rss feedGraphic-Exchange
10:
So honored. Some of the projects I worked on are featured on Graphic–Exchange (one of my favorite blogs)!
Over or Under?
27:
On my way to the train station, I came across this ad for Cottonelle’s Roll Poll campaign. The sign encourages people passing by to vote if they have the toilet paper roll over or under. I thought it was nice way to keep people entertained while waiting for the bus. Oh, and I voted over.
A simple way to organize.
05:
I’ve finally found a great simple tool to organize my day. I don’t know why I didn’t try this sooner.
Designed by Swissmiss and built by Fictive Kin, TeuxDeux is a simple browser app where you can create a list of things that you have to do. It’s intuitive and very effective. Try it.
In 2010 I will…
29:
Ah! Another year over and onto the next one. For me, January 1st always brings a feeling of anticipation and excitement. Will this year be awesome? What will I accomplish? Where will I be 365 days from now? Of course, it’s not fun to know the answers to those questions, but I’ve always thought that it’s good to set some goals for the new year (whether they’re big or small).
I’ve created a “Resolution Generator” – a collection of goals contributed by family and friends and from various sources on the world wide web. Clicking the “gimme more” button generates random goals from the overall collection.
If you’d like to contribute some of your goals, please feel free to message me. I’d love to hear from you!!
Baking + Making
19:
It’s been a while since I’ve baked aggressively, so I was really excited when my mom suggested that we make our gifts for the holiday season. We also thought it’d be nice to customize our labels – so I designed the packages for our homemade goods. It’s been fun looking through our cook books and deciding which recipes to take on.
Typing
04:
Recently, I’ve started a new project– drawing the alphabet. Above are some of my sketches.
Design Ignites Change.
18:
This past spring, during my last semester of college, I participated in Design Ignites Change–an initiative developed by WorldStudio and Adobe Youth Voices to encourage high school and college students to use design to create messages and solutions to promote positive social change.
I had the opportunity to work with and mentor Rudy Marron, a talented high school student who went to the Paseo Academy in Kansas City, MO. The particular project we worked on required us to design a billboard to promote tolerance within the community. Rudy illustrated a luchador knocking down the words “Don’t tolerate stereotypes”. He wanted to encourage people to not let themselves be defined by negative stereotypes and to rise above those pre-concieved notions.
This fall, the billboard that we worked on for a semester finally went up. It’s 14 feet high and 48 feet wide. It’s really great to know that Rudy’s positive message is out there for everyone to see.
Me and Rudy with his billboard project
SixthSense
08:
Oh, the possibilities!
From Ted Talks:
“This demo — from Pattie Maes’ lab at MIT, spearheaded by Pranav Mistry — was the buzz of TED. It’s a wearable device with a projector that paves the way for profound interaction with our environment. Imagine “Minority Report” and then some.”
Blog Blog Blog
02:
It’s really hard for me to imagine that at one point, I was really hesitant about blogging. When I was first asked to create a blog for a design class to document my process and progress work, I thought, “Why can’t I just put all my process and research work in a binder?” I thought it would be a hassle– another thing I had to do and maintain on top of all my projects. Yes, I was unsure about the idea, but it was a class requirement and so I blogged. I blogged my sketches, mind maps, research, thoughts and ideas. I blogged my breakthrough discoveries as well as my failed concepts. I blogged and blogged…and somewhere in between blogging and blogging, I thought, “Hey, this isn’t so bad after all. I might even like this”.
Looking back at the several blogs I created while in college, I now see its value and realize that it made me a better student. I could have put all of my process and research work in plastic sleeves and compiled them in a binder and I would have been satisfied with that. However, the main difference between a binder and a blog is that a binder is more enclosed while a blog is more transparent. With my blog, my classmates + professors were able to view and critique my work and at the same time, I was able to be inspired and be motivated by the blogs of my classmates. It was truly amazing how the simple creation of blogs made a big difference– knowledge was spread, ideas were shared, and progress was made.
The best part is that I can now scroll through my past blogs and see that it’s all there– what I was thinking, doing, reading, making and imagining at those particular moments in my life. And so, I’ve decided to start this new blog, “Monina Makes”. I am hoping that this will be a place where I can share my everyday thoughts, discoveries, creations and hopefully, it will also be a place where I and others can learn some things from you.
