Jen Dodaro began buying records long before she knew how to use a record player, and purchased them mostly because she loved flipping through the liner notes/booklets inside. She had zero musical talent, but designing posters and album covers helped her stay connected with the music she loved. After high school she began taking art classes at a local community college and now she studies design at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.
What were the goals of the 1906 project?
1906 was a project started in my packaging class. My instructor, Dan Hoy, asked us to come up with a concept for health and beauty packaging. I wanted to focus on hotel amenities and took it a step further and created a hotel to go along with it. Most hotel toiletries are pretty boring and I wanted each item to feel like it had a story behind it. My goal was to create something guests would be excited to use and take home with them.
What was your creative process and design approach?
I began the project by studying life in the early 1900s. I wanted to know everything such as what people wore, what they did for fun, where they worked, etc. I spent a lot of time at flea markets and thrift stores and explored all of the old buildings in downtown LA. I used the Alexandria as the exterior for my hotel and the name 1906 comes from the year the Alexandria was built. I wanted all of the toiletries to feel like they were from the 1900s and used a rub on transfer process to make the type look old and decayed and stained everything in coffee.
How did you make your typographic choices?
I played around with a lot of typefaces in the beginning and most didn't seem right. I went to the Rose Bowl Flea Market to find inspiration a few times with this project and eventually found a set of number stamps that I loved. The 1906 logo was created using the vintage stamps and ink and then scanned in. Everything else is in Baskerville.
Thank you Jen! To see more of Jen's work, visit her web site at jendodaro.com.
