Projects in Process: SVA IxD Dept. Installation, Brainstorming

See Part I for more about this project.

We’ve been brainstorming (and thinking about possible product metaphors) for the last several days to come up with concepts that meet the project requirements, including the important one that this installation not be just a slideshow of student work. One technique we’ve used was to brainstorm around objects that you might find in hallways. (The installation will be in a hallway.)

We came up with a long list of about 40 objects, everything from coat racks to bookcases to lamps. We picked 10 objects to brainstorm against:

• Clock
• Window
• Sculpture
• Map
• Wind Chime
• Fish Tank
• Plants
• People Movers
• Ash Trays
• Holy Water Font (“Stoup”)

We took these items and free-associated characteristics and actions attached to them. For example, a window is about opening, temporality, able to see outside, changing light, scenery, transparency, and possibility. We could use either the object itself or these associated words to generate ideas.

In our first brainstorming session, we came up with about 25 initial concepts based off this framework, and plan to continue exploring for the next several days until we have dozens of ideas from which to choose and refine the best to present to SVA early next week.

This was written by Dan. Posted on Wednesday, October 7, 2009, at 1:15 pm. Filed under Projects in Process. Bookmark the permalink. Follow comments here with the RSS feed. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.