Let’s start with the Design Museum. The Design Museum is located in Kensington. It covers product, industrial, graphic, fashion and architectural design. The museum did not disappoint for it had a wonderful atmosphere and of course, clean design. We went into an exhibit called California: Designing Freedom.

Some of the things that I enjoyed seeing were the posters and inventions. I was able to see the poster, “We the People” by Shepard Fairey and Ridwan Adhami. This poster was used to protest against the election of President Trump. This poster made headlines because it featured women of different ethnic backgrounds: Native American, Muslims, African American, and Latinas. When this poster came out, it made me proud to be a first generation Vietnamese American woman against the current political events.

I also saw the first Rainbow Flag that was made by Gilbert Baker in 1978 for the San Francisco Pride Parade. It was made with dye on cloth. The flag has reduced to six colors by removing the pink and indigo and replacing the turquoise with blue. Each color has its own meaning: red (sexuality/life), orange (healing), yellow (sunlight), green (nature), blue (art/harmony), violet (human spirit). Today the flag is a symbol for the LGBT community and has appeared more frequently across the entire world.

I even saw the first Macintosh computer that was made in 1984. We’ve come a long way from where we were before. Just look at that mouse!

We also had an exercise to create a logo for “Lab 103” and then we had to present to the group. We were timed and were given guidelines. Here are some logos I came up with.

Lastly, to end the night we went to Wicked right off the Victoria station. This just so happened to be my first live musical and it was fabulous. It’s funny because before this trip I was actually thinking about buying tickets in Boston, but decided that I would buy it when I came back from London. Now that I have already seen it in London, it all worked out in the end! Hearing the music and dialogue in person with British accents was quite the experience. Listening to “Defying Gravity” live was indescribable because it was so spot on from what I’ve heard on Youtube; I had chills during most of it. I admired the costume design and of course the choreography. Watching Wicked has made me want to see other musicals live. I couldn’t have asked for a better day!

-Sheila