Process Book- Eric Kramer

The Journey Of My First Art Class

Introduction to Design Art 130 Spring 2023

Eric Kramer

Table of Contents

Introduction D School Who Designs Dot/Line

Vocational Questions Expectation vs Reality

As a Business Administration Major and a student-athlete, I decided to take my first Art/Design class. I have never taken an art class or done any sort of art or designing in my life, so I thought this would be worth a shot as well as interesting. This was also something I thought I could be good at, and maybe in the future be able to translate what I have learned for a job.

In this class, we completed many projects, and were able to develop many skills. We used Exacto knifes to cut paper and foam for our projects. We used ink lettering where we put ink on letters that we carved out to form words. We also experimented with some creative ways to use a printer in order to create a design, form, and to create more meaning behind one of our projects. We learned and used Adobe Photoshop to make images clearer and more professional, and InDesign to create a PSA Poster to inspire change in society and grab the audience’s attention. We used Photoshop and InDesign in many ways to create professional pieces and created a lot of different things until we were successful in our projects. We did a lot of work in process pieces in order to get our final pieces that we were ready to show, and we were able to get feedback from our peers.

In order to be successful and to keep up with work, going to inprocess critiques were a big part in the final grade, and also being a little risky with designs and taking a chance.

D School

For the first project of the year, we have D School. This was kind of an introduction project to get us started, and also socialize with a classmate. First, we reflected on our experiences here at SNC. Afterwards, we interviewed a classmate to talk about their experiences here at SNC, and asked questions to get to know them as well. We then asked some further questions to get to know them like their other hobbies, their major, what year of school here at SNC, and other similar prompts.

We then took out what stood out to us and put it into actions. We created some sketches based on what stood out to us on how they meet their need. We drew some conclusions to what they can do whether it was possible or not; we were just trying to be creative. Then, from our sketches, we had to generate the solution. We had to build or construct the other’s solution to their needs out of random materials that were in our classroom. After we constructed the solution, we got feedback based on what worked, what didn’t, and any additional ideas to the solution.

For this project I interviewed Kai, one of my classmates. A big need for her was staying organized with all the things she wants to accomplish. She gets stressed out by messes and needs to be clean and organized, but with an agenda on what she needed to do, she didn’t know how she could do all these things like the Village Project, school, and jobs and still be able to clean and stay organized. My solution was setting a day aside just for cleaning in the week, paying someone to do it, getting one of those robots that clean the floors, or maybe just be overwhelmed and do it all day everyday. After some feedback, I came to a final solution.

My solution was to design and construct her a robot that cleans and organizes her stuff. I made this out of cardboard, a wine cork, a bottle cap, and an upside down letter V. This robot is constructible out of everyday materials so that you can have be somewhat cost

effective, and you can use your phone charger to give it power, The concept worked, but I would have put arms on it if I could have as you can see in the image.

While engaging with a real person helped my direction with the prototype very well, I was able to get feed back based on her lifestyle. I was also able to tell what it was, and describe it instead of just showing them when they might not be able to figure out themselves. Furthermore, it created more brainstorming and required effort to be more creative. Having unfinished work is never desirable. It was hard showing unfinished work because it just wasn’t complete, and it feels kind of embarrassing. It was hard to get everything you wanted to do being under a time limit. It even created some stress trying to finish it. Being under a time limit, you had to work at a good pace and try to not stress and rush. It was also hard because you couldn’t make it as perfect as you wanted, but it did help with thinking on the spot. Overall, if I had to do this again, I would try to improve it and try to think on the spot faster, and try to be more creative. I would most likely work at the pace I did although sometimes it wasn’t enough but it was off by a few seconds.

Who Designs?

For this project, we found a designer of our choosing. We researched them for information about their work and some background information on them as well. Through this, we were able to learn what it takes to be a designer, take samples of what good work looks like, and discover some of the processes behind making their work. We then had to make a write up post about the designer that we chose. We had to discuss why we chose them and what excited us about their work. We were able to use their work as examples for our work in class.

Aaron Douglas was an American artist that had a leading role during the Harlem Renaissance. Douglas was born in Topeka, Kansas in 1899 and passed away in 1979. He received his Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Nebraska, then went back to Kansas to teach art. By 1925, he had moved to New York City and joined the art scenes in Harlem. He studied with a German artist named Winold Reiss, and received commissions for magazine illustrations. Douglas first illustrated Alain Locke’s book The New Negro. Through his work he was then sponsored by Charlotte Mason. Douglas created many murals in many different states, and became the first president of the Harlem Artists Guild. He challenged the Works Progress Administration to recognize African American artists. Douglas intended to pursue his art career in Paris, and he finally moved to Paris in 1931. He spent a year there studying classical art, and then he moved back to New York City to study at Columbus University Teachers College, where he was then able to meet Charles S. Johnson. Johnson invited Douglas to develop Fisk’s art department. Douglas achieved his masters degree at Fisk, and became the head of the art department. He retired in 1966 teaching art to young people.

Designs?

For this project, I chose Aaron Douglas because of his role in the Harlem Renaissance. It is always hard to portray the harsh times African Americans have faced and to get a variety of people to understand it, but he was able to do this through his works, which I felt was very intriguing. I didn’t mind sharing this information with my classmates as I felt he had deeper meaning behind his work and he answered the question what inspired him, and why he was doing what he did. I especially didn’t mind because it had a significance in the Harlem Renaissance, which I felt was something my classmates needed to know that it just wasn’t for his joy or because he liked art; he wanted to impact people in a different way.

Aaron Douglas revolutionized African American Art. He created a broad range of work that shaped his movement in the Harlem Renaissance, and brought it to national prominence. He established a method through modern art and African American art to celebrate African American experience, and bring attention to racism and segregation.

Out of all those who shared their designers, I found one designer that also intrigued me and that I would research more, Shepard Fairey. I was intrigued because this designer worked in similar ways in their work as my designer did, tackling political issues in society and raising awareness towards potentially uncomfortable topics.

Energetic

Two Lines Two Dots

Two Lines

The Dot/Line project was one of our first major projects we did. This project consisted of making a lot of thumbnail sketches and cutting lots of paper shapes of circles and lines of different sizes. We cut these shapes using an Exacto knife, and glued them onto paper. The Dot/Line project wasn’t only about cutting shapes and gluing them, we had to apply them to characteristics. For example I chose energetic, rejection and comfort. There are many variations to use, like the two dots and two lines I used, and all dots as well. The goal was to work with words and images abundantly and iteratively.

After many sketches we started cutting paper shapes, and glued those shapes to paper that we cut for in-process critique. Cutting the shapes wasn’t easy with getting them to be as cut cleanly and evenly as I could. We then took feedback and made some final pieces as shown above. For these, I had to cut foam and paper into squares with one inch margins. I then glued the shapes on the white, placing liquid glue and using a paint brush to spread the glue so it wouldn’t bubble. I then used spray glue on the white paper to glue it to the black foam. This wasn’t easy, and used a lot of patience. For my first piece, I used two dots and two lines to display the “energetic“ characteristic. When I think of energetic, I think crazy and sporadic. I set the lines up in a sporadic way and the dots enclosed by lines so when someone looks at it, they need to do a double take at the randomness present. I used two different sized lines, and two different sized dots in two different colors. The small black dot went with the thicker gray line, and the bigger gray dot went with the thin black line to show some more craziness.

Rejection

Dot/Line

Rejection

Two Dots

Comfort

All Dots

For the second piece, I chose the characteristic of rejection. I used two lines and two dots. I showed rejection by blocking the black dot by it’s own color line from the gray dot and gray line. I did this because I felt with what’s going in the world with racism and media bias, I felt two different colors rejecting each other represent rejection pretty well.

For the final piece, I chose comfort. I used all dots. I felt patterns are calm and comforting which I showed in the color and dot patterns I put above. I also felt this pattern wouldn’t go with any other characteristic other than comfort as well.

Gestalt is being able to perceive something more than how it generally is. Gestalt relates to this project because we are taking dot/line compositions and trying to relate it to words that are bigger than just a dot and a line. We are perceiving it as greater than it looks to be. Making a well crafted object isn’t necessarily difficult, but I would say it takes multiple attempts and multiple mistakes to get it well crafted. I would rather make it more well crafted and spend extra time because it should be something to feel proud of.

This project changed my idea of abstraction by helping me find more creative ideas and realize more of the background that goes into creating an art piece and also generating more imagination to perceive what you want it to. It wasn’t difficult to represent my ideas, but I can easily see how it can be if someone doesn’t understand your take on it. I feel this way because of some feedback I heard and realized if I did explain it, then they might understand it more. I would use this exercise during other art related activities, use it to expand my imagination, creativeness, and maybe for a future job.

For this project, we had to handle a lot of text. We took how letters look, and are formed to find the meaning. For this project, we had to carve out letters, and take ink and roll it. Afterwards, we placed the letters in the ink and placed them on our paper to form the word that we wanted. We did this by hand to get a better understanding of how negative space impacts how a word is interpreted.

If you look at the images on this page, I chose the word fire, and tried many different variations of the word fire. Above are my work in-process of this project. I tried many different forms until I got the ones I liked. After I got the ones I liked, I had to let the ink dry. After letting the ink dry, I had to clean it up. It looks a little bit messy, so I had to use a printer to cover up some of the excess ink that smeared. After getting these nice and clean, I then used the copier to produce some cool edits in my work. Down below you can see my final work, and how much better it looks then the stuff above.

For the first work, I crumbled up some paper, put it on the copier, and left the lid open to get the cool effects that you see. The goal here was to show a paper after being in a fire all burnt and distorted to represent what happens during a fire. Things just get messed up.

For the second work, I cut a flame out of paper and placed the word fire in the flame.. The goal here was just to have a cool design for the word fire, while being in a flame. For the third work below, I cut the letters out and dragged them down the copier to have a cool play on the word fire. I did this to show the meaning of the term “fire” , the new slang term we use nowadays.

Now on to my last work, it is a basic form of the word fire with no edits. I made this one because I wanted to show the cleanliness from some of the work in-process.

Letterforms

After doing this project, I learned that there is a lot more that goes into creating letterforms than you might think, and sometimes it can be very hard to figure out what might represent the word the best. I also learned how different styles, and forms of the word can make the word more meaningful.

If I could do more of letters like this, I would try to make more time to make better forms of my word than I did. I would also try to not pick a word someone might also be doing, which I found out on critique day. I would also make sure I make it more clean and neat initially because it will save a lot of time and extra work.

I overall felt this project wasn’t all that bad as in hard, but it was a lot of work. You had to keep trying things over and over again until you felt it was right, and conveying the meaning it was supposed to. I think I tried over 10-15 different forms of the word, and printed over 100 rough drafts of possibilities of what I wanted to do. This took some patience along with not giving up. It also taught me how artists work. They work over and over again. They edit and keep editing until they get it right. I thought art class would be easy, but I have to say it is a lot of work, and failing work is always frustrating. If you put in the effort and don’t give up, that is how you will do well.

Iterative Illustrations

For this project, we had to choose an animal. The animal that we chose was what we were going to be doing for this project. After choosing our animal, we had to find some images on our animal, after doing so we had to cut out various forms of our animal that we wanted to use for this project. After doing so, we then had to find master artists, and create work of our animal the way our master artist does their work. After doing this, we then had to construct our animal out of shapes, a continuous line, 2 master artist versions,one of our choosing,and a typographic collage. After doing so, we used Adobe Photoshop to edit our images to bring out details and color. We also used photoshop to make our images cleaner and more clear. After photoshop, we then used adobe indesign. In indesign, we put our 6 images on paper and had to print them out on cardstock as our final piece.

For this project I chose a wolf. Some of my in-process work is above. The one on the left is one of my choosing. I cut pictures out of a magazine in the shape of a wolf. The one next to it I cut from a magazine as well. I did this in just the general shape of my image not knowing what I was gonna use it for. The next to that on the right is my typographic collage. I cut it out of a magazine with text on it and even cut out some words to put back on it. Lastly, the very right one is a master artist that used paint. I traced the shape and then painted it. I didn’t have much of an idea on how to paint as you can see.

Illustrations

This project was in a way challenging for me. I had to miss some class due to baseball, so I fell behind. This was probably one of the projects to not fall behind. I was struggling, came in after hours of class to work on this, and didn’t have much experience or practice with what I was doing. I couldn’t get many details because I couldn’t make it look good. I just kept making it worse. In a way I rushed this project and wish I didn’t

Since I fell behind, this wasn’t my best work. I threw things together at the last minute and hoped for the best. I could’ve asked for help but I can be stubborn that way and think I got it. I especially do so in times that I really don’t. This project became hard and stressful. I started debating why I was even taking this class at the time, but then that was just my frustrations talking. I spent hours on this project and couldn’t seem to get it right.

Lastly, down below is my final piece. As you can see it isn’t the cleanest, and many images are repeated because I started to give up. I didn’t clean my images well enough in photoshop. I also didn’t crop my images at all. I just placed them all in there and hoped for the best. I thought I could get away with it, but when I printed it out, I looked at it like “what in the world happened.” I saw initials because I didn’t crop it, and I saw lines that I didn’t crop out.

The page on the right has my final work. The top left image is my typographic collage. As you can see there is a bit of shadow in that image.

The top right image is my master artist Banksy. I cut a stencil, and spray painted. I spray painted it because a lot of Banksy’s work deals in spray paint.

The middle left image is my geographic. I cut out shapes and kinda just put whatever that is together and hoped for the best.

The middle right image is my choice. I cut out everything I shaped to be a wolf, and glued it together, and that’s how it came out, and once again hoped for the best.

The bottom left image is another master artist Francis Bacon. I feel this is my best one, and Bacon works a lot with acrylic paints, so I traced my image and just painted. I then edited it to make a darker background.

The last image on the bottom right is my continuous line. I drew this wolf and colored it in. I am not much of a drawer, but I edited it to make colors pop out more to show the different shades of hair the wolf’s fur has.

Through this project, I learned that there is so much more that can be done with using the apps that we used. I also learned how frustrating it can be when your work doesn’t come out to be exactly how you wanted it. If you become very good using photoshop you can create some very nice work, and very appealing designs.

Using some of these apps was not easy whatsoever. If you missed a class it was very hard to catch and figure out what to do. The most challenging was in design, and cleaning up my images in photoshop. Trying to get images perfect and bold to show details was very frustrating at times. Sometimes it looked good on the computer until I had to print it out and it wasn’t as clean as I thought. When it wasn’t as clean as I thought I had to start all over again. Also, using photoshop was kinda hard because I have an older computer so it took a while for things to load, and it was very laggy. I felt that photoshop was enjoyable because you can see how much better you can make things and the differences from the originals were mind boggling.

When using photoshop, I learned that importing your images and saving them are a big deal. The way you import the images determines how well you can edit your images. Also, having enough storage on your computer plays a big role as well. If you don’t have enough storage, you are limited on how much you can edit. So going forward I will always import the images in the best way, and always have enough storage before working.

For our last project before creating this book, we had to create a PSA Poster. A PSA Poster is a public service announcement about an important topic to make the public more aware of a certain topic. For this project, we chose a topic we felt was important. We had to research this topic and get information we wanted to use. I chose a topic, then had to brief on what I wanted my poster to say and communicate. After we complete the brief, we got a client to exchange our topic briefs. When we exchange our topic briefs, we had to create the poster our clients want. We take the information they give us and apply to a poster they were looking for. This poster had to be only text and use up the a lot of space on the paper. We had to create this poster in Adobe InDesign. If you have ever used InDesign sometimes it can be somewhat difficult.

For this project, my client’s goal was to annoy people about what we were trying to communicate. As you can see on the right, I chose a color that would standout, and catch someones eye. I also put it in a format to grab the audiences attention but also annoy them as my client wanted. I chose this design because I felt it would annoy people as well as make them aware. I also included some basic facts about the topic of turning off your phone can improve health. The title I used was created in this way not only because is it eye catching but it is annoying as instructed. I feel that I created this as my client had wanted, and got across the information as she wanted as well. It is eye catching, annoying, and also makes the public aware.

Overall, this project wasn’t all that challenging using text, the only hard part was using good negative space. In many posters you see, you might find it has pictures and text, but using all text and having good negative space was where it was challenging, but it wasn’t too bad. I set up this poster to be as annoying as possible as my client wanted it to be. I designed it in an unusual format to make the audience to feel annoyed, I slanted the call to action, and put another part in an unusual place. I put the facts in the right corner along with citations which I felt would annoy the public when trying to read. I also used color to standout, and formatted this to be eye catching as well. Through this project, I learned how you can grab an audiences attention, but also make them feel annoyed by just looking at a poster. I also learned that the color and the format was what played a big role in that, and not just the information. Lastly, this project took some work but really caught my eye in how if I needed to communicate something to the public I can do so from what I’ve learned through this project.

Poster

Vocational

What is the greatest failure I’ve experienced in life?

When I was younger, I struggled with reading. I had a hard time with stuttering and saying the wrong words. Many teachers started to talk to my parents about the situation, and claimed I didn’t know how to read. My parents sat me down and had a talk with me about it, and they seemed sad and felt bad for me. I was tested to see if I had a disorder or not and it turned out I didn’t. Being told this at a young age I thought it was the end of the world, but I never gave up. After finding out I didn’t have a disorder, it was such a relieving feeling, and it encouraged me to try and improve at reading. Although I was always nervous to read when I would find out that teachers thought I didn’t know to read, I just kept trying and trying. After a while, I was able to figure it out, and it seemed to be stage fright related. I stopped caring what others thought and just did it, and in doing so, I got better and better. I even got more comfortable reading in public as well. After going through that hard time, I passed grade school, passed high school, and I am now about to finish college. I even had honor roll in high school, and made the Dean’s List a few times in college. This taught me to never give up and by trying hard and enough repetition can help you do whatever you want in life.

Questions

Are you called to creative work?

If so, how do you recognize that calling?

If not, to what do you feel called?

Being creative was something I always struggled with. After taking this class I have definitely improved that. I would say I am called to creative work, although I do feel that I have some limits in that aspect. As I have learned in this class, what you put into is what you get out of it. I have seen this in some of the work I have done. The least amount of work I put in, I have not been so successful in my work. The more work I put in, the more successful and satisfied I was. I believe I am called to creative work, because I have always wanted to do something in the business industry, and I feel that in the business industry there is many ways to be creative. Whether its ads, marketing, or maybe even the product there is a creative way in doing so and designing some of these things. There’s also always a creative way into getting a deal done, or even making a customer happy. What I have learned in this class about creativity, I plan to apply it in my future business job depending on what I officially decide on what I want to do in the future. Lastly, I believe I can be even more creative if I working on it and apply to my life.

Expectations

When I first decided to take this class, I was thinking its my senior, and I play baseball and a lot of times the season can be hectic. So I wanted something I thought could be easy and wouldn’t be stressful during baseball season. I expected to learn new things and have it be tough at first. I thought I could also get a good grade to help boost my GPA as well. I was very interested in taking my first art class and wanted to see what it was all about.

At SNC, I see a lot of good art students had made around the school, and I wanted to be able to create some good things as well. I thought this class could be good for me in many ways, and never saw all the work that goes into art that is created. I thought artists just put a whole bunch of stuff on paper that looked good and published it. I personally lack some creativity at times, and not being able to produce good quality work. I felt that this class would help me in that aspect, and be able boost some of my creativity or boost my imagination. Overall, I thought this class would be perfect and good for me.

vs.

Reality

In reality, art and especially designing is not easy at all. It is trial and error, and doing things over and over again. There is always things to work on, fix, and improve when it comes to art. A lot of times you just have risk it and put things on the work and hopefully it looks good when you’re finished. It takes many attempts into getting your final piece and being satisfied with it. I did multiple attempts of my work, and worked on it for hours at a time.

Through my work and trial and error, I was able to be more creative than I have ever been, and used my imagination in a lot of my work that helped make it better. I have developed meanings behind my work that were deeper then some of the stuff I put on my final pieces. There is a lot of meaning behind work, which I never knew was possible, Art is not to be underestimated, theres always more to it then what it seems. Through brainstorming, and just improving my work in-process I was shown that you can’t give up, and you’ll be successful if you just keep working. I believe I accomplished my goal in improving creativity and boosting my imagination. Although, it wasn’t easy and a lot of work, I was able to grasp some new cool things that I never saw myself doing.

This book was made as part of Introduction to Design at St. Norbert College in the Spring of 2023. The fonts used include Bodoni 72 Smallcaps, Bodoni 72 Oldstyle Bold, and Bodoni 72 Oldstyle Book. It was digitally printed and saddle stapled at the college’s print center.