day. The expectation for something that I put my time into is that it must be something that I can either build off of, or learn from. My artistic vision was an item that would incorporate more than two materials. Most…
Up-cycle Progress: Inspiration
The inspiration of this project came from my house key. I was fumbling around with where to put it in my room, and came across my cable holder and a cork. I started brainstorming and flipping through pins on Pinterest to find projects that people had done with corks for keys or reminders. The two…
09 Upcycle Specs and Perspective Sketching
Today we went over the explicit expectations for final documentation of the Upcycle project: presentations and next week’s blog post. Then we went over basic use of vanishing points in 1, 2 and 3 point perspective, starting with cubes, of course. 09 Upcycle specs, Perspective sketching
Up-cycle Project : Inspiration and Progress Report
This blog post is supposed to be about my inspiration for the up-cycle project. But since I described that process in my last blog post I am going to focus on the progress I have made since that post. Project Background: If you haven’t read my last post, the general idea is that I am…
Movie Night: Helvetica
Our first movie night will feature Helvetica, a movie about the impact of the most widely-used modern font. Yes, an entire feature-length film about a font. One font. A font which you have to pay to use (unless you have a mac, in which case you are already paying to use it). The film documents…
Upcycle Progress: Kintsugi
Kintsugi is a pottery technique that glorifies imperfection and embraces the cracks that bring us together. The art-form dates back to the Japanese shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa, who sent sent a piece of pottery back to China to be repaired. After the piece return, lackluster held together with only staples, he decided to have it mended…
Up-cycle Progress: Jewelry from a mug
For my up-cycle project I wanted to find a way to repurpose one of my favorite mugs I recently broke. I did some research, and found a bunch of projects where broken porcelain was repurposed into jewelry. Shown in the images below. For my own design I chose some pieces of the cup that were…
08 Teams
We listened to my favorite wisdom on teamwork, from This American Life, and then the teams all met for the first time. The TAL episode focused on the work of Will Felps, now a professor of business at the University of New South Wales. During his PhD thesis in 2006 or so, he found ‘bad…
Upcycle Progress: My Design Process
This is my upcycle design process. My way of thinking is that this project require a lot of research. The challenge of finding an idea which posses three conditions. First, it has to be aesthetic. Second, I have the skills to accomplish the plan. Finally, I should have most of the product materials. I built…
Upcycle Process: Safety glove for cutting in kitchen
I started brainstorming with thinking what I need first and think about if it is doable by upcycle. And, here is the flow chart. I love to cook so I cut a lot of vegetables. While cutting vegetables, such as garlic or pepper, I always hated the smell and the spiciness stuck on my fingers.…
Upcycle Progress: Patterns of Circles
I was considering repetitious use of circular designs in my sketches. Also there is a possibility of using the bottoms of the water bottles as flowers. I had envisioned an upcycling project that would use either water bottles or these 3-inch dia. lids in repetition to make a sculpture. There’s a caveat when it comes…
Upcycle Progress: Ideation & Materials
To begin this project I thought about which material I wanted to use. I wanted something that gave me a lot room for creativity and didn’t push me into a certain style. I also thought about what functionality do I want to get out of this project and not make something that has no purpose…
Upcycle Progress/ Design Process
The design process that I took for this project so far is pretty standard. As you can see in the image of my flowchart below, I began by looking at the upcycle project that was assigned. I then began brainstorming ideas that involved what kind of materials I should use, what kind of function will…
Upcycle Progress: Layers
I was very intrigued when I heard the first project we would be working on was going to involve upcycling. Upcycling is the process of creating something out of waste materials or products for a better purpose. I thought this challenge would be fun since it puts constraints on what materials we are allowed to…
Upcycle Progress: Wall Mount Piece
Multiple Sketches for Further Conceptualization More Detailed Skateboard Mount Guitar Experimentation I have not completely decided on a final project to get working on but I have a far greater understanding of how I will achieve my aesthetic goals as I sketch more and more. I am currently considering the different applications of reused guitars…
Upcycling Paper Towel Cardboard Tubes
As a warm up assignment we are recycling low value waste into aesthetic pleasing objects. Deciding what to do isn’t always easy however for me this time around it was simpler than in the past. Over the winter break I read “Creative Confidence” by David and Tom Kelley ( I highly recommend it to anyone…
Upcycle Progress: Drawer
Design Process: Available Materials: due to the requirement of the assignment, my first concern was what materials do I have in my disposal that can be used. Since I have amazon prime and being lazy, I end up with a lot of shipping boxes. 2) Brainstorming: my biggest concern in this step was to come up with as many ideas as possible. However, the option to build something out of card boxed are endless. Thus, i have decided to do something that would be useful. 3) Objective of product: after coming up with multiple ideas, I have decided to do a drawer because it was something I wanted to buy for my apartment and doing this project will save me money. So two birds…
Upcycle Progress: Board Game
My family is coming for my graduation and I decided to make a board game for them. It’s called Jakaroo and it’s a really good game. I decided to go with acrylic instead of wood because it’s lighter and it will take less time in the laser cutter. I got the acrylic sheet and it’s…
Upcycle Progress: Silverware Holder
Cutlery holder by Bianca Barreto and Sueli Pacci [1] For my upcycle project, it took me a while to decide what I am going to design. I am interested and focused on making something out of the stuff I have in my kitchen since I find cooking as a hobby and having an organized kitchen…
