This map represents all the moments where influences have happened over the last two years of my education. This map connects me from point to point.

Click on the map to see a larger image.


Next Project?

10Nov10

I stumbled upon this project while surfing craftzine.com. I think this is just amazing. check out more here.


This short animation is a great look into the real-world problems we are facing from day to day.

This is the newest addition to the Story of Stuff series, which features a few other short animations entitles Story of Cosmetics, the Story of Cap and Trade, and the Story of Bottled Water.


As you all know by now, crafting is one of my big obsessions in life. I have also become very fond of crocheting materials that are meant for other purposes; metal wire and now hemp. If it is in a yarn form, I will most likely attempt to crochet it.

Hemp string always reminded me of summer and the beach so in the spirit of summer, I went out and bought some hemp string with the intention of making traditional bracelets and anklets as I did every summer of my life but seeing my crochet needle lying there unused, I decided to play around.

Here is a picture of a test piece I made to see if it was possible. What you are seeing in 2 rows of single crochet and 1 row of double crochet.

Yay, it works!

Here is my first project, a simple bracelet, slightly ironic I choose to make a bracelet.

Hm, what to make next? Any ideas?


Crochet Wallet

16Apr10


Portfolio

08Apr10

One of the many versions of my portfolio is up under the portfolio page! Check it out!!


Spring Semester ’09 :: Project partners – Ben Tsang / Jay Dyer (find a link to their blogs in my blogroll)

Rituals and Routines emphasizes an aspect of humans daily lives. Holding hands is a ritual to communicate belonging and love to the outside world as well as being a routine that you just do. Through interview’s, it was established that there are many reasons to hold hands in different times in your life. For example, as a child your hold your parents hand for support and guidance.

We choose to focus on romantic hand holding as out ritual/routine. We analyze aspects of holding hands and found a problem in the winter with couples attempting to hold hands through multiple layers of gloves. The result of research and prototyping led to the One. glove, as seen below.

For more on our process. click here: _Final


here are some designers I have been following on twitter:

Rob Tannen – director of research at bresslergroup, he is always talking about great conferences or articles
Bresslergroup – design company here is philadelphia
core77 – widely known as a great resource for designers
intatterscraft – awesome blog for/about tatting
designscience – another great company here is phiadelphia
Beth Van Why – great teacher, designer, architect
Christine Zapata – great designer!
Ben Tsang – awesome sketcher!
Meg Talley – very talented at everything!
Cameron Jackman – the future of design


Here are a few blogs I have been reading for inspiration and for laughs!

This blog is a great way to find out about new awesome geeky things and new technology! Also, this is a great one to read when you could really use a laugh. Warning: the writer is very vulgar at times so beware! geekologie.com

Another great blog for those into crafts is craftzine. There are some great project ideas and tutorials if you are trying to check out a new craft. This is also a great blog to check out other crafters!

Last but certainly not least is a really awesome blog I stumbled upon about design. This blog is called DigsDigs. For all you industrial designers out there, this is a really cool blog to see things like 5 contemporary electrical outlets!


I recently came to the conclusion that ‘you are what you have’, meaning that the things you own help define you. This may be a duh statement, however if you really think about it, it can be kind of fun to analyze what your things mean and say about you.

For example, while cleaning out my ‘electronics bag’ from my last semesters project, I realized that I have very interesting passions. As seen in my last two posts, I am really into crafts, however now you will see that I am also really into dorky things! Lets analyze the contents of this bag, as seen below!

I own two soldering irons, one is a portable butane iron that doubles as a flame thrower and the other is a standard plug-in. I am slightly nit-picky and you can see because I own two needle nose pliers, one with teeth and one without. I also own two wire cutters, one has an extra cutter  but I never figured out the difference between them. I have conductive thread to make awesome wearables as well as conductive tape that was donated by my professor Mike McAllister. I have conductive paint which is still in the plastic because I am afraid of things that come with a very long warning label about when and how you can use it as well as the possible damage it can do to your skin, no thanks! I have three mini screwdrivers which saved my life a few times during my wearable technology project!  I have an assortment of LED’s and batteries because when I went to the store to buy just one I thought of all the possibilities and decided to stock up!

Furthermore, I feel the need to dedicate this post to my father who kindly donated most of these contents and demonstrated how to use them!

To see the contents of this bag put to use, check out my wearable technology project below!


I decided that my Bamboo needed a nice travel/protective case and it should have a touch of me in it! Here is the case I made! It is crocheted out of 100% organic cotton and has three individual compartments; 1 for the stylus, 1 for the cable, and 1 for the pad! It even has a cute little button closure. (estimated time to make : 1-2 hours)


Crafting is one of my favorite things to do in my (very little) spare time. My attention was recently brought to an old craft called tatting. It is an amazing and beautiful art form! I plan on diving head first into this craft asap, and will post pictures soon!

In the meantime, check out TotusMel’s website. Her instructable got me initially interested in tatting! Here is a picture of a beautiful piece of jewelry she did! She also has an etsy to sell her jewelry, you should check out her work!


SketchBook Pro

25Feb10

I recently purchased a great drawing program called SketchBook Pro! After playing around with it in the first few hours, I produced this sketch! I still have a lot to learn and practice to do, but I am excited about the possibilities!

*For those of you who go to UArts, I will be giving a demonstration of this program after spring break for anyone who is interested! It is a great tool!


Wearable Tech.

31Jan10

Fall Semester Junior Year ’09 :: Rebecca Albrand and Ben Tsang

This t-shirt is a wearable working remote control for the television. click here to see it working!


Industrial Design Fashion Show Presents :: Junior Fall ’09 Wearable Technology

Ben Tsang and I did the remote t-shirt as seen by the second model!




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