The initial Process: My firsts thoughts

I spent some time thinking about the new project, looking at references and trying to understand which was the best way to link Fabricademy technologies, and also tell my story in an empathetic and effective way.

I wanted to let people know (TO SHOUT OUT LOUD, ACTUALLY) how hard it was (at least in Latinamérica) to be a working woman with children in charge during pandemic time.

The best way I found to do it, was through a game

Could we win?
Could we get to the finish line?
Could we have fun?
Could we enjoy our time together?
Could people play to be us (mothers during pandemic times) for a while?
Could this game be used as a way to slow down?
Could it integrate new technologies?
Could it represent me?

I also found it interesting to relate my need to slow down and be calm, with the way the game might be done. In this way, the game needed to be handmade in a way that embodied the process of healing so it could be also a cathartic piece.

The initial inspiration and research.

To start seeking inspiration, I went through the children's universe. Let me tell you that I completely enjoyed this. It is curious that one of my sources of inspiration had already been chosen by me in the first week of fabricademy when we were considering possible final project paths!

I am really amazed by Kristi Kuusk work. One of the lines of research in which I have been involved is related to clothing use cycles and their impact. Kristi's PhD thesis was particularly interesting to me because of the link between sustainability and technology.

"The fashion scene gets more and more curious about the possibilities of using electronics and digital properties in clothing, also known as fashion technology, wearable technology and smart textiles. The marriage of the two worlds, that closely influences many people, carries potential concerns and opportunities. Textile manufacturing was one of the drivers of the development of technology from pre-industrial craftsmanship to today’s industrialized consumer culture. In this work, crafts and craftsmanship are taken as an example of sustainable living. The traditional crafts and sustainability are discussed in the context of the developing field of smart textile services. This doctoral dissertation examines the following central research question: what are craft and sustainability qualities and how are they implicitly used in the design of smart textile services?"

Below some samples of Kristi´s amazing work.

WearablePlay WORM-E from mihoo on Vimeo.

Spellbound UV sensitive dress with Bugs appearing only in the SUN from Kristi Kuusk on Vimeo.

Eesti 95 Thermo from Kristi Kuusk on Vimeo.

I loved Spellbound

The first "moves" of the Idea

Those were my first sketches of the idea, which were later varied -after trial and error- and finally materialized as explained in the “The process” section of the documentation.

This is the first approach to the story, and to the structure of the game. Then I consolidated the story in a text which had continuous reading: that could work well individually in each box, but that also had sense as a whole story in itself.

My first idea was to use leftover material from the elements I made for my wedding, so the initial color palette was built from there. Anyway, as I explain in the documentation, for technical reasons, I had to change my strategy.

Also here are my first sketches of the game from a morphological perspective.

The inicial Gantt

I had no time to hesitate: I had to move on. I put together a schedule being very optimistic about the number of weeks available (it was very likely that I actually had fewer weeks still!)

Some time after that, the graduation time arrived and also lots of problems in every part of the process. I couldn´t get there so I finished the process at my own pace.

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Last update: October 7, 2021