Propaganda Poster

For our final project, we were assigned the open job to create a modern 'propaganda' poster using a theme from propaganda from 1900-1950. I did some research, looked into russian propaganda, but I decided to go with the recognizable british propaganda theme from WWII, "Keep mum, she's not so dumb!"

I decided, even though it might come off as overdone, to replicate the Obama hope poster from the 2008 campaign. I didn't want to use a stock image of some girl, so I actually went online to a fast-moving message board I frequent, and asked for a girl to quickly post a shot of her facing forward and looking somewhat sultry. I got many responses, but I decided upon this shot:

Then my job was to replicate the style of the original poster as closely as possible. I found an offshoot of the original font, spent hours in illustrator with colors and filters, and finally came out with the finished product seen above! I do not think I replicated the obama poster well enough, but I do like how the poster turned out in the final printed product.

Competition: Table Beautification

For our final half of the course, I was teamed with a group of students interested in competing. Our first of two assignments was simply to take a stock Ikea side table, and to beautify it in some way. I was presented with the object, seen below, and decided I wanted to make something useful, as well as aesthetically pleasing.I play a lot of Dungeon's and Dragons, and I had the idea to build a mapping table out of the ikea table. Maps in DnD are often made from paper with 1x1 grids printed on them, so the idea of having a 1x1 grid cut into a permanent table really appealed. I purchased scrap sheets of acrylic, to make wall pieces to slide into the cuts i'd make, and decided on 1/8 inch grooves.

The brunt of the work came with crafting the files needed for the computer controlled router I decided to use. Working by hand would have been terrifying, because I only had one table to use and no chance for mistakes. I contacted a tech to help me design the file, and after 5 revisions finally came upon a CAD file that consisted of 21 lines crossing 21 lines. I took it in, we carefully drilled to see how deep the table went until it hit the hollow center, and drilled the grid from there.The table turned out pretty great, but I wish I could have drilled deeper. The laser-cut acrylic pieces stick up, but they have room to shift laterally because of how shallow the cuts had to be.
Behold: The final table!

The Finished Space

As a finishing touch to the room, I moved the bookshelf out into the hallway, which removed its dominating presence and really freed up the air in the room. Book went in there, and anything digital went into a small bookshelf in the same spot. I also got to put up my old poster.


And finally, the closet. Above, you can see the plain shelves, in their completed and unadorned state. Below, is how I actually have it now. T-shirts and clothing fill the top two large shelves, in a nifty display manner. The floorspace fits my bin and more, and the outer shelves are currently being used for holding random objects, and I plan on using them as a sort of display case for my work, someday. Overall, I think it really makes the room feel interesting, and already I have had many positive comments about the change it makes to the room! My space feels more personal, and much more organized.

Painting

I decided that the mounts were very abrasive in their natural particle board texture, so I hid them by simply painting them the same color as the wall.

When painted, and especially after they are covered with the shelves, the mounts blend in great! Much better than my other mounting option, actual store-bought right-angle mounts. And these are somewhat recycled!


As for the shelves, a high-quality spray paint turned out to be the best path for me to take. A shelf after one coat of paint! A second was applied later, and I used 4 cans of spray paint.
This image makes the edge look quite jagged, but that is actually post-sanding, and is very smooth. Smooth enough that I feel comfortable letting my nice suitcoats hang directly against it!

The colors turned out quite nice!

Shelf Mounting

Once the shelves were transported to my home, I prepared to mount them to the wall by pre-screwing screws into all the cutout slats I had taken from the excess board I had. (see below) The tool I used for the small cuts was not perfect, so the pieces didn't turn out perfect. As I plan to paint these wall-colored, however, they should blend in nicely.
Carefully, I measured a spot where each slat should go up from the bottom. It ended up being a large amount for the bottom shelf, (to account for a bin I need to store under it,) and then 9 inches up for each shelf after that. (plus the half-inch of actual shelf.)
I used a stud finer for some of the mounts, but most are screwed directly into the drywall. If I planned on holding anything extremely heavy on the shelves, I'd insist on screwing into a stud, but this worked great.


The unpainted/unsanded shelves being mounted:
and the prototype for the finished product! Each large shelf has 8 mounts, and each small shelf has 5. One mount was placed on top to sandwich the shelves and to kill any chance of verticle movement. They turned out quite sturdy!

Shelf Construction

I would have liked to have used all recycled materials for this project. Short of raiding a construction site, however, I was unable to find sheets large enough to work for my uses. In stead of this idea, A trip to Jerry's introduced me to quite cheap sheets of particle board. The sheets were 4 feet by 8 feet, and two sheets gave me room for four large shelves, (I only needed three) and four small shelves. (again, only 3 were needed, leaving room for error.)
After the harrowing journey home in a small pickup, The only tools I needed were my blueprints, a straightedge, a marker, and this lovely jigsaw, which cuts through particle board like butter:
Consulting my cardboard cutout (see below) and my precise computer blueprints, I sketched out the edge of each shelf.
Cutting with the jigsaw was very easy, and very simple.
The excess wood seen here was used for cutting into square supports, in an effort to make use of every piece. (see above)
And here we see the cutout topshelf, ready to be smoothed and sanded!

Closet Alteration

The first step to redesigning my space was to fix a nag I had. As mentioned below, my clothesline in my closet is way too low for my tall self. Raising it up a foot would leave space on the rack, and give enough space below for the large shelves to reach the top of the dresser and not make contact with hanging shirts.

Far too low.
Who thought a nose-high rack was a good idea?


Setting off to work, removed all the screws, and carefully moved everything up by 11 inches. The finished work


Not much of a looker, yet, but later I paint over the old pain strips with wall color, and it's a huge improvement over the lower hang. I am excited!

Before shots, the space at its worst.

For comparison, the room at its absolute worst. A slightly cleaner version is in the post "the Closet," but I feel these shots make the comparison to the above post "the finished space" much more amazing.

Cardboard

I took a 3d-sculpture class a few years ago, and one of the most valuable lessons I took from it was the power of prototyping with cardboard. The shelving unit of this project involves large slats of wood, and any mistakes in my measurements would be expensive, and time consuming. Instead, I chose to use my blueprints to cut into cardboard first, and then to cut my wood based on this carboard cutout.

The price for this? Free. Dumpster diving for large sheets of cardboard is surprisingly easy, and really rather clean. Many companies have two dumpsters, one for garbage, and one for the the cardboard and packaging from their receiving departments. Colleges as well are great locations to snipe out dumpsters marked 'cardboard.'

I dumpster dove, and found a great large box perfect for the size I was looking for. The bowas still assembled, and was full of huge staples. After carefully removing these, I unfolded the box and taped the open sides closed so I had one sheet large enough for the blueprint.

After consulting my blueprints, (below) and carefully marking and cutting, I pulled out a pretty accurate design, perfect for the wood I'll be cutting. And as the real test, it fits perfectly into the space it's supposed to:

Again, my favorite thing about cardboard is that is has a lot of give. I did have one fairly large mistake in my blueprint, and this became apparent quickly. I simply cut out a new strip, taped it to the edge with the mistake, and I have a quick guide for the wood cutting on how to rectify that mistake! Excellent. In the picture below, it looks like there is a lot of extra space in between the dresser, and there is. When i'm finished, i'll be wedging the dresser directly against this.