Projects from Bachelor Degree in Design

'Al pie de la letra' comes from an interest in the vision of language from design. Most research and studies on languages ​​are done by art historians or linguists, while the designer takes second place when he is permanently in contact with the letters. This project explores the politics of the western language and its current context. We read from left to right the same clockwise direction; capital letters only serve to empower; Emoji is the most widely spoken language in the world and is not inclusive enough. This publication is an answer to these concerns; The main policies are explained from connections between reflections and research by great graphic and typography designers such as Jan Tschichold, Adrian Frutiger, Gerard Unger, Joan Costa, or Ruben Pater. It is a proposal where visualization and importance are given to the language from the design perspective,.

The main purpose of this project is to raise awareness and make society reflect about the memories of the place with memory. Working with places already forgotten by some, which will gradually disappear from our beaches and their history with them. Focusing the research on the typology of bunkerized space, this work aims to recover and reuse the bunker. Through an extensive collection of files, historical facts and memories around this area, together with the study of references that deal with the same subject, this intervention will take the shape of an artistic installation, designed to be viewed from the beach, where the bunker currently lays down. This action will make the viewer aware of the inevitable future that this space will sufer, the disappearance, due to the rise in sea level caused by climate change This work wishes to territorialize memory and make the recent past a living document for learning and reflection. The intention is to rescue these spaces and make them continue to be part of our collective memory. Regarding the work methodology, the facts that constitute the history and memory of this space have been investigated through a collection of memories and stories from past and present, creating cartographies and plans of its geographical location, obtaining this constellation of information around the bunker. {Bunker. Memoria anegada (drown memory). Historical Memory. Oblivion. Memories. Drown. Abandoned. Extinction. Reflect]

Digital botany and circular network, is the result of a personal attraction towards the generation of organic forms that seem to be random, those ones that according to Deleuze, seem to be coincident, and not by chance, with the very form of the beautiful. An analysis that starts from the organicity present in the artisanal objects, going through the cell genesis and the growth of a plant. In a multidisciplinary framework, the project characterized by a heuristic understanding of the plant growth process, it works as a hinge from a visual knowledge mimicked through three-dimensional objects. A generative design that, from a parametric modeling system, translates plant-to-digital growth, generating digital organic structures. Thus the organic acquires a triple value: initially aesthetic, but, simultaneously, epistemological and didactic, which is articulated by three different explorations of organic forms. A first analysis that starts from the creation of random organic shapes generated by the intuition and naive modification of the geometry. A second process that specifies, from six double vessels, the growth parameters of their respective plant species. In a third and final chapter, craftsman materiality is worked on by applying variables analogously and letting the hand-matéria dialogue determine the final shape.

In a globalized world full of signs, it is necessary to analyze the development of society, its changes and behaviors throughout history, in order to understand the connection and relationship that it has with graphic design. As main reference I have taken the sociologist and philosopher Zygmunt Bauman with his term "liquid modernity" (Zygmunt, 2010) in which he states that contemporary society is liquid, since it adapts to any form and moves freely without barriers or limits with its continuous changes and new forms. The objective is to reflect on the link that changes in society have with graphic design and how it is also liquid. An ephemeral exhibition of installations and interactive posters will be generated, where each one of them helps to build a narrative about the new form of graphic design.

From an anthropological viewpoint there are a series of material conditions that shape our life. Our gender, class, sexual orientation or roots greatly determine the way we understand the world. We accept all these conditions transversally, and they end up defining the way we socialize. And in the same way we are, we move forward with tools that allow us to develop precisely these forms of socialization; this is how we could define technology without disconnecting it from its social side. Simultaneously the Power has subdued these conditions and has combined them in a way that allows itself to stay in power, making citizens pay for it with inequalities.

The strains between the public and the private or the common and the individual originate the social struggles we know today, and the assembly movements that try to subvert, or at the very least claim back, the vision that was once denied to them. In a very subtle way these social inequalities also slip into technologies: the lack of body representations in machine-learning generated images, alleged racist algorithms, gender error range in facial recognition systems, and so on. The power gaze covers every label that the technological device/camera-code assigns to us when it looks at us, becoming a socially constructed issue. In the middle of this technological scenario the misnamed “new technologies” generate rejection among users who are still fighting for historical causes, precisely because of the myth surrounding technologies that tells us that it’s use should be delegated to specific profiles: cunning, mathematician, hip or cosmopolitan, instead of being accessible to a wide range of users.

It is urgent that we understand technologies as another transversal axis in our life, that we connect with them in order to fully comprehend the juncture of inequalities from a more complete viewpoint in the hypervisual, hyperdigital and hypervigilant society we live in. It is vital that we bring critical technology closer to assembly movements and organisations in order to enable the appropriation of the tool, deconstruct the hacker fantasy and re-think the modus operandi of today’s activists.

The purpose of this work is to create a new constructive system in fashion. For this, I carry out an in-depth investigation of the shape and function of the architecture applied to the structure of the project. The aim of the aforementioned construction system is the reuse of garments based on the relationship between shape and function. Likewise, prints and colors make up an essential part of the project. This way, thanks to the combination of the elements, the intention is to achieve a dynamic and exclusive collection where fun and experimentation are the leading roles.

The pictoric representation has always been present in art history, but at the middle of XX century with the technologic advances there was a raising of artists featuring John Cage, Luigi Russolo or Erik Satie, That used as base of their artistic proposals the sound, with the intention of putting the Sound Arts at the same level as Plastic Arts. 

Emile Jacques-Dalcroze designed a new workflow for musicians based on rythmic, that try to teach artists how to research and develope their own rythms. Those chaotic musical compositions that transmit emotions ¿aren’t they superior in compare with other compositions with a correct technical harmony but without genuineness? 

The objective it’s to research an experiment around the relationship between the corporal expression has with the sound. The sound perception, the audiovisual lenguage and the gestures, are the central axis that explains why this work process has been done. 

There must be experimentation and feel that in order to get knowledge, so the project is based on a use of experimental workflows and lenguages through playing and jamming with machines, because the practical part is the key to the creative development. From a series of experiments that soround the same concept, there is an analysis of the results and the new incorporated Knowledge. 

In Western society it has traditionally been thought that someone was male or female by sex, but Judith Butler in the “Gender in Dispute” (1990), explains that gender is simply identification, and that it is a fantasy inside. On the other, in the case of a merely performative act. Since we are born, gender is assigned on the basis of sex and is something implanted by Western society for a long time, but there is a degradation of variations between masculinity and femininity, and also a very wide diversity of gender roles. Socialization and culture take a primordial role, but they are not the only factors that intervene in the development of identity. My methodology has been a series of typographical experiments, both aesthetic and conceptual. A series of experiments and typographic exercises such as handling of shapes and spaces, representations and drawings, generating changes in the look trying to show the current diversity of our 21st century society. Gender is a merely performative act, and we are in a dual society or a binary system, when in reality gender is not a binary construct. With this purpose, I want to take it to the field of graphic and typographic design, and thus create a typographic family with all its variations and weights in order to make other realities visible, give voice, empower and normalize the diversity of gender identity. 

During 2018, 1,556,908 tons of waste were generated in the city of Barcelona, with an average of 1.28 kilos of garbage per inhabitant per day. These figures are increasing since 2013. The proposal focuses mainly on the transformation of the material from experimentation, on how objects and production methods are reinterpreted where the user is involved as part of the design process. 

It aims to open a learning path to generate new knowledge networks while reflecting and modifying the current culture of design, involving users and inviting them to a relationship and an act in a different way with different materials in everyday life. 

From the waste generated in the house, the user can be used to generate their own designs, mixing them with products that can have a hand in any home and give them a new life. In this way, it is no longer recycled in containers but is carried out in a domestic process where the user himself generates the object with his own material. How can we get involved in the city for this change? Can the material modify the process an object? 

The design proposal consists of seven stools formed from the material experimentation carried out, which, without seeking an immediate solution, aims to reflect on the generation of new materials from the waste of day to day. The project also consists of a web page that serves as a platform for users to access the recipe book of the materials so that new objects can be used in turn, encouraging the incorporation of new recipes to increase the recipes and designs with new models or products. 

Miscelánea, joining disjointed elements, is a project of self-discovery through the analysis of the own family tree, in which the topic of identity is comprised from the memories, the inheritance, and the cultural diversity with Nordic and Mediterranean roots. The idea emerges from the reading of the book written by the paternal grandmother: Las cosas que a mí me gustan, which made grow the interest about the history of the family and its main goal is to cultivate the memories in order to raise awareness of the past, understand the present and foresee the future. The applied methodology arises from evoking the memories as the creative and research process. The outcome is a collection that highlights the characteristics inherited from the family and passed down from one generation to the next, through the evolution of different types of clothing, silhouettes, fabrics and colours. In the end a conclusion is reached: the identity is not rooted to the spot, which converts Miscelánea in an infinite project with on-going development. 

Nomadic Room, is adaptable to the user and the needs of the same, storing in its interior of 57 cubic centimeters, the furniture and objects that one needs to live. The production with digital manufacturing and open source bring everyone the possibility of creating and living with Nomadic Room. 

Created from different pieces of furniture that facilitate its assembly and disassembly, it is capable of creating an infinite number of variations and adjustments in the distribution of space. The wood, key in its design, wears out in the most respectful way, leaving and respecting its visible qualities in the product, providing touch and the trace of the memory of those who live together. 

It was born with the intention of improving the experience of nomadism, and to propose to everyone the construction of their own world. And it is contextualized in a situation of advanced technology and mass consumption, trying to revert these factors taking advantage of the tools that technology gives us, and reducing consumption. 

Focused on urban nomads, Nomadic Room is a way of life that links the person with the space they inhabit, generating a bond of memories and customs with the furniture that in turn makes the environment more recognizable. 

Through an intuitive production, 3D design and digital manufacturing and numerical control milling machines, the project has been advanced in a very natural way, divided into three clear phases that have been conceptualization, design and production and communication tools. With a subsequent test, which has demonstrated its usability. 

This project is born from a personal need for expression and communication that I find in the discipline of dance. Historically, classical styles (ballet, traditional dances, folkloric) were governed by rules of execution of very limited figures and movements. In the twentieth century with contemporary dance, great references such as Pina Bausch and Isaac Suárez, proclaim the importance of the intrinsic gestures and the dancer’s own personality, which is also used as a tool of self-discovery and self-knowledge. This will be the starting point of INMOVE, which is configured as a wearable tool for dancers and shows, which serves to make visible the expressiveness of the movements of the dancers, with the aim of highlighting and enhancing the essence of each performer. Through the interactive design tools (arduino plates and potentiometers), 4 portable devices have been generated that trace the movement in real time of the elbows and knees. This movement is translated into data that can be used as a basis for the creation of generative visuals, in this case with processing language. The result can be used both as a tool of self-knowledge and improvement of the practice, as well as visual and / or scenographic accompaniment in a dance performance. 

Ca l’Andiano is a project that talks about different people and experiences that defined, and continued to doing it, a home identity. Along with other elements such as tales, helped defining a town’s identity like Pratdip.

We start talking about the world of indian people, as this is where the origin of the project takes place, and what defined their departures to the new world. Then we start talking about times of Civil and Post-Civil War and above all of what was life like in a such small place. Finally, nowadays a thought is made in relation of taboo topics, intolerance and the salvation that someone can find travelling to the city, in which case is Barcelona because is where action takes place at this exact moment. The connection of the elements found in the theoric and conceptual part are formalized and shown fusing dressing codes of different clothing garments used for people in towns during half of the 20th century with novelty and actuality, preceded by new materials and experimental resources that searches innovation at the same time preserve some characteristics to define and codify the past, always looking for the bright side of things and giving an incorporated value to the making. Thereby, this garments are conserved through ambalming.

This project, like people which it defines different houses, could be defined as a genealogical tree of experiencies that never stops its engines and therefore, no one could ever know which destiny will be next. Ca l'Andiano was, is and will be. 

Why do garments have a good part and a bad part? This question may cause a disagreement that the clothing has good and bad parts. Then why do not you put it on backwards? There is a series of social codes - derived from the production system - that have been defined throughout history, in which the object as such, is composed of an exterior and an interior. The exterior responds to the obligation to show the garment in the cleanest way (why it is what we see) and what remains inside is all that refers to the process that has carried out the construction of this (what that we do not see). This fact leads us to speculate if this duality could be blurred, to break with the limit that separates them, and to revert or equate between the final product and the process that has taken place to reach it. The current value of garments is out of adjustment, because of a lack of knowledge of what really costs to produce them. Concepts arising from the need to be able to measure reality in order to order space. Garments also constitute a space, which in turn moves and interacts with the human body. Therefore, the body as a base that holds a design object, is at the same time an element that can be inside and outside of it. A whole set of perceptions that evoke different design proposals that are developed under the keywords: #exterior, #interior, #espacio, #limit, #estructura, #volumen, #forma, # perception, #reality, #transparencia, #value, #process. 

From the research on how they are built and structured, possible prototypes are raised, which may be able to blur the codes that currently mark the side where you have to put your clothes and propose new options. 

How are the measures defined between one stair tread and another? Why are these measures always the same? While Dreyfuss has implement ed measures that will be used until today to unify standards in product design, doubts arise regarding the real human proportion and not for an ideal proportion based on the binary genres and other measures that they only refer to the western man (Pater, 2016). Moreover, Walter Porstmann with the DIN system and paper measures proportional to each other, anticipate the Neufert formula to design buildings and furniture based on proportional and already standardized dimensions, in order to facilitate and economize mass production (Neufert, 2013). In this way we have been subjected to a process of constant normalization in our day to day and in our education, on the one hand, feeling relegated to accept our environment despite adjusting or not to the rules and on the other hand, to loathe on that normal.

This project aims to observe normality in its ontological, social and functional way in order to rethink what is normal, put it into value through a visual container with archival practices and in atlas format, that makes a graphic exploration beginning with three established prescriptions to catalog all the images present in the file. The intention is to give value to what is not overdesigned through the appropriation of the codes shown in the file.

The conclusion that leads us the project, is a series of questions that have no intention of answering, so the intention is remake the practice in design. Perhaps normal things doesn’t exist, but there is what is frequent or what accomplish some standards, or what doesn’t stand out, or what stands out, and how something that starts being experimental in research, ends up being political.

The idea of the project came out from a personal concern about the way we inhabit the world and how is the relation between us living on it. I think that we live in dispersed societies, totally outside of ourselves, due to the lack of silence and pause in our rhythms of life we have lost the contemplative and observational capacity of observation of the world that surrounds us. The project seeks to fee from “the bewildered gaze of the indifferent pedestrian” of which Goncourt speaks. We no longer know how to look, neither where to look and 

this is the reason we need to reeducate our eyes, as a result of this noisy and frenetic society we have also moved away from our biological and organic roots. The project is based on the stimulation of sensitive experience through the creation of different pieces where we transit the concept of container as a space of transformation. This metaphor is a real pretext to talk about alchemy as a transmutation of matter and to work on this idea through different tools, both artisanal and technological, learning to respect the tempos of the elements of nature that takes part in the creative practice and the rhythms of each process. Always projecting from a research methodology based on practice through different design exercises, experiments and workshops between science and magic, generating a dialogue. The practice part is guided by intuition and aesthetics based on formal, material and chromatic interest.The concept of iteration is also highly relevant in the project, highlighting the reminiscent and infnite ability of creativity to continually derive from one idea to another by adding layers like a palimpsest, thus creating an infnite constellation of possibilities. “What really kills man is routine; what saves him is creativity. If you look carefully, everything is always new and different” (Weil, ÿćĆĄ).

Each one of the different sections in the project are shown in different and creative ways of approaching an object or concept, specifcally the glass (alchemical), the roots of the plants and the uterus (or matrix), and creating narratives around of them always having consideration of the concept of container and understanding this as an object or cavity destined to receive and conserve within itself another entity. 

With a population of 1339 million inhabitants, India is a human surface that is unattainable for the objective of westernization, an objective influenced in too many occasions by the uniformed views that try to understand a territory through alterity. This relegates India to an exotic distance conditioned by the comparison of identities between white and eastern societies. The buzzle, the masses of people and dizzying changes are three concepts that support this furious globalization, while creating a nexus with rural areas that are generally unacknowledged by the exotic chromaticism in the photography of Indian landscapes. This project aims to document these changes that are increasingly notorious to Indian society by sharing the everyday life of four people from different parts of the country. 

The project has two objectives: the first is to learn, deepen and understand my practice as a designer. To discover in what ways I approach a project, understand how they start and develop, what paths I take, what tools I use and investigate patterns or recurring points. Being aware and, above all, honest with the process that I will follow is an essential part to understand it all.

The second objective has to do with approaching the debate, still open, about what a design research consists of. In this case, it is made from icon of the product design, the Sedia 1 chair by Enzo Mari, (1974) and different methodological approaches are proposed to this object through the process of learning and deepening in the ways of research that we find within “design”. The chair will go through 10 different processes that range from replicating the original chair to randomly designing; going through the minimum, the digital fabrication, the game, the craft, the community, the probe object, the material experimentation and the circular economy.

The intention is to generate a dialogue between objects and processes to answer questions about them but, above all, to generate new ones. The chair is intended to be use as a resource to formalize my research. In the project, the chair is presented as a device that does not total or close processes, but rather opens up new paths.