About

When we first started looking at what exactly conditional design was, we were confused by what exactly that meant and how we were going to somehow make a project from that. So when we started getting asked how this was design opposed to an art project, we began to pitch it as the fact that we designed everything besides the final end product. All the rules, material choices, footage, etc. are all designed and chosen by us, but the final visual product is based on what participants put out.

In terms of rules, we had a bit of deliberation between how restrictive or free we wanted to be with them. We started out with an early test run with nothing, but one rule, trace the snowboarder and then do whatever you want. We had a black pen and blue pen with us and some people used their own pen. When we regrouped, we decided we wanted to make a couple changes and add some rules so we could control our end product a bit more. Knowing we wanted to do the Olympics, our color scheme were based on the colors of the rings and each additive element was based on the “aesthetic” of the sport. We used a light watermark of the rings both as a decorative piece, but also as a silent nudge to see if people would interact, outline, decorate or color them in without any rule specifically asking them to.

Gathering participants from all different majors, here were some key takeaways/observations:

People really were stressed out that the color brown wasn’t available

People love to ask questions or need confirmation even after reading the instructions

People that were more comfortable in their artistic ability had a tendency to use the markers available, while people who were less comfortable, usually went for the colored pencils

For a lot of people in majors that weren’t creative, they were really glad to be doing something that felt relaxing and the opposite of what they’re used to doing

And of course, big big thanks to

Maddy, Megan, Kyuha, Zoe, Chris, Mason, Sharon, Kade, Allissa, Anna, Asher, David, Matt, Tammar, Francis, Supawat, Sophia, Alice, Rachel, Ikjong, Jaclyn, Julie, Mimi, Danny, Eunice, Tanvi, Ekta, Stefano, Liam, Katie, Robert, Helen, Stacie, Wayne, Clair, Jacob, Trevor, Jackie, Evan, Rachel, Andrew, Sean, Hari, Akhil, Santiago, Pat, Ryan, Willy, Jay, Tay, Angela, Joseph, Gretchen, Langston, Dylan, Conner, Hilary, Faith, Aisha, Raymond, Yoshi, Vinay, Luke, Judy, Manav, Simrit, Kayla, Kasdan, Simona, Manny, Annabella, Jeffery, Carlos, Eric, Gus, Jose, Quinn, Maggie, Maddie, Nimish, Lisanne, Archana, Margot, Miranda, Vicky, Jason, Erin, Hamza, Andrew, Jenny, Mark, Gautam, Grace, Eric + a lot of other people that we are sorry we didn’t catch your name or have forgotten (though we got a lot of overlapping names, shout out to ALL my “Chris”es), we know there are a ton more of you considering there are 200 frames all in total, so we are sorry again, but WE APPRECIATE YOU, thank you for giving us your time and participating!

Best,

Serina and Sherry