Thesis Statement
Window farming is a way to grow your own food at home that most people have not heard of. It can be built with reusable materials and can be a way to grow your own food at home, hands free. Right now, the information that is out in the world is vague and not too detailed on how to build your own window farm. With my instructions, my goal is to show viewers that anyone can build their own custom window farm and grow food easily in their own home throughout the year.
The 4 pages of the instructions after the cover and introduction pages including the supplies list and the beginning of the illustrated instructions.
Thesis Presentation
Project Goals
The primary goal of my project is to show how window farming is an attainable goal for anyone who is either educated on plant care or not educated with minimal use of language. I would also like to reopen the communication about window farm building and rebuild a community of people who farm and share ways to modify their window farms. The audience for this project includes people of a wide range and anyone looking to grow food no matter what their living situation.
Research
I began my process with building my own window farm to custom fit my window at the apartment I was living at.
Process image of building the window farm
After building the window farm, I wrote down all the important steps to building a window farm and then condensed those into the most essential steps.
After this, I began to draw the steps in groups that followed a compressed supplies list.
After sketching out the entire process in simple, easy to read images, I began to work on compositions and creating vector images of the beginning steps.
Working with a grid became the next step. This part in the process began with a 9x9" grid that was flexible, allowing some images to be larger or smaller. After doing the first few steps in vector images with this grid, the rest were drawn with pencil to speed up the process. This helped drastically because if this project was supposed to be accessible to people in their homes, it should be able to be printed on a 8.5x11" sheet of paper. I quickly moved to a 8x8" grid, dividing it into 4 even squares, still allowing different images and steps to be in larger scales or allow for zoomed in compositions.
9x9" Grid in grayscale on a spread
8x8" Grid in grayscale page by page
These previous sketches continued with the 8x8" grid and I continued to work in grayscale to finalize the images and I created many iterations of all the steps to make sure they were easily understandable without any language. After those iterations were complete, I began to work with color again, looking at earth tones and colors that related to window farms. I chose to highlight the tools in obscure colors compared to their "natural" colors so they would stand out on the pages and the reader would easily understand what was going to be needed for those steps. As for the rest of the materials, after confirming with many outside viewers of this project, I decided to keep the materials close to their natural color because they read better.
Color studies for final format showing steps 1 through 13
For my final product, the instructions were 52 steps long across 24 pages in PDF. The end result had a dusty gray purple background, purple tools and bold colors for the materials. The only words in this project were on the title, introduction and supply list pages. Ending the PDF is the final image of a complete window farm and a diagram on how the water cycle works in the window farm. I do believe I was successful at showing how to build a window farm with no language. Using imagery allows for the viewer/builder to be creative in their choices and not confined to just the steps I used.
Throughout this project, I have learned about communicating through design and how images can be just as powerful as words. By building the window farm at the beginning of the process, I was able to create visuals for the process more easily than I would have without doing so. This process has shown me who important working with your hands is and can help to influence your digital work in positive ways.
Sources
Written
Riley, B., Bray, R., Ullrich, T., Hays, I., Wagner, A., Lui, L., . . . Willow, G. (n.d.). How to build your own window farm. Retrieved January 12, 18, from
http://library.uniteddiversity.coop/Food/How_To-Reservoir_System_Window_Farm.pdf
Wheeler, A. (2018). Designing brand identity an essential guide for the whole branding team(4th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
27 Chicago Designers When Art Became Design 1936>1991
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Melissa. "Melissa's WindowFarm." Why Window Farming? January 01, 2009. Accessed February 01, 2018.
Ridden, Paul. "Windowfarms let you garden - appropriately enough - in your windows." New Atlas - New Technology & Science News. November 28, 2011. Accessed February 01,
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"The Window Farming Phenomenon: a Solution to Urban Food Supply?" The Environmental Blog. Accessed February 01, 2018.
"Window Farming." Garden Culture Magazine. October 16, 2017. Accessed February 01, 2018. https://gardenculturemagazine.com/techno-gardens/vertical-gardening/window-farming/.
Visual
(2015, April 01). How to build a Window Garden. Retrieved January 15, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3WwfBCdDzc
C. (2012, May 28). Window Farm gone crazy. Retrieved January 15, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvDIZaK9GmI
Wheeler, A. (2018). Designing brand identity an essential guide for the whole branding team(4th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
27 Chicago Designers When Art Became Design 1936>1991
Rendgen, S., Wiedemann, J., Ciuccarelli, P., Wurman, R. S., Rogers, S., & Holmes, N. (2016). Information graphics. Köln: Taschen GmbH.
9. (n.d.). 99 Percent Rebuilt: Design Process, Features & Secrets of the 99pi Website. Retrieved January 15, 2018, from https://99percentinvisible.org/article/collab-99-percent-
redesigned-ideas-decisions-behind-our-new-website/
F. (2017, April 21). How to Design & Prototype Adobe XD Tutorial. Retrieved January 15, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtZJUvzQrA4
Adobe XD CC - Experience Design 30 Tips & Tricks. (2017, July 19). Retrieved January 15, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztWItS5NM2M
