Aykys Salchak
A graphic designer with 4+ years of experience working as a creative, guided by market trends and design expertise. Currently designing at Whalar, Part of Accenture Song, and pursuing an IDM, M.S. degree at NYU Tandon.
A graphic designer with 4+ years of experience working as a creative, guided by market trends and design expertise. Currently designing at Whalar, Part of Accenture Song, and pursuing an IDM, M.S. degree at NYU Tandon.
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Time Capsule Part II
October 30, 2026Time to create the actual time capsule! This time around, I really wanted to improve my skills and test out different techinques to challenge myself and to create a beautiful box that would house my items! As you can tell through this prototyping journey I have been on, I enjoy playing with cardboard and creating boxes. Now I knew this was the time to take it to the next level and learn to construct other shapes besides cubes. My first prototype was fully cubes and was an interactive box that you can open and see the four layers. My second prototype pushed this idea, this time with hexagons and a slightly different mechanism that still gave the effect of opening or “unraveling” my life!
First Prototype
This is my first prototype of my time capsule. I started with what was the most familiar, cubes and hot glue. Because I got so used to making cub shapes, this prototype was quick and fairly easy to make. I did run into issues when constructing the base that held all the boxes together. Cardboard is not as thin as paper, so I did not account for the extra measurements that would come with the thickness of cardboard. Therefore, when the box closed, it would still leave a gap, which did not look well constructed to me.
I was also unhappy with the thick and visible marks of the hot glue gun. Also when opening the box, it was hard to see what was inside and may not be as user friendly. The overall construction did not look as clean and polished as I would have liked, so I decided to create another version.
I did not anticipate to create another prototype, however I knew I could do better and push myself to create something I was more proud of.
Therefore, for my next prototype I decided to focus on
01) changing the box shape to something more complicated
02) using weld bond instead of hot glue
03) precision when measuring
04) creating base of the box to see the items better
Second & Final Prototype
Although my first prototype took relatively quickly to make, I could not say the same for this time around. Creating proportional hexagons took a very long time and I went through six different tries before settling on the last four. This time I worked slowly, and measured diligently (however they still did not come out perfect and my hexagons were not as proportional as I would have liked), I made sure to use the weld bond and gave time for the glue to become tacky before bringing the construction together. I took extra time to make sure my scoring and cutting was precise and I am proud of how neat the boxes came to look. The weld bond worked great and no glue marks were visible!
Creating the actual backing/ the larger box proved to be much harder than anticipated. My measurements were not as accurate as I had hoped because each box was slightly different from each other. I also did not want to cut into the cardboard to keep the structure sturdy so I scored the areas that needed to be bent. Once gluing, the structure would not close properly, so then I had to tightly close the whole box and use rubber bands to keep the whole thing in place. In the morning, the cardboard was used to its new shape and I had an easier time closing and opening the whole capsule.
I also needed to construct the top of the capusule because the box at the top is fully exposed.