Super Graphics
The Class Theme:
Every year, the capstone product design class at MIT presents a new theme, meant to inspire students as they brainstorm ideas for new products. In 2017, the theme was:
SUPER!
I created graphics along this theme, to be used throughout the class. An important factor in this project is that the class is always divided into 8 teams, each represented by a unique color:
Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, Pink, and Silver.
My first step was to do some research on superheroes and superpowers. I put together this association chart to help the staff and students define "super" and to encourage diversity in their brainstorming:
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/2bf4800ebdd195e8a5c41a9ccbd1be6955cabb254e9634c2b6cfe79e1c62efbf/SuperPowersV1-01_o.png)
Visual Theme & Product Man:
I decided to embody the "super" theme for teams by assigning each team a shape, which could later be represented as shields with emblems:
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3cc379140fd803bfba56e1980dd36a3afbc4a6a7f873c9c2988f8dbfef899a67/Screen-Shot-2017-07-31-at-3.51.51-PM.png)
The mosaic containing these shields was also used as a cape for our new super-hero character "Product Man" (aka, Professor David Wallace). Here is James modeling the cape when it was first sewn (by talented co-TA Georgia Van De Zande):
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b7dd6430e9038762bd17c5f166b1d96df9ca1990c70e728652d5224dd4907a2a/james_cape.png)
The real Product Man:
![]()
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5622f20753ff2d7a000c88fb21a470190c0d7a7194523f58f021e0b6d0a67d0b/product_man.png)
My sketch of Product Man:
![]()
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/adadb847336bca767b711ad4c1f2e972632dcc4a65265eebaaa61ed027418837/super_david.png)
Sub-Theme Emblems:
Several weeks into the semester, teams are assigned a subtheme based on the team's most promising proposed product ideas. In order to give teams as much time as possible to work with their sub-themes, the staff only have a few hours to decide on subthemes and create graphics for them.
I had started brainstorming potential subthemes and icons ahead of time and had some doodles ready in my notebook:
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b8c0d9f9a6037358670484cdb418b24aed82dcb22c98adaf0ece3001d3eefdb6/emblems_doodles.png)
Later, I recorded my screen during this design session, so you can see how I went about making 7* new emblems in ~2.5 hours at ~50x speed:
*the 8th team emblem (for pink team) was designed by another talented artist, Chuck Xia.
The finished emblem designs and their associated superpowers:
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7b5c034dd3320b843f00150744eb74d990e7b41266db8e14f6e2e886f7c386dd/and-labelsemblems.png)
The emblems would later be used on real shields by teams during the famed "build challenge," an obstacle-course like competition event that provides team-building and stress relief from recent design critiques:
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8dc0676e05a992a963268560a6dc1e3c8627db1c0cbf43b1c99295cc60dd618b/slideshow_images_10_06l-48_o.jpg)
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3f5c0d27cd1edb2af714788d29f9e931eb95e344d44e7ccbafe362caf13c04b1/slideshow_images_10_06l-53_o.jpg)
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3c20bc32c46a5c6c6b7e0af4368ce0a8c42fed5628fe6b0f14be44b1ceb9b32b/slideshow_images_10_02l-27_o.jpg)