New Project!!

New project alert! It is nearing the end of our second week back to school. What's due tomorrow, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. It's a digital material presentation board for a new store that we are going to be designing. For this project, we were GIVEN the concept. Let me stress how meaningful that is--coming up with a concept for any new project is so challenging. It is actually one of my favorite parts of the design process, but gah, it gives me headaches. When coming up for something that your whole project is going to be based on or inspired by, so many ideas are running through your head, and it is difficult to pick just one. Or sometimes, you can't think of any. So for miss Suzanne to just hand me my concept on a silver platter (actually, I picked it out of a plastic tub), that completely skipped the "oh my gosh, what the heck is this whole thing going to be about" part of the process. It is a good way to start off the year, I think. We're getting back into the swing of things slowly.

Anyway, for my little store, I'm going to be selling perfume and cosmetics and my concept is: (drumroll, please) Silent Stones.

Did you just say "Huh?" because that was my exact reaction. I really didn't know what it was. I started researching it and for a couple days really kind of drew a blank a to which direction I should take it. At first I thought that I wanted to set up different beautiful, lit up displays around a dimly lit room and they would symbolize rock formations. After a meeting with the class, though, I rethought that and went back to the concept.

What is a stone? How does "silent stone" make me feel? Where are stones found? I thought of the feel of a stone. What differentiates between a rock and a stone?

After being in this state of mind, my thoughts were flooded with relaxing images in nature. Already at this point, I like where this was heading much more than the lousy 'rock formation' idea. What was I thinking? That had no substance. This store is going to feel spa-like and slightly japanese inspired. I'll have my actual materials presentation up tomorrow, but for now, here's some images that inspired me.