DONATION BOXES FOR THE DESIGN MUSEUM OF CHICAGOWinter 2020 | Design Museum of Chicago | Internship
The stands for a pair of donation boxes for the Design Museum of Chicago, where patrons “vote” with their donation on a design question.
OPPORTUNITY
The Design Museum of Chicago is a nonprofit that relies on donations to keep them up and running. There is a $5 suggested donation, but the donation box is small, boring, and often placed in a location where it does not engage visitors.
ACTION
I redesigned the donation box to increase donations to the museum, awareness of what they support, and it’s aesthetic.
IDEATIONYaro Banduro, Artistic Director and my supervisor, and I outlined the project and it’s goal: create a donation box where visitors “vote” on a question with their donation. I started by brainstorming shapes and materials, then creating a wide variety of sketches.
After getting feedback from and bouncing ideas off of some coworkers, I did a second iteration of sketches based off of the concepts we felt best represented the museum and the project goals.
“Boxes” concept expansion
“Gamify” concept expansion
“Wood x Acrylic” concept expansion
I created quick prototypes made with cardboard, hot glue, and paper to help visualize possible layouts of one concept.
DESIGN REVIEW TAKEAWAYSMovement and “gamifying” of the box may not be necessary or may even detract from the question.
Boxes should be at the same height/visibility so the comparison aspect is very clear.
Narrowed down ideas based on Yaro’s preference, leaned toward a design incorporating “DM” because it would be unique to us.
Based on design review feedback, I worked on a series of designs exploring the “DM” shape and how it could pose a question, inform people of the suggested donation, and provide two options for people to vote for. I experimented with a tube vs. a box to collect money in the use of cutouts, angles, and negative space.
During this iteration, I realized we didn’t have to force a sign or multiple places for writing: the problem we were trying to design for wasn’t a space for the question to go, but rather a way to convey two options to the visitor. I brought this idea to my supervisor, who totally agreed, and the proposal of using two square boxes with pieces of paper that Annie, our graphic designer, could design that presented two options for voting, for example “I prefer chocolate ice cream” vs. “I prefer vanilla ice cream,” rather than having the question “Which kind of ice cream do you prefer” along with the two answers.
FINAL DESIGNI purchase acrylic lock boxes to size, and prepared files for water jetting. After the parts were cut, I welded the D and M, sanded them down, and finally cleaned the metal before using adhesive to adhere the boxes to the stands and the stands to the ground.
