Design is everywhere. We observe and encounter design during every moment of our daily lives: the objects we interact with, the spaces where we live, work, and play, the landscapes that surround us, the transportation systems that help us move, the communication systems we use, the streets and cities we navigate... Each human-made artifact tells a unique story of why and how it was created. Design is deeply woven into the history of humankind.

The act of designing physical objects and structures to solve specific challenges and as an expression of culture has existed throughout human history. Early humans carved stone tools for hunting and eating, the Mayan civilization wove thatch roofs to protect from rain, the Romans constructed aqueducts to transport water across cities, the Shang dynasty’s cast ritual bronzes for making tools, the Gandhara’s carved the Bamiyan Buddhas as an expression of spirituality, the Anastasi carving a city beneath a cliff to protect from sun. No matter when something was designed, what was made, or who made it, each was created for a specific purpose.

Design is....?

In this studio, we will explore methods and techniques for designing, design analysis, and design theory. Throughout the studio, we will address three key questions through a series of exercises, presentations, readings, and discussions:

• What is design?
• How do we design?
• How does design shape our world?

THE PRESENTATION POST

This post's privacy is set to Everyone. This post showcases your final design by telling the comprehensive story of how your idea was born, developed, and manifested. The arc of the story should encompass the, How of your project in a compelling narrative. It showcases your design process including your brainstorming, each of your iterations, and your final prototype. It allows the viewer to delve deeply into your process.

• Every Slide should have a Title and Caption.
  The body of this post is The Brief. You should include a version of the Brief for each collaborator in the project.
• This post will be used in your review presentation at the end of the session.

You are encouraged to make your narrative as compelling as possible. All of the content below should be included, but if you would like to rearrange the material in order to tell your story differently, work with your coach.

INTRODUCTION PORTION

Your presentation is a narrative, and the introduction sets up the scene for that story. Here you introduce the project, say why it is important, and summarize what you did.

TITLE WITH TAGLINE: This slides shows a crisp, clear final image and the title of your project. with a pithy blurb describing the project. The image, name, and tagline should draw a viewer in. 

Examples:

• The Fruit - A line following, light tracking robot
• Segmented Vehicle - A vehicle that conforms to the landscape
• Cacoon - Wearable sculpture exploring the concept of transformation and death

EVOCATIVE  IMAGE: This is a single image that shows a clear image that evokes the soul of your project. This image helps set up the why in a compelling way, sets the stage for your narrative, and will help frame the entire presentation. The caption of this slide (set with the Edit Captions button when editing your post) should discuss the context of your project. No Text on the slide.

THESIS STATEMENT: This is a TEXT ONLY slide for which briefly describes the Soul and Body of your project. You can use the project description from your Brief or write something new. This statement ties together your narrative.

Examples:

• The Cocoon:  A wearable sculpture that explores the concept of transformations and death. The Cocoon explores the spiritual journey beyond the human experience; what it means to be human, how wonder effects us, and the concept of what happens after death.
• Body Accordion: A musical prosthetic that translates the wearer’s body movements into a dynamic multimedia performance. The Body Accordion converts flex sensor input to sound through Arduino, MaxMSP, and Ableton Live. 
• Seed to Soup Animation: A whimsical animation about the slow food movement. Seed to Soup showcases a holistic method of cooking. From garden, to kitchen, to dinner table.
• Antlers: A wearable sculpture inspired by antlers found in the deer and antelope family. "Antlers" explores the comparison between armor and attraction. 

PROCESS PORTION

The Process Portion of your presentation tells the story of how you iteratively developed your project. Somewhere in that story you should include conceptual and technical precedents that guided you at each stage as well as brainstorming and process sketches and clear photo booth imagery for 3-4 stages of your process.

This portion is made up of three types of slides repeated 3-4 times. Each iteration in your process should include:

• PRECEDENTS:  Precedents are any projects that inspired you creatively or gave you technical guidance. These can include conceptual precedents and technical precedents. No Text.
• SKETCHES/SKETCH CONCEPT DIAGRAMS: These slides show your generative ideas in sketch form. These should clean, clear drawings. A sketch should show a clear idea. Do not simply scan a messy sketchbook page and expect that people will understand. If you do not have a clear concept or working sketches it is fine to make them after the fact. No Text.
• PROTOTYPE IMAGES:  These are actual images of the prototypes  you documented in your daily posts. These images illustrate your design decisions and how your project changed at each step. No Text.

FINAL PORTION

The Final stage of your presentation is the resolution of your narrative and shows your completed work. The use diagram shows how your project works and the construction diagram shows how it is assembled. Final photos show the project both in action and at rest. The imagery captures your final built design.

USE DIAGRAM: A diagram showing some aspect of the functionality. These can include:

• How one uses or interacts with the project
• The overall behavior of the project over time
• For a complex interactive project, this can be a clear diagram of the software behavior

MECHANICAL DIAGRAM:  A diagram offering insight on how the project is put together and functions technically.

• Ideally, this will be an exploded axonometric
• At minimum this can be a labeled disassembled photo  

ELECTRONICS or OTHER DIAGRAM: Additional diagrams showing some important aspect of your design. 

IMAGERY: The last slides should have an images of the final project. These images should be taken in the photo booth, cropped, and adjusted for contrast, brightness, etc. Images should include:

• An image of the project in use (taken in the booth or at large). This should include a human interacting with the project.
• Images of project alone. Include at least one overall image and one detail image.
• You can also use an image In-Use. 
• Consider using a GIF to show how the project works. 

This game of chess represents gentrification with the chess pieces symbolizing the difference between the local restaurants and the chain restaurants.

The chain-restaurant pieces are more rigid and plain whereas the local restaurant pieces are more diverse and unique. The project exists for players to better understand the problems with chain businesses coming in and driving local businesses out. The project teaches chess players the impact of gentrification with the two sides playing against each other. The rules would be the same as in traditional chess, however, the pieces look different. We used wood and cement to create the chess pieces, 

Lucy Brief:  Social Chess is a game that uses patterns that highlights different types of privilege in the real world to help show the flaws in our society. Each piece is made out of concrete to have a simplistic look. This game uses pawns with different abilities to show how being born in a certain social class may affect how you move up in life.

Society has created a system where people with more privilege tend to move up while people with less tend to stay the same or fall behind. This game is made to show the different advantages and disadvantages that people face depending on their social status. The game uses 15 pawns and one king on each side of the board. The goal is to get the pawns to the other side also representing the idea of the "American dream".  Even though they are all pawns, some pieces have advantages that help them get to the other side faster. Once a pawn gets to the other side they can turn into any piece they want except for a pawn with an advantage. They turn into their advantage. For example, the rook pawn will then unlock all the powers a rook has but it can't change into anything else. This is to show that some advantages don't actually help in the end.

Sina Brief: 

A version of chess that represents the flaws of the modern "American Dream" through the journey of a pawn to the other side of the board. It portrays the different experiences of those in different social classes with pawns who are given different abilities and moves than others. 

The “American Dream” is the idea that everybody can achieve their dreams of success as long as they work hard. Social Chess makes the player question whether the “American Dream” is the same today. In chess, bringing your pawn to the other side of the board allows it to transform into a better piece. Social Chess takes that move and uses it to represent the modern American life: every piece except for the king is a pawn who wants to achieve their dreams by getting to the other side, but some pieces start with the enhanced physical traits and movement abilities of other pieces which gives them with a major advantage. The pawns are made of the same concrete mold to show the original intention of equality and uniformity, but certain pieces have obvious differences from that blueprint -- they have physical traits of better pieces. Despite their intention of uniformity, there is a big contrast between the advantaged and disadvantaged pieces. This demonstrates to the player the impact social class has on the ability to find success and achieve the American Dream. 

Janice:

Why don't cashiers have a chair? We read reviews of previous Walmart employees on their experience in different job positions, and discovered that there is usually a large imbalance between the staff and management. Those in hourly-paid jobs reported less opportunity for pay, benefits, advancement in the company, and overall respect. Employees with a salary acknowledged existing negligence, although they lacked discernible remorse or empathy.

We attempt to portray this inequality with a chess set that represents Walmart's hierarchy. Pawns have little resemblance to the Walmart logo, yet as pieces increase in importance (like the queen and king), they grow closer in resemblance to the Walmart logo. This represents the divide between corporate Walmart employees and hourly workers.  This is an observation that Walmart adopts those in corporate positions, and distances themselves from employees on the lower rungs of the task force, even when subsidiaries may stay with the company for longer. We also accentuated the stark disparity further with a jump in the geometry of the head of the pieces when the management jobs are introduced as the kings and queens. The mechanics of chess help to drive our point further by giving the lower-ranking pieces a shorter range of movement, comparable to the absence of options for advancement in an worker's career at Walmart. Overall, this chess set aims to call out Walmart on the similarities in their employee dynamics to the piece mechanics of chess, a game modeled after a tyrannical monarchy.

Uliana:

This chess game, "Pros: Paycheck Cons: Everything" uses chess pieces to mimic the hierarchy of Walmart and other retail jobs.  We wanted to show that employees lower in the corporate hierarchy are controlled by management and executives who only care about money.  Our six pieces represent maintenance workers (pawn), cashiers (rook), stockers (knight), sales associates (bishop), department managers (queen), and store managers (king). 

We chose to represent the progression of power and lack of empathy in each of these roles by making the pieces look progressively more like a Walmart symbol until the king is explicitly the Walmart symbol. This exemplifies how employees that are higher up in the Walmart hierarchy care more about the benefits and money that Walmart gives them rather than the employees below them.