Cover design by Linh Quan & Timothea Wang
Letter from Co-Directors
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The Team
02 Rock On, Housefield!
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Just Jason.
20 You Bet, It’s Bret
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Designed by Kendrick Chan
Student Work
04 Redo Rework Reiterate
12 The Job Hunt
22 Little Victories
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What is Design?
06 Student Work
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It’s Tiffany Trieu!
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Sally Who? Sally-Sue!
24 Student Work
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Thank You!
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HELLO! Thank you for picking up a copy of InPrint’s first issue! Last summer, InPrint started out as a simple idea that we could pursue. Through engaging with professors, catching up with alumni, and crazy weekly meetings, our little hatchling of an idea has now materialized into the magazine you are holding in your hands today. Over the year, the InPrint team has continuously grown and evolved, but one thing that remained constant was our determination to produce the highest quality publication we could create. We have definitely come a long way since our conception, and we are so glad we could greet you at the end of our journey. With that said, we are incredibly excited to finally bring to you InPrint’s inaugural issue: First Impressions. This issue is an introduction to the design community at UC Davis through curated articles, interviews, and galleries of student work. We explore our first impressions of what design is, and how our definition of it changes with time. We get to hear from the perspectives of current students at Davis, recent alumni, and faculty about what design is to them. We hope this magazine leaves you with a great First Impression! Sincerely, The InPrint Co-Directors Timothea Wang, Dana Chan, and Emily Luong
TIMOTHEA, DANA, EMILY 02
InPrint Magazine
Designed by Timothea Wang
ISAAC TSENG editor-in-chief
MEET OUR TEAM LEADS
LINH QUAN art director
AARON NGAI photographer
ANDY LIN head web designer
SELENA CHEN public relations
Issue 01: First Impressions
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01 Untitled
Tinka Peterka | 1st year
“Untitled� is an attempt to show the beauty in a body that may not be considered traditionally beautiful due to its lack of youth.
STUDENT SU Designed by Timothea Wang
Views From a Windowsill Julia Pierce | 1st year This piece focused on the different graphite techniques used to illustrate a bouquet of flowers; this bouquet in particular was placed at my favorite spot by the window which gave me wonderful shadows to work with.
Design and the Play Instinct Elisa Massenzio | 4th year The front cover is laser-cut and the counters of the letters of the words on the front cover become the letters of the first sentence featured in the inside cover. 04
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STUDE
Boundless Timothea Wang | 2nd year I fix my gaze on the sky, in awe of its majesty, and wonder if it sees me too.
UBMISSIONS “Look Closely...” Timothea Wang | 2nd year “...because the closer you think you are, the less you will actually see.”—Now You See Me (2013)
Blossomed Suhaila Sikand | 4th year “Blossomed” is meant to bring light to gardens with the most adherence to safety, sustainability, and illuminance while blending into its environment, the flower.
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Written by Cynthia Pu & Emily Luong Designed by Timothea Wang
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InPrint Magazine
Reinforcing the Marshmallow The “Marshmallow and Spaghetti Challenge” sounds like the latest, cringe-worthy challenge fad to emerge from the depths of Youtube, but it’s actually an experiment whose results argue that the key to successful design isn’t genius, preparation, or commitment—it’s failing. Over and over and over again.
“...the key to successful design isn’t genius, preparation, or commitment—it’s failing.” Peter Skillman, former Vice President of Design at Palm, spent years administering this challenge1 to different demographics of students—business, engineering, and law majors among them—and recording how successful they were. The premise of the challenge was simple. With a limited amount of spaghetti, string, tape, time, and a single marshmallow, groups of participants had to make the tallest tower they could, topped with a marshmallow. Skillman was surprised when he realized that a certain group of students consistently yielded higher scores than the rest—kindergarteners. What was it about this challenge that had the five-year-olds excelling well above their college graduate peers? According to Skillman, it was the marshmallow. Most groups underestimated how heavy it was and spent all their time drafting a single tower design that would never adequately support their marshmallow. The kindergarteners, on the other hand, spent almost no time planning and simply created tower after tower, getting familiar with their materials and steadily increasing the height with every failure. This process of iterative design, as you may have guessed by now, reaches far beyond marshmallow towers and is widely used today among all design fields.
Refining Your Vision Iterative design is just what the name implies. You prototype a design, receive feedback for areas of improvements, and then prototype it again. And again. And again, until you finally end up with the best possible design. The tedious process of failure after failure after failure can be incredibly daunting and exhausting, but this method of rapid or spiral prototyping, as it’s often called in the industry, can lead to more effective results. Iterative design tests for area of improvement from the get-go and prevents a sub-par design from advancing to the final stages of production, where its problems might be too late or expensive to address. With rapid prototypes, you can more easily receive feedback and make improvements sooner in the process. It expedites the design process while simultaneously ensuring a quality product. James Dyson is just one of many who has taken advantage of iterative design, taking five years and over 5000 prototypes to make the world’s first bagless vacuum. His thought process behind his iterations was interesting, because instead of trying to reach success with every prototype, he almost welcomed failure with each of his new ideas. In an Entrepreneur Magazine interview2, Dyson explains, “What I often do is just think of a completely obtuse thing to do, almost the wrong thing to do. That often works because you start a different approach, something no one has tried.” He continues by saying that big businesses often fear the failure associated with iterative design, but that is exactly what can be their key to success. The practice of failure leads to new, innovative ideas, which, in such a competitive society, is the key to differentiating yourself from the masses. A few such risk-takers were the founders of the now ubiquitous coffee company that has taken the world by storm with its Frappuccinos and Pumpkin Spice lattes. Issue 01: First Impressions
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Remodelling the Siren Currently, Starbucks employees scrawl customer names onto about four million coffee cups per day. Each one is emblazoned with the famous, smiling two-tailed mermaid in a sleek green insignia. Nowadays, that crowned siren has reached near international fame, but she didn’t get there without years and years of revisions. It was 1971, Starbucks was still a neighborhood coffee company and its three prospective founders were looking in slight dismay at the logo they had commissioned Terry Heckler to design for them—a voluptuous siren grasping her two tails and brazenly baring her breasts in a brown seal. Despite their misgivings, they decided to put her out on their storefronts. She elicited a few raised eyebrows, but Starbucks was gaining success. The problem arose when they began branding their delivery trucks. The logo was much larger on the trucks than it was on storefronts, and instead of “Starbucks”, all passersbysb saw were giant mermaid breasts. When Howard Schultz took over the company, he called Heckler back to make the logo appropriate for mass consumerism. Heckler draped her hair draped over her chest and freshened the color with a bright green so she’d appear more contemporary. Almost instantly, Starbucks became a hit. As the consumer base swelled, they faced more pressure to make the logo family-friendly, so they cropped out most of the siren’s tails and put the focus on her face. The result was the logo and cultural icon we know today.3
Redefining Failure Iteration doesn’t necessarily mean simply doing the same thing over and over again. It means exploring as many options as you can by experimenting and refining your work repeatedly. Nowadays, it’s easy to get caught up in our devices and expensive Adobe subscriptions. Don’t lie, we’ve all done it— skipped the sketching and jumped straight into designing on whatever program we use, be it Photoshop, Illustrator, CAD, Sketch, etc. This could be due to designer’s block, a tight deadline (Quarter system, what’s good?), or even just plain old laziness. Sophisticated design doesn’t just materialize from you sitting down in front of your laptop and flipping on a switch labeled DESIGN. It comes from brainstorming, sketching, toying with silly ideas, and asking yourself the right questions. It’s also helpful to experiment with different mediums, because trying different tools gives you the element of play, different approaches, and creative solutions. Practicing iterative design methods is a way to practice failing over and over so you can stop being afraid of failure. Failure after fiasco after snafu allows us to adopt a mindset of doing and making, instead of thinking and obsessing. The process of iterative design is one that doesn’t really ever end, but precisely because of that, we are able to constantly introduce innovation to society. Don’t let designer’s block get you stranded on your first idea; experiment again and again and again. Soon, you might just be as smart as a kindergartener.
When the original buxom siren was first presented to the three founders, they had no idea that she would eventually become an international phenomena, but they took that first leap of faith. They didn’t start with a perfect logo, but many iterations later, Starbucks can now boast one of the most recognizable brandings in the world.
Sources: 1. Skillman, Peter. “The Design Challenge!” TED. 2006.Lecture. 2. Goodman, Nadia. “James Dyson on Using Failure to Drive Success.” Entrepreneur. 5 Nov 2012. Web. Accessed 17 February 2017. 3. Horovitz, Bruce. “Starbucks aims beyond lattes to extend brand.” USA Today. 19 May 2006. Web. Accessed 17 February 2017. 4. Klara, Robert. “How a Topless Mermaid Made the Starbucks Cup an Icon.” Adweek. 29 Sept 2014. Web. Accessed 17 February 2017.
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02 Grate Mac & Cheese Marketing Campaign Emily Luong | 2nd year
Grate Mac & Cheese is a hypothetical macaroni and cheese company that I created to explore branding design and marketing. I created Grate as a brand from start to finish, including the logo design, branding, and packaging. Here are images of the marketing campaign.
STUDENT SU Designed by Timothea Wang
California Poppy Colleen Smith | 4th year This piece is a part of my five gown collection called “Nectar” that will walk in the Picnic Day Fashion Show. My collection is inspired by California’s native wildflowers. The other pieces in this collection are inspired by Thistle, Queen Anne’s Lace, Chicory, and Indian Paintbrush.
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Mother & Child - Jewelry Design 3D Print Isaac Tseng | 3rd year This jewelry piece was designed for my mother to give to her on mother’s day. The pendent design is inspired by the Celtic symbol of double intertwining hearts. The hearts symbolize the bond between mother and child, and the bead in the middle represents myself as an only child. The pendant is complemented by a sterling silver necklace chain. This piece was 3D printed in rose gold and premium silver.
UBMISSIONS
photographed by Barbara Molloy
Crave Chocolate Company: Gourmet Chocolate Bark Timothea Wang | 2nd year Crave Chocolate Company redesigns the packaging for chocolate bark and elevates the product with an elegant brand identity. Crave’s products promote using the freshest ingredients, portion control, and sustainability with its unique packaging design. Show here are images of the packaging and business system.
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03 Masked Portraits
Linh Quan | 4th year
For my masked portraits, I wanted to play with the idea of adding horns to animals traditionally seen as soft and fluffy to make an interesting contrast. By adding horns, it made these “cute” animals seem unsettling and creepy.
STUDENT SU Designed by Timothea Wang
Better Batter Cake Mix Dana Chan | 2nd year Better Batter is a revolutionary redesign of cake mix packaging. By incorporating a measuring cup into the packaging, Better Batter makes a readymade cake mix even more convenient with the necessary baking tools at the tips of one’s fingertips.
STUDE
Us Fit Linh Quan | 4th year A commentary of how sewing mannequins are meant to be realistic so designers can accurately make patterns and clothing. However, most of the time these mannequins have an unrealistic standard of the body.
UBMISSIONS Ascension | Descension Emily Luong | 2nd year Life provides us with many directions, but do we really see where we’re going? This photo explores the optical illusion of overlapping stairwells as a commentary of how disorienting life can be.
Hierarchy Selena Chen | 3rd year Tip for photography: walk into somewhere fancy and look up.
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THANK YOU... FOR YOUR GREAT INSIGHTS AND ADVICE Gwen Amos of Gwen Amos Design
TO OUR CONTRIBUTORS Team Leads: Timothea Wang, Dana Chan, Emily Luong, Isaac Tseng, Linh Quan, Aaron Ngai, Andy Lin, Selena Chen Writing: Isaac Tseng, Cynthia Pu, Emily Luong, Kelsey Kawaguchi, Dani Macedo, Amanda Hong, Hannah Lee, Ethan Caudillo
Faculty/Professors: Gale Okumura, Dr. James Housefield, Simon Sadler, Glenda Drew, Ariel Collatz, Susan Avila
Design: Linh Quan, Timothea Wang, Emily Luong, Christie Neo, Marjory Ramos, Isaac Tseng, Kendrick Chan
Alumni: Tiffany Trieu, Cindy Pham
Photography: Aaron Ngai, Emily Luong, Timothea Wang, Isaac Tseng
Students: Mary Serafin
Web: Andy Lin, Derek Dennison
AND A SPECIAL, SPECIAL THANK YOU AND SHOUT-OUT TO OUR PARENTS! —from Timothea, Dana, and Emily
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InPrint Magazine
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