Psyche Inspired
Learn more about the Psyche Inspired program and view other works
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Psyche Inspired: Daniel Zepeda-Cuba
Institution: Rochester Institute of Technology
Major: New Media Design
Psyche Inspired Class: 2020-2021
Reflections on Psyche Inspired
Reflections on Project 1: Psyche Vintage Travel Poster
Psyche Vintage Travel Poster
Daniel Zepeda-Cuba
Major: New Media Design
Genre/Medium: digital animation
About the work: This piece is a vintage travel poster for (16) Psyche. The intent was to make the poster feel aged with vintage style graphics and colors in order to allude to the fact that Psyche is a planetary core formed long ago. I wanted the asteroid to be the main focus of the poster, but I still wanted to add the fact that we are well on our way to visiting the asteroid by including the spacecraft hovering close by. I then chose to animate the poster to add a feeling that all the elements within were floating in space and create this surreal feeling of seeing the poster in motion. The concept originally began as a postcard, but I later transitioned the idea into a larger poster to better capture the scale of the asteroid.
Reflections on Project 2: Origins
Origin
Daniel Zepeda-Cuba
Major: New Media Design
Genre/Medium: digital
About the work: This minimal design was created with the idea of expanding upon the symbols created by astronomers for the first few discovered asteroids. (16) Psyche’s symbol was a semicircle with a star above. My idea was to add to the logo to create a piece exploring the origins of Earth, and the shared foundation our planetary core may have with Psyche. At the center of Earth – the core – and at the surface of our planet, strands reach out to the stars, grasping for a better understanding of the structure of our own world.
Reflections on Project 3: Psyche Logo Lightbox
Psyche Logo Lightbox
Daniel Zepeda-Cuba
Major: New Media Design
Genre/Medium: Laser Cut Paper
About the work: For my project, I decided to create a laser-cut paper lightbox of the Psyche logo. My intention with this project was to present the logo in a unique and interesting way. I took the original design and colors of the Psyche logo and divided every shade of the gradient into a separate layer and formatted it for laser cutting. In order to capture the differences in the logo’s colors from the dark purple to the bright orange, I needed to make the darker colors further away from the light via more layers of paper, and I needed to make the lighter colors closer to the light with thin layers of paper.
Reflections on Project 4: Formation | Aspiration | Connection
Formation | Aspiration | Connection
Daniel Zepeda-Cuba
Major: New Media Design
Genre/Medium: Digital / Adobe Illustrator
About the work: The main goal of this project was to summarize every stage of the Psyche mission and interpret it in my own way. The 3 artworks depict (16) Psyche’s hypothesized creation, our imagination of what we hope to do with the asteroid, and the eventual launch of the Psyche spacecraft. The first artwork features the abstracted idea of what (16) Psyche looked like when it collided during its formation. For this, I hoped to capture the chaos and intensity of the impact, as well as the ever so slight formation of the asteroid we know today. The second work features a hand reaching out to grab the asteroid itself, a metaphor for our idea to come into contact with the asteroid and begin to understand the information it yields. The final artwork depicts the launch of the spacecraft from Earth towards (16) Psyche. I hoped to allude to an idea explored in one of my previous projects of Psyche sharing the same DNA of our planet.
