Our final project in 3D Design was actually a mix of fun and gruesome (that was because of the choice I made.)

The assignment was to create a museum space teaching about a doomsday prophecy or fears of the end of civilization. The topics the students were choosing were quite interesting (Y2K – I lived through that one, The 4 Horse Riders of Revelations, The Battle of Armageddon, The Cold War, an asteroid impact, the Mayan calendar, etc.) There was one very different one where one student took a children’s book about spaghetti overtaking the world. Click for the illustrated story.

I decided to be a bit different and find something from further back in history. The research on that was very interesting, indeed, but I settled on The Munster Rebellion of the 1530s because of the various elements it offered that lent themselves to a good story.

Munster Germany in the 1500s

The basic premise is that the Anabaptist movement split off a radical who, with a growing following, took over the town of Munster, Germany, saying the Lord was coming and this was to be His New Jerusalem. Easter was his doomsday prophecy. This original leader thought he was Gideon and ended up making a suicide run against the original Bishop who had put the city under siege. Another radical took over. Somehow the missed deadlines were overlooked by the followers and for over a year the new guys in charge lived high-on-the-hog and introduced polygamy (if the world was ending, I am not sure why they needed multiple wives. It wasn’t for procreation.)

Eventually they were overcome and the 3 living leaders were beheaded and strung up in cages on top of a church spire.

100 years later, their bodies were removed, but the cages remain to this day. Nice story, eh?

The Anabaptists went on to become the non-violent, modern day Mennonites and Amish.

My scenario…

The “baptismal” is a clay container I made in high school! It was fun to reuse it.

The 3D Design teacher asked us to make the next project a portfolio piece. When asked what we would use it for, he was unable to answer that question, “I am not the graphic designer, you are!” I was not motivated, needless to say.

1. Find a piece of furniture you like and make a scale model.
2. Match a font of that same period with the furniture, make a scale model of the first letter and use the font on a wall plaque.
3. Write a report on how the design of both are connected to the influences of the era.
4. Make a museum installation of it with appropriate window coverings, flooring, and wall paper.

Original Chair by Warren Platner / Font – Helvetica

My chair…

1950s elements

Flooring (linoleum)

1950's wall paper

I got docked on not completing the H (it needed to be cleaned up and painted.) I felt lucky to even get it into the scenario.

I was not pleased with the outcome, but I did get to practice how to use polymar clay, something that had been on my radar for a couple of years. I made the cushions removable too, which was a fun element.

Maybe it was not so bad for something that had no use except to be thrown away as soon as it was graded. I did salvage the netting – that came out of my air brush tool box. I often try to utilize other art skills that I have… or tools from them. Who knew that scrap of netting would save me a trip to the fabric store one day?

Our 3D Design class was an enigma to me. I sort of understood what the teacher was getting at (or what he should have been getting at, which is environmental graphic design), but since he was an engineer and not a graphic designer, I felt more frustrated than anything. The focus was on the craftsmanship and the math. It really should have been on how to design the graphics for 3D spaces and the math should have centered around how to reduce our designs appropriately.

However, I did get that he wanted us to work with our hands after his irritated comment, “I am trying to teach you how to actually do something.”

And forget the math. It was not going to happen for me with all the migraines and pain going on (from my oral surgery.) Besides, that is what the internet and friends who work in the math world are for, anyway, right? (Shout-out to my brainy friend, Charlotte, on that one! She came to my rescue on one tricky calculation.)

It became an expensive expedition into one of the bigger non-learning events of my degree.

The first project was making cylinders and boxes with various materials and then painting them. I got an A… that is more of a puzzled comment than any sort of bragging.