What is the World Design Capital?
The WDC is an organization that encourages the collaboration of design ideas and concepts every 2 years. It encourages the development of design and thinking critically and emphasizes their appreciation for addressing the issues in the region and experimentation.
The WDC is an important opportunity for the region because it brings the communities together and encourages collaboration which is essential for the design community and it’s development. With the ability to collaborate on projects together, the designs are almost guaranteed to be successful and creative.
Project Idea:
The main goal for this project in order to relate to the WDC, was to focus on our attention to the growth of education towards children by creating an appealing package. The packaging that we created contains a child's first book and to create an exciting first experience for them. We put emphasis on the public libraries in San Diego and Tijuana as a way to increase the amount of education given to these children as their first steps into their successful futures.
Production Process:
After thorough examination, Loren and I went through a list of different packaging approaches that we could take and decided that the approach would be a small box with a handle that allows the kids to carry it around. We then created our personal word search, while considering Spanish for the folks in Tijuana to be able to understand what it is that they are opening and dealing with. We did think about both sides when creating the overall idea and laser cut the material down and binded it together. We decided to name the packaging "My First Library" and created an illustration of the character from the book included inside named Odi the Coyote. We created it in black and white so that the kids can use the materials inside to color it themselves. Overall, this packaging was a success.
Prototype with Created illustrations and Word Search
Overall Goal
The goal is to inspire these young children to stay as far away from technology as possible and to start on the right foot in their educational journey to success. Technology is a blessing but also a curse at the same time, and with the availability of it, kids can easily become distracted and their development can be impeded due to all the different variety of things to do on the internet.
Our Project is relevant to the overall design brief for the WDC because it encourages our communities from San Diego across to Tijuana to expand diversity and to strive these young children to be excited to read books.
Design Decisions
For packaging purposes, we wanted to use material that is sturdy enough to be capable of holding the items that we placed inside such as the book. We first created the word search in only English but then decided that since we are making the project bilingual, it would be fun to create a mix of both languages to find within the search. For the front of the box, we were unsure what design we should include and we wanted to create illustrations of different animals because that is what children love the most. However, we decided to make the front more representative of what is inside the packaging which is a book of Odi the Coyote. We finally decided to make an illustration of him and to place it on the front with it not being colored, giving the children chance to fidget and have fun with it. Finally, we played the words "My First Library" on one side with the Spanish translation " Mi Primera Biblioteca" on the other side.
Collaborative Process
When it comes to the world of design and the creation of a successful project, Collaboration is essential because it takes the brain power of two or more individuals in order to share ideas, correct others ideas, and to create great feedback in order to strengthen your finished product. Overall, Loren and I shared different ideas back and forth to each other, using the process of elimination to decide how our product should look like to the class. The finished product was very successful and I am glad I had the opportunity to collaborate on such an experimental project.
Final Product
