Koosmann - Project 1 Essay

This project was based around the worst job we ever had which contained three separate pieces of work. Each piece was done in a different format including a deconstructive, integrative, and geometric. The worst job I had, was working as a waitress assistant, and the pieces I created show the amount of stress and frustration I felt. The deconstructive piece is called “Where does this go?” as it illustrates how overwhelmed and frustrated I felt while working there. The integrative piece is called “What if…” as it contains thoughts I often imagined co-workers thinking about my performance as well as thoughts I had directed toward them. The final piece was geometric which I called “I have had enough” which again reflects the amount of stress I felt while working as a waitress assistant.

I created all three pieces in Adobe’s Illustrator.  But before I created the pieces in Illustrator I sketched them in a notebook. These sketches were often messy and random. For each piece I wanted to get down everything that I could think of that would fit into each format.  Even if it seemed to have nothing to do with being a waitress assistant or the format that I was creating the piece, I drew it. I wanted to exhaust all of the ideas I had about the piece I has working on. After sketching I often went back through and crossed out anything that didn’t make sense or didn’t fit into the requirements of the format of the piece. When looking at the sketches I had done, more often then not one drawing caught my eye. After revising the sketch I had decided on, I began to create it in illustrator.

Each piece illustrates how overwhelming, frustrating, and stressful the job was for me. The deconstructive piece represents my stream of consciousness while I worked. The stream of consciousness is placed on top of a simple blueprint like layout of the restaurant. The words run off the page leaving them hard to read. The leading also varies leaving the text even harder to read making this piece somewhat scattered and undone.

The integrative piece is a compare and contrast of thoughts between two people who work in the same place.  On one side is a co-worker and on the other is me.  While working this job I made several mistakes both big and small. Many of these mistakes were specific to restaurant edict. I never received any formal training and I attributed many of my mistakes to the lack of information I was given before I started the job.

The geometric was a representation of myself and how the stress of the job was overwhelming. Because of the positioning of the figure it is similar to the golden section.

My intent for each of these pieces is for the audience to feel tension when looking at these pieces; to feel the stress that I felt while working this job.  Overall I am content with the finish product of this project. Although I feel each piece could have been strong as my skill level is still growing specifically with the pen tool, which I used quite a lot in this project. Adding on to that, my skill level with the pen tool is something that held me back from creating something I would be more satisfied with so I would consider it to be my weakness in this project. And as for my strength I feel I was able to convey the emotions I was feeling while working as a waitress assistant.