Struggles, Accomplishments, and Everything in Between
By: Diedre Brennan
D-School Crash Course We started the year with an activity where you had to interview a partner about presents. We were to find a problem our partner had with presents and try to find a solution to fix the problem. After this we had to make a sketch on something that your partner could use to help their problem. Then we were given only a few minutes to generate a prototype to show to our partner.
My prototype I think that engaging with a real person changed the direction of my prototype in the way that the ideas that I thought would be great and work out, maybe got a different response from the person I was working with. I added some things to the prototype based on ideas the person gave me. Because we did not have much time, it felt a little weird to show unfinished work to my partner. This is because I could see what I was trying to picture, but a little sketch or prototype quickly thrown together could be very confusing for my partner to picture what I had in mind. I liked actually making the prototype because it was fun to find objects that could work for my prototype and putting them all together. I disliked how fast we had to do the interviews because I felt kind of rushed and that I was not able to get all my ideas down in time. What surprised me was how much we accomplished in the short amount of time, and that they actually turned out really cool and some really good ideas.
Dot Line With the dot line project, we had to represent certain words by just using gray and black dots and lines. The main objectives of this project were: • to build strong abstract compositions with minimal elements • to build a foundation of using abundant iterations to arrive at successful solutions • to demonstrate an appropriate grasp of values, scale, line, and visual hierarchy • to practice excellent craft in our final solutions There were some parameters with this project. The parameters were that the dots and lines could touch but could not overlap, that the dots and lines could extend off the picture plane, that dots and lines could be as large or as small as we wished, and dots and lines could only be in grey or black. We also had to follow certain combinations of dots and lines. These combinations were: 1 dot + 1 line, 2 dots + 2 lines, 1 dot + 2 lines, 2 dots + 1 line, all dots, or all lines. I picked four different words to represent. The words were excitement, fear, scarcity, and freedom.
Here are my first sketches for my words, I cut out lines and dots and played around with them on a piece of paper to rearrange them and see which layouts I liked the best
Fear
Excitement
Scarcity
Freedom
Here are my final pieces, after I had refined my earlier pieces.
Freedom
Energetic
Scarcity
Fear
Final Thoughts and Challenges I really enjoyed this project because I had never thought of representing words in such an abstract way with just using dots and lines. It was a little challenging to cut out all of the dots and lines though. It was a little frustrating because I was trying to make them have perfect edges and this too a lot of time so I had to cut very slowly. Also, when I was gluing them down, I had to be very careful how to space them apart because I could not just eyeball it and had to make sure they were where I wanted to place them. This took a lot of patience and I also used a pencil to mark the specific areas of the dots and lines. I did not mind taking the time on it though because I am kind of a perfectionist and did not just want to throw something together quickly. I think that it was kind of difficult to represent ideas without illustrating. This is because when I could see something, I would ask someone else, and they would see something different or they would see a different word and it was just very hard to represent what I wanted to because it is harder for people to see your ideas versus if you could illustrate them. The parameters were not a problem for me. I actually think they helped because they gave me a basis to go off of which was helpful because otherwise I would have had no idea where to start, so the parameters almost made me more excited about the project. I also enjoyed that we got to learn about the gestalt theory. Gestalt is where we perceive the whole before we distinguish the individual components. Many techniques that we also learned to help us do this project were using figure and ground, similarity and anomaly, continuation, closure, proximity, and parallelism. I used parallelism in my representation of fear, and I used the idea of continuation in my representation of freedom.
Expressive Text
With the expressive text project, we were to take a word and express the word in different ways playing around with different had lettering and different media. The main objectives of this project were: • to experiment with a variety of hand lettering • to think about how the form of letters impact the meaning of the word • to build a foundation of using abundant iterations to arrive at successful solutions • to practice excellent craft in your final solutions We were told to try out different media, maybe do some 3D examples and produce an abundance of work and decide which ones you think represent your word the best.
Here are some of my sketches
I was playing around with different fonts
I tried this graffiti lettering for the first time and really enjoyed it
Final Work
Final Thoughts and Challenges I was surprised with how many different iterations I could actually come up with and all the different ways of writing the letters I had. I did not think that I would have many creative ideas but when we had to thirty different iterations I really came up with some different ideas I would have never thought of. I took advantage of the letterforms in the word note and used music notes that looked like the “n” and the “t” in the word. I also made the word out of a real note and cut it out to spell the word. The greatest challenge of this project was fitting the letters on a certain plane of space and having them look nice with the negative space. I handled this by writing one of my forms on a smaller paper the second time so that it could fit without going off the page because the width was to small compared to the length, and I also trimmed the edges of some. I also learned about spacing and how to map the letters in order to make the spacing between them just right. I also learned about serif and sanserif lettering and what that means. I got to explore kinds of letting that I have never worked with before, like graffiti letting.
Object Iterations With the object iteration project, we had to pick a specific object or tool and experiment with a variety of media to represent your object. I chose a fennec fox. They are recognized by their enormous ears and little pointy nose. I played around with this a lot so someone could still recognize what animal it was even if it was a very abstract representation of the fox. The main objectives of this project were: • to experiment with a variety of media and modes of making • to show range, creativity and curiosity in experimentation • to create unexpected yet recognizable depictions with integrity to subject • to embrace the making process as a means of discovery and understanding • to challenge yourself to create in new ways • to acknowledge and work both with and past cliché • to refine and modify work to fit within set parameters For the final piece, we had to fit our different iterations into a square format in InDesign and make it look organized with good use of negative space.
Here’s some of my iterations
Geometric
Inspired by my master artist: Paul Klee
Type collage
Collages
Artist: Georgia O’Keefe
Line drawings
F i n a l
Final Thoughts and Challenges I think that the presentation of my iterations helped amplify my work because of the big size of paper that we printed it on; you were able to see all of the details of my pieces. I also think that the square grid form we did helped make my pieces appear very organized and pleasing to the eye. The collage was the most challenging media for me. I think that this is because there were so many different possibilities that you could do with this type of media and I have never done a collage like this so it was something new to me. The most enjoyable to me was one of my mater artists, which was Georgia O’Keefe. I found this enjoyable because I got to use watercolor and play around with that which I have not used that often. Also, I learned a lot about Photoshop. This is because I have never used Photoshop before. I learned how to rotate an image, how to lasso an image and move it to a new background, how to curve the values of lights and darks, and many shortcuts using the command key. I think all of these things will be very helpful and I will use them to go forward with Photoshop.
Designer Presentation Milton
Glaser
We had to research a certain graphic designer and present their work to the class with the format of 20 slides 20 seconds each. The main objectives of this project were: • to research contemporary designer and share your findings with your peers • learn to evaluate the reliability and credibility of information sources • gain experience images to present information well, place the work of contemporary designer in an art historical context • practice presenting before you do so Honestly nothing really drew me to my designer, I just picked one randomly from the list and when I researched him I found out that he had done work that I was familiar with like the I love New York sign. I found his work very inspiring because he had such a wide range of logos and designs. During the presentation I did feel a little rushed though because the slides automatically changed. To fix this I took deep breaths and tried to not talk too fast, but also make sure I said everything that I practiced even if the slides changed.
Here are some of Glaser’s famous works
One of Glaser’s famous works for Department for Economic Development slogan because crime was high and tourism was low at this time He also produced work for Tomato Records. Here he used abstraction to make the design look both like a tomato and a record.
Poster for Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits : inspired by Marcel Duchamp’s 1957 self-portrait (left)
Children’s Book For this project, we were paired up with another student who had wrote a children’s book and we were to illustrate for it. The main objectives for this project were to: • gain experience working with clients in a • professional design setting • create cohesive and visually-striking images in response to the content of the text and art direction from the client • typeset the story dynamically and in support of the content and context • produce a printed booklet of your collaborative children’s book
Here are some sketches that I drew with marker
I used these sketches and put them into Photoshop
Here is one of my drawings and then what it looked like after I edited it in photoshop and added stars and grass using the paintbrush tool.
Here are some sample pages form my book.
Final Thoughts and Challenges I was surprised with how my partner trusted me to do my own style. She didn’t have too many ideas that she needed to have in the book, she just said that she knew I probably had my own style of work and she didn’t want to not let me do that. The most challenging part of this project I think would be just staring it. It was really stressful when I thought of all the stuff I would have to do and I am also new to Photoshop. Once I just calmed down and started to do one page at a time, I got more used to Photoshop and also got really into it. Then everything became very fast and I knew I could do it and wasn’t stressed out anymore. I saw this one children’s book called The Girl Who Could Dance in Outer Space by Maya Cointreau. I really liked how on the cover the background looked like a very realistic space background, and then the picture of the girl was cartoon looking. This is what inspired me and my designs for the book.
Final Questions Are you called to creative work? If so, how do you recognize that calling? If not, to what do you feel called? I do think that I am called to creative work. I recognize that calling because when I am out on just any day, I will see something that sparks an idea in my head. These ideas then inspire me when I create my art work and designs. I enjoy being creative because it makes me feel like I accomplished something if I am able to create something new and original. What, if anything, distinguishes art and design? If you have to pick a side, which do you choose? Why? I think that art is more about paintings or drawings and people can look at art and interperet art in their own ways. I think that design is more about how things work together and design uses art. I would rather pick the side of design because I think that design is a lot more fun because you can make a functioning object and you still get to use art for design. I think that art is very nice to look at but I think that design has more significance. This is because we use design to design logos for companies and these designs will stick in peoples heads and will alow them to remember different companies if their design catches the eyes of people. What is the difference between a good life and a significant life? A good life is a life that was lived well. This means you got by and there was some bad in your life, but mostly good and you survived the bad and were well off so you had a good life. A significant life is a life which we should strive to live. A significant life is one where you have mad a difference or have helped someone else out with their life and you have made a difference and are remembered for that. Also, a significant life may not be a good life. You may have lived a significant life because of your life being not so good and this is how you helped change others but in the end that is all that matters.
What is the greatest failure you’ve experienced (that you feel comfortable sharing with our class)? The greatest failure I have experienced is just running out of time. This happens because when I think about a project that I have to do I get overwhelmed and stressed out and just do not want to start it. Then time gets away from me and I have to rush to throw something together before the deadline. This happened at the beginning of the semester, but by the end I would start my projects right away and would not have much stress because of this. I think time management is something that is very hard to figure out but a very important quality to have good time management in life. What’s something you’ve made in the last two years that you’re proud of? I am most proud of this acrylic painting I had done in high school of a park near my house. I am proud of it because when I started to paint the landscape I never imagined it to look the way it ended up looking like at the end. I love to look at it and I have gotten many compliments on the piece. I used a lot of vibrant colors throughout the piece. Now that I have done my first design class this semester, I would like to incorporate the skills I used in this painting into my designs because I really enjoy design. If you were guaranteed it would support you financially, what would you want to design or make for a living? I would love to design logos for companies because I think it would be a very satisfying feeling to be able to create something original for a company that many people would see.