A love hate relationship Learning the ins and outs of design By Emily Olsen
This book was produced in the Fall of 2014 at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin. This book presents the process and projects of Emily Olsen’s semester as an Intro to Design student conducted by Katie Ries. It is composed in the typesets Go Around the Books, Talking to the Moon, and Baskerville and was digitally printed by the college print center.
A Love Hate Relationship Learning the ins and outs of design By Emily Olsen
Dot Line The Dot Line Project required me to create four final abstract compositions consisting of dots, lines, or dots and lines. The dots and lines, either gray or black, needed to communicate four separate words without illustrating them. The project offered twelve words to choose from, and I immediately chose Joy, Terror, Exhausted, and Freedom. I knew I had a short amount of time to brainstorm, critique, and try to perfect so I chose my four words and stuck with them. The final compositions needed to be glued to 4” x 4” white papers that needed to be mounted on pieces of 6” x 6” mat board. This project required me to work fast while making numerous iterations of my work. I started my attack with five thumbnails of each word. After deciding which of my first thumbnails were most successful I refined them, which are shown on these two pages. Sketching my initial ideas worked well in the beginning but I quickly realized rough compositions with individual dot and line cut outs would be more beneficial. Although this made changing the proximity easier it also made increasing the size of a dot or line more difficult. Unlike my thumbnails the rough compositions gave me a better sense of scale and value.
At this point in my process I was frustrated and only liked the way Joy communicated with the dots. So I stepped back, took a deep breath and tried to think more abstractly, trying to focus on the negative spaces in my rough compositions. I resized most of my dots and lines and took another stab at it. The proximity between my dots and lines began increasing or decreasing drastically. My compositions were becoming visually pleasing and I was proud of how far I had come. The time crunch started setting in so I gathered all my dots and lines and began the process of gluing. Even though I had to work quickly I was still able to concentrate on the detail in my pieces and glue precisely. I was quite proud of the outcome of my abstract compositions. This project provided me with a better understanding of the importance of value, scale, and proximity while giving me insight on when to focus on positive space or negative space. When I began this project it seemed impossible for me to communicate words without illustrating them. I was uneducated on the principles of abstraction before this project but I believe my final compositions show how much I’ve grown. I have a better grasp on how to make a piece speak by itself through abstraction.
Joy
FREEDOM
EXHAUSTED
TERROR
Expressive Text The objective of the Expressive Text Project consisted of experimenting with hand lettering, playing off the meanings and interpretations of words. The representation of a word impacts the way it is perceived, so using hand lettering allows words to communicate more personally than digital lettering. It adds more control and more personal design to each word. This project involved an abundance of iterations, experimenting with numerous lettering. The project offered eight words to choose from and as soon as I saw the word “dash� I was intrigued. I love to run so I figured I could play off the interpretation of running. I immediately sketched some initial ideas, which I thought were great but in reality they sucked. I continued brainstorming ideas and making small sketches, surprisingly sketching my bad ideas lead to more effective lettering. Using the interpretation of running I made drafts of shoes, shoe prints, the Nike symbol, and a stopwatch. My original drafts were done in pencil so I began experimenting with charcoal, ink, sharpie, and pastels. The iterations of objects were working but I needed to simplify my portrayal of the word by designing it without the use of an object.
The path I was going down lead me to successful lettering. I was pleased with the iterations up to that point, both good and bad, and I continued refining them. My experiments with hand lettering had been relatively small so I began expanding and testing out new sizes. Quickly I learned that hand lettering on a large scale was not my cup of tea. It was enjoyable but extremely difficult. I lost the control of my letters. My lines were not as precise as they were on a smaller scale. I went back to an average scale and continued refining. For the ink lettering I tried using straight ink and watering down the ink. I messed around with different size brushes but none gave “dash� the right effect. To create a more successful representation of the shoe print I began experimenting with cut out pieces of paper, which lead me to one of my final results.
My final representations of “dash” show variety and experimentation. Each of the iterations had numerous drafts and refinements. The shoe print, shown below, relies on the black negative space. It plays off the interpretation of running as well as the shoelace iteration. I knew that I could not have the word depend on a shoe, but it could involve a shoe. The last two iterations represent the speed and rushing that associate with “dash.” This project informed me of the impact that forms and lettering have on the contents of words. Hand lettering personalizes the content and the interpretations of words.
Contour Drawings
These drawings were activities that lead into the next project. Blind contour drawings consist of one line created while not looking at the paper. I have a love hate relationship with contour drawings. The abstraction is beautiful, but sometimes I cannot look past the random lines. Modified contour drawings contain one single line that can only be looked at while the pencil is paused. While drawing a modified contour I can’t look while my pencil is moving, but as soon as I pause my pencil I can look to see my location on the page.
The left sketches are blind and modified contour drawings of some of my classmates. This page shows one contour and one modified contour of an Indian Elephant. This elephant is the focus of my Object Iteration, which was the next project. These drawings portray the features that relate to an elephant, including the trunk and huge ears. Contours often create laughter because for most people these drawings are not normal pieces of artwork they’re use to seeing. The simplicity of contours is what makes them unique and beautiful.
As I stated on the previous page, my object of choice was the Indian Elephant for the Object Iterations Project. This project required numerous iterations showing a variety of images. The final project had to include iterations of a contour drawing, two master artists, collage, typography collage, and geometric shapes. These iterations could be abstract or extremely detailed. Creating unique iterations of my object while communicating the silhouette or features of the Indian Elephant was the main objective. The presentation of the final product was a printed digital file from InDesign, this meant using Photoshop for the first time. My computer skills were up to date but I was lost when it came to Photoshop. This project pushed me to learn the ins and outs of the program while trying to create and finish my project. This task was not easy but I continued to strive for success.
Object Iterations
My collage iterations got the ball rolling for me. I began with flipping through pages of some magazines and I could not escape images of makeup. Makeup is all around us, many people wear it and it pops up in commercials or in magazines everyday. So I figured why not use an object that I see everyday to portray an animal I may see a few times a year. After my collage of makeup I moved onto text collage, which challenged my ability to clearly portray an elephant. I relied on the color of the text and the backdrop behind the text to create scale. Once I had met the requirements of the project I branched off and tried using charcoal, shown on the top of the left page. The texture and value of each stroke lead me to a successful iteration. Wire was my next medium to attack. I faced some troubles in bending it the directions I wanted, but after a while I had effectively shown the silhouette of an Indian elephant. When I had completed numerous iterations I ventured to the computers where I scanned and began editing my images. I struggled with matching the background of my images to the background of the InDesign document. My images, which for the most part, came from my sketchbook and scanned in with a not so white, white background. Besides that tiny bump in my editing process, my process was going pretty smoothly, little did I know the real battle would be faced once I started placing my edited images in InDesign.
The sizing and location of the images I placed in the InDesign document involved troubleshooting. I tried inverting, flipping, and cropping images. Finally I had chosen the strongest iterations and doubled their size while shrinking most of the other iterations. The layout of my document started coming together and I was pleased with all my black and white iterations of the Indian Elephant. I had a solid variety of images and was playing off the negative space on my page. The final product for this project is shown to the right. Although it is crowded and busy, I can appreciate all the time and effort that was put into it. I gathered basic Photoshop skills and learned about InDesign documents through the process of this project. Going forward with my work I knew I would utilize all of the information that I had gained.
Tutorial Editorial This next project consisted off creating the layout of a two-page spread for a tutorial. This project was the first to introduce the challenges of text alignment and creating relationships between illustrations and text. My job was to enhance the text with illustrations while enhancing the illustrations with text. As always I needed to pay attention to the negative space in comparison to positive space in the layout, and make a composition pleasing to the eye. Once my tutorial on how to make a PB and J sandwich was written I began making thumbnails of possible layouts, shown above. Then I began sketching out my initial ideas for illustrations. I knew that our sketches were supposed to be selective so I tried to minimize the amount of illustrations I had. Reading through my tutorial a couple times helped me discover that the most important part of following my tutorial was to end with a sandwich. This realization allowed me to discard my illustrations of a peanut butter jar and jelly jar, my main focus relying on the product of a sandwich. It took me awhile, but once I decided on a sketch of sandwich I went through the editing process in Photoshop that included both editing and digitally coloring my image.
1. Collect ingredients including peanut butter, jelly, bread, a butter knife, and a plate. 2. Take two slices of bread and place them onto the plate. 3. Use the butter knife to lather jelly onto one of the slices of bread. 4. Wipe the leftover jelly on the butter knife off onto the second slice
ac
k
of bread so that the butter knife is clean.
n S A Snappy
the excess jelly on it.
6. Lick off the leftover peanut butter on the butter knife to make sure no peanut butter is wasted.
7. Carefully lift the slice of bread with peanut butter so it is above the other slice of bread, making sure that the side with peanut butter is facing the side with jelly that is on the plate.
8. While hovering over the slice of bread with jelly, line up the sides of the bread with the slice with peanut butter and press down.
9. Now that the sandwich is completed return the ingredients to the designated spot in the kitchen.
e
u yo
know it!
G o ne b e fo r
By E mily Olsen
5. Use the butter knife to lather peanut butter on the slice of bread with
My layout started revolving around two plates which allowed me to wrap the tutorial text and create text along a path for the title. Since my tutorial was fairly short and could be performed quickly I came up with the title,“A Snappy Snack.� I thought it was clever and relatable. Above is my final product for the Tutorial Editorial Project. I think the text placement and alignment could use some work, but for my first two-page spread with text it turned out quite nicely.
The last project of the semester was a Children’s Book. This Book was by far my favorite project, but was the most challenging. While working on this project I used everything I learned during the semester. Each project prior to this one was beneficial in some way. My design class collaborated with a teacher education class that wrote Children’s Book in the beginning of the semester, which we had to illustrate. I was paired with an author who wrote an adorable book dedicated to her little brother, Timmy. The book was titled, Timmy’s Day of Adventures. It consisted of a little boy named Timmy dressing up in costumes throughout the day, becoming different characters. The first challenge for me was drawing a little boy. The author had specified that Timmy was four years old and that’s how she wanted him depicted. I quickly decided that my illustrations of Timmy would be childlike to help create a relatable perspective for little kids.
Children's Book
This was my first time working with a partner and I was lucky enough to have an author that was always on top of the work. Whenever I asked for an opinion of an illustration or text on a page the feedback help me grow as a designer. The process of this book was long, I spent numerous hours digitally coloring images and aligning the text. Choosing the colors and fonts of the book were critical decisions I had to work through. Being an indecisive person and perfectionist always made projects harder than they needed to be.
The final product of my Children’s Book was exactly what I was hoping for. My illustrations of Timmy filled up pages leaving just the right amount of negative space. I believe the text of the book was written well and my illustrations helped enhance it. My illustrations brough the book to life. This project gave me the experience of working with a client, having to appeal to their desires while incorporating my style and design techniques. It was a bumpy road that contained anger and frustration but lead me to the successful outcome of my book.
He sprinted to the playroom where he dug through his toy box to find his horse. He was soon galloping all around the house, dodging the castles, and fighting off the evil dragons.
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After several minutes, he stepped outside of his door beating his chest. He ran to the backyard where he hung from the trees and hunted for bananas.
Dinner was then ready and Timmy the monkey sat restless at the table ready to climb.
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The little scuba diver was now in his pajamas and it was time for bed. Timmy the bunny knight monkey scuba diver was finally tucked in under the covers. As he drifted off to sleep, he dreamt of tomorrow’s new adventures.
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