P for Process by Jake Schultz

for Process

A process journal reflecting on Letterforms 2, taught by Leslie Friesen.

Photo Credit Leslie Friesen

for Process

Jake Schultz

CONTENT

PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT POSTER

TYPE CATEGORY EXHIBITION

THE ANIMAL ALPHABET

Project 1

PUBLIC ENGAGE

MENT POSTER

Photo Credit Leslie Friesen

NA SA EPYT IMAG

ONE

A Debriefing There is a lot of conflict in the world. Whether it be over politics, human rights, or even over the last Pepsi in the fridge, there just seems to be a ton of things people can’t agree on. The most recent being the 2016 presidential election, causing an immense amount of conflict between members of opposing parties. Every time someone tries to voice their opinion, regardless of the end of the spectrum they reside, there is always backlash from someone with an opposing view. The tolerance for varying opinions is diminished and there is rarely ever a calm conversation to try to reach a common ground. To start off the semester, Leslie brought the outside world into the classroom with our very first project: The Dialogue Poster. The basis behind this project was using type as an image, being a Letterforms 2 course. However, the overall goal was to get people to discuss things, not debate over things; to stop and think. We need to find a common ground to get our footing and work to gain a better understanding as to why someone has a certain view or why they think a certain way. Dialogue achieves this through objectivity and keeping an open mind. Therefore, for the beginning of my process I started sketching ways to display “dialogue” or “conversation” that didn’t allude towards one particular argument or lean towards any one side. I wanted it to be as objective as people should be when exchanging a calm and healthy dialogue.

INSPIRED

TWO

Research & Inspiration So the question is: How do I create dialogue with type as an image? I started looking for examples on Pinterest. During this process I wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really looking for anything specific, the only criteria was that it had interesting, expressive, or experimental type treatments. After a while, I started noticing that I was drawn to certain styles of illustration as well as bright colors. This is what really motivated my design, because the posters I was looking at achieved the reaction I was striving for. The tone and presence of the pieces really caught attention, and kept it. Because of the subject matter behind the design, I knew my poster should have this effect as well to get people talking. A big influence on my design was work done by Nicolai Boye Brodersen. The project was called Futura Carnival Cut and featured every letter of the alphabet, illustrated as a neon light and then animated to loop as a GIF. This was pivotal in my design process because early on I began to consider the possibility of creating an animated poster.

THREE

Thumbnails & Sketches After I gathered my research and my thoughts, I just grabbed a pencil and went for it. I tried to focus on easy to grasp concepts so that the poster was easy to digest at a glance, as well as hold attention or initiate some sort of discussion. As I explored ideas, I really started to lean towards two concepts. The first being an illustration of a road filled with words relating to discussion, leading to an open door of a brain, the idea behind this being “dialogue leads to an open mind”. The second concept was another illustration: a plug labeled Dialogue and an outlet labeled Change. Simply put, the concept behind this illustration was “dialogue plugs into the outlet for change”. In my opinion these were my two strongest concepts, so I decided to move forward.

FOUR

Digital Roughs After more refined sketches, I still couldn’t decide which would be the stronger poster, so I took my ideas to the computer for some rough iterations in Photoshop and Illustrator. I only did enough to get the idea across to my classmates and give me a better view on what works. This week I’m really proud of myself; not because of the amount of work I’ve done on these digital roughs or because the concepts I have are so inventive, but because I’m branching out to styles that I haven’t ventured into yet. I haven’t really ever done illustration, which one of my concepts relies heavily on, where the other requires me to do a lot of research to just learn how to make what I want in Photoshop. For those reasons I already consider my initial explorations somewhat of a success. I am not really far enough to tell which idea I will be going with yet, but that is what peer review and feedback is for.

EXPLO

RATION 17

TH IN K

FIVE

Selection & Reflection This week has been really tough on me schedule-wise so I had to make an executive decision and go with my neon sign idea. I don’t have a problem with my concept because I feel like it has great presence and content. I made up the quote, “Dialogue plugs into the outlet for change,” and I am planning on photoshopping the type to look as close to a neon sign as possible. I went through a few iterations but found a good stopping point for the next class-critique. I am really enjoying this project because of the subject matter. I think it’s great that Leslie is getting us to think about today’s issues and getting us to create good, thought-provoking design. Personally, I don’t know how I would be able to process everything that is going on in the world without having some sort of creative outlet. Because of this, the Dialogue project was something I connected with very easily. I felt more fulfilled being a part of movement bigger than myself, attempting to get people to just talk to one another rather than debating on every issue.

SIX

Refinement Going off of feedback from the class, I knew I needed to fine tune a few things to strengthen my design. The most important notes I made were: • The background was too dull and wasn’t dark enough to create a high contrast with the neon light effect. • There were too many wires connecting to the outlet, and it was beginning to confuse the message I was attempting to convey. • There was a good presence to it, but there was still something missing to make it stand out from the pack. • The saturation on the neon effect needed to be heightened, especially if this was for print. The turn around for these changes were quick, but manageable. Plus, the excitement to see my own final design was rising. This project was a fun experience for me, so I wanted to put it out there as well as see what everyone else had brought to the table as their final iteration.

This post is part of a class project addressing the need for more d i a l o g u e . View more on Instagram #dialoguefirst. Poster design: Jake Schultz Graphic Design BFA student, University of Louisville Hite Art Institute

AD JJU ST 21

SEVEN Evaluation

And here is the final product; Dialogue plugs into the outlet for change: an exploration in expressive type as an image to provoke conversation and initiate dialogue as opposed to argumentative and deconstructive criticisms. The changes I made during the revision period enhanced my design greatly. The image looks more vibrant after the color shifts and the composition looks much cleaner after all the wires were eliminated. I decided to explore making a GIF, like I mentioned very early on, and created a glitching on/off animation through the use of Photoshop. I believe my poster design is quite strong, even after seeing it mounted on the wall with the other design posters from the series. The feedback I received confirmed that this direction was an effective one. The poster has great presence in both print and web media, as well shows some ingenuity by having a separate animated version.

Photo Credit Leslie Friesen

Project 2

TYPE CATEGORY

EXHIBITION

Photo Credit Leslie Friesen

ONE

Reaction To The Second Project So the objective is to create an exhibit for a certain category of type, however there is a twist. This is a group project. I know, very real world. But also very uncomfortable territory for me. The first thing I thought — and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only one — when Leslie announced that this project was a group project was, “oh shit”. Let’s be honest here, everyone has had a bad experience while doing a group project in school. This instance is a little different because I have confidence in my fellow classmates’ work ethic and talent, and I enjoy being around them versus your run-of-the-mill class where you don’t know anyone and all you want to do is sit in the back and trudge through the next fifty minutes. Even though I had an initially negative attitude going into the project, I was pleasantly surprised when I enjoyed the team I was a part of. We did an exercise where we took five minutes to sketch out our ideas. Big ideas. Then, we put them up on a wall and pitched them to our group. Moving forward from this step we had the ability to incorporate ideas we liked from other presentations and then continue posting our sketches for a few rounds. Finally, we start dot voting on the sketches to get an idea of where the group is wanting to take the project. I found this method to be not only effective and a quick way to generate ideas, but it was also a fun way to pass ideas around and find common ground with your teammates. Now we just need to put our heads together and start adding more content to our sketches, and create an interactive and intriguing exhibit.

ID E A

Photo courtesy of Speed Museum

FIELD TRIP 1

Photo Credit Carrie Donovan

TWO

The Speed Museum Time for our first class field trip! This trip was to gain a better understanding of how exhibit spaces are used, including looking at the way type is handled, how important hierarchy and spacing is, and just see how the professionals do it. I made sure to pay attention to type sizes and how high on the wall everything was because this was the first large scale design we had been assigned. The size for our exhibit had to be at least 10 x 20 feet, so I knew every small detail would be blown up and mistakes would be obvious. The particular exhibit we went to see was Picturing American Indian Cultures: The Art of Kentuckyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Frederick Weygold. Carrie Donovan and Andy Perez did a majority of designing the exhibit and it was very well done! The deep blue they used for the exhibitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s main color was so eye-catching as well as appropriate for the concept. The entrance to the exhibit featured this color as well as a huge, white, vinyl graphic paired with a small blurb to introduce the exhibit. I felt like this was a great way to draw people in and I wanted to bring this aspect into my designs. I also noticed they split up information in a way that reduced the amount of copy to be read at one time as well as made it more approachable, making people actually want to read it. This field trip really helped me because it gave me a better understanding of how to create an effective and cohesive design for such a large space. The exhibit was engaging and the content had great pacing throughout.

Photo Credit Rachel Suding

THREE

Our First Mockup Sucked So, this project started off a little rough. My group had been to the Art Library, and we had already done the research but we really didn’t have much of an idea of how to lay out our information, or how much information we needed. The main reason for this was we waited too long to test type sizes but after the type was all the right size, there was a lot more space on the wall than what was previously assumed. However, this first presentation was one for our ideas and a digital rough, not really refined type sizes and layouts. That being said, the first iteration we came up with was so off. It was boxed up and heavy, the colors were too dark, and everything was obviously too big for the size of the wall. In addition to those issues, we actually didn’t realize QR codes — which we planned to be a big aspect of our exhibit — only work if you have the app for an iPhone. This completely slipped our minds, and someone pointed it out during our presentation. With all of the kinks in our project, we decided to completely switch directions. From that point on, we had a drive to get our exhibit just right, but our first mockup forever haunted us. For this reason, we labeled our group chat for the remainder of the project, “Our First Mockup Sucked”.

RE SE AR CH 31

ITERATE

FOUR

And Our Second, Third, & Fourth Maybe finding the right design for our exhibit wasn’t going to be so easy. We had a running joke throughout the project that all of our mockups sucked and every time we moved to a new idea, we would say, “you know what they say,

time’s the charm!”. We went

through three more iterations (maybe more) until we finally got to the design we felt was right for Humanist San Serifs. We were really trying to grasp the feeling of a human quality mixed with structure and order. San serifs were seen by some to be very cold while Humanist sans were all about bringing the humanist element back in to typefaces, making them more warm and welcoming but also creating a mix of the two categories in the process. Our group really wanted to bring this concept into our design and let that theme shine through whether it be through the form of graphic elements or through the treatment of body copy. This was the main thing that we were attempting with our explorations simply because we couldn’t find that special one that fit, and that element was what was going to make the exhibit that much more meaningful and the experience that much more authentic. The method that really stuck and worked for us was using handwriting for the headers of the exhibit to really drive home that this was done by a human hand. We all took turns writing out various words and eventually decided on my handwriting.

FIVE

First Build

One of the elements required in our exhibit was either an interactive element or a 3D feature. Luckily, the University of Louisville offers services such as laser cutting and 3D printing at an engineering garage called First Build. Leslie thought it would be a good idea to take us on a class field trip to get a walk through of the garage as well as of the basics on how to use some of the equipment. I had been to First Build before, but never really had a tutorial on how to do things and always just attempted to figure things out myself (flashback to my final packaging project that needed laser cutting at 9 p.m. as the garage was closing). On this trip we were able to observe wood etching and acrylic laser cutting. It was intriguing to just watch the machine cut out an italic Baskerville ampersand. Leslie loved it so much she bought it afterwards! Our trip to First Build really was beneficial, and it got my group started on thinking about what materials we were going to use for our exhibit. There were so many options for what could be done (such as wood or acrylic cut-outs). We decided to 3D print acrylic letterforms that really showcased the features of our typefaces. They will me mounted on the wall and act as a graphic element as well as an educational one because we are going to have typeface deconstruction markings and diagrams surrounding the 3D letterforms.

FIELD TRIP 2 Photo Credit Leslie Friesen

THE BIG IDEA

SIX

Interim Presentations We were coming up on our interim presentations for our exhibit design, and our group was still struggling with the project. It felt like we were grasping at straws. We didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have trouble with generating concepts, it was choosing a strong idea and carrying on with it. Finally, the weekend before our presentation, we had the idea to create a curved wall for the main title wall paired with a flat back wall for more information. We did this because it related to the juxtaposing thick and thin of strokes as well as symbolized the marriage of welcoming, humanist features and crisp but cold san serif features. After our presentation, we continued to refine our design by changing the colors to a light taupe and purple. The taupe provided the warmth we needed to carry throughout our design while the purple provided that pop of unexpected color. As weird of a color combination as it was, it really worked for the purpose of fitting the design concept. We also planned to add a collage wall of some of the typefaces and their exemplar uses as well as a gradient of letters to lure the viewer in to our exhibit. The next step is to present our exhibit to Ben Jett from Solid Light (an actual exhibit-design company).

SEVEN

Solid Light Presentations Once we had the right direction, we ran as fast as we could out of the gate. We had to get our presentation together for Solid Light in a matter of days and we still needed to make our changes from the peer feedback given after the previous presentation. Meanwhile, I was swimming in Atlanta for ACC Championships so we were creating this exhibit through group messages and online cloud services such as Adobe Capture, Basecamp, and Google Drive. Although, as stressful as this was, our presentation to Ben Jett went very well. We split up who spoke and had one person take each wall (three walls total). The feedback was very positive. The color choice was acknowledged as somewhat strange, but fitting, and people really felt the wall exuded a Humanist warmth to it through the use of wall shape, structure, and layout. It was really useful to us to hear what a professional in the field of exhibit design had to say about our exhibit, other peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s exhibits, and what his responsibilities were for his job and how he handled things such as working in teams and working with a budget.

Photo Credit Leslie Friesen

THE HUMANISTS

EIGHT

Final Revisions Even though the Solid Light presentation went well, of course there were revisions to make before we sent it off to print. We added more letters on the back wall as well as used even more differing scales of the type. We needed to anchor down the body copy of the back wall a little more, because it seemed like it was floating too much. Finally, we needed to sprinkle the body copy around on the purple wall to lead the viewer around, where as before it was all the boring information on the left then all the interesting, pretty pictures on the right. I was in Atlanta during the field trip to Unique Imaging — the printing company we were using for this project — so I took a backseat when it came to sending over files to print. We only sent in the flat back wall because that’s the only format they could print, then planned to buy some foam core board and create our own curved wall.

RE FI NE Photo Credit Leslie Friesen

TEAM WORK

NINE

Working on a Team Working with a team really wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It actually made my life a little bit easier because I would get my portion done and I would be able to rely on my group to help get the rest completed and ready for the presentation. This really kept me calm while competing in Atlanta; if this were an individual project there’s no way I would’ve gotten everything finished for the Solid Light presentations. Emily, Rachel, and I worked incredibly well together and I think we split up work evenly. I feel we were best at exchanging hats when it came to leadership roles and certain parts of the project and its creative direction. In the process of creating this exhibit, we became closer friends because we had to endure the multiple challenges of this project together and find ways to solve the problems. I think this experience will help me with future group projects and being able to generate ideas, relay concepts to others, and persist through problems (especially when you have other group members going through the same thing and willing to work through it with you).

TEN

Lessons About Type I didn’t ever think Leslie would turn me into a typenerd, but I was completely wrong. I am so obsessed with typefaces now, everywhere I go; if I don’t already know what typeface I’m looking at, I am willing to find out. I find myself looking at all the type-sins of the world and wishing I could share my knowledge with the people that seem like they don’t know what they are doing because their type treatments hurt my eyes. A few things I learned specifically about Humanist San Serif typefaces were: •

they are actually more legible than other san serif fonts

•

they have an axis resulting from the angle of a pen nib when producing calligraphy

•

the letters are inscribed into rectangles instead of squares

•

they are used in a lot more brands today than we think

Photo Credit Emily Houze

TYPE 45

CRAFT Photo Credit Emily Houze

ELEVEN

Designing for 3D Space With this project, I learned so many things that I didn’t expect, in so many different areas. I definitely now know how high on a wall I should place something for that visual “sweet spot” and I’ve learned how big things should be in relation to its medium and presence in space. The most useful things we encountered during this project were the necessary mockups and the laser cutting for our 3D element. My craft has improved so much, because it had to. We had three total mockups, one of which I was absent for due to competing in Atlanta, and each required a level of craft. I’m not the best when it comes to craft, but this project really helped me elevate my precision with cutting and adhering as well as gave me an opportunity to work on my patience. I don’t know how many times I attempted to cut foam core or tried to laser cut, resulting in something less than desired. This project really taught me that I will eventually get it done and even though I am a perfectionist, it is okay to have some speed bumps along the way and it’s not the end of the world.

Photo Credit Leslie Friesen

TWELVE Project Reflection

To be honest, this wasn’t one of my favorite projects. This could be from my group struggling with our initial footing, or because there were a lot of obstacles for one little mockup. However, as always, there were benefits to the project and I know that’s why Leslie created it. This was my first group project for design, so I learned how I work with other people when it comes to my creative side and how much of a leader I can be when I need to be. In addition, I saw how well I worked as a unit with others when I need to instead of being an individual, designing in the corner with my headphones in. Each one of my group members was really great about taking charge when needed, for example Rachel took a chance and suggested the free floating letters to bring the viewer in. This became a major part of the exhibit and I’m glad she took that creative director seat to make her ideas known. Without all of us, I don’t the exhibit would have been so successful. It needed the collaboration of all three of us to create the best possible solution. Overall, I appreciate the project for its possibility of professional world application. It’s not often we design for 3D spaces in the sense that we are designing the literal space versus a poster or something for a screen, so it was nice to get out of that realm for a little bit and solve physical problems.

Project 3

THE ANIMAL

ALPHABET

ONE

The Concept So it was time for the self directed project, and I really didn’t know what to do. There weren’t many parameters set by Leslie and there wasn’t really a limit to what I could do. I was drowning in Meena’s class so I was just very stressed, but then I remembered, “Oh, Meena’s class could be my saving grace.” I recalled a very fun project from around the fifth week of the semester where I designed animal letterforms in Photoshop to create an animal alphabet. Each letter was made to resemble an animal that started with the letter, yes, even X. During my “client brief ” describing the alphabet, I said that a further exploration for the project could be making a physical book to be used as a tool for child development and education. This was the moment I started getting a footing of where I wanted to go with this project.

PRODUCE

ELEVATE M is for Moose,

out in the cold.

Their fur keeps them warm from what Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been told. Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re cousins to deer, though moose are quite large. Just like their antlers, beware of their charge!

TWO

Setting Parameters Okay I had an idea, but I wanted to take it further than just printing a book because Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve done that so many times before. What could I do to elevate this project to the next level, and really set me apart? What I came up with was to make a physical alphabet book, but with the letters actually having texture to them. Things like fake fur, feathers, fabrics, and leather to give life to these letters, or animals if you will. With giving children (and people in my design class) the experience of feeling these letters, I also felt like I had an opportunity to educate about animals while keeping it fun and interactive. I decided to give each animal a rhyming story to go with it, so the animal would be on the right side of the spread while the story was on the left. I planned to create at least half of the alphabet for the final date; how hard could it be?

SE AR CH

THREE

Material Sourcing I knew what I wanted in terms of creating each letter, but where was I going to find all these materials? I went to places like Michael’s, Hobby Lobby, and Five Below to look for all the weird textures I’d be needing. I also needed to think about what this was going to be printed on, as well as how thick the mounting materials needed to be so that the book pages wouldn’t warp or fall apart. Leslie recommended bookboard, but she wasn’t sure if I’d be able to bind these letters as a book because all of the combined materials would be too thick. It would all come down to testing materials and seeing how they all fit together after I had a few pages made. I went to a place called “Paper Source” to find all the paper materials I used for the project. I bought 210 weight cardstock, some chipboard, and bookboard. I didn’t know how much of it I would be needing, or if I’d even use all of it. The main reason I bought all three was to test printing on the cardstock, as well as to test cutting the chipboard and the bookboard.

FOUR Production

From the get-go I knew I wanted to laser cut these pages out at FirstBuild because I was not about to do all of these letters by hand. After I finally gathered my materials, I headed to FirstBuild. Beforehand, I chose what parts of the letters I wanted to cut out, then traced over the illustration in Illustrator with the red stroke that told the laser where to cut. While at FirstBuild, it didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t happen as easily as I make it sound. I had to get the settings just right so the paper and fabric fibers wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t burn and I had to line up the laser exactly where the crop marks were so that it would cut where the actual illustrations were printed. I did it this way for two reasons. First, it would be quicker in the long run rather than if I did it by hand. Second, I wanted the cut on the illustration to be exactly the same as the cut on the chipboard or bookboard (depending on which I was using to mount the paper) so that the craft of it would be very clean. For each letter, I cut five times; once for the material (unless it was feathers of some sort because I did those by hand), once to quickly crop the page with the story, once for the paper with the illustration and die cut, once for the mounting material with the die cut, and once for the final mounting material that went between the story side and the illustration side.

PREPARE

CR EA TE

FIVE Assembly

The actual assembly of the letters was probably the easiest part of the project, and it was really satisfying and fun. First, I used a spray adhesive to paste the papers with the illustrations and stories onto a backing. For the majority of the time, I used the chipboard as the backing for the illustrations unless I needed more depth for the texture, like feathers, and used bookboard for the backing of the story. If I used bookboard for the backing of the illustration, (for example, the quail Q) I would flip the roles of materials and mount the story onto chipboard. From then on, I was just sitting on my living room floor watching Netflix while putting the materials into the cut-outs and securing them with tape or glue. After I had put all the textures into the cut outs, I sprayed the back of the bookboard with the adhesive and stuck it to the back of the chipboard, thus creating a two sided card with a story on one side, and illustration on the other.

SIX

Evaluate Overall, this self-directed project was a really great experience. It was a little touch-and-go at the beginning when I was struggling with choosing materials for textures and mounting. Once I chose the direction of making cards, it all fell into place. Other than that, I was prepared because of Meena’s class allowing me to practice with self-generated content and self-management. I’m so glad I was able to expand upon the originally digital-designed letters. I think this project was a great learning opportunity on craft and actually putting physical materials together (and how much it costs for materials and production). I think I did great work; if anything I’m impressed with my craft because that’s always been an area I’ve struggled with. I also think the amount of letters I did was more than I was expecting, finishing 16 cards. I worked really hard, had a good concept, and had good execution. This project could probably be shown tomorrow in my portfolio, but I still want to notch it up. Some things I’m thinking about for further refining my project is the material the stories and illustrations are printed on. I will either have to reprint on something different, or I might be able to find a kind of sealant so that the paper doesn’t get dirty as easily, which would make it more kidfriendly. During the final critique, it was also mentioned that I could go further with this book and make an interactive digital version whether that be through parallax/interactive coding or even audio to go along with each animal letter.

LETTER FORMS 2

Photo Credit Carrie Donovan

for Process