make more things
one of my goals this year is to make more things. thankfully, i have access to sva’s risolab all semester which i hope (fingers crossed 🤞) will be a forcing function for me to make it happen.
defining a thing
what do i consider things? things are projects that feel like presents wrapped with a bow on top 🎁. you know that feeling you get when a friend gives you something they made and they're proud of it 🥺? things are not necessarily perfect and polished. however, they should get to a point where i'm happy leaving it as is.
one other important trait is that making a thing should not feel like work. if it feels like work, then it immediately does not qualify as a thing.
basically anything that you made as a kid qualifies. when i was younger, i was queen of making things. some of my greatest works were:
- a working chair that made out of all the scratch paper. it took me forever to let my parents throw it away.
- a library catalog system for my books that only i used.
- a wall of fashion magazine cut outs that i expertly organized by vibe. this masterpiece is still up in my childhood bedroom.
as we get older, it gets harder to make something just for the sake of it. what's the point of the website you're making? why are you reading this book? we're trained to optimize and build things that make a difference or have a purpose.
to kick off my year of making more things, i decided to do a brainstorm (a very designer thing to do). here are the ideas i came up with in 5 minutes1.
- jazz theory zine*
- all about saxophones zine*
- intro to product design zine
- liz's closet exquisite corpse zine*
- alexander mcqueen runway show digital archive
- riso printed origami paper with guiding lines
- guide to fort greene zine and/or website*
- taiwanese food zine
- color chart print
- design and make a dress from scratch that i would actually wear
- riso printed postcard set maybe based on popular jazz standards
basically, i just want to make a bunch of zines 😇.
update: a couple of days after writing this post, i made my first thing of the year~ programs for an upcoming show:
The starred ones are what i'm most excited about!↩