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Plan, Create, Critique
Grace Liska-Verdu Art 130 - Fall 2019, St. Norbert College
“There are no stupid questions!” - Katie Ries, Professor of Introduction to Design
Introduction Hello, my name is Grace and this is a book that has been made to show what I have learned and created about design in my first semester of college and how I applied it to the real world.
Enjoy!
The purpose of D-School was to understand the process of design and that a designer needs to make multiple rough drafts of their design before the final copy of what they are designing. The bad rough drafts come before the great final copies.
D-School When engaging with a real person, I was able to explain my prototype and see how my partner liked the ideas I shared and to see if there was anything that I could improve upon in the process. I enjoyed sharing my prototype because I like to have people critique my work so that I can make it better. Showing my partner unfinished work was a lot of fun because again, we can bounce ideas off each other and just laugh at how our work looked. The pace of this activity was a little fast but I did like the steps we had to go through to get to the prototype. Compared to my own pace, I usually take my time on each step of a project and think carefully about what I want to do so it looks as good as I can get it. If I should ever do this again, I would go back to the same idea but make it bigger and neater than what it turned out to be. I would also create multiple different prototypes to see which one turned out the best.
Final Product
Olivia was my client in this assignment
Chaotic
Joy
Dot-Line
Terror The purpose of this exercise was to get a sense of how to use positive and negative space, and use what you are given to create something fantastic. It was also to understand how to use the gestalt theory, proximity, composition, and how we can use all of this to understand how we see graphic design.
Thumbnail Sketches
Dot Line Continued (Iterations) Gestalt is the composition of a piece and how others look at it. It relates to this project because we had to create words from a certain number of circles and lines that others could also perceive as that same word. We had to work with positive and negative space, the perspective, the proximity of each of the shapes and the different hues of each shape. It was slightly difficult to create a well-crafted object because it takes a lot of time to get a project perfect with minimal to no mistakes. It all depends on the project whether I would work quickly and have a little less perfection, or take my time to perfect my project. In both situations, I think it is important to take as much time as you can to get the details correct and neatly. This project didn’t change my idea of abstraction because I have always done abstract pieces during art classes and at home when I feel creative. What
did change was the way I do the abstract pieces. I was introduced to the positive and negative space between the shapes, and the proximity of each of the shapes. I also learned that where the places of the pieces are affect what the viewer sees and where their eye will move to next. It was a little bit difficult to show these ideas without illustrating them because there is no actual picture to represent what each word is. The viewer has to look closely and interpret the piece and sometimes, they may say it means one thing while you say it means another. It’s also hard to hear negative feedback or something that you need to work on because you don’t want to have to recreate a new piece to represent the idea you aimed for. I’ll use this in my future design projects and when I present my abstract ideas to a client, I will keep the idea in my mind.
Rough Iterations
L e t t e r F o r m s
Rough iterations
Finals
L e t t e r F o r m s
Continued...
The purpose of creating Letter forms was to get an idea of depth, the kerning of the letters, and the shapes these letters can create using the space given. When I was working with the letter forms, I learned that it is hard to create typography in the way we did it. Although it would be easier to create something on the computer, doing it by hand is so much fun. You can do multiple copies of the same word in different styles to see what the kerning or composition looks like and if you do not like it, you can always create a new version with new kerning, spacing, and direction. I also learned that based on direction and kerning, the interpretation of the word can change from how you originally thought it would be interpreted. I also
learned that it was difficult to get the letters straight, even if a straight line is drawn because there is no visual way to see exactly where you are putting the letters. If I were to continue working with these letters, I would stick with my chosen word, but I would create more versions using the feedback I got in the final critique to make my work even better. The feedback I got plus looking at other works have given me more ideas that I wish I had more time to create. Overall, I really enjoyed the project and would definitely do it again.
Object Iterations Through this process, I learned I don’t think I favored one media over to look at objects more thoroughly another. They all took about the same as pieces and shapes rather than amount of effort to create. While using what is visible to the viewer’s eye. Photoshop, I learned how to basically For example, my sloth. I was able use it and how easy it can be to edit to see the shapes that make up the photos once you know how and what sloth rather than the physical form. tools to use. I also learned about Doing collages and continuous line some pretty cool shortcuts that I not drawings also helped me see shapes only can use in Photoshop but outside and shadows rather than details. Photoshop too. If I had to continue The media that I feel was the most with this object, I might try to make challenging was the regular college it come to life in ways it normally because we had to seek out images wouldn’t. For example, put clothes that would help with the shape we on my Sloth, make it faster than it is, aim for while also finding the right etc. In other words, I would animate tones so that the image doesn’t it. Even after this project, I still love blend together once it was scanned. Sloths. #sloth-nation
Final Design The purpose of object iterations was to help us learn how to use Photoshop and InDesign. The purpose was also to help us see things as shapes and lines rather than the detail put into the object.
Rene Magritte
The inspiration I used for my sloths
Object Iterations Continued Kara Walker
The inspiration I used for my silhouette sloths.
Final Design
PSA Posters The Purpose of this project was to give us the sense of experience when we have a client who wants us to design something for him/her and all the work it takes to get them to like what you have created.
I’d say it wasn’t challenging to be limited to only type because we also had the option of using two different fonts in our poster. I tried to make the main point of the poster stand out by making it the biggest thing on the poster. I also bolded it so that the importance of the poster stands out. I got rid of some negative space in my final draft by adding a black box to half the page and putting the words on the black box. There was less negative space than there would have been if I was to work on previous iterations. I learned how to use InDesign while also learning about word font, visual hierarchy and what makes a poster good or bad. I also learned about the negative and positive space in a poster and how that contributes to making it pop out from all the other posters when hung up on a bulletin board.
PSA Posters Continued
In Process Iterations
Designer Presentations
Goal: To Raise Awareness of Social issues including discrimination and social rights along with many other issues.
I had a unique process in how I was drawn to my designer. Originally, I had a strong opinion of doing Chipp Kidd, because I already knew a little bit about him. As I was looking at other designers, the work of Chaz Mayvian-Davies caught my eye. I looked at his work and immediately decided to put him first on my list. His work was so eyecatching and powerful. I felt confident about my public speaking before I actually had to present in front of my classmates. As I was presenting, I felt I didn’t do too well for two reasons: one, I had to wait for two out of the twenty slides to change because there was not a lot that I said when there could have been more. Secondly, I was a bit sick, so my voice probably didn’t sound the loudest or clearest. One designer that I would probably research Further would be Aaron Draplin because I like how his designs are simple yet make a bold statement. I also like how his logos include lines and I would love to see more work that he has done and would like to know how he got inspired to do this work.
Vocation Questions I feel that I am called to creative work. I recognize this because a sudden urge to create or draw something just appears and if I can, I will doodle on whatever is available. Sometimes this calling comes to me when I am asleep or just looking at something ordinary, and my brain sees it as something more than what it is. This is also why I doodle when I’m watching TV or bored. This is when I feel the most creative.
Something that I have made in the last two years that I am proud of is a pencil drawing of a rhino. I am proud of this because it took me more or less two weeks to complete. It was difficult to get precise but at the end of the project, I was proud of how it turned out.
This book was made as part of Introduction to Design at St. Norbert College in the fall of 2019. The fonts used include Weibei SC, Microsoft Sans Serif and Minion Pro. It was digitally printed and saddle stapled at the college’s print center.