Gretchen Chern | Design Research & Strategy

What’s Under the Kitchen Sink?

Overview In the twen­­ty-first cen­tury, orga­nized liv­ing spaces are more preva­lent than ever. Orga­ni­za­tional sys­tems have been designed and redesigned in an attempt to make spaces more accom­mo­dat­ing. The scope for this project was to step back and ana­lyze why cur­rent sys­tems are not work­ing to their full poten­tial and cre­ate a solu­tion that would […]

The Human Factor: Design Thinking

This intro­duc­to­ry class helped me under­stand the phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al human fac­tors that need to be con­sid­ered with every design project — from ergonom­ics and usabil­i­ty to light­ing and col­or. Com­ing from a graph­ic design back­ground, the phys­i­cal fac­tors were espe­cial­ly new to me. I learned how to find and use anthro­po­met­ric data as well […]

Logo and Identity Design

Com­mon­wealth Emer­gency Physi­cians Logo Com­mon­wealth Emer­gency Physi­cians is a mod­­er­ate-sized com­mu­ni­ty hos­pi­tal locat­ed in north­ern Vir­ginia. The com­pa­ny want­ed to project a pro­fes­sion­al, mod­ern image that also con­veys excel­lence, time­li­ness, car­ing, and pro­gres­sive think­ing. When I asked the group if there were any logo designs in their field they real­ly liked, I found out they […]

EcoLabs

While research­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty graph­ics for my M.A. Final Project, I came across Eco­Labs and the con­cept of eco-lit­er­a­­cy. Eco­Labs is a not for prof­it net­work of design­ers and visu­al artists who cre­ate mate­ri­als, projects and pro­grams that sup­port eco­log­i­cal lit­er­a­cy. The aim of the orga­ni­za­tion is to nur­ture whole sys­tems think­ing, fos­ter eco­log­i­cal lit­er­a­cy, and […]