Jabberwocky Design

This post is Part 1 of this Imposing Model Project. Feel free to see the next part here.

The second project of my Industrial Design Form class was a bit more abstract than the first. We were asked to think about adjectives without an associated noun. That is, “fast” rather than “a fast car” or “fluffy” rather than “the fluffy bunny.” Specifically, we were trying to create a shape that conveys the adjective without any help from color, texture, or suggesting a physical object. This is surprisingly difficult to do. Only after exploring the form of the adjective itself would we be given the “noun” to apply the adjective to.

To begin with, I started by picking three adjectives to look at: sophisticated, dynamic and imposing. For each I created an image board, compiling images that characterized the adjective.

Sophisticated

For “sophisticated” I focused on two things, the elegance of nature in birds and flowers, and high-class items like violins and chandeliers.

Dynamic

“Dynamic” was all about motion. I included images of objects with high energy, like amusement park rides and fireworks, along with fluid motions. Waves are the definition of dynamic.

Imposing

To me, “imposing” relies heavily upon a concept of scale. Large things impose upon smaller things. Other than size, I found a sense of “vertical”-ness; tall and top-heavy objects seem to be imposing.

After creating the three image boards and defending my choice of imagery in class, I decided to run with Imposing. The next step was to proceed with hand sketches and sketch models of generic “imposing” forms, still without focus on an actual object.