Process Report- what we've done so far

Industries of the Blind Project Report:

Clients’ Expectations for the Space:

-Wanted a timeline to show their history since the 1930s until now and how it has progressed

-Wanted the mission of the company to be represented in the design

-Wanted to draw the community in so that Greensboro can see what the IOB is producing

Interviewing the Employees:

-All of the employees reinforced the family environment at the IOB

-Talked about how there is more open communication within the company than in the past

-Expressed a need for tailoring the design to each different type of visual impairment

-As a company, they contribute to the community and want that to be seen (want the community to feel the passion for IOB like they do)

Braille as a Texture:

-We used Braille as a way to relate the nature of the company and its employees into our design; we believed texture was necessary as a means of way finding and creating a tactile experience for the visually impaired.

-How Braille could be used on different levels of scale

-We abstracted the concept of Braille as a texture and began exploring other shapes

Experimentation:

-We began making sketch models as a way of exploring texture

-Made rubbings to explore the inverse of the textures we studied

-Worked with light and photo studies to show how light was affected by our textures

-Increased and decreased scale of our models and applied them to floor, wall, and ceiling

Graphic Elements:

-Started out with a chaotic, irregular triangular form

-Moved to a hexagonal tessellation pattern

-Decided on a warm color scheme and applied color studies to our graphic elements

Concept:

-Arrived at a family tree idea for a concept because of the family environment at the IOB and the long history of the company

-Decided on “White Oak” as our concept because it symbolizes the IOB’s strength, endurance, and ability to adapt to changing circumstances over time

-Broke our concept down to roots, trunk, and leaves:

-Roots: founders, people of the past contributing to the history of the IOB

-Trunk: management, workers

-Leaves: products, the output IOB is giving to the community

Current Endeavors:

-Revisiting texture, applying the concept to our tessellation pattern

-Developing ideas for a lighting design

The Big Reveal

On Friday, we got feedback from lighting designer Scott Richardson who gave us some great ideas and advice on how to use light in the space. One main point he made was making it easier on older eyes, eyes with visual impairments, and even young eyes with great vision by decreasing glare. He suggested we do this by decreasing the difference in inside light and outside light while entering the space by creating a transition that allows the eyes to adjust to different light. We discussed the harsh, hospital-like florescent lighting that is currently in the space and he advised us to look at different kinds of florescent lighting that isn't so harsh. Upon Scott seeing our hexagonal graphic, we discussed backlighting with him as a way to highlight the shapes as well as creating interesting shadows to continue patterns on the floor, walls, and ceiling. He saw our triangular overhang idea as a good opportunity to diffuse light using a translucent material. We're looking forward to meeting with Scott again on November 4th to discuss more exciting possibilities!

Our 2nd presentation on Friday was given to David Lopresti and Richard from IOB. Kelsey, Anuj and I spoke to them about our process so far, our preliminary ideas for the space, and our concept. I am happy to report that they were astounded by the fruits of our labor and were totally on board with our concept and graphic idea. Richard was especially excited about the prospect of a tactile experience using lots of texture. Based on their feedback, we are now planning to incorporate more texture into our hexagonal graphic. Our next step is focusing on making our graphic at different scales and exploring 3D elements and the use of texture.

The Wall 2.0 + concept

After completing our texture studies and arriving upon a final graphic (hexagon tessellations), we developed a concept that we believed fit the IOB. Our final concept is a family tree, specifically a white oak. We believed that a family tree symbolizes the closeness and family-like work environment at Industries of the Blind. The roots of the tree symbolize the "roots" of the IOB: founders of the company, its past achievements that began what it is today. The trunk is the IOB management and factory workers, everyone who now creates what IOB is providing for the community and the military. The leaves are the actual products themselves, IOB's contribution to the world. We chose a white oak because it is native to Greensboro and it is a very strong and sturdy tree that shows the resilience of the IOB and the ability to bounce back from hard times. We displayed this "tree" using our hexagon graphic on the wall, beginning with dark, muted triangles at the bottom of the wall and blossoming into a colorful mass of warm color.

The process of creating this final bit of wall was a bit tedious and definitely challenging at times, but we all worked together to create an awesome final display. Here's a look at our process throughout the week:

Preliminary Pin-Up

Our wall shows the process we used to arrive at our final graphic idea for the IOB. In the first section of the wall, we developed textures using sketch models, including pastel rubbings and preliminary color studies and sketches. We then developed a "triangle tree" idea for a trellis to install throughout the space. We debated using the harsh triangles, but then decided on a hexagonal pattern to use as a repeating graphic in the space. Our wall ended with a photograph slideshow of light and shadow explorations using our texture models, displayed with our final 3 color scheme ideas.

playing with light

texture/pattern

beginning ideas in post-it note form

Being more than excited to take on the IOB, we all needed to get out individual ideas for the space out and organized. With 8 people in the group, it was difficult to try and figure out a method that we could use to have everyone’s ideas heard and remembered. After a small epiphany at 3 o’clock in the morning, I had an idea: post-it notes.

I sent out an email explaining my idea to the group; we were going to each write out our ideas on post-it notes. I supplied the post-its and a small container to put them in after an idea was down. We did it over the course of the weekend and on Monday took them all out to try and start organizing our thoughts and ideas.

what the post-its actually say

We came to the conclusion that we had three main categories to focus on, 1)texture/pattern 2)lighting 3)telling the story. We are starting with texture/pattern and plan on creating multiple ideas, sketches, and sketch models to explore this category.