23/54 – The Art of Engineering

Directive: Process

I love to make things. Drawing and painting have always been passions of mine. I use this passion in many of my projects because it gets my creative juices flowing. Sometimes it’s just a doodle and other times it’s a full fledged painting, that helps me come up with new ideas. When I lose myself in my work, I tend to push away the boring, tedious thoughts and move towards the more interesting thoughts. I decided to break out my paints and paint brushes (something I haven’t had the chance to do since moving to Richmond) to see if any interesting ideas came from it.

 

 

After a few hours of painting in a trance, putting down my brushes with a few ideas to work with felt great. I believe to come up with out of the box ideas, you need to be out of your head. Making art takes me to a different mindset and I consider it to be a big part of my creative process.

While I was painting, I started thinking of German engineers at Volkswagen. They’re artists in their own right, using their tools (math & science), they create something that is both useful and ascetically pleasing. I think it would be interesting to liken Volkswagen’s engineers to artists, other innovators in their field. Comparing a german engineer on an assembly line to a composer; an engineer designing car parts to a muralist painting the side of a building.

Often engineering is viewed as cold, hard numbers and science, but connecting it with the arts makes it more human. Volkswagen is big on engineering and it puts its focus on innovation. In making their engineers appear more approachable, engineering moves from the brain of Volkswagen the company to the heart of the Volkswagen brand.

22/54 – The Idea Machine

Directive: Process

Driving is, hands down, one of my most favorite activities. There’s a special kind of therapy in the wind that blows through my hair, the music that blasts from the stereo, and the wheels that turn at my command. Driving makes me feel empowered and in control of my life, so much so, that I feel sad as I round the corner of the street my home is on. If I need to get away, I can escape through the open road, my music, and the comfort of my own mind.

I tend to use my time in the car to reflect and to let my mind wander. It’s probably one of the most fool proof ways for me to generate ideas. The roads that I drive everyday, that I know like the back of my hand, become my canvas. The winding path, broad brush strokes that, by my destination, form a full idea.

Volkswagen represents innovation in design & technology, but their cars are also a catalyst for innovation. When you enjoy your drive, it’s much easier to let the stresses of driving fall away and let new ideas settle in their place.

 

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Mike sits at his desk as his co-workers scramble around him. “Look the numbers just don’t add up,” they say. “What are we going to do?” one asks, slapping a hand to his head in exasperation. Mike stands up and calmly responds, “I’ll tell you in an hour.” Mike walks out the door, leaving the confused workers in his wake. Focused on his Volkswagen Passat, he walks with a purpose. Sliding into his car, with no hesitation he slips the key into the ignition and turns. The engine springs to life with a roar and just like that, Mike is on the road. Escaping the cluttered traffic of the city, he speeds through a forest of towering trees. With his windows down and music playing, Mike drives on a road that winds on a cliff above the ocean. As he continues to drive, he begins to see numbers and equations appear on the road. Things begin to connect and just like that, Mike bursts into the office with confidence. “I’ve got an idea,” he says.

 

 

 

21/54 – One Day at a Time

Directive: Process

One day at a time is a phrase that I consistently have to tell myself. Homework, projects, tests, and decisions, big or small, sometimes it’s important and necessary to take them on one day at a time. Breaking things, that are seemingly big, down into tiny bite-size pieces helps make them more manageable. Even for this project, I’m endlessly telling myself one day at a time. It’s my way of calming myself down and getting done what needs to be done. Everything will be okay as long as I take it day by day. I consider one day at a time to be a big part of my process.

This phrase inspired a short story that I’ve written as a screenplay.

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INT. GARAGE – DAY

A garage filled with tools and memorabilia is soaked with the warm mid-afternoon sun. A father is polishing the red family Golf when his son DAVID walks in from the front lawn. He stops in front of his father fidgeting with his hands and looking nervous.

DAD

Are you ready for tonight?

DAVID grabs an old fold-up chair and sits on it backwards. He looks up at his dad.

DAVID

Yeah, I think so. I just really want it to go well, I like her a lot dad.

The dad places the car keys into his son’s hands and pats him on the back.

DAD

Take it one day at a time son.

FADE IN

EXT. FRONT PORCH – NIGHT

DAVID walks up to the front porch in his tuxedo. The porch light shines down on him as he rings the doorbell. His date ANNA walks out in a gorgeous shimmering dress. Her parents stand in the door way as DAVID gives a nervous smile and leads her to his dad’s Volkswagen.

CUT TO

EXT. BEACH – DUSK

Celebrating their graduation, DAVID and ANNA sit in the open hatch of the Volkswagen Golf. In the hatch we see their graduation robes and hats crumpled behind them. Close by, their friends sit in the sand in front of the roaring bonfire. We see in the distance one of their friends lighting fireworks on the beach and running away. There’s a loud bang and the fireworks explode above them. As the sparks dissolve overhead, DAVID and ANNA share a kiss.

CUT TO

EXT DRIVE WAY – DAY

DAVID walks out of the front door of his house lugging a large cardboard box filled with his belongings. A red and white pennant sticks out of the box. The Volkswagen’s hatch sits open and his parents hold each other in the drive way looking proud. As he walks down the pavement, the screen splits.

Left Side: DAVID pushes his box in the already cramped hatch and shuts it closed. He walks over to his parents and give them a hug.

Right Side: ANNA also holds a cardboard box with a blue and white pennant poking out of the top. She puts the box in the back of her car and closes the hatch. She gives a thumbs up to her parents and they begin getting in the car.

CUT TO

EXT COLLEGE CAMPUS – DAY

Surrounded by foliage and fellow students, DAVID walks with his backpack on the campus quad. Red & white flags and banners decorate the light poles and buildings. The orange leaves falling from their branches to indicate that fall is upon them.

CUT TO

INT CLASSROOM – DAY

David sits in a huge lecture hall. His professor stands at the front of the room writing on a huge whiteboard. He takes his phone out of his pocket to see a text message from ANNA.

ANNA [TEXT]

I miss you but I don’t know how to make this work.

DAVID starts to type out a response.

DAVID [TEXT]

Let’s just take it one day at a time.

CUT TO

INT DORM ROOM – NIGHT

DAVID is sitting at his desk in his dim dorm room. The glow of the computer illuminates the room. He speaks with ANNA over video chat. They laugh as they tell one another about their day.

CUT TO

EXT COLLEGE CAMPUS – DAY

David shuts his car door behind him as he steps out onto the frost covered grass. The large college buildings are covered in snow, large banners & flags hang off of them in blue and white colors. He spots ANNA across the campus. They run towards each other and crash into an embrace as they meet.

CUT TO

EXT COLLEGE CAMPUS – DAY

DAVID, looking older, walks across the stage, decorated with a large velvety curtain and the university’s seal on the podium in center stage. DAVID walks towards the dean who greets him with a handshake and his college diploma. ANNA, sitting with his parents in the crowd below, applauds loudly.

FADE TO

INT EMPTY APARTMENT – DAY

Sun rays pour from the window as DAVID and ANNA struggle with their cardboard boxes filled with their things. The front door stays ajar to reveal the red Passat sitting in the driveway. Two pennants, the red with white & the blue with white, poke out of DAVID’S box. As they set the boxes down, DAVID places his arm around ANNA. They look at each other and smile.

FADE TO

EXT GARDEN WEDDING – DAY

Standing under a floral arch, DAVID takes ANNA’S hands. DAVID is in a black suit and ANNA is in a long white dress & veil. The priest looks expectantly at the bride and groom.

DAVID

I do.

ANNA

I do.

PRIEST

I know pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss the bride.

DAVID and ANNA kiss. DAVID & ANNA’S parents sit front row. DAVID’S father, with a knowing look on his face, winks at his son, while ANNA’S parents hold each other looking overjoyed.

CUT TO

INT KITCHEN – DAY

ANNA is far along in her pregnancy. She sits at a stool in her kitchen reading books on parenthood. DAVID places a plate of food in front of her. ANNA looks up and smiles. DAVID stands behind her, reading over her shoulder; he places his hand on her shoulder.

FADE TO

INT HOSPITAL – DAY

ANNA lays in a hospital bed lovingly cradling her newborn daughter. DAVID sits in a chair next to the bed, placing his hand gently on his daughter’s head.

CUT TO

INT LIVING ROOM – DAY

Toys are strewn everywhere on the floor. DAVID sits on the floor of his living room as LILY, his daughter, takes her first steps. He holds out his arms and cheers as she toddles her way towards him.

FADE TO

INT CAR – DAY

LILY at five years old sits in the back seat of her dad’s Volkswagen Passat. She is playing with toys as DAVID drives the car. LILY abruptly stops playing with her toys and looks up.

LILY

Daddy, when can I drive the car?

DAVID laughs.

DAVID

Honey, lets take one day at a time. We need to get you out of that car seat first.

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I really wanted to morph my phrase of one day at a time with the story of a Volkswagen driver. I made sure the Volkswagen stayed present throughout the story to show that VWs are there for you each and every day. Life is a journey and if you’re not in the present, you’re going to miss it.

20/54 – Wilderness Survival Tip #1

Directive: Process

Sometimes I don’t really understand where my ideas come from. A good portion of them feel like they just fell from the sky and hit me over the head. Thinking about my creative process was actually a challenge for me. I’m still trying to pinpoint my little rituals, but I’m it to be really difficult. Sometimes I lay in bed and stare at the ceiling to come up with ideas other times it’s while I’m walking to class, riding the bus, or in mid-conversation. I feel like Volkswagen is always on the back burner in my mind, so eventually all my ideas come to a boil.

In true Bridget fashion, I came up with a good idea for a post at 2:00 in the morning while trying to fall asleep. Forcing myself to spring out of bed for risk of losing the idea in my sleep, I grabbed a pen & paper to jot it down. Usually after I write my idea down, I spend a while thinking about it. Generally I don’t spend 45 continuous minutes thinking about my ideas for a post, I spend 45 minutes over the course of a few days, usually, letting the idea take shape, adding more to it each time I think about it.

For this idea, I was thinking of ways for Volkswagen to express its concerns for our environment and acknowledge the eco-friendly, innovative features that their cars have. I started thinking about forests, the wilderness, and animals, all things that would benefit from a cleaner environment. The concept I came up with was “Wilderness Survival Tips”. Generally we would think of wilderness survival tips as they apply to us, hike in groups, know how to read a map, etc, but my thought was to flip the meaning. Tips for the survival of the wilderness.

Wilderness Survival Tip #1: Drive a Volkswagen

The forest will thank you.

19/54 – Illumination

Directive: Mind Map

The headlights. Essential for driving in the night and through bad weather. The eyes of a car. For this mind map I decided to put my focus on car headlights.

After creating a web of my thoughts, I started thinking of headlights as a guiding light. They keep you on your path, illuminate the obstacles, and allow you to keep yourself safe. They give you sight, a vision of what lies ahead. Thinking more abstractly, vision (goals, passions, and focus) for the future, are what lie ahead on your path. Often times to achieve our goals, we have to move; travel in order to make them happen. Our headlights are the guiding force on the road to our future.

With the future on my brain, I started thinking about tarot cards. Used by mystics and fortune tellers, each tarot card has its own name and meaning associated with it. The cards are meant to provide some sort of guidance and insight of your future.

My idea is to take the concept of headlights guiding your path & tarot cards and combine them. The Volkswagen tarot cards are meant to provide insight into which car you should get and guidance as to what you do with the car. Each card, illuminated by headlights, has a different Volkswagen car with their title.

The Adventurer tarot card has a Touareg illustrated in it. This card presents itself for the intrepid. It suggests a life filled with exciting excursions and a daring individual. However those who obtain this card must exercise cautiousness in their adventures or otherwise face the possibility of dire situations.

Other tarot cards included in the deck are “The Hippie” (Type II), “The Businessman” (Passat), “The World” (e-Golf), and “The Family” (SportsWagen).

18/54 – From the Invention of the Wheel

Directive: Mind Map 

It’s hard to think of a time when the wheel was considered an innovative technology, but the creation of the wheel laid the foundation for all future innovations. I decided to do this mind map on the wheel, or more specifically, the tire.

I found through my mind map that I focused my attention on progress & movement. I began to think of the wheel as a catalyst for the great inventions marked throughout history and more relevantly the car. The creation of the wheel was pinnacle for the development of civilization. Without the wheels, most modern forms of transportation would be all but useless; they’re the legs of innovation. With this in mind I made a small illustration of the progression of wheels.

Starting with the first wheel, I drew different illustrations depicting inventions where wheels are vital for function. More abstractly I started thinking about the “wheels” in a German engineers brain cranking. The engineers at Volkswagen are essentially the wheels of innovation. They allow innovation to roll forward and give way to the next great invention.

17/54 – State Fairs & Blue Ribbons

Directive: Mind Map

This past weekend I had the pleasure of visiting the Virginia State Fair. From fried Kool-Aid to rattle snake wranglers, the State Fair had everything you could ever wish for. One particular event they had was a demolition derby, where a barrage of smashed up cars attempted to completely destroy each other. Swerving, backing up, breaking, and accelerating, the cars pummeled each other to bits. Wheels knocked askew and others completely flattened, slipped and sputtered in the mud as each car tried to get a jump on the others. One of the cars, “Twisted Metal”, a Volkswagen(at least appeared to be; it’s hard to tell). After a long battle between the car “666″ and “Twisted Metal”, the Volkswagen was victorious!

Watching this I decided to a mind map focused on demolition derby to see what would come of it. I ended up fixating on county fairs and blue ribbons.

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 “At this years County Fair the blue ribbons go to Pepper the Pig for best in show, Granny J’s Three-Berry Pie, and Kenny the Crusher driving Twisted Metal the VW. “Kenny the Crusher has been driving Twisted Metal from his very first demolition derby. His VW has been through a lot, at this point, it’s almost unrecognizable. The hood smashed in, the back hatch crumpled like a piece of paper, and wheel missing, it’s hard to imagine the car as it used to be. People always tell Kenny that he should just replace the car. “It’s not worth fixing,” they say but he loves his car too much. Twisted Metal has seen him through 7 derbies and has helped him win 7 consecutive blue ribbons. He feels a bond with his car like no other, so when he wins the derby after losing a wheel, Kenny just shrugs it off and says “it’s just a scratch.”

16/54 – Lose Your Map

Directive: Mind Map

To me mind-mapping is a way of picking through your brain for ideas you didn’t even know you had. They’re just waiting there, ripe for the picking. I chose the road for the focus of my map and this is what I came up with…

I found a common theme in many of the ideas I wrote down, adventure, routes, journeys, and destinations.

What this translated to in my head was that the road is life. When we’re on the road, we know where we’re going. We have our map in hand and a destination in our mind. We have options and choices to make, however, no matter what routes we take, they will still bring us to our final destination. Thinking of life in terms of a destination is honestly, kind of uninspiring. Our focus should be on the journey… or even forgetting about the destination all together. We should throw out our maps and see where the unplanned road takes us. Sometimes we just need to get lost.

Sometimes in life you just have to let go, forget about your plans for the future, and just live. I feel that this connects with the brand VW in a strong way. Volkswagen is about motoring pleasure. Their cars aren’t just a means to an end, they’re meant to become a part of your journey. The Volkswagen is there for you, no matter what route you take.

10/54 – Don’t Get Static, Get Going

Directive: Collaborate 

This past week I had the pleasure of working with my classmates, Ashly & Angelica, to come up with some great ideas for Volkswagen. We decided to meet for dinner at Galaxy Diner in Carytown, where we swapped ideas over milkshakes. I thoroughly enjoyed working with my group as we were able to bounce some really great concepts off of each other. One in particular, while at first seemed a little out there, really stood out. We were all talking about an idea, and Ashly said the word static. Angelica immediately piped up with the concept of static and dryer sheets. Ashly & I weren’t completely convinced, but as she explained it, the idea made a lot of sense and it was just fun.

The whole concept is that drivers who aren’t driving Volkswagen, are living dull, monotonous, unhappy lives (at least while they’re driving their non-Volkswagen cars). They’re static. They’re not making progress or change in their lives. Volkswagen represents progress, innovation, and motoring pleasure. This is where the static and dryer sheets come in. The drivers have static-y hair and a magical, guiding hand rubs the dryer sheets on the drivers head, thereby eliminating the static and encouraging the drivers to make a change… a change toward Volkswagen.

To fully develop this idea, each of us were delegated tasks that aligned with our strong suits. Angelica wrote the screenplay, I recorded and edited our commercial, and Ashly documented the process through photographs.

My Groupmembers Work:

http://wordsandjellysandwich.wordpress.com/2014/09/15/11-collaborate-dont-get-static-get-going/

http://thecreativeadvertisingmind.wordpress.com/2014/09/15/11-collaborate-dont-get-static-get-going/

08/54 – The Perfect Driver

Directive: Get Out of Your Comfort Zone

Since I’ve started this project I’ve only really came up with ideas by sitting alone and writing long lists. In a class discussion about getting out of our comfort zone and developing new ideas, one student in particular was talking about his ideas. As I listened to him talk, something sparked and I thought of my own, different, idea. Sometimes it just takes doing something differently in order to see results.

My idea focuses on a man training to be the world’s perfect driver, lets call him Steve. He wants to be the most alert, fastest acting, and safest driver that has ever lived. He is very serious about his training and has committed his life to this endeavor. I envision him wearing sweat bands on his head and wrists, a white tank top, red short athletic shorts, tall gym socks, and white tennis shoes.

This is his daily schedule:

The Itinerary 

6:00 am – Wake Up

6:10 am – Breakfast of Champions

6:25 am – Get Showered & Dressed

7:00 am – Meeting with Trainers

7:15 am – Distraction Aversion (trainers attempt to distract Steve as he drives; trainers yell, blast music, and act as annoyingly as possible)

9:00 am – Stretches

9:15 am – Fingers & Arms Work Out

11:00 am – Feet & Calves Work Out

12:00 pm – Vision Test (Trainers check his peripheral vision by putting their hands just behind Steve’s field of vision; “Can you see this? How about now?)

1:00 pm – Lunch While Watching Driving Technique Videos

2:00 pm – Driving Obstacle Aversion (trainers put obstacles in Steve’s way; ex) trainer runs after ball in the street wearing pig tail’s or a helicopter hat)

4:00 pm – Dinner & Trainer Critique Session

5:00 pm – Driving Simulation (aka Video Games)

11:00 pm – Driving Simulation with Alertness Training (Trainers blow air horns in Steve’s ear to keep him from falling asleep)

12:00 am – Sleep

The following day after showing Steve running through his daily activities, he wakes up like any other day and heads to the kitchen. There he finds his trainers packing up their things. “Where are you going?” he asks. They just point to the television and a commercial for Volkswagen is on.

Emergency power brakes, back-up sensors, and rear-view video because no one’s a perfect driver.

Flashback to Steve who is sobbing over his Bran flakes.

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I was very excited by this idea and felt I should share it, even though it only really covers the innovative design portion of our criteria.