Core77

Ashley is a half-Filipino + half-black designer, whose interests in community, language, and identity are as much a part of her daily life as they are part of her designs. After graduating, she plans on finding a way to integrate her love of languages, sustainability, and sewing into her professional practice. On the weekends you can catch Ashley studying Spanish, Mandarin, and over-indulging in ube (purple yam) ice cream with friends.

About "My Language" Project: Everyone has the right to be heard no matter what language they want to speak, yet interactions that take place in a public space are dominated by English. "My Language" seeks to find how certain public spaces can be altered to make non-English and multilingual speakers more comfortable with using their language in public. One outcome of the My Langauge project is a system of signage protest in museums. The people coming to a museum should be able to connect with the art from their own culture via their own language.

As an industrial design student, I saw the world diving further into the digital and I found it fundamental to apply my 3D studies and practices into UI/UX design. By using industrial design problem solving skills for intangible experiences, I want to make the world a better place with interdisciplinary solutions.

My name is Ruoran Pan. Both of my parents are engineers and designers. Before I was able to comprehend that, I started to communicate by drawing down things since I was three. I love arts in all sorts of form, visual, aural, anything that captures my senses. I love what I'm good at, and I'm good at what I love. Despite how people kept telling me that I would become a brilliant artist one day, I don't want to be limited. So, I decided to do something solid with my skills. I applied for Industrial Design and started my journey in Pratt Institute. I had my fortune to study under some outstanding professors and participated in various design competitions and internships in companies. I came out with quite decent harvest, including a 3D pedometer I designed that's now on sale. I also received my utility patent and design patents for other projects. With my experience, I became accustomed to the design thinking process that shrinks down the overall framework into the pursuit of details.

Objects have the ability to completely change the way people live. They improve performance, better our state of mind, change the way we experience our surroundings and the other people in it. I've always been fascinated by the way the human body interacts with objects and the space around it. Through my work, I aim to explore how we function and how to alter the way we live.

I am an Industrial Designer with a Bachelor's Degree from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Born in Germany with German/Turkish origins, I grew up in England and Dubai, before moving to New York. Having grown up so multi-culturally, I was always interested in exploring interactions, along with materials and forms related to different cultures. My design focus lies heavily on creating and exploring many different techniques and processes.

When looking at class options for my capstone semester, I became interested in taking a class called Protest Design. Industrial Design is very absent from protest. The most successful objects come from in-the-moment creations, as it is difficult to predict what will be useful and symbolic of the movement. It is important that objects for protests fall outside typical consumerist dynamics and are not objects that would be typically sold as that makes it lose its rebellious symbolism. Designs for protest do not need to be handmade objects used during a March; they can also be informative objects that showcase a problem within Society. A singular item can have the ability to spark conversations across the globe so that even people that have not experienced the product itself can see and recognize that change must occur. Protests are usually seen as a collection of anger, whereas products are meant to be beautiful and elegant. The struggle now lies in how we can merge these two very different formations and create an object that strives for change.