Design Workshop
This week, we were asked to create a personal collection from amongst our possessions, document it, then assign attributes to each object. I chose to use samples from my large collection of fabrics, since they are colorful, diverse, and personally significant to me. I documented each fabric with a photograph, then decided on eight categories (or "keys") by which to describe the collection: Type (e.g., cotton, polyester); Color; Texture (e.g., smooth, rough); Weight; Date of Acquisition; Place of Acquisition (by state); Source (e.g. gift, thrift store); and Use (e.g., pants, finger puppets). Click here to view the collection (PDF).
Once in class, we were teamed up with other classmates (and their collections) and challenged to create a physical visualization--with a few basic art/craft supplies on hand--that encompassed and tied together the entire groups' collections. I was teamed up with Jen and Kat, who coincidentally has collections of buttons and yarn, respectively. Jen and I had brought some physical samples of our collections, but since Kat had only black and white printouts of photographs, we were were a bit aesthetically limited in creating something purely from the objects. We spent a bit of time discussing what attributes our objects had in common, and which of them were most important to us in terms of how we chose to use them. We determined that color and texture were the best points of comparison, and decided on a simple chart on which to arrange them, with my fabric samples, Jen's buttons (interconnected with a string to reinforce the creative, crafty content of the piece), and Kat's printouts arranged in a spectrum from blue to red on the x axis, and from smoothest to most textured on the y axis. Because of the grey tones of the printouts and the relatively limited number of samples, we added a color key on the printouts, and across the top on the x axis, and a texture key of folded paper squares on the y axis. The result was not as polished or aesthetically pleasing as I would have liked, but given our time limitations, I think it was at least easy to interpret.