The purpose of this project is to choose an everyday object to make an impacting design. Creating an insightful useful object by exploring the 7 Creative Strategies. By using these strategies meaningful ideas can be developed to create solutions to express a variety of designs. The strategies include combination, juxtaposition, isolation, metaphor or simile, change of context or environment, physical shape similarity and material change swap or focus. 

Bringing together two different or unrelated things to create a new object that still makes some sort of sense.

When initially trying to create this design, I really struggled blending the horseshoe with the magnet. The angle was difficult to get just right. I finally used the free transform tools to manipulate the horseshoe to blend and make the curve the same as the magnet. 

Contrast of ideas to highlight their differences between two things rather than their similarities.

The first image I created with this idea, was a bright pink glitter purse, after I placed the horseshoe and finalized it I realized it was the wrong approach. The horseshoe with the pink purse was not being highlighted the way that I had imagined so I completely changed the design. Making the gold horseshoe the vocal point and combining it with the shiny black purse was the final design that I had hoped to create.

Highlighting an object through isolation, by separating it visually from its surroundings of other objects.
As with some of the other designs that I have changed, this design completely changed from the original. My first idea was to use a 
cactus with a similar shape as a horseshoe and repeat it with placing the horseshoe for the isolation. 
After I created the first design idea, I didn’t like how it had turned out, I wanted something with more contrast. I then came up with the idea of using Salty and Sweet, the difference between the sweet fruit and the salty horseshoe is a striking difference.

This strategy is focused on the meaning of the image created with your object as it relates to something else.

One of the first ideas that came to my mind when I chose using a horseshoe for my object was to use it in place of a smile. It has the same shape and I thought it would be a great fit to replace a mouth with. 
I could not find a stock photo that fit my idea, so I decided to take some photos of my handsome nephew. I initially took photos of just his face trying to smile with just his eyes so that I put the horseshoe in place of his mouth. It was not highlighting the horseshoe enough and it was getting lost in his face, so I came up with the idea of him peeking over the fence to make the horseshoe stand out more. I also changed the photo to black and white to better highlight the horseshoe. When I started manipulating the horseshoe, it just appealed and fit so well using it as a mustache instead of a mouth. It’s the perfect fit for any young teenage boy trying to grow one of their own!

Contrasts objects with unnatural or uncommon environments to highlight a concept or communicate an idea. 

Incorporating a tunnel shape was a design I knew would work with the horseshoe arch. When I first placed the horseshoe, I had changed the color to white. It didn’t stand out like I was hoping and was lost in the design, so I changed the color to gold. The color gold represents the treasure, or prize at the end of going through something hard or difficult. This connection resonated to me with the beginning of a new year, having 2021 being a difficult year moving into 2022 was definitely a light.

By using physical similarities to showcase connections between objects that aren’t initially obvious or objects that normally don’t connect. 

From the start of this project after I had 
decided that a horseshoe was going to be my item, I was inspired by my 4-year-old little boy. He was drawing rainbows with his new set of markers and singing a rainbow song he had learned in preschool about the color order. 
This was a design that I didn’t have to 
second guess or make a lot of changes to, it just worked and came together just as I had envisioned it.

This strategy swaps a material property that we accustomed to with 
another. 

While working on my first sketches the idea of using a horseshoe as horns for an animal. Using two horseshoes for the horns of a big horn sheep worked perfectly, so that is what I sketched for my first idea. I found a few stock photos and tried a few designs. The big horn sheep was just not what I had envisioned so I started experimenting with different animals. 
I ultimately chose the highlander cow, the contrast of the shaggy hair with the smooth metal horseshoe was a perfect contrast.