a doodler in design
Cate O’Brien St. Norbert College ART 130, Spring 2018
Overview I was the only Junior in Intro to Design this year. I put this course off as long as possible – as a Psychology and Studio Art major I was really not interested in working digitally. I love drawing and I’ve always limited myself to that. I’ve also never been very good with technology so I thought there was no way I would be good at designing digitally. Although there were challenges to working digitally, I really enjoyed the course. I learned a lot about working iteratively and digitally. The most important lesson, though, was that digital work does not have to be separate from hand drawn work: that they work together very well. Throughout the course, I really focused on working by hand. Only then would I enhance the work with Photoshop and InDesign. This worked very well for me. I love the look of a printed drawing because I think it personalizes the work. In the future, I hope to make a children’s book explaining mental illness in an accessible way. This course was important for my exploration of that goal. It taught me the importance of digital and design work, even if the bulk of my work is hand drawn. It taught me that despite my initial preconceptions, I could be both a doodler and a designer.
D*School
This crash course on design was meant to introduce us as young designers to an iteratively creative process. We were told to pair up with another student and discuss a problem they had with gift giving. Then we had the time given in class to solve this problem. My partner’s problem was knowing what to give distant relatives.
Prototype 1
Prototype 2
Engaging with a real person for this assignment made my prototype a little less creative but more practically useful. When trying to problem solve without a specific person in mind, I might find a solution that would be more imaginative but less applicable to the real world (see Prototype 2.) When the prototypes were finished, we presented them to each other. It was hard to show unfinished work to another person. I like to feel pride in the work that I present, and I was not proud of the prototype that I had created. Part of this lack of pride probably
came from the quick pace, which felt rushed and stressful. I think iterative exercises would be better for me if there was no pressure of presenting the work immediately after creating it. However, the quick pace definitely made me think of things I may not have immediately thought of. If I were to continue this work, I would probably use what I learned from this assignment and continue to generate ideas. I had a pretty good grasp on what the problem was but I would need a little more time to find an adequate solution to it.
Dot/Line
For this assignment we were instructed to make abstract compositions of a concept or word. This project introduced us to working iteratively and repetitively. The project revolved largely around the concept of gestalt.
Joy – Process work
“Joy”
“Scarcity”
“Stability”
Stability – Process work
convey a feeling, moment, or thing without creating a literal representation of it. I tend to personify everything, so trying to represent ideas Scarcity – Process work without illustrating them was a challenge of this project. One Gestalt is a composition that thing that helped was physically works as one completed thing. laying dots and lines down on a The compositions that we made page because that gave me a for this project had to work as a way to search for the “feeling” of piece, not just as individual dots the image. and lines. In the future, I might use A large part of this project similar pieces to lay out a was creating compositions that composition before sketching it. were well crafted. Although at I think that helps an artist see first it was hard for me to make the piece as a whole more easily. a well crafted composition (I Another useful thing that I got made my mock up three times out of this exercise was making before I decided it was okay), I’m constant iterations. After my first glad I did. I prefer to turn in work thumbnails, I thought I had found that I can feel proud of. And in three decent compositions, but fact, creating the mock up three then I played with those and times made creating the final ended up only using one of my compositions go faster and with original sketches! Using parts of more ease. this exercise will be helpful to my Abstraction has always been work in the future. very hard for me to understand because I’ve always thought that different abstract artists have different understandings of abstraction. But after completing this project, I think of abstraction Scarcity – Process work as finding a way to visually
Hand Lettering
In this assignment, we were again given words to represent conceptually. This time, however, we were instructed to use the text itself to express the word’s meaning. We learned and used hand lettering techniques to do this.
Gaze 1: “Male Gaze”
Hand-lettering taught me a lot about letter forms and how effectively they can be used to express meaning. I liked learning the terminology of hand lettering and attempting calligraphy. I would like to spend time refining those techniques. I think I would also like to continue working with images from magazines and incorporating those into lettering. I find images in the text itself to be very interesting. My final pieces were stronger in content than in form. My word was “gaze,” and I was interested in the connotations that word held. For example, I
was interested in the idea of the male gaze, and what that means. I was also interested in the idea of gazing at a computer screen 24/7 and how checked out of reality that can make a person. Those two ideas made up the content of the work and I think that they were pretty strong. The only piece where the execution of the piece was better than the idea was the piece I made that was reminiscent of eye spy. For that piece, the idea would not have been strong enough to carry the piece if the form was not aesthetically pleasing.
Gaze 2: “Peephole”
Gaze 3: “Eye spy”
Gaze 4: “Computer Gaze”
Lettering – Process work
Object Iterations
This assignment again focused on the importance of the iterative process of design. We picked an object or animal that interested us, then created iteration after iteration of it until we had a final spread to present to the class.
Geometric Polar Bear 1
Geometric Polar Bear 2
The animal that I chose to represent was a polar bear. I learned a lot about polar bears through the process of making object iterations. One of my favorite facts is how warm polar bears actually are, despite their cold environments. This is because of the thick layers of blubber and fur that they have. In fact, polar bears are more likely to overheat than they are to get too cold. I also learned how important polar bears are to Antarctica’s
Continuous Line
marine ecosystem. Polar bears are apex predators, which means they are at the top of the food chain. If they no longer exist, the entire food chain becomes unstable. With the way that climate change is affecting the world’s ice, polar bears are becoming extinct, and that is a huge threat to all of the surrounding ocean life. I am really glad that I chose a polar bear as my “object” because of how much I learned about an issue that I am passionate about.
Master Artist: Egon Schiele
Collage
For this assignment, we were able to use many different forms of media. The media that was the most fun for me to use was the water color I used to make my Egon Schiele iteration. I haven’t used watercolor in a while, and I really enjoyed going back to it. The media that was least fun for me was collage. I found it hard to look at magazine pieces and imagine them as something else, especially after making a few iterations. It felt like all of my good ideas were gone after a few iterations! I also learned a lot about Photoshop that I will use going forward. I’m so glad I finally know how to use the clone stamp because it is a life saver! I also
learned a lot of key commands that I didn’t know before. Additionally, I learned a lot about InDesign that I will be able to use with the layout of our school newspaper. If I were to continue making iterations of my polar bear, I would make more pieces around climate change. I also think I would like to depict some of the violence of the polar bear, because as important as apex predators are, they are also dangerous. I’d like to continue working with different materials as well – possibly by incorporating wool or cotton in a piece to draw attention to the fat and blubber that polar bears need to survive.
Typographic Collage
Master Artist: Basquiat
Data Visualization For this assignment, we were able to research a topic we were passionate about. We then used the data we found to create a visually appealing and educational poster.
I was interested in how our health care systems and nursing homes treat older adults. I created visual hierarchy by using a white line to separate information into sections: health care statistics first, then nursing home statistics, then a section explaining the importance of the information. I also created visual hierarchy with size – the woman next to the nursing home abuse statistic is centered and larger than the other information because the rate of nursing home abuse is one of the most unjust things I learned from my research and for that reason I believe it’s important for others to learn, as well.
From this assignment, I learned that it’s always important to check that you completely took out the background of a photo in Photoshop by dropping a background color behind your images. I also learned the importance of font choice, which I had not thought about in past posters I’ve made for other classes. I really liked working with color. I chose my colors based off of the illustrations I made, which worked well for me. Overall, the piece was good practice in making information look visually appealing and pleasing while still conveying important information.
The True Cost of Aging Percent of older adults who spent
over $2,000 on medical care in
the last year
% 31%
22%
<10%
All other United States high income
Sweden
23%
of older adults in the US didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get the medical attention they needed
because of cost
countries
41%
of older adults in the world
90%
report care
coordination problems
~40%
of nursing homes are currently
understaffed
of residents have reported
nursing home abuse
of themselves or someone else
Why should we care? The percent of older adults:
12%
22%
2015
2050
What are you willing to pay? http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2017/health-older-people/en/ http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs404/en/ http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/in-the-literature/2017/nov/older-americanssicker-and-faced-more-financial-barriers-to-care
http://www.nursinghomeabuseguide.org/nursing-home-abuse-statistics/ http://www.nursinghomeabuseguide.org/neglect/understaffing http://www.helpage.org/global-agewatch/population-ageing-data/country-ageing-data/?country=United%2BStates%2Bof%2BAmerica
Reflection I think there is a part of me that is called to creative work. I appreciate the creative process and no matter what my profession, I think that creativity will find a way to show itself. I don’t yet know what my calling is, but I think the next move for me would be to continue my education in Psychology. I’d like to attempt to get my PhD and teach at a liberal arts college like St. Norbert’s. I have thought a lot about how to incorporate my love of creative work with my love for psychological research. I used to think it was impossible to combine the two aspects of myself. Then I was introduced to a book called “The Heart of Social Psychology,” which argued that psychology research could be a valid form of creativity. Coming up with research questions and how to investigate them is a creative endeavor, especially in the field of Psychology, which attempts to quantify something incredibly
complex: human behavior. I therefore believe that there is a way for me to bring what I have learned from Art and Design and incorporate it into my future work in Psychology. If I were guaranteed it would support me financially, I would love to design toys for children. This is a mere fantasy for me, but I would love to work on toys that are gender neutral and imaginative. This would be another way to combine my interest in development with my creative talents. Although I’m not pursuing that path, I think I would like to combine my interest in developmental and clinical psychology with my interest in art by creating at least one children’s book about a mental illness. Creativity will always be an important aspect of my life, no matter what career I go into. I’m thankful for the things that an art education is teaching me, as I will bring those skills with me to whatever profession I choose.
This book was made as part of Introduction to Design at St. Norbert College in the Spring of 2018. The fonts used include Myanmar Sangam MN, American Typewriter, and Avenir Next . It was digitally printed and saddle stapled at the collegeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s print center.