Newsletter 008
The I Have A Dream Preschool Academy, located just south of downtown Marion, is an early-childhood educational program focused on empowering young learners to love their neighbors well through an immersive bilingual curriculum. Over the past year, we have worked alongside the Dream Academy to use placemaking design to create both indoor and outdoor playspaces for young learners. While the outdoor playspace is still in progress, we recently completed the indoor space.
This interactive, interior space celebrates and affirms children of color in different roles or careers. Children of color may not experience similar representations elsewhere, and seeing themselves within different roles allows them to act without limits and dream big.
The IWU Human-Centered Design class, led by Marion Design Co. leadership, sketched iterations of the interactive indoor space, identifying different roles that could be represented throughout the space. After presenting four concepts to Dream Academy leadership, two top ideas rose to the surface. Tashema Davis (Echo Gallery) merged the two concepts together to bring the ideas to life in a four-wall mural covering the whole room. Scattered throughout the room are colorful hooks holding professional costumes such as a doctor's uniform, a scientist’s lab coat, and an artist’s apron that allow the students to strengthen their imagination and physically step into the roles they see on the walls around them. Jared Strand, a former MDCO intern, created stacking wooden boxes that Tashema painted with the same figures illustrated in the murals that the students can use to build their own personas, continuing the interactive goal of the design concept.
This fall, we are thrilled to welcome a new cohort of interns!
Starting in September, we began work with a group of four interns: Mark Fisk (IWU), a graphic design intern from Fishers, IN, Jessica Moore (IWU), a placemaking design intern from New Haven, IN, Isabel Bostick (IWU), a copywriting intern from Brownsburg, IN, and Anna Rodman (Taylor University), a videography intern from Peoria, IL.
We are also welcoming Jenna Beemer back to Marion Design Co. as a designer! She previously worked with us as an intern from 2018-2020, and you may recognize her from a July issue of our newsletter.
This diverse group brings a wide range of gifts and talents to the team and we are looking forward to creating together this fall!
From left to right: Jenna Beemer, Anna Rodman, Isabel Bostick, Mark Fisk, Jessica Moore
Mark your calendars for Marion Made Market and Fashion Show, happening November 20, 2021. It’s going to be unlike any show you’ve seen before! Stay tuned for market applications, event locations, and more. We look forward to seeing you there!
We are excited to share an alumni highlight on Summer Fisher, a member of our very first intern cohort!
Summer interned during our initial launch of 2016, the year Marion Design Co. was founded. Working with MDCO during its most formative year, she played an integral role in the City of Marion branding project, creating some of the first sketches and iterations of the brand. Summer shared that the experience of listening to community members and engaging in conversation with them was life-changing, and the experience continues to influence the ways she solves design problems.
Immediately after her undergrad, she worked as an IWU adjunct professor and a designer for a local church, until Studio Science noticed her portfolio. Today, Summer works as a Brand Designer for Studio Science in Indianapolis, alongside other MDCO alum. The experience she had with MDCO reminds her to investigate her assumptions as she designs, always asking “Why?” throughout her design process. Summer shared that she is continually inspired by her coworkers, as well as designers from around the world--their work broadens her imagination.
Wendy Puffer, Co-Founder and Chief Design Officer
I’m easily bored...and repetition, well, feels too repetitive. As I approach the first September in 21 years as a non-faculty, where I haven’t needed to create a syllabus, craft the perfect learning outcomes, and form a calendar full of events that always gets wiped off the map within the first two weeks, I’m definitely not bored! I’m still considering how students--MDCO Interns--might gain the richest professional experience and build empathetic community relationships, but with a more refined focus for Marion Design Co., the local community, and our clients.
It’s so fun to dream and plan with a long view in mind. In just the few short months since we launched as an LLC, we’ve designed for medical facilities, homes, manufacturers, conferences, performances, exhibits, athletics, schools, small businesses, and philanthropic organizations. We’ve developed and built meaningful relationships with local, regional, and national partners. We’re creating a rich rhythm of quality design development, with repetition that creates value and sustainability! And, with repetition in all the right places, there’s no future for boredom!
