What are "charettes"?

For my second semester of 2nd year design school, I have Patricio Davila as my core design class professor. More often than not, Patricio gives us design excercises to complete during class (he calls them "charettes") while the class takes turns branching off into individual groups of 4 or 5 to review project progress.

This week, the charette we were assigned told us to pick four words, and with those four words - we were to do a Flickr search on each word, and choose imagery from that search to use in four final compositions. Our goal in designing the compositions was to explore a common grid, digital collage, photomontage and transparency layers using photos, typography and other elements - all the while still trying to communicate the words we had searched. The words I chose were: fluffy, nostalgia, playful, and obnoxious. The results are below, in that order. I hope you like them!

(Just so we're clear, none of the photos/illustrations used in the above designs are mine. They belong to several artists/photographers found on Flickr.)

Something Small... Literally. (4" x 4" Cards).

Just two small things to share with you on this update. Two small cards, in fact. The first card was made for someone who is insanely in love with Eames furniture, particularly the Eames chairs. The chair depicted is an Eames rocker. Can you tell I like puns... just a little?



As for the second card... Well, February is upon us. And we all know what that means... I would be lying if I didn't admit I sort of have a thing for Valentine's Day. I totally have been known to be a sap on the 14th (and sometimes just in general), and often at least consider endulging in dinner at Boston Pizza, just to obtain a heart-shaped pizza. In preparation for the upcoming 'holiday', I designed this Valentine that I will be handing out to whomever will take one (also known as my family and friends) on the 14th.