Tim Hurley's Ideas

My ideas are mainly written out, but following each idea is inspiration imagery for each idea. First off, after going to the Fishs Eddy store, I came to the conclusion that dishware design is more secondary than anything. Designs that were being sold in their store were designed as novelty items and all of the designs catered to everyone, and none of the designs were specific to any target audience or too loud in their subject matter/approach. With that said, I tried coming up with ideas that focused on politics in general and nothing more; by focusing on a broad topic, I would have designs that appealed to anybody walking into the store. In addition to this, I noticed that the majority of the people shopping in the store were a mix of young hip couples, middle age married couples, and single middle age women.

IDEA 1

Politics is all about taking a side, and sticking by that side. People show their support in politics many different ways, but one effective way is through bumper stickers. Everyone who drives behind you sees what you support, advocate, and what you are against. Since politics is always changing, I think that collecting many different bumper sticker designs throughout history (both serious and funny) and mixing and matching them onto cups, bowls, plates, and anything else I can think of would be a unique aesthetic for dishware. These designs would serve as a overview of history, and politics over time, and provides people with something nice to look at, as well as something to look further into. In a way, the dishware becomes the bumper.

IDEA 2

A lot of people enjoy memorizing all of the presidents and being able to recite their names upon looking at a photo. Presidents are iconic figures that everyone knows, and the majority of presidents have very distinct facial features and looks. The surrealist artists used to play a game called Exquisite Corpse, where they would fold the paper in sections, start with the head of a figure, pass it, move onto the body, pass it and so on; at the end you get a totally crazy creature that was created by everyone. I was thinking I could make exquisite corpses of the presidents. I think it would be funny to see Abraham Lincoln's mouth/beard paired up with Bush's eyes/hair. Once the designs are made, people would have fun trying to see if they can recognize who's who, plus they'd look pretty cool regardless of whether you know who's who.

IDEA 3

There are alot of political parties out there. The two main being the republican and democratic, and other minor ones, however I bet you never knew about some parties that might have gotten lost within the mix. Some of these parties along with their symbols are the Pizza party (slice of pizza), the party party (mug of beer), graduation party (a cap and tassel), ice cream party (ice cream cone), dance party (disco ball), tea party (a tea bag), and many more. I am playing on the fact that we have a lot of types of parties that end in the word "party". Since the Democrat party has a donkey and the republican party is a elephant, i gave these types of parties, like the pizza party kids love celebrating in school, an icon similar to that of the democrat/republican party. It would be something that people would find humorous (it's a fresh use of a pun), and they could pick which icon suits themselves the most, or which ever one they think is clever.

IDEA 3

Everyone is familiar with the 10 commandments, and the bill of rights, but are we familiar with the ones passed without the government telling us about? These ones are: The right to have seconds, the right to put the bowl up to your mouth, the right to be messy, the right to lick the plate, the right to split the meal, the right to take the last one, the right to double dip, the right to use your fingers, the right to taking an extra scoop of sugar, the right to play with your food, the right to...etc. I want to come up with copy that speaks to people on the level where they will go "ohhh haha, I do that! This plate/bowl/mug is great!". These are those joke dishes that people bring out time and time again because they saying captures who they are when they eat. I think a play that says, the right to take the last one is funny. These sayings relate to the dish specifically, and would be written in old fashioned style, and made to look like the 10 commandments/bill of rights. These were inspired by the dishes in the store that we based around moments of truth which were mainly type based.