I have still been bouncing ideas and inspirations around in my head for my final project. I always find this part of the design process the hardest. I generally have multiple ideas that inspire me or that I want to create, but have trouble narrowing down my imagination and honing in on what is feasible. I want to present here multiple of my ideas that I have been brainstorming for my final project and the roots that inspired me.

I am still really intrigued with the aspect of using light in my project, so I have been considering different ideas of how I could incorporate light and go further in my analysis of light and how it affects humans emotions. I am also very interested in human interaction and interactive public art. I would love to work on a project later in life that involved designing both for the public and is a project that people can interact with it tactically, emotionally, or with any of the other senses. I personally find this is the best way to create the most memorable experience.

Identifying two concepts that I wanted to focus on: public art and light, hardly helped me narrow down my final design. Here are some of the images and projects I found were inspiring to me as I continue into my design discovery.

http://www.contemporist.com/2014/12/16/raw-turns-downtown-montreal-into-an-interactive-kaleidoscope/

This is a link to this particular public art design. The prisms both shift in color and rotate. I would love to include some sort of rotational aspect in my design to keep it interesting. Music also plays as people turn the prisms. I would also love to incorporate some sort of music or aspect of my design that engages the ears. I want my design to be fully immersive to the main senses.

http://gothamist.com/2015/12/09/winter_garden_luminaries.php#photo-10

I saw this project on a small clip on TV a while ago and was very inspired by this project. It allows people to make a wish while touching an illuminated box on the ground. After the wish is made the box on the ground changes color and all the blocks floating above the wisher’s head change to match the box on the ground. I thought this was a beautiful representation of engaging people’s senses and emotion. They are visually seeing their wish float up into the sky, joined by all the wishes before it.

Another inspiration I got was the idea of being able to change the way a light was set up, making it dynamic, not static. This interior design project showed me the possibilities of being able to manipulate and change light and how freeing that would be for the consumer.

I was inspired by elevator button lights as well. This aspect would allow a person to constantly change their lighting to create a new pattern or design in a manner as easily as pushing a button. I am not sure how I would make this work, but it is definitely an idea I have been considering.

Another design inspiration I had came from the idea of projecting a silhouetted picture onto a wall. Similar to how movies first began, it would be cool to have a device that could be spun manually and each sector held a different silhouette image, perhaps from a story or a recognizable image, and shone a different color corresponding to the sector.

This silhouette aesthetic is something I would love to explore in my final design project as well. I love how stark a silhouette can be and how it can tell a story in only an outline. I love how creative silhouettes are and how they push the boundaries with their lack of color as well.

The last idea that was bouncing around in my head was some sort of interactive “pop-up” book to use loose terms. This wouldn’t be a children’s loud pop-up book you are imagining, but rather a sophisticated experience that could also be seen as a piece of artwork, possibly small-scale public work, that could be translated to a larger scale. The inspiration from silhouettes gave me this idea to create a complicated “book” of sorts that tells a single story or includes multiple images that create a story or can have meaning derived from it in someway. The book would fold out in every which way to be laid out fully on a table and have intricate detail and attention to the effect the silhouettes are giving it. Light could also be incorporated into this project as well to enhance the silhouettes.

This is a very loose couple of ideas that I have bouncing around in my head. I will start to narrow down on these concepts this week, but wanted to voice all of my inspiration in case I return to them later. I will not end up using all of the concepts I want to include in my final project, but will probably take bits and pieces from each of my inspirations and ideas. I do want to stay true to creating something that has a feel of public art or could be translated to public art. I will also most likely include a light aspect as well. From this study and brainstorming I can see that my concept is leaning more toward a single word: story. I want my design to tell a story and for people to be able to see their own stories or create their own stories through my design. We will see how my concept evolves as I continue designing and logistics start to take over imagination and poetry, but I hope to stay true to some of the concepts and inspirations I have mentioned here. I can’t wait to see the journey and story this project takes me on!