Davita Dick

Design Your Place

August - December 2018

‘Design Your Place’ is an interactive exercise in crafting an urban environment. The intention of this installation was to understand how the development of a city impacts its residents and therefore the character and culture which makes it unique.

To do this I designed icons based off of 16 different categories that impact how residents think about and respond to a city: Arts & Culture, Commercial, Cuisine, Education, Entertainment, Finance, Government, Health Care, Housing, Industry, Parks & Recreation, Public Services, Public Spaces, Public Utilities, Tourism, and Transportation. These designs were then printed on stickers and put in handouts for participants. Each handout explained the concept of the installation and then instructions for the stickers.

Using the stickers, participants could place them on a printed map and grow their own city. As more stickers were placed on the map, they could see how components might work together or against each other to provide a better city/citizen experience. Based on where they placed the icons, the overall experience and character of the city would change.

Examples of before stickers were placed and while stickers were being placed to build a city.

Additionally, to make the exercise more personable I designed icons that were iconic to Lincoln, NE.

Icons included Pinnacle Bank Arena, Memorial Stadium, Haymarket Park, the Railyard, the capital building, the Sheldon Museum, the Lied Center, Pioneers Park, Lazlo’s, the Mill, Iguana’s Pub, Ivanna Cone, and more.

To present the culture and character of Lincoln, I combined the icons with imagery into a booklet that gave information on how to ‘explore like a local’, ‘eat like a local’, ‘drink like a local’, and ‘have fun like a local’.