Next, we entered 2 full day brainstorming and workshop sessions where we came up with our concepts. My group landed on hearing loss, and decided we wanted our exhibit to focus on educating children on the challenges some face with hearing loss, allowing them to interact with ear games, sign language stations, a soundless chamber to experience different stages of hearing loss, an ear anatomy coloring station, noise simulators, and more. We were really inspired by Uber’s sign language web initiative and wanted to tie a similar concept into our plan.

Because my program is multidisciplinary, they tasked us with developing both a rendered model and a physical model, as well as developing some initial branding, regardless of if we had a member on the team with any rendering experience. I was the only designer on my team, and had some basic experience withSketchUp and other CAD softwares, so I spearheaded the environmental graphic designs for the space, the branding, and along with another group member, attended mini SketchUp sessions to refine our skills and create the Sketchup model. Below you can see some rough renderings of what we envisioned our exhibit to look like.

This project was really fun because it employed a hackathon-type structure to it and encouraged prototyping, rapid innovation, and just making and doing. Each group came up with such intersting space designs, marketing proposals, budgets, and more in such a short amount of time, and this was really inspiring.

The overall branding for our project was relatively simple. We were confined by tight time limits but wanted to ensure our models conveyed the message while still showcasing the narrative behind the exhibit. As such, we titled our exhibit ‘Heard: Experiencing Soundlessness” and chose friendly, clean typography to utilize in the space. We then chose colors that echoed children’s books but used nearly a full spectrum, and came up with a mascot: Techo the Turtle.