For the first part of the brainstorming period, I knew I wanted to have my design be some sort of plant. Acrylic is probably the most artificial material we could've worked with, which is why some of my designs would be very difficult to represent organically. At first I thought of having some sort of S-shaped design that would hold the coffee, but I wasn't sure if I would be able to texture the acrylic in a way that would accurately represent a leaf. 

The second sketch I came up with was swamp-themed, filled with reeds and cattails. Although I liked the dainty-ness of this design, it didn't match the rest of my vision for my project, so I had to think of new ways to combine plants and coffee.

Ultimately, I chose my "sunflower cup holder" design for my project. Although the sketch does not fully encompass my final design, it is pretty similar to what I had in mind. The biggest feature I wanted to highlight in this sketch is that from the top, the design looks like a sunflower, with a dark brown center (the coffee) and yellow petals.