The Designer Outreach: Material Exploration

For this project, I took materials that were going to be composted and instead used them to experiment with personal branding by turning them into paper. Paper can be made using fibrous materials of any kind. The materials I collected include: orange peel, banana peel, pomelo peel, coffee grounds, and cardboard egg cartons. Through taking part in the slow process of buying, using, drying, and blending my materials, my patience may have been tested; however, there were positive side effects as well, such as: I was eating lots of fruit, when I would bake the peels to dry them, my house smelled sweet, and ultimately, slowing down to make something is a good way to force myself to take my time.

The joy of industrial design is that I get to try my hand at each part of the process. It was a fascinating experience to consider what's often overlooked.