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!