Still Alive, Still a Design Student

I just realized that I need to update about being a pi chi this past fall recruitment. I have a couple pictures, not many but a precious few and some great stories to share about the experience. Somehow other worries and such seem to take over when coming back to "reality" and I don't quite get to process what all I've just experienced. The above picture is of my AOII "family". I am so excited to have two of these new girls added to our growing family. The girl in the bottom left was in my pi chi group and I LOVED her..had no idea she was going to be in my family until the night of big/lil reveal, but could not be more thrilled!

In other news: I just spent my entire weekend working on a design chaurette with four interior designers and another graphic designer, Matt. We were working to redesign the Lakeside cafe on campus. We were given no budget but just the objective to collaborate and create a new and exciting place, increase seating, make it more appealing and just all around better. Matt and I were in charge of the branding and the signage for the whole building and I could not have picked a better partner to work with...not sure if he would say the same or not. He is a great designer with awesome ideas and the talent to make those ideas come to life. We came up with a concept while talking with our interior designers and then we split off into design groups and ran with it. I also should mention that we had such talented and capable interior designers who were so easy to work with even though we didn't work with them as closely at first. They did an incredible job and I was so so so impressed with what they put together in only a few short days! Here are some pictures of the work we collaborated on and presented to a panel of judges from the school:

Bottom floor when you enter Lakeside and turn left.

I didn't get the picture that Matt worked on to get the logos placed on the chairs so all I have of this floor is the "before" rendering. Don't they look so good?! I mean, we only had a weekend and these women pulled together an impressive floor plan, design scheme, and rendering...not without consequence however. The designer who rendered these drawings was in the studio for 24 hours straight. She's quite the dedicated, talented woman!

You see above the signs that would be suspended in a frosted glass/cut out shiny glass sign hanging from the ceiling above each restaurant. We renamed and re branded all of them with their own iconic logo.
This is a rough image of the counter faces made of brushed aluminum and vinyl cut outs of the separated logo to continue the branding in an interesting, not too repetitive way throughout the building.
More signage curved to go into areas with scalloped edges and they all pop off of the wall from steel pegs.
Again, more signage on brushed aluminum backing with a frosted glass or resin material popped off with steel pegs.

This sign is a 12'x6' wall made of brushed aluminum and the logo in white is cut through to reveal a white, back lit Lucite to highlight the negative spaces within the logo. In print, the logo would be in the colors you see on the green signs.

And....I am very very very pleased to announce that after the presentations on Sunday afternoon, the scores were tallied, and I got a text message from a girl in our group letting me know that our group got the highest score out of 10 groups!!!! So the top four groups will be refining all of this and then presenting again to a different panel (auxillary services of GSU) who will make the final decision and then construction will begin in May 2010. I hope we will be chosen! How incredible it would be to see a logo and signage and everything that I had a heavy hand in creating on the campus being used and enjoyed by students for who knows how many years!?