Technical Difficulties:
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Introduction to Design: ART 130
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A Dangerous Adventure Through Design
WELCOME
To my somewhat trying journey through....Intro to Design. It sounds pretty straightforward, right? Wrong! This is a world where technical difficulties abound just under the visible surface. At first it was smooth sailing... And then the technological portion of the quest began. I beckon you to join me in the visual retelling of my adventures through...art class.
D* School
For this short in-class project, we were given a packet on which to draw and take notes. We were not allowed to flip to the next page until we were told, so we had no idea what was coming next. We had to ask each other questions about things we like to give as gifts to certain people and things we like to receive. Then, we had to come up with a few ideas quickly for our partners and sketch them out. Next, We had to take the gift they liked best and make more variations on that. Finally, we had to rush around in just few minutes and make a physical representation of our gift. Mine was a camera made out of cardboard and paper, along with concert tickets made out of paper, and little stick figures made out of wire. My idea was to give the receiver of the gift a camera and
concert tickets, then actually go to the concert with them. Engaging with an actual person was difficult in this timed setting. Throwing questions out of thin air made the experience seem less professional, yet I can see a more formal version of the interview happening in an actual business setting. Getting immediate feedback throughout the process was helpful but without knowing to what end this process was going was challenging. I was surprised, however, how quickly an idea fleshed itself out. If there was another step to this project, it would likely be getting feedback from the receiver of the present. This method could also be applied to other creative expeditions such as writing, and even more so in a marketing campaign. Overall, this project was pretty fun...especially since there was no technology involved!
Neville Brody’s BLUR Font
Designer Presentations
This was an out-of-class project which involved making a PowerPoint that described and analyzed the work of a modern designer. In front of the class, I showed many examples of my designer’s work and tried to break down what was going on in each piece and the importance that this unique work had in impacting the rest of the industry. I started looking into Neville Brody because I figured he’d be relevant to future advertising endeavors. He became wildly popular with his album covers, and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. He also made some pretty funky fonts, and I was curious about those as well. Researching and putting together power points is not too big of a deal for me, and as such I just worked away at it. Presenting it, however, was a little bit of a different story. Luckily, I didn’t use any complicated programs so all technical difficulties were avoided. (Woohoo!) I was nervous about presenting to the class, especially given time constraints, but it wasn’t too big of a deal for me. I’d rather give a class presentation that have a showdown with InDesign any day!
Dot/Line
convey a lot more. Some of these concepts were easier to convey, In this project, I looked into the Gestalt style, which is incredibly like rejection and stability. Because rejection has the obvious connotation minimalistic. The parameters of the of aloneness, it was more about assignment were to use only circles honing visual presentation than and lines which cannot intersect or overlap inside of a 4x4 square. There determining what arrangement were restrictions on the amount and of objects could best relate the meaning. With stability also, the idea combinations as well; one could use seemed to come easily and naturally. one line with one dot, two lines one dot, so on and so forth. The projects With more abstract concepts, however, such as chaos, in which were created completely by hand using paper, paste, matte board, and there is no obvious relationship between any of the objects, where the almighty Exacto knife. there is no preconception to utilize. The Gestalt style attempts The concept could definitely be to convey a lot of meaning without utilized in making or updating using a lot of components. If this certain logos in the marketing world, style were to be visualized as a which is where I would most likely be person, it would be the man of few using this kind of design concept. Of words. Well crafted projects can be course, in marketing the parameters terribly exciting, and often times would not likely be nearly so rigid. it is in getting down in the details Something about this strictness was that I most enjoy my work, but in kinda comforting, like there was no the context of this project, working way to really be “bad� at it so long as more quickly suited me better you were giving it an effort because, because of the simplicity of the after all, no matter what you’ll be components. As a result of moving doing it at least kinda right so long these simple pieces around over as you stay within the rules. and over again in a square to try to divine the best combination to relate the chosen words, abstraction has a more fleshed out meaning in my mind. Before, I thought abstraction was essentially just random objects thrown on a canvas for the most part. Now, I understand that the arrangement can say a lot more,
Expressive Text
In this project, I first created a few alphabets by hand, this got me in the mindset of using shape to convey meaning. For the actual project, I created four different pieces focused on the word DRIFT. In these pieces, I tried to get at the meaning of the word in a way that pushed past cliche. I utilized charcoal for one of them, ink for another, makeup for yet another, and money for the last. The intention behind the charcoal was to give this literal feeling of drifting, as if wind was taking away the word. For the ink, I was thinking about drifting in a more nautical sense, as well as having the color drifting away. In the makeup version, I have this makeup spelling out this word on top of a garbled copy of my college acceptance letter, intending to symbolize drifting away from what is truly important into the superficial. For the money version, I used dollars to make the D, but the RIFT portion of the word was spelled out in pennies. This may have been a little too intense for the intentions of the project, but my object was to show the rift between people with money and people without, how they drift apart. Again, probably a
bit pretentious of me. Overall, this project was very interesting. The beauty of hand lettering is that it feels organic. It’s easy to manipulate it; do you want something flowy? Sure! Get an idea of the basic shape you want and produce it. How about something childlike? Yep, simple enough. Hand lettering is hard work, but it comes with a load more possibilities and tends to be far more able to fit the artist’s image. Graphic type, however, has a lot of perks. When there is a ton of type like…I dunno….this book maybe? Then it definitely adds a lot of convenience and makes a big chunk of text more legible. In addition, digital text often tends to look more polished, especially since my lettering tends to be loose and curvy. The big thing about type, digital or by hand, is that it doesn’t have to be extravagant to be effective. Just like in the Dot/Line project, I learned that sometimes less is more. It would be really interesting to explore the recent history of expressive text to see what kinds of text made the most impact on people, I personally tend to find past examples to be the best guides for the future.
Originally, I made a word web for about three of the word possibilities. After trying out several, I chose the word DRIFT, but these were a couple of my doodles for the word DIVE, which I discarded in favor of my DRIFTs. The final drafts are on the opposite page
Line and Value Drawings
In class, to prepare us for the object iterations, we drew several timed line drawings. That means we had to make the entire drawing without picking up our markers. The first two were blind, so we had to look at the subject, not our paper. The next two we could look at. We then did a value drawing, in which we were supposed to only draw the shadows or dark places on the person (this was a bit hard because he kept looking away! Finally, we went back to line drawing and had a few minutes to do a nice detailed one...voila!
Object Iterations
Original Sketchbook Inhabitants (Above)
Final Iterations (Below and Right) Frans Manreel Iteration
Now here is were the “fun” with technology really begins. It all started off so innocently...We did a ton of line drawings, we made text collages, picture collages, geometric designs, and artist iterations all by hand. We had to pick a simple tool, one with a moving part, and we had to make all these different forms of artistic renderings of it. Then, we had to take our favorites and scan them into a computer and make an InDesign poster of them, with at least one of each type of art in it. I started out with a hair clip... Handy as they may be, it was pretty difficult to get the idea across in a line drawing, so I tried again with zippers. Also fun, but there were a lot of components that went into making a zipper recognizable and I figured i should try again. So I tried a clasp and quickly decided that was better in concept than in actual production. Well, what’d’ya know, there are a LOT of different kinds of fans out there. Little bitty ones and gigantic ones the size of people. There are the kind that fold and the flat kind with a handle. Some are painted. Some are carved. Some have feathers! Some are used in ceremonial rituals, some in art
forms like dancing, some are simply accessories. One thing I can tell you is, they are hard to paint! Making something as fluid as paint depict something as geometric as a fan was outside of my painting abilities for sure. The picture collage, however, was a fun activity. I liked finding a painting of women in elegant hoop skirts to make the picture collages because it felt like using one part of the social context of the fan to make it. These women would have used fans themselves, so using them to make the fan felt like I was adding to the meaning, giving it a firmer background. The parts done by hand were very enjoyable, especially the challenge of the line drawings. But then….Photoshop happened. Oh, Photoshop. Photoshop, Photoshop, Photoshop…..What AM I going to do with you? You see, the class was going pretty alright up til this point. Doing art by hand is how I derive pleasure from the activity.
But technology? Digital editing? My ginormous Achilles heel. If this art class were a quest, Photoshop and InDesign are the great big monsters I have to tear through to get to the all important prize on the other side. Sadly, I doubt beating up my computer would actually do much good, or else I would have DEFINITELY given it the good old college try. But back to the project…I learned some of the most basic uses of Photoshop, and since the more advanced stuff alluded me, I learned how to utilize the eraser tool and a lot of copying and pasting. Despite the less-than-successful use of technological devices, I survived the project. The parts done by hand were really interesting. If I were to continue it as a more long term endeavor, I think I’d probably actually try to make fans. Who knows? Perhaps a budding business endeavor has just begun!
Children’s Book Original Storyboard
Summer is the hottest season. The children are out of school and are playing outside. During this season, the days are the longest and allow the most time for adventures.
Children’s Book
Each year on Earth has four seasons changes that take place. Each season brings a different type of weather patterns that are beautiful on some days but are extremely dangerous on others. The four seasons are, autumn, also known as fall, winter, spring, and summer.
For this project, we paired up with an English class where each of the Design students were given script for a children’s book that was generated by the English students. We then had to storyboard our ideas, create the book, and somehow or another get it into a digital format. Then the scary part begins...digital editing and a humongous InDesign file! So many pages. So much to do! We had to use the text from the authors, keep them aprized of our doings, request their input, and make the magic. My authors were pretty great. They knew I had to do two books, so they worked together and made a common theme with a common frame. As a result, I was able to reuse the background paintings to give the whole thing a really cohesive feel. My partners were pretty hands-off, they pretty much said “You’re the artist, do
This is the time of swimming and fishing. Can you count the kids playing in summer?
whatever you like”. They stayed curious in the progress and when I saw them around campus they’d ask how the project was going. I made sure to show them a finished copy as well. The painting process of this book was really enjoyable, I liked the challenge and found it refreshing. But, sadly, stapling the paintings together would not make a great book, and so InDesign had to be utilized. My Photoshop work was really pretty minimal, mostly just adjusting contrast and correcting a few messy spots. InDesign, on the other hand, was not playing nice. The day before the whole project was supposed to be sent to the printers, the files stopped opening. Somehow or another, they got corrupted, as is my luck. I had to start the file from scratch and quickly put the whole thing back together in a few hours. Luckily, none of the Photoshop files were corrupted, though one or two were missing. Overall, if I had the chance to do it again, I’d probably
have backed up my files pretty much every five minutes on Google Drive. On the artistic side, I would have liked to have spent more time working on the smaller pieces, such as the garden and the flower patches. There was quite a time crunch though, so I did my best while still getting the thing done on time. Overall, I’m decently happy with the results, all things considered. I certainly didn’t soundly beat the big bad InDesign monster, but I managed to get past the beast.