Senior Year Semester 1 Blogs
Blog 12
11/30 - 12/6
The logo has been finished! After a lot of Illustrator-induced banging-my-head-against-the-wall and some nitpicking courtesy of the house captain (not complaining by the way, the more refined I can get it the better!), it's finally done! I'm really happy with how it turned out and the rest of the house likes it as well. Now, all we need to do it laser it into wood with some acrylic or epoxy. We were gonna have Brandon and Drew do it, but they don't have access to the lab, so I'll probably end up doing it.
Also, I made more jewelry prototypes, this time with the star on the bottom. I like them, but I keep feeling like something's off about them. I was thinking of experimenting with the star design to see if that worked, or throwing the wire star out completely and replacing it with a clay star/flower. Also, according to Li, it looks like an eraser, so...gotta fix that. That should be easy; all I gotta do is spray it with some clear coat to make it shiny instead of matte, and also maybe make the colors more vibrant. I designed a cookie cutter for it in Onshape and I'm hopefully gonna be able to print that out soon. That way, I can get more out of a batch and make them look more uniform.
Blog 11
11/16 - 11/24
I made a jewelry prototype! Or, more like a prototype of a prototype. I was messing around with some scrap clay I had been using for color experiments and realized it looked kinda pretty together, so I kept messing around with it and decided to make it into a moon shape for no reason other than I thought it looked pretty. It looked kinda plain though, so I decided to try and add a little star to the top made of some wire. After I baked it, I attached it to a small little thing of chain to make it more dangly and....da-ta! I like how it turned out, but it could definitely use some tweaking. I'm going to experiment with it more and see what happens. There's a picture of it to the right.
Oh also, Ventura moved back into the purple zone for COVID, so now we can only have the same 15 people go into the lab. I'm one of the four chosen for my house, but it still sucks that not everyone can experience it yet. We still have the space at the Devine's office at least, which has been dubbed "The Lair", but that only has a couple machines. Hopefully we can go back to the original plan soon.
Quick logo update: I got a lot of it done on Illustrator, which can be a pain to work with but I'm getting better at it. I showed it to Sara and Mac the other day in the lab, so I know what needs to be improved. I also haven't started the leviathan part yet because making the fins scares me. But I should have it all done by next week!
Blog 10
11/9 - 11/15
WE'RE GOING TO THE LAB!!! Finally! I'm so excited to be back in there. I don't even have anything to make yet, I just want to go back. We have to follow strict COVID rules of course, but still, it's gonna be fun. Really all I'm planning on doing when I go in is help clean up and get things ready, and also meet with the house and discuss projects. It'll be nice to see everyone in person again as well. I miss being able to do that every day.
I also finished the logo prototype! I made three different ones, but everyone in the house liked the one pictured the most. So, that's what we're going with! I need to make the leviathan a bit fatter probably, and the ship could use some work as well. I might use a ship that Sara designed last year for her logo idea. Also, the rope needs to look more like rope. I sketched this out using paint and it's actually a pretty small sketch, so I didn't bother with making it look realistic for the time being. Plus, it's just a prototype. I'll fix it in post!
Blog 9
11/2-11/8
Wow this week was crazy. I got my driver's license, the election happened, AND we're gonna be starting our semester projects soon! Naomi picked up the machines we ordered from Mr. Li and took them to her parents office, so now we have that to start working with. I'm not sure how often I'll be there, since I mainly want to focus on jewelry this year, which means using the laser cutter a lot. But who knows, I might end up making some stickers. I do have some art made already that I can convert into stickers pretty easily, or I could redraw some stuff specifically for sticker making. But I think Drew and Brandon were gonna focus on stickers for the most part, so I'll try to stay out of their way.
I've started coming up with the design for the new logo! They're not finished yet, but I'm sketching them out and I'll hopefully have a few designs ready to go by next week for the house. I know everyone is anxious to get their shirts screen printed, so I gotta finish the logo so we can move forward with that.
Oh also, I made myself a little ghost keychain! It's not super relevant to everything, but it gave me the idea to maybe make some keychains for D-Tech. I've been having a lot of fun making stuff with clay, and since lab time will be limited, this is something I could still do even when I don't have access to the lab. It's not perfect, but I've improved a lot and I'm proud of how it turned out, and if I keep practicing, I could probably make something worth selling.
Blog 8
10/19 - 10/23
Last blog of quarter 1! I'm so excited for fall break. I really just need a week to relax since I've been pretty stressed out lately. And hopefully next quarter, we'll have access to the lab! We are also getting the machines we ordered soon, so even if we aren't able to get into the lab, we'll still be able to start making some products, which will be nice. Either way, I hope we can start working on our house businesses soon and actually start creating and selling products. I know everyone in my house is really excited to get started and I know we all have some cool ideas for what we want to do.
I've been experimenting with clay recently as another way of making jewelry, and I think that that could look really cool when combined with laser cut pieces. I haven't made any actual jewelry out of the clay yet, however. I've just been doing some experiments with things like colors and thicknesses. It'd be really neat if I could figure out a way to combine the clay with both the laser cut stuff and some wire elements.
We presented our COVID business ventures today, which wasn't nearly as awful as I thought it was going to be. I was the one giving the pitch, and I got super nervous right before I started talking, but everything went really well! Li said I have an advertizer lady voice, which I wasn't sure was a compliment at first. But turns out it was, so hey, that works. The pitch had to be under a minute, which I think I managed to do. My first draft was a minute and 30 seconds, so I had to cut some stuff out, and Mac helped me cut some more stuff out when I couldn't figure out what else to do. The last time I timed myself, which was the night before, it was at a minute and 5 seconds, and that was when I was talking super fast. But I cut out another sentence or two right before I started talking, so that probably helped. We also made a presentation, which I didn't know we weren't supposed to present until after some other people went before me, but I like how that came out too. Also I never put up a picture of our logo from our venture, so I put it here to the right.
Blog 7
10/12 - 10/18
We made prototypes of our products! Well actually, Mac made them and Sophia and I helped pay for the materials. They turned out really cool though! There are pictures of them on the right and left, all of which were taken by Mac. The soap is really nice and even though it is too thick for what we had planned, it is still nice to have a smaller thing of soap for travel and stuff. He also made actual bars of soap with the excess, which would also be a cool thing to make. And everything smells really dang good. It turned out so well for a first prototype. Also we were supposed to make a logo for our company, so Sophia made the one you see on the hand sanitizer. We wanted to have the axes and the firefighter helmet in there since we're focusing on helping fight the fires in California by giving different organizations our proceeds.
Apparently some people are going to meet up and decide on whether or not we can go back to school and start using the machines again. Not as an all day thing, but just for an hour after class in small groups. It wouldn't happen until after fall break, but that's not too far away anyway. I'm really hoping that we can. I want to get back to creating jewelry. I love working with just wire and stuff, but the laser cutter just opens up so many options for me and I can't wait until I can use it again. It's always been my favorite machine since it can cut out super detailed and super thin things. It's so perfect for jewelry.
Blog 6
10/5 - 10/11
We've started a new project where we have to create a new business meant to help during COVID. It's all hypothetical, so this probably isn't something that we'll end up doing later on, but we are supposed to come up with products, a pitch, and determine what our four forces are. Basically, an entire business model. I'm kinda excited for this. I'm in a group with Mac and Sophia and we are talking about creating packets of single use soaps and no alcohol hand sanitizer. The soaps would be especially cool because it would be an easy path to potential business partners since we can essentially cut them into any shape, including a logo. We were also thinking of donating the money we make to fire stations to help with the wildfires. We finished a template that we had to do where we had to determine things like our key partners and our customer relationships, among many other things, and there's a picture of the full thing to the left.
We might try and make prototypes of our products but I'm not sure yet. It would be really cool if we did though. Plus, we determined that it would be really easy to make. Soap base is a really common thing, and so is witch hazel and aloe vera, the ingredients for our hand sanitizer. So we could totally make some of them just for fun. I'll write about what we do in the next blog.
Blog 4
9/21 - 9/27
Nothing super exciting happened this week. We did learn about design thinking, which is basically applying the philosophy behind design to business. It's a cool concept and it allows you to break down a new venture into 3 parts: human, technical, and business. It kinda simplifies everything and gives you a sort of checklist so you can see what you need to put into your business and product.
The other thing we did this week was talk about our logo. I consulted with the rest of my house and I had the idea of completely redesigning the already redesigned logo to give it more of a rustic/sailor look. It's sort of hard to explain, so I out some examples to the right that we found off of Google. I had the idea to do it like this last year, but I didn't think I could pull it off. But now, especially since I have help, I think it'll end up looking really cool. I still need to draw up some concepts and talk with Drew and the rest of the house, so I'll see if I can do that this week, and hopefully I'll have a picture of it for my next blog!
Blog 3
9/15 - 9/20
This week, we went over startups in class. A startup is basically a temporary organization with hopes to scale up and become a full on business sometime in the future. We learned a bunch of terms like capital, asset, market, as well as what successful startups have and how to create a new venture. To be perfectly honest, describing it is kinda boring. The contents itself are interesting, but writing it out and explaining what I learned this week is just sort of...meh. It feels a little forced (maybe because it is...just a bit...sorry Li). Like its the typical "Today I learned..." thing that you do whenever a teacher asks you to summarize a lesson. It's just not the most entertaining or fun thing to read/write. I get why we should do it, just to give ourselves some review and show what we learned, but still. Anyways moving on.
I started trying to come up with some ideas for the Leviathan logo and its not going too well. I did some sketches both on paper and on Photoshop and nothing really looked that great. The ideas I have in my head seem good, so maybe I'm just not a good enough artist to pull it off. I'm going to keep working at it, as well as try to talk to some of my house members to see if they can help, mainly Drew since he wants to go into graphic design and he's pretty good at it in my opinion. But hey, if this doesn't work out, the logo I made last year should be ok. Its already updated and I think it looks pretty good. The reason I'm trying to redo it again, as mentioned in the previous blog, is just so that it's easier to use for screen-printing and whatever else we may use it for in the future.
The other thing I did this week was take house pictures! We all went up to Arroyo Verde and took a whole bunch of pictures, both group and individual. It was so nice being able to see everyone after so long. We've had meeting in Teams and we can see each other over Zoom and stuff, but its not nearly the same as seeing everyone in person. It was like a much needed reunion. I didn't realize how much I missed being able to just casually hang out with the whole house until we were doing just that. I really hope we can go back into the lab later this year. I put a few pictures from the photoshoot as well as some pictures Sara and I took of everyone hanging out and just having a good time. (side note: we attempted a jumping photo and Naomi did a glorious kick-thing that I don't know the name of, hence the picture to the right)
Blog 2
9/8 - 9/13
Not too much happened this week. We chose which machines we wanted to get for when we actually start making stuff. We ended up choosing two Crickets and one DIY screen-printing kit. We would have gotten two screen-printing kits, however, Mac was going to try and see if Mr. Frazier could lend us one of his. So technically, we will hopefully be getting two.
I also agreed to try and fix up our logo. I redesigned it in AP Art last year, however, I thought it would be a good idea to make the actual leviathan a full silhouette instead of just and outline so that it's easier to screen print, as well as just easier to use in general. I have some vague ideas, so I'm going to try and sketch them out later this weekend just to give myself an idea of what I want. I'm hoping they turn out looking just as good on paper as they do in my head. I'm not exactly the best artist, so we'll see. I put the sketch from the redesigned logo on the right.
Blog 1
8/31 - 9/6
So this week we had a lesson on the entrepreneurship basics, which I thought was pretty interesting. Li talked about the differences between a small business and an entrepreneur, what barriers there were and how to overcome them, and just general key things to keep in mind when becoming an entrepreneur. The thing that stood out to me most was the "perceived barriers" that we create for ourselves, for example saying "I don't have an idea" or "I don't have the right skills". For me, this stood out because this is what I commonly do. I'm often self conscious about my skills and my ability to do things like this. I'm constantly telling myself that I'm not doing enough or that I'm not trying hard enough or putting enough into something.
Take for example our back to school night Gravity Water fundraiser last year. I made a bunch of jewelry for that fundraiser. I took so much time out of my schedule to make it, including staying up late every so often just to crank out one more pair of earrings. Yet at the end of the day I still felt like I could have done more. I looked at my work and only saw the flaws and told myself that I should have done more to fix those flaws. I should have been more productive instead of sitting around, I should have put more time into the design, I should have...etc etc. Looking back I know that's wrong, and often today I know those thoughts are incorrect, but that doesn't stop me from still thinking that. I rarely feel genuinely proud of what I do. However, I am getting better at that and I'm starting to see the time and effort that goes into my work and the true value of my work, and while I'm not fully there yet, I hope that through the course of this year I can get closer to being there by overcoming these barriers that I've built up around me.
Because of this I am starting to see myself as an entrepreneur and not just a worker. I design my own jewelry, among other things, so that has to count for something. And I hope to create more new things over the next year. I put a picture of the earrings I made on the left.
I think the concept that my House will benefit from the most is the idea of using technology in innovative ways to our own advantage to overcome barriers. Technology has advanced so much, allowing many previous barriers to be nearly non-existent. So, I think that my House can use this technology to our advantage to overcome any other barriers that might still be in our way.