Christian Alejandre

‘—

Tool Montage

Mind Map

This is one of the three mind maps that my group of four came up with. Mind mapping is actually a new concept to me, and I think they’re pretty cool so far. It’s interesting to see how far you can run with a thought and what those thoughts can develop into, especially in a group of people who all think differently. Having the ability to bounce ideas off of each other was definitely helpful.

My 25 Original Pairings
1. Saw + Teeth
2. Elephant + Megaphone
3. Trampoline + Drum
4. Snake + Stapler
5. Drill + Noodle
6. Brush + Puzzle
7. Phone + Shovel
8. Spatula + Lamp
9. Keys + Ponytail
10. Shoe + Rocket
11. Suitcase + Computer
12. Scissors + Hook
13. Mittens + Cheese
14. Dish + Boat
15. Match + Bug
16. Sword + Fan
17. Nun + Clown
18. Pencil + Whip
19. Fork + Worm
20. Gun + Cup
21. Telescope + Cannon
22. Car + Hula Hoop
23. Meat + Tree
24. Bottle + Glasses
25. Chain + Tail

My 10 Choices
1. Saw + Teeth
I automatically thought of the “teeth” on a saw, and thought it’d be comical to have them look like actual human teeth. I doubt that would actually help in cutting anything down though… unless you brushed and flossed every day, of course.
2. Megaphone + Elephant
A megaphone is slightly similar to an elephant’s trunk appearance-wise, so why not switch them up and maximize the volume of their breathing, am i right?!
3. Snake + Stapler
This probably would have worked better if the snake was paired with a staple remover, because of the resemblance between that and a snake’s fangs, but this was the next best thing in my opinion. All you have to do is bop the (hopefully dead) snake on the head and voilà, you have a stapled set of papers and you looked cool (and brave) doing it.
4. Drill + Noodle
This idea popped into my head while thinking of drill bits and the similarities in appearance between them and certain pasta noodles, so I thought it would be fun to see where the combination could go.
5. Phone + Shovel
I have ABSOLUTELY no idea as to why or how this combination popped into my head so fast, but I automatically thought of the slide-out keyboard cellphones we used to have in middle school. For some odd reason, I thought it would be a fantastic idea to replace the slide-out keyboard with a shovel… y’know, just in case you need to go digging and you forget your actual shovel at home.
6. Match + Bug
For this combination, I kept coming back to the idea of the way certain bugs’ bodies are, and how thin and similar to a match some of them look (praying mantis, dragon fly, stick bug, etc.), so I thought of replacing the actual body with one.
7. Sword + Fan
I had a feeling that, in medieval times, fans would have been made out of the same blades swords were made out of as a sort of torture device (or just to circulate some air). I also thought of how nice it would’ve been for knights to have a fan built IN to their swords, especially with all of the heavy armor they had to wear. Refreshment on the go.
8. Fork + Worm
For this one, I thought it would be funny (and gross) to shape worms into the shape of a fork and/or wrap the worms around a regular fork to make them look like spaghetti.
9. Car + Hula Hoop
I had a few different ideas when it came to this pairing. The first two were to make the wheels on a car and the steering wheel inside a car into hula hoops, and the third was to make a person look like they were hula hooping a limousine (because of how long they are, which I thought was fitting).
10. Suitcase + Computer
I call this one “The TRAVEL Computer”, which makes no sense at this point in time because that’s why laptops were invented. I thought that the way a suit case un-hinges and the way a laptop opens was pretty similar, so I went with it. I wouldn’t recommend buying it, though, because I can guarantee you won’t have too much space left to use to pack clothes.

Thumbnails

Overall
I thought this assignment was very interesting. Like I had said earlier, it’s something I had never done before and It was cool to branch out (even literally too, in the mind maps). It truly showed me how much thought goes into the early stages of design work, and how helpful it is to have a plethora of different ideas to grab from.