THERAMENA FERNANDEZ
WELCOME
My journey as a designer began at eight years old, inspired by YouTube’s miniature-making community. I turned a soggy sponge into a "chocolate cake" and transformed my family’s recycling bin into treasures: cereal boxes became wardrobes, scratch paper turned into mugs, and plastic bottles into fountain glasses. The real joy was in creating something extraordinary from the ordinary.
This passion for creating became my refuge during a challenging chapter of my life. After moving from the Philippines to the U.S., I struggled to adjust to a new culture and environment, feeling disconnected from my family and my past. Crafting miniatures gave me a sense of control and comfort amidst the chaos, allowing me to build my little worlds when the real one felt overwhelming.
Over time, this love for transforming the mundane into something meaningful evolved into a broader passion for design. Whether turning old clothes into practical accessories or repurposing everyday items into something exciting, I discovered the beauty in the process of creation. For me, design isn’t just about the result, it’s about the journey, the problem-solving, and the magic of transformation.
Now, as I step into this new chapter, I’m excited to share the sense of freedom and creativity that my miniature world gave me, bringing that same spark to everything I create as a designer.
RESUME
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CONTEXTUAL INQUIRY + HMW
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My team conducted a contextual inquiry using interviews, observations, and artifact analysis with 4 participants to uncover insights into their needs and behaviors regarding sustainable practices regarding clothing. We developed a "How Might We" statement and three design principles, presenting our findings and design direction through two posters. I also did the illustrations for the participants.
IDEATION
For this portion of the research, we each generated 15 unique design ideas addressing our "How Might We" statement and guided by our design principles. In total, we had 60 sketches. Each idea was sketched, titled, and numbered to communicate variety and originality. The deliverables included physical sketches for class critique and a scanned PDF submission. Below are my ideas and sketches:
DOWNSELECTION + 3 CONCEPTS
We refined our ideation process by narrowing down from 60 initial concepts to three diverse design interventions that directly address our "How Might We" statements and align with user research insights. Using methods like 6 Thinking Hats and the Decision Matrix, we selected and developed these concepts, ensuring they stand alone yet reflect our findings and design principles. The final deliverable included three 11x17 posters. One of my ideas, “Threads of Change,” was selected and evolved from a clothing mural meetup concept into a data visualization regarding upcycling. Additionally, I created the illustrations for all the posters.
Afterward, each of us was responsible for developing one of the three ideas further. I chose my concept, "Threads of Change," and created the mood board below to present to my group. I decided to shift from a mural of clothing to a mound of clothes to better represent the scale and waste of sustainability. Additionally, I envisioned a trash can scale next to the pile, where clothing could be taken and dropped, showing the ecological waste it produces. I aimed to represent this concept through doll-sized figures, as illustrating it at full life scale would have been too complex.
PARTICIPATORY DESIGN WORKSHOP
My team ended up choosing the Threads of Change as our main design concept. Our team conducted a 43 minutes participatory design workshop with 4 participants to refine our design concept. Using activities focused on Making, Telling, and Enacting, we co-designed key elements, gaining insights to realign our "How Might We" statement and concept. Deliverables included two posters summarizing the workshop process, participant contributions, and resulting design improvements, demonstrating our ability to integrate user input effectively.
STORYBOARDING
We created a narrative storyboard to showcase how users interact with our design concept over time. This step focused on visualizing user behavior through a sequence of 12 frames, illustrating actions, stakeholders, and locations. Each frame was paired with captions detailing interactions and environments to ensure clarity. The storyboard helped refine our design by highlighting key interactions and logical sequences, making the concept easy to understand for new audiences. Deliverables included a poster that visually narrates the user's journey and supports design iteration.
USER FEEDBACK REPORT
We conducted a 20 minutes session with 4 participants to gather feedback on our storyboard and early prototype. The goal was to understand how users perceive the concept, identify areas for improvement, and refine the design. Our team prepared targeted questions covering overall concept suitability, experience flow, material and aesthetic choices, future use, and potential misuse. Feedback was synthesized into a one-page report summarizing insights, design confirmations, and proposed revisions, alongside an appendix with the question list. This process enhanced our ability to solicit, interpret, and apply user feedback effectively to improve our final design.
FINAL PRESENTATION