Design 3451 Projects- Spring 2023
1) Mockt[AI]ls
Project description from the class website: "With the rise in popularity of latent text to image AI, design students engaged with Midjourney while carrying a critical and curious mindset. What types of prompts can we input, and what do they mean? How do we assess output? How might we encounter bias - in the system, in ourselves? How might a designer critically and responsibly engage with such an AI?
To wrestle with these questions, students were tasked with designing a novel "mocktail" - a non-alcoholic cocktail beverage - while accounting for some visual style and some cultural reference."
Mocktail Description: This bubbling midnight treat is sure to quench even a vampire's thirst. Layered with fruity flavor and deadly delicious jelly topping, this colorful graveyard classic will thrill your taste buds with citrus, berry, and a mint garnish.
Process: I started with the prompt "Shirley Temple drink mocktail with paper umbrella" because that's one of my favorite mocktails. This gave me some rather creepy results as the AI wanted to add the actual Shirley Temple into the image, so I changed my theme. I decided to try a Halloween mocktail, using variations, upscaling, and more descriptive prompts to get more refined results. The final prompt was "Halloween cute spooky colorful party drink mocktail photorealistic, graveyard background, cinematic lighting."
Reflection: As much as I hate AI art for screwing over hard working artists, even I have to admit that this is a great way to generate ideas for designs. It's a great starting point, especially if you're in an art block and need to get inspired. I'd use it as a sort of Pinterest board to get ideas for actual, human-made art and design work.
2) Redesign
"Revisiting a previous project, design students reflexively leverage text and images to seed AI generated revisions"
original image input
generated images
Final AI image (left) and my edited final redesign using elements I enjoyed from the generated images (right)
3) Tick Tock
This project entailed recreating realistic motion of a clock's second hand in a KeyShot animation.
4) De/Re-construct
We were to import a Lego model from GrabCAD and animate it being deconstructed and constructed in KeyShot.
5) VR Dining Experience
We worked in groups to learn the Gravity Sketch program on a Meta Quest virtual reality headset and use it to create an interactive dining experience.
6) Perfect Fit
For this last protect of the semester, we used 3D scanning apps to scan part of a classmate's body and design an item to fit that person. I scanned my friend's head and designed a Mad Max: Fury Road-themed welding helmet for them, as they had just watched that movie with me and loved it, and we were welding for another project at the time.
I knew I wanted to create a cool new welding helmet for my friend, but I didn't know what I wanted at first, so I used AI image generators to see what they spit out from the prompts I entered. I wasn't in love with the images it produced design-wise, so I kept thinking. Then, I remembered that we had watched Mad Max: Fury Road together, and that movie had amazing art direction and costume design from which to take inspiration.
I mainly took inspiration from Max's "bloodbag" mask (right) as he is the protagonist.
This is the final design! I was so excited to show it to my friend and I think it turned out pretty cool for a project with a short time frame!