Brittanie Anderson

Edit

I am...

A 2nd-year Gallatin MA student enrolled in the Tisch ITP course: Pencils, Polymers & Pixels: Working With Prototypes. You can find all assignments (my 'mess pile') below.

Outline

The Timepiece

The Pod in 3D & Illustrator

I attempted three iterations of the pod in Google Sketchup. This was my first attempt at a CAD program. I was able to create 3d pods, though not with rounded corners or bevels of any kind. Here is the file to open in Google SketchUp: 3dpod.skp

Rapid Iteration: The Pod - 3/9/09

For my rapid iteration, i would like to examine an object that I had been toying around with for some time now, the pod. For a website that I am creating, I want the website to be shaped around the idea of pods, or rounded squares. Some examples are Smalltostudio, Nifty Cubes, and David Barton Gym, with the first example the most closely aligned to the look I am going for.

My site is going to be pod-based because it is a music site, and the pods will encase record collections that users will be able to flip through using a similar technology as iTunes cover flow. So for continuity purposes (and because it looks cool), I am extending the pod theme to other elements of the site. I began really pondering what the pods could look like, and so I drew out different instances of pods:

The variations shown above are: plain box, outlined box, outlined woodgrain box with title, non-outlined woodgrain box with title, outlined woodgrain box with title 2, 'the pod', and filled box. The bottom pods contain records, because eventually, some of the pods will have records in them. For this rapid iteration I will focus on just the pod form, in varying levels of detail.

The Finished Timepiece - Tag Cloud Time Art - 3/1/09 - 3/9/09

1 - The Concept

Due to some confusion about my personal conceptualization of time (See below for my explanation of time and the individual as 'good times', I decided to make a simpler, more traditional timepiece.

The concept of time and the individual is still more important to me than a simple display of hours and minutes. I decided to create a watch that displayed various increments of time, including month, day, year, hours, minutes, seconds, sunrise, sunset, and the astrological calendar. Users would then be able to program the watch to display the features that interest them most prominently, like a tag cloud.

the_timepiece,_itp,_prototype,_prototypes,_class,_project,_food_017.JPG

2 - Planning The Design

The actual physical timepiece would hold the same form as the original 'good times' timepiece, except it would be clear except for the touchscreen center.

the_timepiece,_itp,_prototype,_prototypes,_class,_project,_food_016.JPG

3 - Final Physical Prototype

I constructed the timepiece from computer printouts and a plastic beverage cup (a clear material that was already curved, and thus wrapped perfectly around my wrist).

The first screen shows the a random user's settings (mine). The second screen shows an alternate user setting, as well as the adjustment screen, where users can adjust the size of the different time elements in realtime. Tapping each element cycles it through x-small, small, medium, and large sizes. The third screen lets users select which options they want to display at all, in case they want to free up screen real estate by letting go of a particular time display like sunrise, sunset, zodiac, etc.

the_timepiece,_itp,_prototype,_prototypes,_class,_project,_food_020.JPG

The finished piece is similar to how I would like for the item to look, minus the fact that small text under plastic was very difficult to photograph.