Cardboard Spaces Workshop: Mimic Memphis
About a few weeks ago, Tony organized a workshop called Cardboard Spaces Workshop: Mimic Memphis, it is not difficult to see the theme is about cardboard board and Memphis furniture. Before the workshop, I would say I did not know much about Memphis, like its history and key artists, the only thing I know about it is its distinctive design language of geometric shapes and bright colours. However, the workshop's purpose was not only to mimic its style but to collaborate with classmates to go through the process from design and making to finish. I identified myself as a person who is not good at teamwork, so this task might be slightly challenging for me. Fortunately, I still quite enjoyed the whole experience, and it brought me some inspiration and I believe it would benefit my future design work as well.
The process of making the armchair
At first, we grouped randomly in terms of the numbers we drew, and each group consisted of four or five people. We allocated different assignments, and the topic of our group was armchair. We were quite confused at the beginning about how to start it. One of our group members suggested we should draw our own sketches gather them together and vote for the element we liked, in the final stage, we composed these elements into a complete design. Soon, we followed the suggestion and implemented it. However, this first step of our design was problematic and we did not notice at the time. Although the plan seems democratic and fair to everybody, the final work does not resemble Memphis furniture at all. Due to the huge difference in thoughts of members and comprehension of Memphis furniture, there was a lot of compromise during the design process, we even voted for designs from other members that we could not fully understand. Luckily, we took the first step of our design.
The process of making the armchair
During the making process, everything looked smooth and on track, we enjoyed it at the beginning. We finished the main body of the armchair, which consisted of rounds of different sizes. However, we slowed down in the process of colour choice. We argued about what colour should we use for each part of the armchair and we could not reach an agreement. Therefore, I suggested we just tear paper randomly and apply it on the armchair in the way we like, it can stop our meaningless and time-wasting argument, and simultaneously, it also made the result unpredictable. To be honest, it was my favourite part throughout the process. We just abandoned all our scruples and felt free to do it despite the final work was not that ideal, at least we were completely immersed in it.
The process of making the armchair
In the end, all groups put works together and compared. Although our work was not that "Memphis" and looked like semi-finished work, especially in colour, it was still the most distinctive one among all the works. Other groups all followed the colour composition of Memphis furniture strictly, each colour matched each part of the furniture, which made our work extremely prominent.
Evaluation
