Class: Corporate Identity, Winter 2018
Instructor: Steve Watson, Turnstyle
The instructor gave the class a list of about 10 companies. One of these companies would be assigned to each of us for a complete rebrand project. As a life-long outdoorsman and proud steward of the outdoors, I did not hesitate to mark REI as my first choice. REI’s overall visual identity is already one of my favorites; there were only a few areas in their visual aesthetic that I was interested in exploring through my own creative lens.
While researching REI in the early stages, I came across a phrase on their website, “Fuel your inner adventurer.” This quote became the conceptual backbone for my rebrand. Each customer who walks through the doors of an REI location does so with a “spark” of adventure inside them. REI provides products, services, knowhow, and a community of fellow adventurers that serve as “fuel” to get that spark going. I designed the new logo mark to represent the bark of a tree or a piece of firewood to reinforce the metaphor of fuel in a way that outdoorsy folk can understand. The colors are also related to the experience of having a campfire, the hot orange glow of the fire paired with the deep dark blue of the starry night sky. The red orange of the palette is also energetic and bold, both things that REI has encouraged me and thousands of other customers to be.
Show: Little Shop of Horrors by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken
Producer: Stage Notes, University of Washington
During my Junior year at the University of Washington I directed and designed for the musical Little Shop of Horrors. Little Shop is a show about a young, down-and-out man, named Seymour Krelborne, who lives in Skid Row. His drab and depressing life is one day disrupted by a mysterious plant from outer space. Seymour eventually discovers that the alien plant is capable not only of speech, but of total world domination as well. He is coerced by the plant into committing despicable acts in exchange for fame, fortune, and the woman of his dreams.
For the design of this show, I wanted to focus of Seymour’s transition from a drab, disappointing life to a life beyond his wildest imagination and deepest desires, the life brought on by the arrival of the plant. To do this, I made two sets of everything, the first set entirely in black and white and the second in vibrant technicolor. With the help of my technical director, Andrew Gies, the lighting also transitioned in this way: from plain, white scenes to a vibrant, multicolored spectacle. Every character had two costumes, one black and white and one color. Every set piece (Built by Conor Fortner), every sign, and every decoration followed suit. During blackouts and behind the curtains, crew members would swap out the custom pieces to gradually complete the color change as Seymour’s life became more and more interesting. The only subjects on the stage in act one that broke this formula were the characters of Audrey and Audrey II. Audrey, the girl of Seymour’s dreams, would enter the stage in a bright, warm, autumn dress and yellow heels. The plant, Audrey II, would also be in full color. The point of giving these characters this treatment was to illuminate the powerful effect that each of them have on Seymour.
The second major design challenge was the plant itself. The actor who plays the plant is a voice actor standing off stage. What the audience sees is a series of puppets that increase in size as the show goes on. The more the plant eats, the bigger it gets. The largest of the five puppets was 8 feet tall and six feet wide. The smallest was just over 9 inches tall. I built these puppets by hand, starting in the summer before production started. They took over five months to build and required easily half of the show’s budget. Each puppet was operated by a puppeteer, except the largest one, which required two puppeteers for some effects.
The third large-scale design challenge for this show was an effect that happened during the final number. I conceptualized the effect and delivered the idea to my technical director, who designed and executed the final solution. At the end of the show I wanted the plant to grow outward from the stage into the audience as the plant “takes over the world.” The solution we ultimately decided on was to create a network of LED light strips that were programmed to spread across the ceiling, engulfing the entire audience and including them in the story. Possibly the most rewarding moment of the whole experience was seeing the audience look up in complete awe as the theater came to life around them.
Official show poster
Logo for t-shirts and promotional materials
Brainstorming how to build a full-size mid-stage traveler curtain
Sewing the mid-stage traveler with tech director Andrew Gies and set designer Conor Fortner
An example of act 1 (black and white) costumes
An example of act 1 (black and white ) costumes and the act one set
An example of act 2 (full color) costumes
Act 2 costumes during a performance, with the largest plant puppet in the background.
Initial sketch plans for the largest plant puppet
Timelapse video of me building the largest plant puppet
Puppeteer Lucas Ries posing with the full gamut of plant puppets
Me (right) and assistant director Andrew Stearns (left) in need of a good night’s sleep
The entire cast and crew of Little Shop of horrors
In the summer of 2018 I took an internship in Lincoln Nebraska with national geographic photographer Joel Sartore. Joel has been working on a project called the Photo Ark for over a decade, in which he aims to photograph every animal species in human care. He travels all over the world photographing some of the world’s rarest creatures in an effort to save them from the looming extinction crisis.
My job for the photo ark was to manage and organize their video asset library. I also edited, color corrected, and “cleaned up” the contents of that video library, curating short clips of each animal species, one by one. My biggest project during the summer was to create a video, roughly a minute and a half in length, to celebrate the anniversary of Joel’s incredible work.
The images below are pages from a manual that I designed for the Photo Ark. When Joel visits a zoo or animal facility to photograph new species for The Ark, there is a lot of preparation that must be done before he gets there. Specialized enclosures need to be built for mid-sized animals, like monkeys, and backdrops must be painted for larger animals, like tigers or elephants. The manual I designed is sent to zoos around the world and plays a role in the fight against the extinction crisis.
THIS SYMBOL SET is designed to help educate kids about wildlife and evolution through associations with everyday objects. In each symbol, an everyday object is superimposed on the profile of an animal. The common denominator among the chosen objects is that they are all used by humans to overcome challenges or partake in a behaviors that also occur in nature.
Take the flamingo, for example, which can be associated with a ballerina’s slipper because flamingos perform elaborate dances during mating season. An elephant’s big ears allow it to stay cool, hence the fan where its ears would be. Frogs inflate their chests like balloons to communicate with potential mates.
All animals have adaptations that help them overcome the many challenges of life on earth. Humans often look to these adaptations for inspiration when faced with similar challenges.
AN INTERESTING CHALLENGE when designing these icons was achieving a common visual language, despite a wide variety of animal shapes. My solution was to separate the animals into categories—like mammals, birds, and insects—and repeat visual elements within them.
Class: Design Capstone 2019
For this project I designed a tabletop strategy game about ecology. I designed the appearance of the game as well as the rules and all of the physical components.
Welcome to FAUNA.
Life here is unforgiving; in order to survive, creatures must be perfectly adapted to their environments or else be pushed to extinction by other species competing for survival. As the abundance of species on the land changes, so does the abundance of resources. In FAUNA you create and manage your own food web while competing with your opponents for resources and space. Support the most top predators while preventing your opponents from doing so and you win the game.
Winning the Game.
You progress through the game by creating different species and building an ecosystem of increasing size. Once you have enough prey established, you can create predators. Predators can move around the board, acquiring new land and fighting other players.
The game is over once 1 player has acquired 3 top predators and all players have taken the same number of turns.
Class: Visual Systems; Spring 2018
Instructor: Annabelle Gould; Chair, Division of Design
Design in the Wild is a theme that perfectly captures the current state of IxD as designers attempt to navigate the unexpected consequences of their work. Design is planned and shaped, but nature is fluid and unpredictable. This relationship between the two reveals the astounding potential of mankind, both to help and to harm. I captured that relationship by juxtaposing the two extremes; rigid geometry and fluid movement.
The “19” alternate logo can be used on its own in various applications.
I developed a series of gradients that can represent various things. I envision that more gradients could be developed for each speaker and event, depending on the subject matter or tone that needs to be conveyed.
Fractals, made up of triangles, form the patterns and graphic elements that supplement the logo and gradient fills. These fractals can be any combination of triangles and can be applied in a wide variety of ways.
Class: Design 166, University of Washington
Instructor: Kristine Matthews
When I started this project, I spoke to as many friends and family as I could to ask them about their experience using a lunchbox for work. Most of them told me they don’t use one at all, the most common explanation being that a lunchbox is just one more thing to carry around, forget to bring home, or lose. In terms of function, there’s not much difference between a fancy lunchbox and a paper bag, so why bother with all of that when you can just throw a paper bag away?
Well, in this case, as in many others, convenience begets waste. Dependence on single use objects is a leading cause of pollution, which means that carrying a reusable lunchbox is a very worthwhile choice. So, how do we encourage that choice, while maintaining the level of convenience afforded by single use containers?
The accordion lunchbox is my answer to that question. It’s a lightweight, reusable alternative that can collapse and be packed away when it’s empty.
The accordion is durable, because of its ability to flex in most directions. And the direction of the corrugations provides rigidity to the bottom and top to keep them from collapsing.
The pleats provide structure, as well as visual interest throughout every stage of use. The single-piece, cardboard design means that the lunch box is reusable, cheap, and compostable at end of life.
The accordion lunchbox is very simple to use and it can be stored just about anywhere. It is also versatile enough to fit into any setting, from a classroom to a business space.
Class: Interface Design, 2018
Instructors: Karen Cheng, Audrey Desjardins
Teammates: Katherine Taylor, Tallon Cote, Samuel Tompkins
In this class I was part of a team creating a navigation app for the Washington Park Arboretum. The application can help users navigate the park, find plant species they are interested in, explore new areas, and learn about the history and biology of a plant that is nearby.
View the final poster here.