Markets, Innovation & Design - Spring 2020

Habits

by Leave a Comment

Throughout my semester in this course, I have embraced ambiguity and tried to adapt to creative confidence as well. Creative confidence is something that I think is necessary in almost all aspects of life, where being confident and creative separately are crucial. Creative confidence is important as it can push a designer forward to think outside of the box and more creatively. Being able to be confident in your own thoughts and ideas can be hard, and this was something I struggled with. Especially speaking towards the design process, I had to think of something creative that would be enough for me throughout the time in quarantine. This habit of creative confidence was crucial for this design process because of the way I had to brainstorm and continue to build off of my ideas throughout the semester. From the design process and creative confidence specifically, I have found that I need to push myself to go with what I think is best for me personally.

            On top of the design process, the assignments we were given while on campus were often vague and ambiguous on purpose. Combining the ambiguity and the creative confidence, I had to be confident in my ability to find a solution to the ambiguous tasks that were given to us. When I was sometimes unsure of what I should be doing for a certain assignment, it was important that I stuck with what I thought was best and put my full effort into it in order to both embrace this ambiguity and be confident in my decisions. I think that the combination of this creative confidence and embracing ambiguity were two that I found to be helpful for me throughout the semester in my growth as a MIDE student.

            One habit that I think I need to work on would be the child’s eye and hyper observation. I tend to go into things, specifically assignments, having a thought or idea already in my head that might influence what I end up thinking about the assignment and where I would go with it. Not having any biases or preconceived notions about a certain topic should help me to embrace this ambiguity even more, and I think I struggled with doing this. I think being in quarantine during a global pandemic can definitely help me grow in this habit. With my whole life essentially being uprooted, I have had to find new ways of living and adapt to this new life. With seeing things from a new or fresher perspective, I could end up being more optimistic about the pandemic and see things from a new light. It can be hard in this situation to not fall into a rut, and I think If I practice this child’s eye mentality, this can certainly help me.

In terms of building more of an innovative character, I think this class in general and having to move to the design process has greatly helped me. Being able to approach things from a new point of view and having to completely change my mindset allowed me to think more creatively and with more importance. I have found that I care more about my day to day life with what I developed from the design process, and that is something that came from the beginning of classes when building up my innovative character started.

Test & Iterate #2

by Leave a Comment

After using my prototype for multiple weeks and acknowledging what I wanted to change, I made a few adjustments that I felt would push me further. I made more specific options for working out, breathing exercises and yoga. After my first week using the prototype, I had mentioned in my reflection and in our Zoom call that I wanted to hold myself to higher standards and hold myself accountable for the things I just push aside if I don’t want to them. In writing out different workouts for specific days or different yoga videos to follow a certain week, I have been able to create a more realistic standard for myself and follow a better schedule. I did, however, allow myself to change up the exercises if I didn’t want to do a certain one because of the weather or if I was sore. I also have added writing out my daily and weekly schedules on a post it or a planner because it wasn’t working for me to write it out just on my phone or computer. Having to write it physically and having a physical copy looking at me above my desk helped me pay attention to it more. Overall, I have been enjoying the daily routines and it has helped me get through the weeks while also managing my schoolwork and personal life.

Test & Iterate

by Leave a Comment

After using my prototype for a few days, I found myself making changes by essentially just ignoring some of the things I had written down. These ideas either didn’t flow well in my day or they weren’t benefitting me in the way I had initially intended. For example, the routine I strayed from the most was the nightly routine. I didn’t follow much of a schedule or routine at night other than skincare and meditation, which I added in after the fact.  I also added more things specific to working out, exercising and diet. I altered the working out aspect of my prototype to make it more specific so I could have a goal for myself that was also realistic knowing my personal habits. I altered that to make it so I was doing it at least 3 to 4 times a week so I wasn’t on a strict daily schedule. Another aspect that was slightly altered was the movie and game time with my family because that is something that is not completely under my control and everyone has to be on board to participate in an activity like that. I also have just not been following it as strictly as I had initially intended, but it has worked out because it has helped me more with possible ideas for what I will do on a specific day within my routine. I also never kept up with keeping a journal as much as I would’ve liked to because I felt like the days began to get away from me. I made changes along the way and they were pretty much unintentional given that I just chose to either create something new or not do something I felt wasn’t helping me. Two other additions I had were painting and cooking, which I added to the “mood lifters” section. These were both things that I have spent a lot of time doing and have enjoyed my time doing them. 

I printed out my prototype and put it on my wall above my desk, where I do most of my work and spend a lot of my time during the day. I left it the way it was and didn’t physically alter it at all. If I made changes, they were either mental or I wrote them down on my phone within my smaller and more specific daily schedules. I have definitely found myself taking advantage of the “mood lifters” section within the prototype. When I have had free time, I have either looked at the poster I had put above my desk or thought of something that I had been doing in days past that would be beneficial in my free time. I also found that when using my prototype, it became less focused on my self care and more focused on just having a general organization and routine to my days. Although it has helped significantly with focusing on self care processes and ideas, I found that it was less specific to this area than I had intended. However, I think this was a positive change because I was able to be focused on my life in general, with selfcare leading the way, 

This routine and planner has definitely helped me to fill time in my days and has given me something to fall back on. I have been able to use a daily schedule that helps me to feel productive and has benefited my personal self care. I have enjoyed my experience overall and it has definitely helped me get through the weeks. I have turned my prototype into more of a routine and I have taken full advantage of making daily schedules within the ideas in the prototype. Having this prototype has actually changed my experience in small but meaningful ways. It helped me to motivate myself initially and gave me structure and guidance for how I was going to plan out the rest of my semester. It allowed me to really think about and explore new ideas that I had in the back of my mind and finally had the time to pursue them. Without this prototype and the motivation of the design challenge, I probably would’ve just gone through the motions with my time in quarantine. 

I think if I were to expand on this prototype I would try to push myself harder to move out of my comfort zone. Instead of changing things on the prototype that I felt I wouldn’t be able to do well or that was too difficult, I would try to push myself to do things that I was somewhat hesitant about initially. Another way I could push myself could be changing the prototype every couple of days or after a week to make it more difficult as I get more comfortable. I would also make categories more specific, like my diet and other specific workout exercises. This corresponds with the proficiency category in the designer’s hierarchy of needs, where I would be consistently trying to make each week better and harder for me so that I actually improve and make progress with what I want to achieve. I also think this relates to the reliability category, because I need to make sure I am making a consistent effort to stay on top of what I am doing each day and week, along with my goals for the near future. The creativity category could help to push me further and make it more challenging for myself in coming up with more unique and creative ideas and habits. 

In thinking about the design challenge as a whole, I have enjoyed the way this class and the design process has helped me create a new normal amongst the disruption of COVID-19. Exploring and seeking opportunities for positive change has been extremely beneficial for me and I think I will continue with this design challenge concept even beyond this class. I think I personally work well with attempting to design habits. Specifically with being at home due to COVID-19, it was helpful at the beginning with envisioning the following 6-12 weeks because I was able to map out and think about potential ideas. The concept board was one of my favorite parts of the design challenge as a whole because it made me think of many different ideas that I could potentially pursue during my time at home. In exploring a broader range of ideas, I covered many different areas of my life that I want to improve on or explore. hese ideas expanded beyond my prototype and I have started other projects and pursued other ideas that I didn’t choose to use for my final prototype. Thinking back, the processes allowed me to have something to look forward to and focus on throughout these bad times. It gave me something to be passionate about when many of the aspects of our lives that we are passionate about have been stripped away.

Prototype

by Leave a Comment

In creating a prototype, I initially was very unsure of which concept I wanted to follow through with. I felt that throughout all three of my concepts, there was an overarching theme of having a daily or weekly routine and keeping it logged. In doing so, I decided to combine the idea of writing out a daily routine with my concept of keeping up with new forms of selfcare.  I started to create a list to further the ideas I had sketched out on my post it notes and thought about new ideas to add, even if they were as simple as drinking a glass of water each morning. The idea I had in my head was to create some sort of checklist or daily schedule that I could refer to and use as a structure to follow and keep up with my personal selfcare. Creating the prototype actually pushed me further to want actually truly pursue keeping up with a daily log and delve deeper into my personal self in new ways.

I wanted to split the schedule up into categories focusing mainly on diet, sleep, mindfulness and meditation, exercise, schoolwork, brain power (writing out my thoughts), and overall health. Within these categories, I explored different ideas further to try to create a wide range of options that I could pursue during a given week. I also wanted to try out a section specifically for mood lifting, something I could rely on if I ever felt I was falling into a rut. I then decided to split up different ideas between morning, daily, and nightly.

As I was creating my prototype, I realized that it was becoming less of a set schedule, but more advice and ideas for what I could potentially do with my day. I felt that with the “daily” category, I would strive to make sure I did those activities every day rather than just suggestions for a day. On the other hand, the mood lifters were things I could look to do if I ever had too much time on my hands and nothing to do. Some of the things within this prototype I have already been doing, but many of them I have also not started yet including writing in a journal and practicing breathing exercises. I hope I will be able to become more inspired by having created my own routine to push me to have a structure within my daily life and selfcare.

I have always relied on being organized and having a routine in my schedule. With the disruption of the coronavirus and the complete change to my lifestyle, I have definitely struggled to create and maintain a new normal during this time. I tried to make my prototype more realistic rather than very goal-reaching because I wanted to be able to actually set standards for myself before trying to push something I most likely wouldn’t end up doing. I think that this will actually help me immensely with my day to day life, specifically with focusing on self care.

3 Concepts

by Leave a Comment

The first sketch I did followed my concept of creating a daily schedule and writing out my daily feelings, thoughts and plans in order to stay organized. Being organized, especially with online classes, will help me to have a clearer mind and be able to know what I need to do for the day and what I would like to accomplish with my time. I have found that it is especially hard to be motivated during this time because I have no routine or set schedule to abide by, which I rely on while at school on campus. Writing out my goals or plans for the day have helped me tremendously to find structure to my day and to be motivated to get work done. Not even solely with schoolwork, it is easy to become lazy and push things off to another day because the days during this quarantine seem to be endless. Staying on top of what I have to do and what I want to do for the week and for each specific day has helped and will help to keep me organized mentally and physically. With the hierarchy of designer needs, I think all but creativity are represented in this concept of following a daily routine and writing it out. It covers functionality, reliability, usability and proficiency.

Another sketch I did was of my bedroom, including my closet and any other forms of organization within my room. I have been spending most of my time in my room, whether doing home workouts or my homework. I think having and working in an environment that promotes positivity and gives a good energy is essential for getting work done and staying out of a lull or a rut, which can easily happen in this time. It is hard for me to work and focus in a messy or cluttered environment, so this will help enhance my online class experience and my meditation, yoga or workout classes. This also includes staying on top of my schoolwork in an organized manner, which can be difficult when everything is on my computer. I have been trying to organize folders on my computer for classes that do not have a website or an easy platform. Also, I am moving in a few months after the pandemic cools down, so I will want to ensure that I’m organized now so I can keep track of boxes and items I’d like to transfer to my new house and keep up my same routine there. In speaking towards the hierarchy of designer needs, I think this covers reliability, usability, proficiency, and creativity.

I struggled with my last sketch because it is more of a broad idea rather than a physical concept. I wanted to cover my ideas for self care and exploring new ways of self care including meditation and yoga. In order to express my ideas, I decided to just draw out small sketches somewhat unrelated to each other, but all related to the bigger theme and idea I was trying to portray. I felt as though this concept was much broader than my other ones, so I had a lot of smaller details that went into it. I used sticky notes to write out some different ideas I thought would work with this. In doing this activity, I ended up straying further away from just meditation and yoga, and I explored different methods of self care that I know are popular or I thought I could try. Specifically, I went into broader ideas such as practicing breathing exercises and getting sunshine. With the hierarchy of designer needs, I think it satisfies the all of the designer needs of functionality, reliability, usability, proficiency, and creativity.

Concept Board

by Leave a Comment

My-PostDownload

In creating this concept board, I tried to stay under the themes of organization, cleansing, self-care and self-connection. In my brainstorming and creation of this concept board, I found that I ended up writing and focusing a lot on exploring my inner self and creating new habits with this extra time at home. Creating a new routine was crucial in my concept board, which is represented by the various lists, journals and other forms of writing.  I also focused on having an organized and happy environment around me, which was shown with the bright windows and clean closets.

I started this concept board by thinking of the things that seemed to be the most common in my brainstorming and the most important to me collectively throughout all of my ideas. I wanted to incorporate all of the elements that I have already started doing with my time at home, including making daily routines and introducing myself to yoga and meditation. I also included ideas that I want to be able to start doing and hopefully I can build off of these ideas, like drawing and creating my own clothing.

I wanted the mood of my concept board to be clear when I was finished, but it seems to be a little bit more ambiguous than I expected. I like the ambiguity of it, because there is ambiguity in this situation everyone is going through and this new lifestyle we have to adapt to. However, I did feel like there were tones of self-connection and open mindedness throughout my concept board, which are crucial to the overall mood and message I wanted to convey.

Brainstorming

by Leave a Comment

With this brainstorming activity, I struggled with where to start. I wasn’t sure of what I wanted my end result to be, and then I realized that I shouldn’t be starting with what I want the result to be. I then started by separating everything into the categories of the environment, connection to others, technology, and personal health and self-care. This helped me to think about separate areas and ideas for my current situation in life. In separating into these groups, I was able to categorize the things that I felt were most important in my mind for every aspect of my life at home.

After writing out my 50 ideas, I struggled to pick just 2-5 main ideas to highlight and ended up unintentionally highlighting 7. I felt that the ones I highlighted were the most important and stuck out to me to be the most helpful for creating a concept board.

Under the environment around me category, the ideas I found to stand out the most were opening the blinds each morning and keeping my clothes and closet organized. I felt that this was important because it will help me have an organized and happy environment in my room which is where I am going to be spending most of my time doing my work and just relaxing. In having a positive and clean environment, I will be more open to inspiration and different opportunities that are brought to me.  

In connecting with others, I felt that doing new and different activities with my family that I haven’t done in the past or I wouldn’t usually do was essential. Being that I am going to be home for the next couple of months, I will have much more time on my hands that I otherwise might not have ever gotten. In having this time, I think it will be beneficial for me and my relationships with my family members to spend more time together doing things we wouldn’t usually do, like watching movies or doing an online workout class together.

I had the most amount of ideas for the personal health and self-care category. Since being home so far, I have been trying to focus on self-care by doing daily routines that enhance my energy and overall health. I highlighted trying new things including yoga and meditation because I have never really gotten into yoga or meditation in my life and feel like it would be beneficial for my physical and mental health especially in this time period. I also highlighted the idea of writing out my plans, feelings and thoughts each day so I can stay on top of my daily routine and my thoughts through this process.

With using technology, I have already started taking advantage of the technological advancements we have with zoom, facetime and other social media platforms. I highlighted using zoom and facetime to stay in contact with my friends who I might not see until I go back to school. This is especially important to me because I have established strong relationships this past semester that I really care about and want to keep up with. I also highlighted keeping up with my online class schedule just to ensure that I stay on top of what I need to be doing with school and everything that is being posted online to help me succeed.

Constraint Map

by Leave a Comment

The coronavirus seems to be all that anyone can talk about at the moment. It has completely taken over the world both physically by impacting people and also socially, economically and mentally. Lives and lifestyles have been completely uprooted by the impacts of this virus and almost everybody has had to change and adapt to it. In following and scanning different reactions to this change in lifestyle, I have found that the positive reactions have helped me personally as well. I have found that through social media and other forms of communication, people are giving each other advice on what to do with each day and how they are going about their days. More specifically, I have seen videos of reorganizing bedrooms, painting bedrooms, and cleaning bathrooms. Everyone’s daily routine has changed tremendously, and people are inspiring each other by sharing their struggles and new ways of life. I have found this personally inspiring and have used different and new ideas for how to spend my days. I have also seen a significant increase in people walking around outside in my neighborhood or just spending time outside. I have never seen so many people outside at once in my neighborhood before this pandemic.

A situation similar to this was the Spanish Flu, or H1N1. After reading a bit about this breakout, I realized that although this situation is terrible and has uprooted most of our lives, the ability to still stay in communication with one another and continue with our lives virtually is incredible. In thinking about the social impact from the Spanish Flu where thousands of people died, it must have been much harder for people to continue with their lives because everything was put on hold and there was no way to keep up with it without being present and risking lives.

In creating this constraint map for COVID-19 and our life changes, I tried to see things from all different perspectives, whether it be my personal response or the way overall society is responding. Initially I struggled with identifying what my three larger categories would be based off of the design, production, and end-user model. I tried to incorporate elements of this model into my own personalized COVID-19 version while also making it relevant to the current situation. I started with thinking about end-user, and how this situation was affecting me and then build off of that. I found that communication was tying together my own pe3rsonal experience and the overall reaction of society. I was able to see both the negative and positive sides of the responses to COVID-19. My biggest struggle with this assignment was being able to identify all sides of society and culture while also connecting it to end-user and the communication aspect. In making opportunity areas from this constraint map, I highlighted ideas including self-care, no set routine, adaptation, and new inspiration. Self-care can be turned around in a situation like this and time can be used to really focus on the self when with a normal routine, people might not have the chance to do so. Similarly, with not having a set routine, it gives people the opportunity to shape or build their new lifestyle in a way that they want and that will benefit them the most in the coming months dealing with this. This ties into how adapting is necessary, and everyone must adapt to the new situation regardless of what their old situation was. There is no use wanting to go back to an old routine because it is essentially impossible given the circumstances and therefore adapting to the new way of life is crucial. This then leads to finding new inspiration in adapting to the new lifestyle. Whether that be from other people or social media, there are many opportunities for new forms of inspiration.

Inspiration – week 4

by Leave a Comment

For this week’s inspiration, I didn’t have an idea until later on Wednesday afternoon. This past weekend I had the flu and have still been recovering and not feeling fully better up until today. I had also recently bought a diffuser for my room after being sick to try to make it smell nicer and revitalize the energy in the room. For my inspiration, I decided to spend thirty minutes resting in my bed with my eyes shut, but not sleeping. I turned on my diffuser with an essential oil that was meant to balance, energize and stabilize the energy of the room. I had just bought new oils that I was excited to try although I am unsure of if they actually would work or help to revitalize my energy and body. In these thirty minutes of resting my body and my eyes to try to give myself time to reenergize and let my mind wander for a short period of time with no distractions. I ended up struggling a bit at the beginning because I felt restless and kept moving around and wanting to get up. After five to ten minutes I finally became comfortable with resting and just letting myself sit with my mind and my thoughts. I ended up actually feeling very peaceful and like I spent my time well with this inspiration practice because I felt it was beneficial coming out of a sickness and also for mental health. I was able to just relax my mind and forget about any school work or anything else personal I had to do that day, even within the next hour after my rest. This was one of my more successful and exciting inspiration practices because I felt like I really benefitted from it and I will probably try to find time to do this more often.  

Inspiration – Week 3

by Leave a Comment

For this week’s inspiration, I decided to do more of a set task rather than letting my mind wander and find inspiration in something else. I set time aside to completely clean my room. I vacuumed, reorganized my desk drawers, did laundry and rearranged the layout of some parts of my room. Although this was more of a mundane task, it gave me an opportunity to slow down and have a set task to complete in a set time. I was able to slow down my life and forget about other things like school work or personal issues and feel collected and put together. This changed my normal schedule by allowing me to go out of my way to do something very specific in a set time that I don’t normally do. I usually just clean my room whenever I can or whenever I have time rather than setting aside specific time to do so. In setting aside a time and really putting my mind to it, I allowed myself to become fully engaged in what I was doing and tried to actually feel good about it. After rearranging my desk drawers, I felt much more organized just with my life in general because a lot of the things I use in my daily life and routine are in my desk. Setting aside the time to do this and my laundry, I felt much more in control of my life and what I had for the rest of the day. Even though this was a specific, set task, I still felt like it inspired me because it allowed me to relax and collect my thoughts and feelings. Given that my room will continue to keep getting messy, I think I will actually use this in the future and continue to set time aside to do things that help me feel more secure and organized in my room and in my general feelings.

Inspiration- Week 2

by Leave a Comment

This past week, I made a concerted effort to do something that I rarely do and that I thought might invoke inspiration. A friend and I went to the maker space to make art and design our own sweatshirt. I ended up struggling a lot because I could not find a design I really liked and wanted to wear. I didn’t know where to start or what to look up to find a design that I would like because I went into it with a blind eye and didn’t think about what I wanted beforehand.  I eventually found a design I liked, but I felt like I was just settling for that one because I couldn’t find anything else I was ecstatic about. Once I found the design, I had to reprint it at least three times because it wasn’t cutting correctly on the computer editor. I started to feel very frustrated and discouraged because I wasn’t finding much inspiration in creating the sweatshirt because I hadn’t even started yet and it had already been a while. I successfully printed the design and started to carve it out on the material that would be placed onto the fabric of the sweatshirt. There was another problem. The tweezers that were supposed to pull the excess material off and make the design pop were very faulty and could barely pull the material off. It was taking me a long time and I eventually gave up and decided to come back another day when I had thought more carefully about what I was trying to do and what my goals were. This was something that I wasn’t expecting, especially because I went into it trying to be inspired. Although this was a failed attempt at inspiration, I now know for the future what I will need to do to make a sweatshirt and how I can potentially allow myself to be successfully inspired.

Inspiration – Week 1

by Leave a Comment

In trying to practice inspiration, I decided to make a concerted effort to make lists of my personal goals, future accomplishments, and basic daily tasks. I wanted to do this to try to become more personally organized on a day to day basis, which will help me in the long term with school, health and both my personal and social life. In doing this, I began to think of goals and things I wanted to which I might not have thought of before, on very specific and personal levels as well as more broad, general thoughts.  Although this isn’t necessarily practicing inspiration directly, I found inspiration by thinking more deeply into myself and what I truly want or need. This weekend, specifically on Sunday, I was able to get more done within my day because I made more of an effort to be aware of what I thought needed to be done and what would be most productive and personally inspiring. This was just for the short term, but I have continued with doing it and I believe it will help me be more personally creative with my goals for the future.

Similarly, it is rare that I will try to forcefully make myself feel inspired. However, when I think of ways I might feel inspired, I might listen to music or watch music videos with something unique and special that might make me feel differently. If I can combine this with my new productivity from my weekly and daily organization I will be able to be more aware of those more spontaneous and natural inspirations.

Questioning my Instincts

by Leave a Comment

In the majority of my classes at Bucknell, I have found that I tend to be more reserved when it comes to expressing my opinions and raising my voice in class. When a thought comes to my mind, my initial instinct is to keep it to myself and not to share it with the class. I feel that I lack self confidence and question if what I am going to say is worth it. After thinking about it and questioning it for so long, the conversation has often already moved onto a different topic or someone has already said what I was going to say. In this class, I am going to try to not only voice my opinion and speak out more, but also try to go with my gut instinct and not let myself second guess what I am thinking. I feel that in this class I will be able to become more comfortable in the classroom environment and be able to say what truly comes to my mind. I also think this will help me become more comfortable giving presentations in front of the class, whether it be on my own or in a group.

MIDE 300 HUMANS

Abby Harris (21), Abby Hislop (21), Alana Bortman (21), Alexander Smith (20), Allie Kotowitz (21), Amisha Chhetri (22), Caitlin Tucker (21), Carly Binday (22), Claudia Glasgow (21), Collin Smith (28), Elana Smith (21), Emily Chopoorian (22), Emily Goldman (23), Erin Mooney (21), Faith Reilly (22), Hannah Moriarty (22), Jabril Mohamed (19), Jane Meng (22), Liam Moriarty (22), Lindsey Knutzen (20), Liza Heyl (21), Lucia Singer (20), Madz Cabico (4), Matt Cervon (19), Meg Coyle (18), Natalie Notz (21), Natalie Ring (23), Nikki Bott (23), Olivia DeNicola (21), Prof. Allen (1), Renne Venico (19), Rowan Beiter (23), Tarrin Earle (20), Zack Yoelson-Angeline (14)