Project ID - Interior Design Identity

So it’s been a month since I started attending my classes for interior design and I must say, I haven’t felt this giddy and nervous in a long time. I’ve always really liked first days, there’s a certain sense of anticipation and magic that hangs about the air, with the promise of possibilities. Even as a kid, I’ve always looked forward to June cause it means I’m going back to school and that means a couple things: 

• having an excuse to hoard new pens and notebooks,
• finally being able to see my friends again,
• having allowance after weeks of being penniless (YAAS), 
• and of course, going back to studying because it means I won’t be bored anymore!

Maybe I’ve always been ADHD as a child and I easily get bored. Which kind of explains why the past few weeks of being at home have been excruciatingly painful for me, which maybe I will blog about next :)

For our first project, we were asked to make and design our own name tags — simple enough, right? But since this is design school, of course a simple cardboard name tag similar to what we do in grade school just won’t cut it. (Pun intended.) Unlike past projects in school, or even presentations for work, there weren’t any strict guidelines other than that it has to be functional (it is a name tag after all) and it has to say something about ourselves. 

So here’s what I came up with: 

                                      

Since my name is a palindrome, I tried to make it a mirror image. It spells out my full name (H-A-N-N-A-H) and also folds back to reveal my nickname (H-A-N). Also, if you notice, the letters were each embellished differently. 

                                      

• The H is a banana tree because I’m Hannah Banana. (Obviously, I don’t know how to make banana tree I had to YouTube it!) 
• The A has a Toby’s coffee cup and is embellished with coffee beans because I love coffee, especially Toby’s. (I had to steal those coffee beans for Starbucks and ask Andro to help me get those empty Toby’s cups. Haha!) 
• The N has magnets from #PoetryMagnetsPH because I love words be it reading or writing. 

Although we had one week to do the project, which in corporate world IS a long time, I think it was just enough time because since there weren’t any specific directions aside from the general guidelines, I had to come up with the concept on my own, think through the design rationale and construction, and then execute via trial and error. Most times I had to re-do everything because the actual product didn't turn out the way I wanted it to be. I realise that design is really about the thought process that goes behind the concept, and the details when you bring it to life. More than showing a representation of your design idea, you must equally be able to communicate the idea and rationale behind it. Who would have thought, right?