Design a chair based on a personal story.

To create this chair, I first had to decide what I was going to base it on. I decided to base it on my current experience and the growth I was experiencing while in design school. Before M.Ad (Miami Ad School), I heavily focused on time in one aspect of my life, school. Within the first few quarters in M.Ad, I quickly learned that I need to learn to quickly change priorities and give time to different interests to really be the best designer I can be. Taking time to do other things, and stepping away from the computer, actually makes me a better designer because those interests fuel inspiration for my work. It's a counter-balance between work and play.

With this concept in mind, I sketched various directions for a chair that symbolized growth, counter-balance, and a sense of juggling different things. Once I chose a direction, I refined my sketch and created schematics to have my design rendered.

The end result was the Areli chair, a rocking chair with unique rockers that also serve as armrests. The rockers are made of walnut while the wide, plush seat is made of a wool mix. The rockers are divided into 3 wave-shaped forms that move up and forward to resemble growth in spending time on multiple things. The seat is wide and plush to represent learning to be comfortable in juggling multiple things. The rockers becoming the armrest represent how these different interests support my interest in design. There is a small piece of wood that supports the chair, causing it to rest in an angled position. This is meant to cause the chair to rock forward while someone sits in it, driving home the idea of growth.