Stone Soup

The first time I participated in anything close to the Stone Soup activity I had in my design class on Monday was on Monday. I’ve completed projects in which the materials are recycled, but Stone Soup was different from those projects on one fundamental part: we could create anything. The resulting product didn’t have to represent anything. And unlike previous projects, the process was just as important as the product.

Our group of six worked well; together from the beginning to the end. We laid a ripped up paper bag flat for our canvas and decided to use three colorful CDs one girl had brought as the centerpieces. It was agreed early on that this was going to be a mobile of sorts, a collage with moving, dangling pieces. A lot of string was used to hang objects, leaves picked up off the ground were added to the collage, and glue was used as an adhesive, as well as a decorative garnish.

While I loved that our group chemistry was collaborative and pleasant, there wasn’t enough communication. We had a central idea and each person added their own touch and interpretation, which were great by themselves but a jumble of a mess when everything was put together in the end. I can see why designers, as Max Azria puts it, “need to be team players.” The key to a great design is communication; communication within the design team, communication to the consumer.

In my honest opinion, the individual elements of the mobile were more aesthetically pleasing than the product as a whole. Our mobile had no shape or form or foundation upon which it was built. There were too many different things going on at once, but of course, the point of the project was to be abstract, not to create a representation of something. That’s exactly what we did.