I’M NOT CREATIVE
Brianna Ruiz
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esign ications D ations Design 1 n u m m o Visual C isual Communic V A&D 332 014 2 r, e Novemb & Design ent of Art erforming Arts m rt a p e D P Visual & School of y it rs nive Purdue U tte, IN Arts ye fa a erforming West L P & l a u is hool of V of the Sc n o signer ti a c li of the de A pub e m a n e th t 2014 in copyrigh is t n te n All co
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Thanks, To my mom and my dad, for always being my biggest fans. Your support means the world to me, and I am proud to be the hybrid of all of your best traits. You made being this cool easy for me. To my stepmom, Tracy, for always being impressed by anything I do and always showing me how much you care. To my stepdad, Brian, for always being honest and telling me when my work sucks. Also, I’d like to thank you for always making me laugh and giving me my sense of humor. To my siblings (all 6 of them), for offering me very unique perspectives on life and never letting there be a dull moment. It really is true that only boring people get bored. To Dennis, for always making me think and pushing me to grow.
Contents Phase 1: Getting Experimental Introduction
Project Description
Phase 2: Being Resourceful
The Evolution
Final Acknowledgements
The Final Design: Feeling Inspired
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cre·a·tive krē’ādiv/ adjective relating to or involving the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work.
synonyms: inventive, imaginative, innovative, experimental, original; artistic, expressive, inspired, visionary; enterprising, resourceful
The Beginning
9 I know, you’re probably wondering why the title of my graphic design book is “I’m Not Creative”. I’ve already gotten that reaction from a lot of people. “What?! Why would you say that?!” “That’s not a very good title for a design book” “You’re not selling yourself very well”. Because isn’t being creative one of the most important characteristics of a graphic designer? Well, sure it is. But normally I don’t like to coin myself as a “creative”. In the “creative” world, the word is overused and abused. I think when people use that word to describe themselves, it loses a bit of its value. I think when designers describe themselves as “creative”, it’s the equivalent of your mom telling you that you’re good looking. Of course your mom thinks you’re good looking.
Of course anyone that’s chosen to study design likes to think of themselves as creative. However, sometimes, I don’t feel creative at all. That’s where the double meaning of my title comes in. Sometimes I struggle and feel like I don’t have any good ideas. This project was one of those times where I struggled. My schedule has been busier than ever (not complaining—I love being busy), which has left little time for me to sit around and ponder aesthetically pleasing ways to combine a P and an F to create a new form. However, as I gained more and more inspiration and worked on various combinations, I eventually started to feel more confident in my pursuits towards a strong final combination. Now, I’ll take you through my process timeline, and back again, to show how I came to discover my final design.
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Project Description
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The purpose of this assignment is to understand typography as a form of expression and communication.
The letters assigned to me during this fall semester of 2014 were “F” and “P”, or “P” and “F”.
It is also to recognize typography as a form in itself, as its own individual and unique shape that holds meaning.
We could use capital letters or lowercase letters in a variation of any of the following typefaces: Baskerville, Bodoni, Caslon, Garamond, Times New Roman, Gill Sans, Futura, Helvetica, Optima and Univers.
Typography is a way of arranging and expressing letterforms in various shapes, sizes and styles to create an expression. In order to understand typography, the assignment given to the AD 332 class was to combine two letterforms to create a new and unique form, while still maintaing recgonition and legibility within the original two letterforms.
The assignment also included documenting the process of uncovering the final design and communicating it through a book, and now we’re here.
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I’M NOT CREATIVE Phase 1: Getting Experimental
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17 First Assignment: Hand sketches As many as you can. Sketching: My. Worst. Nightmare. I have no idea where to start. First, I think, “Hmm, how can I combine a P and an F?”
With P and F, there are certain parts of the form that are essential to its recognition. The arm of the F must be shown in order for it to not be mistaken as a “T” as well as the foot serif of the F in order to avoid being mistaken as an “E”. The counter of the P must be shown as well in order to avoid confusion for an “F”.
“Maybe I’ll google it. “ “Nope. That’s not that helpful.” “I guess I’ll just put my pen (marker, actually) to the paper and hope something good comes out of it.” Thirty six sketches later, and I think I have some solid ideas. I am keeping a concept in mind that many of my art and design teachers have taught me in the past. This concept is that when you’re trying to sketching something or make something, don’t let your pre-conceived notions of what something is alter the way you see it as it exists now. Look at everything as its own individual shape with its own unique lines and shading.
Because P and F (or F and P) are so similar in form, as the arms of the F and the counter of the P so closely mimic each other, I am feeling a little limited in ways to combine them so that they can contrast each other and not hide each other. I am really just not feeling imaginitive at all. In the end, hand sketching came up with more bad ideas than good, but some of them will carry their concept to the end. The first phase of the project is all about experimenting.
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Some of my sketches are coming out looking more like pirate symbols than interesting typographic forms.
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The sketch below is one of the first that I started to feel extra optimistic about.
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At this point, I am cranking out more bad ideas than ideas with potential. Creative inspiration is sparse; morale is low.
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The sketch below is another one that I felt optimistic about, but overall, hand sketching didn’t result in too many “good” ideas.
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I’M NOT CREATIVE Phase 2: Being Resourceful
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It’s time for computer renderings. Ahh, the computer. A medium that I feel much more comfortable with, and can produce ideas at a much faster rate. I’ve dropped about 75% of my hand sketch ideas, but some of them have made it. The computer allowed me to expand on ideas, and try them with multiple different typefaces to find the best fit. The computer has given me the option to explore more combinations that would be hard to execute by hand.
With the computer, I am having a much easier time working with contours and negative space as I can expediently alter my letterforms to match the visual in my head. I am working with various combination types, such as emphasizing negative and positive space as well as working with the forms to combine their overall forms. Because of the ease I feel at the computer, I am feeling a little more resourceful.
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Because of the various typefaces on the computer, I was able to use special elements of the letterforms to create new designs.
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The three sketches in this column were among my favorites. I am sure after some refining, I’ll have my final design.
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After thinking I found my final design, I still made some computer sketches to get some of the last minute ideas out of my head.
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It’s a good thing I tried out some of my last minute ideas, because I think I [almost] found the one.
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I’M NOT CREATIVE
The Final Design: Feeling Inspired
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I have decided on my final design, and it’s nothing like I thought it’d be. While I was primarly focused on combining similar elements of P and F while emphasizing their differences to create a new letterform, I ended up going in an entirely different direction. Utilizing the positive and negative spaces of the letterforms had proved pretty boring for me, and I felt it was too obvious of a design. However, one last tweak of the positive and negative design proved that I could actually have some fun with it. After presenting what I thought was a mediocre computer rendering in class that I had made on a computer in Hicks a mere 20 minutes before class, Dennis pointed something out to me. While I hadn’t been focused on creating a design using positive and negative space, I still managed to squeeze quite a few variations of it in there without even realizing that I kept coming back to it.
My last computer rendering was a little different than my usual pos./ neg. design, in that I was missing a substansial part of the lowercase “f”, using almost the bare minimum of the letterform while still maintaining an equal balance of the two forms. After some tweaking of the design, using different typefaces and working with the angles and sizes, I finally found “the one”. Once I realized what I was doing, I was especially attracted to this option because of the Scandinavian design elements that I used. After studying abroad in Denmark over the summer, Scandinavian design principles are drilled into my head. As a design movement characterized by simplicity, minimalism and functionality, it just made sense. My final design exemplifies these characteristics by stripping away as much as possible from the letterforms while still holding their important standards for recognition.
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I’M NOT CREATIVE The Evolution
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As mentioned before, I had been experimenting with the idea of utilizing the positive and negative space since the very beginning sketches. However, it was not until I started feeling a little more experimental that I was able to discover the direction that I wanted to take this project in. Due to being resourceful and using outside inspiration, such as the book “It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be” by Paul Arden
and my Scandinavian design experiences, and reinventing my struggles with this project into a positive experience, I was finally able to gain momentum on this project. I finally figured out how to be expressive through type.
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Looking back, I had been working with negative and positive space all along. With many attempted variations, the final one was the strongest.
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After deciding on my final direction, I experimented with a variety of sans serif P’s and a variety of serif, lowercased F’s in order to decide on the most effective composition.
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I’M NOT CREATIVE Final Acknowledgements
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This project was one of the most difficult projects I have had yet. Beginning with a complete lack of inspiration and vision, I was off to a slow start. By the end of the project, I learned how to be experimental with my designs and push my mind even harder in order to find new solutions. I realized sometimes looking “inside the box” isn’t so bad, as long as you know where to look. I came up with an original design, inspired by my outside experiences. My final design is expressive in that it shows my desire to always find simplicity. I realize that “simple” doesn’t have to be an antonym to “imaginative”. I am happy with the way my fi-
nal project turned out, and have been reminded why I chose to study design. While I sometimes struggle and don’t always love it, I am always feeling inspired by my surroundings and enjoy artistically communicating my visions through not only graphic design, but all realms of design and, as much as I hate the word, creativity. Creative used as a verb is different than creative used as an adjective. I thoroughly enjoy the act of creating, of making something new. I will always enjoy expressing myself and trying new things, and this book was no exception. But I’m not creative.
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Acknowledgements Dennis Ichiyama Professor, Purdue University
Wendy Olmstead Visiting Faculty, Purdue University Purdue VCD Class ‘16 Visual Communication Design Students, Purdue University Scot Benham Haywood Printing Co. Inc., Lafayette, IN K Lynia Coates Designer, BoilerCopyMaker, West Lafayette, IN Cathy Aper Xerox Services, West Lafayette, IN
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Colophon Paper:
Cougar 80# and 70# text
Type:
Futura (Bold, Condensed) 16, 18, 24, 32, 36, 77 Bodoni (Bold, Italic, Book) 8, 10, 12
Binding:
Perfect Bound
Printing:
Purdue Printing Services & Xerox Services West Lafayette, IN
Bindery:
Haywood Printing Co. Inc. Lafayette, IN
Printer:
Xerox DocuColor 252
Edition:
6 copies
About The Designer Born and raised in Indiana, Brianna grew up in the rolling hills of Amish country in a small town called Middlebury. She comes from a large, modern family consisting of six very unique and hilarious siblings, and four wonderful and supportive parents. It has always been her plan to attend Purdue, ever since she was roaming tailgates in her Purdue cheerleading uniform as a toddler. Fifteen years later, she’s living the dream and still roaming tailgates but is now sporting overalls and her Converse sneakers. Upon her graduation from Purdue in May of 2016, she hopes to obtain a position working on creative strategy in an advertising agency or work in event planning and hospitality. She also hopes to gain the skills necessary to keep a plant alive for longer than 48 hours. Also, talking about herself in third person makes her very uncomfortable.
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The End.