Proposals

After a week of sketching, presenting, miscommunication, the loss of two team members and a lot of harsh criticism we can finally blog something again. It has become clear to us that our free interpretations of a Wayshowing system were not something that our tutor had in mind and were considered 'unpractical', 'unusable' and even mocking of the project in general, and in no way suitable for presentation on Tuesday.
Of course this did not discourage us, we are proud of the work we have done so far and still consider this journey to be fun, inspiring and educational. We will present the thorough research that we have done prior to the actual designing on Tuesday night at the big presentation, and that will be our contribution to this project.
Below we have posted some images of the work we have done so far, take a look and judge for yourself!

Research



Photographic research of the existing (or non-existing) Wayshowing at the Academy.

1. Magnets





















This is our most detailed proposal, including a typeface by Joost and one that Joost modified to include the special characters in the Lithuanian language.
The idea was to treat certain walls in the Academy with magnetic paint and design a typographic system using magnetic letters that could be used to make all markings and Wayshowing. This system invites the user of the building to interact with it, e.g. make your their sentences or words and introduces a factor of chaos and personal expression in the Wayshowing. The flexibility of the system makes it ideal for situations in which the functions of classrooms or buildings change, its just a matter of sticking a new word on the wall.

2. You Are Here

A set of stickers we designed as part of the brainstorming session. We decided to think about this concept a little more and see if we could make a Wayshowing system out of this.




The Wayshowing system based on the You Are Here-prinicple. A system that provides no information at all, but at the same time is always correct and accurate.

3. Hot Air








This proposal is based on the many hot-air balloons that inhabit the skies of Vilnius. Most of the Wayshowing could be translated into huge balloons that float above the Academy grounds, gently swaying in the breeze and making sure that the Academy is recognizable from miles away.

Cruising

We took the bikes out today and explored the town a little bit. Here's some proof:





Vilnius Skatepark.






Užupis district in Vilnius, this is the art-district of Vilnius, comparable to Montmartre in Paris.








On Saturday there are people getting married on every corner of every street. Vilnius is famous for it's many weddings due to it's beautiful city center and also has the highest number of limousines in a single city in Europe.

Day 6

Some first results of our brainstorming session. Our idea was to make a flexible solution for the Wayshowing. The functions of the classrooms are constantly changing so we thought of ways to make a system that can be easily altered. Magnetic letters could be used to indicate classrooms and show directions in a playful way. The system has a playful character and invites users and passers-by to interact with the wayshowing themselves.

Pastasaus a la vilnius

Day 3

Some pictures of the Hostel:



This is Waal's room




This is Joost working on improving our paper. Notice the concentration and the bag of Gummybears.




This is the kitchen that we share with the other international students.




Some great Wayshowing on the fridge.




The Lithuanians in our group figured we Dutch would be like fish out of water without a bike, so they hooked us up with these two off-road badboys.

Not much else to report about today, we mainly focused on improving the paper that we made. Tomorrow we will start with concept-building and the design of this assignment, when things will get more interesting!

Some more pictures from today

A shot of the Academy's Old Building and main entrance. Notice how unclear it is that this is the main entrance to an Art Academy.






The facade of the new Academy building. This building is across the street from the Old Building and is still under construction. It was the former site of a factory and has been nicknamed 'The Titanic' due to financing issues in the first stages of the build.






Coffee!






A picture of the research me and Joost did yesterday.

Day2 Pictures

Graffiti in Vilnius























Joost trying some Lithuanian cuisine