Design Methodology Entry 13

We Made it to the End 🎉

Mt. Airy in the Fall (Will likely spend some time there this fall)

The summer semester is coming to a close, and so that means the first semester of capstone is as well. I am feeling good about everything. I certainly did not think in the beginning of May that I would be confident in a project direction by the end, but here we are!

Since my last post, I was able to finally get on the phone with the phone with Cincinnati Park’s Horticulturalist, Josh Hill. The interview was extremely helpful and he was able to direct me towards specific plants to focus on. I do not want to focus on a specific type of plant, because I don’t think that doing that would highlight what makes Mt. Airy what it is. This hunch was confirmed in my interview with Josh, and he suggested a nice variety of species to consider. These range from plants that are unique to the park, to species that have been there since the beginning, to others that have a unique story in the park. These unique plants with their stories will more effectively communicate the personality of Mt. Airy than if I were to focus on something specific like pollinators.

Josh and I also discussed previous signage to exist in the park. At the current moment, the interpretive signage specifically regarding plants is lacking. They have what he calls dog-tags, which give visitors and internal people details on the plants, the latin, the origin, etc. He did refer back to a previous successful system that they still have samples of in the archive, so I may try to look at those at some point. Additionally, he gave me the contacts for the Natural Resource Division and the Nature Education Division. I will reach out to them as well for more information about Nature initiative and current education programs that may help me discern the type of content that will best reach my audience.

Overall, this past week was super productive. Talking with Josh helped me to understand the history of the park much more and the significant species present in the park. I have a lot of good opportunities to continue connecting with the Parks people and to start planning my focused content.

My (edited) Gantt Chart

Above is my plan going forward. This next month I am going to take a break from everything and enjoy life a bit. After that I will use this semester to solidify a content script so that I can use that as a base to begin designing in the spring semester. I think this is all totally do-able, so I should be ready to go come spring.

Thank you 🌳