I started this project thinking about forms of waste, and while I was in the shower (which is where I get all my best ideas) it hit me- how much water was I even wasting just by standing there and thinking while I rinsed my hair? After doing some research, on average about twenty-five gallons of water is being used every five minutes during a single shower. I’ve always been somewhat aware of the issue of water waste, and for several years now I’ve set ten minute timers on my phone to tell me when it’s time to get out of the shower. Even so, I don’t think I had ever realized that within those ten minutes, fifty gallons of water were being used. I originally wanted to make the whole basis of my project about water loss via overly long showers, but after I explored the concept further I realized that my technical skills weren’t ready just yet to finalize that idea. The showers in the building that I live in have a very yellow artificial lighting inside them, and since I don’t have any professional lighting equipment, it would have been really difficult for me to adjust the lighting manually in Photoshop. Because of this, I pivoted my attention to washing machines instead, and was able to portray a much cleaner message... no pun intended.

A Photoshopped poster of a betta fish in a washing machine. The text at the bottom asks the viewer to maximize their laundry load size.

In this project, I learned that the work I make already has real-world applications. I’ve been undergoing my college education with the idea that everything I’m working on in the here and now will have some sort of future application that I’m not aware of, and that I’m in some sort of in-between stage where my design work isn’t “good enough” yet.

My poster hanging on the door to a laundry room. Washing machines are in the background.

However, once the project was finished I brought my completed design to my boss and showed it to her. She liked it so much that she asked me to hang it in the building before I even brought the idea up with her! It means a lot to me that other people also like what I make, so to hear that my work is able to be enjoyed even by non-Design people makes me extremely proud.

My poster being displayed in a gallery of other posters. A woman is standing and looking at it.