The study abroad experience consisted of three preplanned workshops as well as visits to various fine art and design museums in Antwerp, Brussels, Arnhem, Utrecht and Amsterdam.
Each workshop challenged my creative thinking through unconventional problem solving which has widened my design sense. Every project was open ended with the exception of meeting minimal requirements. Learning from professional designers that are inspired by different disciplines and sources for inspiration, such as transforming mundane objects and data into captivating visuals to communicate an idea was an exciting experience for me.
The first workshop, located in Brussels, was with designers Bart and Joris. Split into groups, Toby, Paige and my objective was to utilize a local flee market as a physical google search to come up with a solution for an assigned prompt. My group’s prompt was: “Get your ass out of bed”. We collectively brainstormed and came up with keywords for the 'why' and 'what' would motivate someone to get out of bed. Using those words as a guide, we gathered and documented items to print out and assemble a narrative story.
The book tells a story of a young woman who puts aside their responsibilities for the pleasures of life and gradually is consumed by stress. They realize that to break free they must take action and get their ass out of bed.
The second workshop was with Catalogtree at Plaatmaken, in Arnhem. We were tasked with creating a travel sticker of our day biking through Het Nationale Park De Hoge Veluwe and visiting the Kröller-Müller Museum. I chose to incorporate the map of the sculpture garden as well as one of the words of advice seen while exploring. My design was also inspired by Théo Van Rysselberghe paintings. Using StippleGen2, a program that Joris and Daniel use to create randomized but structured bitmaps of images, I was able to achieve a random but organized composition of a section from the sculpture gardens’ map.
Before screen-printing, we were split up into four groups and choose 2 colors based on everyone’s design or preference. We screen printed our designs at Plaatmaken with the help from Joris Maltha, Daniel Gross and Simon.
The third workshop was with Sandra Kassenaar at The Future studio in Amsterdam. We were tasked with creating a one-page design for a class zine based on the latest issue of MacGuffin - The Letter. After designing, we would later Riso-print the zine with Tjobo Kho. The page showed our interpretation of the letters we have encountered during the trip, exploring what informs their shape, as well as discovering and collecting 'new' letters. My direction was to look at the letters created by the people. I collected classmates’ script letters of the alphabet as well as signatures and then scrambled them together. I used characters from each person to spell out: “a bunch of letters making up a greater whole.”
I was given the opportunity to participate in an unplanned workshop after listening to designer Sam de Groot's interview with Astrid Vorstermns about designing the book, Vis-à-vis series for Valiz. The workshop was a part of the "Valiz - 20+ Years of Books" exhibition at ENTER ENTER in Amsterdam. Three other students and I participated in a 45-minute workshop designing a book cover using contradictory images and a title that would fit in the series.
The final deliverable for the class was to document an assigned day during the trip. How and what we documented was left to our own interpretation. My assigned day was screen printing at Platmaaken. Initially, I documented the process of screen printing but transferred to the experience of screen printing. The passage I used was altered to fit the theme and context of the day. I approached my day as well as the trip to learn, grow, and enjoy the process and experience.