THE LAST TIME

I have finally ended my journey with blogger.

Please visit my new blog and follow me there.


-McKenzie 

SPATIAL // PROJECT III, FINAL

Meditation has long served humanity as a way to achieve consciousness, an opportunity to self-reflect, and a moment to relieve stress, shed the world, and be still, even if its only for a slight moment. When thinking of a fast-paced, business driven location, New York City seemed like the perfect domestic place to serve as a strong juxtaposition for Meta, a monument to meditation. The big apple has long been a symbol of the United States and has become the epitome of an urban jungle. The experience a patron will go through is one of serenity and self-reflection through the architecture, lighting, and sound of the monument.

Meta Monument Presentation by McKenzie Marston and Ivan Alonso

SPATIAL // WEEK 2 PROJECT III

DP // WEEK 12

I have finished my printed pieces and they are at the print center! Hoping their paper works, but I am thinking I will have to go find my own. I am really just getting a test print done. I need a paper weight that is thin enough to fold, but can be printed on both sides and won't be see-through. 

I am clipping together my video and just need to put it into the after effects to edit the color. The video is purely for the online aspect to give more depth to the project. I am typing up and figuring out the web presence as well as how I want this to be displayed at the senior show.  I want to have 3 of the fold outs printed out to show that this would come in multiples. Also, how I want to display a concise explanation of the project for viewers, so they know what they are looking at. 

I am also meeting with some teachers this weekend to show them the finished fold-outs to get some quotes from them about the pieces. One of them is a teacher I talked to in the beginning of this process so I am interested to hear what she has to say. Hopefully get some good quotes for my portfolio site. 

FRONT || BACK

CLOSE UPS

SPATIAL // PROJECT 3, CONCEPT

So far Ivan and I have discovered our concept for our monument. We did some mind-mapping and met in the middle with our interests and what the feel, emotion, and purpose for our monument will be. We want the monument to be a place for meditation, but not based on a religion or cause. Just a place for people to migrate to in order to find focus and peace.
We talked a lot about creating an interior space as well. How can a place affect a person's emotional state by just using the environment, color, and structure. We see this form being placed in a large open space like a dessert. This idea reminded me of Anish Kapoor's Leviathan in Paris inside the Grand Palais. This installation created a feeling that was so overwhelming, but also so very personal and peaceful all at the same time. Another space is Jame's Turrell's, The Light Inside at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston.  Just by using light and space, you feel transported into the completely different space and this experience can affect a person's spatial perception. 

DP // WEEK 11

This week I feel like I have made a lot of progress, even though at times I feel like this printed layout is taking a long time for me to get right. The farther along I get the more I am really starting to appreciate the content and information I am designing. The historical information, but also just doing the persona and telling these stories. 
For me it just proves that I think I went down the correct route for my degree project. I still really like dealing with personal information. I have been showing my friend Tanja (my friend I went to Belgrade with) my progress each week and it's an accomplishment for me to see how excited she gets. I remember at our Senior Presentations I said, "I like knowing I have made someone happy or excited through my design," and I'm happy that I am still doing that. 
I have a "thing" for nostalgia and old imagery and I have been incorporating that into my layout. I realized that it was missing something. The design needed more depth to help the story. Old images of childhood photos or photos of someone being in the army make a person more real. 
The typography and legibility have been the challenge for this week and making my foldout easier to digest– giving it breathing room. Of course, I am designer and that's what we do, but I have so many elements that I want to include and making them all work together the best way possible. Iterate, iterate, iterate. I have come to love that word. I have made significant changes, but necessary changes. 
For the web element I am just focussing on wrapping it up to make it cohesive with the printed materials. I am fixing the type and doing some last minuete content revisions. 
I have been struggling with the video aspect and how it will work into my project/story. Last week I posted a storyboard of how I anticipated the video would play out. Well, changes are being made. Time is obviously short, but I would still really like to put a video aspect together. I think it will really help tell my story of how I arrived to where I am today with this project. I think that it will give some context for the project especially when viewed online. I have these interviews and I would like to have to show that I actually was there and there is a background to what I am designing and who I am designing about. 
By Thursday I am going to head over to the print center to do some test prints and find the correct paper. I would really like to get them ink jet printed. I want this to feel like an artifact or something that is new and fresh, but the texture of the paper is really important to me because people will be holding it and unfolding it. When something is lazer printed and is folded the print usually gets scratched off… and the craft of the piece suffers. 

Jelena Damjanovic

Dragan Petrovic 

SPATIAL // PERSUASIVE FINAL

Fundamental Course, Project 2 by McKenzie Marston

Dieter Rams was a minimalist. He strived to design products for people in which the design was simple, concise, and to the point. Rams was ahead of his time and his designs proved that. In representing his ten principles we stripped away some of the information and only kept what was necessary. by pulling out the key component from each principle we wanted the viewer to understand where Rams was coming from right when they walk into the space. They will see the words, useful, unobtrusive, and innovative, for example.  We placed these words by the appropriate artifacts on the walls. We wanted to get straight to the point and keep Rams in mind while doing so.