Final Reflection

Why Hello there, Long time no see. As you probably have noticed I did not really keep up on this process blog. Instead of recording my process digitally, I felt more comfortable keeping up with the process physically in my notebook (photos of that will be shown at the end). Looking back at this whole capstone experience I was able to learn so much about myself and who I am as a designer. My specific capstone is never going to be finished. I may never know how many diblings I have out there. Throughout this iterative process I had to work hard to step back from everything. I couldn't deep dive immediately into it because of how personal the content was for me. I had to slowly morph the content into what it could be. It couldn't be immediately done. Along with the design of the book I had to constantly iterate the content. At times I tried to morph the design into a certain mold. Throughout the process I finally learned that I couldn't do that. I needed to listen to the content and mold the design to the content not the other way around. I learned that images don't have to be photographic. I loved the moments where I just went off and experimented with images and digital manipulations. I was able to discover how to use the pure text of the donor profile as an inspiring image and metaphor through the process of layering it. I am amazed at how much the book has changed from its first iteration. This whole process wasn't really all about the design for me it was more. It was an up and down experience of finding out who I am as a designer and as a person. I still don't have all the answers but this experience helped me gain some of them and allowed me to connect more with my diblings. 

Here are images of my Capstone Notebook from start to finish.

And Here are some images of my final book for your viewing pleasure. 

Week 3 - Finding my Voice

This past week my main focus has been on creating and compiling my content for my project.  I have been deep diving into the book Finding Our Families in order to find my exact content. I have spent this last week highlighting and underlining the whole 250 page book in order to tell myself what I want in my project and what is not as important. I also wrote and sent off the letter to my donor. The process of writing this letter was hard. It made me really think long and hard about myself as a person and what I wanted to tell him about me. After writing this letter I was full of so many different emotions, that I just stared at my computer screen silently for 20 minutes. It is hard to put into words how it felt to put down my many questions and thoughts I have towards him onto paper. 

After meeting with my peers I learned that my current content did not have a clear enough voice. I absolutely agree with them. I have been struggling pulling text from the book but also trying to keep a more general less guide booky tone that is found in the book. I need to deep dive into the text for the third time and really think about what I want the reader to get out of all the information. If a viewer who knew nothing about the subject picked up my book what would they get out of it? I need to really look at the hierarchy of my content. I got feedback that my peers most favorite part was when I included the survey I sent my siblings (Please if you are reading this keep submitting, Only 5 of you have their are 23 of you so come on!) and the letter to my father. It made them care more about my topic. I also came to the realization that I need to write my own introduction. I am not the best with words, so I am a little nervous about including my own in the book. I think that by looking closer into the main text I can come up with my own voice which will in turn help me with writing my introduction. 

Visually I am thinking about connections. In terms of that I am not just looking at how connections are built but also how they are deconstructed and then reconstructed. I am looking into ways where my visuals could be unseen but then seen in some way. Maybe I will have some visuals that are completely blurred and some in hyper-focus or a muxture of both. I am lookign forward to this upcoming week where I will be able to experiment more with the making. 

Week 1 - Initial Thoughts

Family can be formed and defined in so many different ways, but biology has always been the most common family bond. - Wendy Kramer

Initial Research Questions & Thoughts

Who am I?  Where did I come from?

What does the new modern family look like?

What is it like growing up not knowing half of your genetic makeup?

What is the process in searching for your donor half siblings?

How important is knowing your genetic background for identity creation?

Random Thoughts

• The new kind of extended family
• The new opportunities created through sperm donation
•  Story of the new American family
•  Displaying a different type of family that is appearing in america
• The desire to know where we come from
•  Everyone wants to know where they come from
•  The “not knowing" comes in different stages but it is still all there
• The idea to create a new community

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How my project answers my capstone question?

I think that by using my own experience of being a dibling* and also using the experiences of other people discovering their own diblings*, I hope to show others what the new American family unit looks like in the 21st century. We didn’t grow up with each other, but feel an underlying connection with each other. I hope that by using my own personal experience I can inform the public about this new type of family unit. 

*a dibling is a word used to describe a donor half sibling

My Audience

I believe that my audience is anyone/everyone who wants to find where they belong and want to learn where they come from. The topic resonates with everyone because everyone wants to discover who they are in order to help them determine who they will become. For families with two biological parents they don’t necessarily understand the need to find where they come from because they already know their lineage. But this is not the case for children conceived with donor egg or sperm. They are missing half of their background and actively want to find about their background in order to help in their identity creation. Especially in my formative years I have become more and more interested in my missing half. I believe in order for identity creation to happen one must know where they came from.

My Initial Content 

For my initial content outline, I planned on using a wide array of articles from accredited news sources. I hoped that these would be the main source of content and from there I could intertwine my own story throughout my book. 

Initial Article Links

Sperm Donor Siblings: Find Family Ties

What It's Like to Find Your 17 Sperm Donor Siblings on the Internet

Sperm Donor Connects with 19 Children He Fathered

Half Siblings from Sperm and Egg Donation

Finding, and Connecting with, Our Son's Sperm Donor Siblings

As I kept working I realized that having a more linear narrative to my capstone would generate a better understanding of my story. In my first week of feedback I received a lot of questions about the donor sibling registry. The DSR is a website created by Wendy Kramer, a mother of a sperm donor conceived child. The website is a place where diblings can connect to other diblings and sometimes even the donor. 

 With this new realization of the type of content I needed, I arrived upon using Wendy Kramer's book Finding Our Families: A First-of-Its-Kind Book for Donor-Conceived People and Their Families. This book is a comprehensive guide for the growing number of families with donor-conceived children. It discusses some topics such as how and when to tell your child, how to search for half siblings and much more. I believe that using the text from this book I can intertwine my own process of discovering I was a donor-conceived child and meeting my diblings. 

If you want order or learn more about the book click here.

My Questionnaire

I wanted my book to include more than just my own thoughts about being a donor-conceived child, but include my diblings as well. In order to do that I created a survey for them to complete with a wide array of questions pertaining to their own family life, connections with diblings, and their thoughts surrounding our donor.

Here are some sample ones:

• How would you describe your family?
• Did you grow up wondering about the second half of your genetic material?
• When did you find out that you were a sperm donor child?
• If you have met a half sibling do you see any similarities between you two?
• Has meeting your half sibling made you feel different about yourself and your family?
• Do you wish that you could have a relationship with the donor
• What kind of relationship would you want?
• If you had the opportunity what is one question you wish to ask the donor?

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My Initial Moodboard

An array of images that are inspiring my initial thinking. To see more click here. I will get more into visual development next week. 

Welcome

Welcome to the page where I brain dump all of my thoughts. Currently this page will be used as a place where I will be recording my design process for my senior design capstone. Here is a little bit of background on my project:

I have a unique parentage because I am the product of a single mom and a sperm donor. Understandably I have been curious about my father. Overtime I have discovered that I have 23 half siblings from my sperm donor. We live all around the country and range in ages from 17 to 23. My siblings and I only know who our donor is through his own written responses found in his donor profile. This as I stated above has lead to a lot of curiosity about my identity. For my capstone I intend to create a book describing my own experience of being a sperm donor kid and interacting and finding my siblings. I plan on using as my main source of content found text but include quotes and thoughts from myself and my donor half siblings. Hopefully through this process I can gain a better understanding of who I am as a person and create stronger bonds between myself and my siblings.