ART 235 Project 1: The Seven Creative Strategies

For our first project, we first studied the seven creative strategies: combination, juxtaposition, isolation, metaphor/simile, change of context/environment, similarity, and material swap. We studied and gathered examples of each to further our understanding. We then chose an everyday object, created sketches, visual experiments, drafts, and then our final compositions of that object using each of the seven strategies. We used Photoshop to create our digital compositions. 

Particularly helpful was feedback from our professor and classmates at each stage to help us see our work from another's perspective. This enabled us to level up our work and learn skills about presenting our ideas, listening to and applying feedback.

For my object I chose Chapstick. This is an object I use every day. It was both fun and challenging to come up with ways to represent my object using the different strategies.

I wanted to highlight that ChapStick provides hydration to your lips. I combined a tube of ChapStick with pouring water to show how moisture comes from the ChapStick.

I wanted to show how unalike a cracked desert and moisturized lips were by combining them. This made me think of how our words create cracks in a relationship and that the ChapStick can represent working to repair that relationship.

I love negative space in design. The isolation strategy lends itself well to that. I also love a grid. The message I wanted to convey was that it is ok to think different, act different, look different than what is presented as expected. Taylor Swift is famous for her red lipstick, and this composition is meant to show that it is ok to skip the lipstick, if that's what you want.

For this composition, the message was simply that ChapSticks are like adult pacifiers. Those of us that use them, never leave home without one, much like parents don't leave home without their infant's beloved pacifier.

For this composition, placing a tube of ChapStick into the skyline of lower Manhattan gave it a larger than life feel. Working it in, giving it the proper scale for the environment and adding a reflection on the water create the feeling that it actually could belong there.

This composition was one that I knew immediately what I had in mind for. There are so many flavors of ChapStick, much like there a variety of colors of crayons. The cylindrical shape of both made this a natural fit for this similarity composition.

This was another composition idea that came pretty quickly. Masking the wax part of the chapstick with the texture and look of a real strawberry becomes an interesting way to showcase its flavor. The title showcases that this composition could work with an article that discusses using more organic products in beauty products.