yikes
yikes Thanks to my friend and roommate, Jonathan Cone and Mary Claire Wilson, I have realized that “yikes” is my go to interjection. I have never noticed how often I say “yikes” until recently. The word “yikes” just makes so much sense for so many situations. For example, “yikes” is an appropriate response when you forget to save a file, when you can’t figure out the correct timing of a presentation, when you can’t comprehend how to use a scanner, and so many other situations. Believe it or not, I’ve said “yikes” more times than I can count throughout the duration of this course. And believe it or not, I was the one that that didn’t save files, couldn’t figure out how to give a presentation, and could not for the life of me, scan anything. But look how far I’ve come. By the time anyone is reading this, I will have (hopefully) successfully completed this design course, a class that was responsible for me exclaiming a record number of “yikes.”
Hailey Buss
ART 130 - Fall 2017
St. Norbert College
d-school Engaging with a real person changed the direction my prototype took because it made me empathize with the person who was viewing my prototype. I had to stop and think about what they were going to see and think, not necessarily knowing my goal or idea. I also had to make sure my idea was conveyed especially well and catered specifically to my partner. I didn’t mind showing unfinished work to another person because I had the opportunity to explain what else I was going to try to accomplish. While the idea wasn’t physically finished, it was complete in a more intangible way. The quick cycles felt a lot different than I usually work but I didn’t dislike it. I enjoyed the fast pace because it made me put down my first ideas on paper right away, which I thought made for a more raw idea. Based on what I learned, I would change my initial concept. I just tried to enhance something that my partner already did and thought about gift giving, rather than coming up with a completely different idea.
Final product for D-School.
why d-school? D-school allowed students to work under pressure and think quickly. Additionally, it allowed us to show unfinished work to “clients” and become more comfortable with that idea, as well as consider the process that goes into design work.
dot - line Gestalt is a variety of principles and properties, such as continuation, closure, parallelism, and proximity. Gestalt relates to the dot/line project because such principles and properties were necessary to create a successful composition. For example, if we neglected parallelism and continuation in a piece, the composition could lack tension, so, gestalt aided in improving our pieces throughout this project. This projected affected my idea of abstraction because I realized that the principles of the gestalt theory needed to be present in order to create a more successful piece. Previously, I would have just randomly glued shapes down on a piece of paper, but after this project I now know that abstraction is not synonymous with random. It was difficult to portray the meaning a word without using words or illustrations because in some instances I felt that just a dot or a line was not sufficient enough to get my point across. However, I did enjoy the challenge of creating a concept only with a few dots and lines, it was unlike anything I had ever tried before.
To the right, my final iterations for longing, joy, and rejection are pictured. It was quite a process to get to those final iterations. That being said, there were a lot of thumbnails that went into the final pieces. To the right of the final iterations are all of my thumbnails.
longing joy rejection
why dot-line? Dot-line allowed students to create a meaning or explain a word while using a limited number of circles and rectangles. By doing this, students needed to know the gestalt principles and properties in order to make strong work. Overall, dot-line was a project meant to explore abstraction and the gestalt principles.
typography Hand lettering made me realize that the design of a word contributes a great amount to the meaning and connotation of a word. That being said, the connotation and meaning of a word are important to take into consideration before you start designing your typography. For example, one needs to consider the true meaning of the word they are trying to convey and how they are trying to convey it. With this in mind, I thought it was extremely helpful to make a mind map of a word before drawing out thumbnails. Given the chance to try this project for a second time or do a project similar, I would spend more time making my mind map just to make sure I have thought of all of the possibilities and have found the strongest one(s).
why typography? Typography allowed students to think of the true meaning of a word and then choose an appropriate font in order to convey that true meaning. This project focused on how the meaning of words impacts the font used when writing it out while still maintaining legibility.
Pictured above is my idea map for the word “stuff.” To the right, are various hand-lettered words, including my rough sketches of ideas of the word “stuff.” Pictured on the next two pages are my final four iterations of the typography project; cut paper, marker, string, and ink wash.
object iterations The object I chose was a unicycle. While working on this project, I thought about all of the different ways unicycles can be used or viewed. A friend of mine (Tommy Mlodzik), is an avid unicyclist and he offered to send me photos of himself on his unicycle as well as explain how he got started unicycling. I drew inspiration from him during this project by positioning people on unicycles in various different ways and focusing in on certain parts of just the unicycle. The media that was most challenging was text collage. It was difficult to find text that was correlated with unicycling because of the obscure nature of cycling. Because of this, I focused mainly on finding different colored texts and different densities of text in order to show different values. My favorite iterations were the master artist iterations as well as collage. I enjoyed the master artist iterations because I am interested in art history, especially the backgrounds of the two artists I chose. Additionally, I enjoyed collage because I liked the challenge of finding different ways I can put other objects together to form a unicycle in the end. I had only used photoshop once before and I don’t particularly enjoy it. I would much rather make something with my hands than create a final project on a screen. However, I did find photoshop to be a helpful tool and skill to know. If I were to continue make more iterations I would try to make my text collages less basic. I would do this by maybe trying to make a unicycle in motion or have a figure riding the unicycle. Pictured to the right are four unicycle iterations that I ended up including in my final project. Included is my modified blind contour iteration, and three collages. On the next page, I included three more iterations that I used in my final including another collage and my two master artist iterations based off of Albrecht Durer and Jean Michael Basquiat. To the right of that is a full page spread of my final iteration.
why object iterations? Object iterations allowed students to show all of the different ways an object can be portrayed while using multiple different mediums. This project acted as an introduction to Photoshop and InDesign as well as an exploration of various different mediums and techniques such as collage, master artist iterations, blind contour, type collage, and geometric iterations.
dataviz
why dataviz? Dataviz allows for students to show data in a tasteful and creative way.Additionally, it made students think about visual hierarchy -- what they thought was the most important information to convey and how scale matters in design. This project also expanded on Photoshop and InDesign skills.
I created visual hierarchy by making the most important aspects of my poster the largest. For example, the title was the largest text on the poster and the words that were most frequently used were the next largest in size. By doing this, I think I was successful in creating a focal point for the viewer. A skill that I learned from this project was just overall getting a better handle on Photoshop. I had not used it very much prior to this course so I learned a lot of helpful techniques and tools during this dataviz project. For me, it was fun to use color, but I was unsure of which colors to use. I like to use colors that I associate with the objects in my work, but I had a difficult time doing so for this particular project.
Pictured to the left are three rough drafts of the layout of my dataviz. I did not end up designing my final project exactly like any of the sketches, but I did expand on the second iteration. The next two pages include my refined draft of my dataviz poster and then a full page spread of my final piece.
the most used words in vs.
songs
2016
light
god
feel jesus
everything
beam
shake you I
my
the life of pablo
nobody
2013
fall king
2012
love
say
time
2010
my beautiful dark twisted fantasy
want
together
never
turn
baby
knew
I
red
2010
everything
lights
man
1989
we
friends
power
play
trouble ever
yeezus
see
love
youme
god
get
tell
break
walked
bound bitch shit
know
life
hate fake
over
wanted dream know lord
yes
2014
sparks
I
you me
smile
baby
fly
best
careful
mine
remember
speak now
Arguably, the words “2009 VMA’s” bring one specific memory to mind for many people; it’s not the ability to recall who won the most awards, but rather, it’s the memory of the beginning of the “beef” between rapper, Kanye West and pop artist, Taylor Swift. This “beef” has sparked an interest in me since the beginning. Because of this, I chose to compare the most frequently used words in the two most listened to songs of both Kanye West’s and Taylor Swift’s last three albums to see if they have more in common than people think. The only significant similarity I found was that love is a common theme between the two artists. This being said, Taylor Swift tends to sing about the story of “us”, using words like “I”, “you”, “me”, and “us” most frequently. Kanye West on the other hand, uses words like “girl”, “bitch”, and refers to himself as “Kanye West”, rather than just saying “I”. The biggest difference I found was the number of times words were used. Taylor Swift used the word “shake” 78 times, making it the word that appears most often. In contrast, Kanye West’s most used word was “lights”, used only 38 times. This could show that Kanye West has a larger vocabulary than Taylor Swift because he uses more words and only uses them a few times, while Taylor Swift relies on the repetition of the same words throughout her songs. This could also display the difference between pop music and rap music. Pop music might be more repetitive just because of the genre itself. In conclusion, despite the “beef” between Taylor Swift and Kanye West, the two employ similar motifs and themes throughout their songs while displaying them in a different way.
designer presentations I was drawn to Dick Bruna because of his simplistic and child friendly work. As an art education major, I have talked about children’s books in some of my education courses, so seeing the art, design, and concepts that go into the making of a children’s book was something that intrigued me and related to both of my majors -- art and education. I really enjoyed the Pecha-Kucha style presentation. I do not get very nervous for presenting, but I do get nervous that I am talking too much or talking to little. With this style of presentation, I was able to limit what I said and relieve the stress of wondering if I was being thorough why designer enough or too thorough. I hope to presentations? use this method of presentation in Designer presentations the future. A designer that I would allowed students to learn choose to research further is the about well known designers duo JW & Melissa Buchanan, the in order to draw inspiration Little Friends of Printmaking. I was from and to become a better interested in their work primarily designer overall. Also, it because I am taking a printmaking allowed for students to course this semester and it was fun become more comfortable to see how design and printmaking with public speaking and are correlated. presenting about their work.
yikes... more reflections The difference between a good life and significant life is that a good life doesn’t have to be significant and a significant life doesn’t have to be good. For example, Anne Frank lived a If I were guaranteed it would support me financially, I would significant life, leaving behind want to design, or redesign, the a diary with insights to World small town Tigerton, Wisconsin. War II. While Anne Frank lived Tigerton is my dad’s hometown a significant life, it was not with a population of about 750 good due to her being forced to hide for years in an attic and people. It is what most would the tragic death of her and her call a dying town. However, family. Additionally, one can I enjoy visiting Tigerton and live a significant life in a good or I do not want to see it die. If bad way. Following the theme of I knew this was feasible and World War II, Adolf Hitler lived if I knew it would support me a significant life, but his life was from a financial standpoint, I significant because he created a would redesign the town in an architectural and interior design mass genocide. A significant life does not have to be good, just way, in order to revive it. important, and a good life does not need to be significant in any way, just good.
The image on the back is Betty’s kitchen wallpaper ca. 2017.
This book was made as part of Introduction to Design at St. Norbert College in the fall of 2017. The font used is Kefa. It was digitally printed and saddle stapled at the college’s print center.