Process Book 2015 by James Lindsay

GRPH 421 20 15

Colophon

Edition: 1 Typefaces: Avenir Book, Gill Sans Regular Woods Art Building, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln Nebraska Designer: James Lindsay III

Foreward

Advanced Graphic Design Fall 2015 by Stacy Asher Assistant Professor of Art In the Fall of 2015, the Advanced Graphic Design course at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln engaged in research about the role of design in creating social change. This course was an investigation of graphic design driven by research. Projects were socially and civically engaged, and focused on the production of communication systems, investigating history and theory of graphic design for social change, and the publishing of self authored work. Collaborative exercises and activities created an understanding of identity systems, social values and how to promote â&#x20AC;&#x153;justice for allâ&#x20AC;? through visual communications. Deliverables for the course consisted of designed artifacts that documented, reflected, analyzed, and synthesized design research. The first half of the course integrated the series of exhibitions, lectures and presentations relating to the topic of art /design for social justice that occurred on campus through October. The second half centered around publication and experiential design, and the development of identity systems. The course outcomes provided opportunity for students to be innovative, culturally critical and potentially create social change. Themes for Exploration~ Graphic Design + Social Responsibility / Message + System + Identity / Striving for Viability / Designer as Preservationist + Conservationist / Designer as Witness, Ethnographer and Journalist

Contents Colophon

Foreward

Preface

Introduction

Watchfulness in the Citizen

Social Cause Posters with Justin Kemerling

Design + Social Justice

All Hands on Deck

Passport of Human Rights, a Philatelic Project

Thank you notes + Customized Postage Stamps

Typography and the Underground

Build a Box to Think Out of

Conclusion

Bibliography

Preface

My inspiration behind this book spawned from all of the projects, assignments, and exercises that I worked on throughout my 2015 semester for Graphic Design 3. The idea for this book was inspired by my instructor Stacy Asher. Inspiration for the layout of this book was explored on my own time as well as getting some feedback from S. Asher.

Introduction

Hello, my name is James Lindsay III, also known as Kim Yung Woon, this book is meant to show everything that I have done during the fall semester of 2015. My goals from this is to show the process in how I work and how I came to my final solution for each task. I hope that you enjoy not only the designs made, but the design of the book as well.

Watchfulness in the Citizen Exercise 1

This exercise all started from the quote by H.B. Alexander, “The Salvation of the State is Watchfulness in the Citizen.” The idea was to take that quote and put meaning and interpretation to it after some research. At first I was very interested in the I AM ME poster from the Manifest: Justice gallery exhibition. The way the text was used to emphasize the rights of people and how they weren’t being treated properly, just through typography is what stuck to me. I had a few ideas from this series and wanted to put emphasis on typography. The very front entrace of the State Capitol has the quote by Alexander that this project is inspired by. It’s just a block of text, but also a nice use of typography. I really liked the typeface that was used to show the public and how it was set so I decided to search around the capitol for more examples.

After heading to the top floor where the public can overlook the city, the inner chamber is where I found my idea for this project. Inside the inner chamber along the walls all around there are giant murals with text wrapping around. In some areas the text was almost illegible, it took a little bit of studying to figure out what was said before I found out it was Lincolnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Second Inaugural Address. I wanted to see what the saying looked like in paragraph form instead of broken up in odd ways. It was strange as to why the text was broken up in certain areas and why some letters were overlapped. The main idea behind my project was celebrating the typography of the statement located in the chamber. I ended up with the end result of Lincolnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s address with a typeface similar to the original, using Baskerville Old Face, two versions, black text on a white background and the negative. The end result was a success, simple, yet meaningful.

Final Solution

WITH MALICE T OWARD NONE : WITH CHARITY FOR ALL :WITH FIRMNESS IN THE RIGHT AS GOD GIVES US T O SEE THE RIGHT : LET US STRIVE ON T O FINISH THE WORK WE ARE IN : T O BIND UP THE NATION’S WO UNDS : T O CARE FOR HIM WHO SHALL HAVE BORNE THE BATTL OD O ALL WHI E AND FOR HIS WIDOW AND HIS ORPHAN : T

CH MAY ACHIEVE AND CHERISH A JUST AND LASTING PEACE AMONG OURSELVES AND WITH ALL NATIONS.....

Social Cause Posters with Justin Kemerling Assignment 1

One day local Omahan, Justin Kemerling, came to visit and brainstorm ideas for some social cause posters. To start off, the entire class had 15 minutes of silence to write down on sticky notes things that we cared about. Afterwards we would select 4 of those ideas and mind-map based off of those selections. To help us out, Kemerling went through one mind-map with us together. From these steps I drafted out a couple of ideas for my poster. The concepts that I had involved security and the hidden threat that comes from the cyber world. This idea spawned from the thought that the world is too dependent on technology. From this stand point I thought of the hidden threats that there are on the internet and in cyber space, also how much the world clings to digital technology. Moving forward with my design I narrowed down the design and decided upon a monster hand.

For this project I really wanted to stay original to my design and create everything myself. As well as keeping it original, I thought it was the best time to test my illustrative skills, Adobe Illustrator thus became my main tool for creating this poster. The poster that I wanted to create involved a monsterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hand reaching around an Apple iPhone, as most of the general public associate those as the common smartphone, and seen as a high demand in technology. To start off, I took a photo of my hand holding my friendâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s iPhone to reference the shape and scale. From there I went into illustrator and made a rough trace using the pen tool to create some monster-like fingers. I also created a few rounded rectangles to create the phoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s shape.

CREDIT 1234 5678 12349876 1234 56785432 5678 9876 9876 5432 5432 CARDHOLDER NAME 00/00 00/00

*****

With some editing, I had my main subject to work with. From this starting point I added a small screen background to the phone using the cloud effect and tinting it slightly, I didn’t want a black background on top of a black background. Once my phone was all set up, I decided that I wanted to add some apps to it, to make it more realistic to it’s original design. This was the toughest part on my end due to the very small and fine detail that I put into each icon. Afterwards I was conflicted upon putting an eye atop the poster to add some scare effect, to induce a fear factor, but after some advice from others, it was best not to, so I took it out. In the end I added a bit of text to go along with the poster in a digital style to keep it relevant. I’m pretty happy with how this poster turned out and proud to have designed and illustrated it all.

Final Solution

Personal Information

Security

*****

1234 5678 12349876 1234 56785432 5678 9876 9876 5432 5432

Passwords

Credit Cards

CREDIT CARDHOLDER NAME 00/00 00/00

E-Mail

Is it really safe?

Design + Social Justice

Exercise 2 + 3

For the Design + Social Justice Symposium, a screenprinting workshop was held to help bring awareness to the symposium and draw more of an audience. The turnout of this workshop was fairly large, which was quite wonderful to see. I had a lot of fun with working with other students to make t-shirts, patches, and small posters. There were a few specific phrases that participants could choose from, “Justice is a Right, Design Justice, and Revolution is a Process Not an Event.” Most of the participants chose to screenprint the designs onto t-shirts, which were hung across the yard nearby to dry along a makeshift clothesline. Taking part of the events for the symposium gave me a lot of inspiration. Looking at the artwork by artists such as Emory Douglas, as well as meeting him, was a great opportunity. There wasn’t a deliverable at the end, but the experience gained and participation throughout the entire event was what was valued.

The screenprinting workshop was held near the end of class, but it didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really feel like class, it was more of a fun get together with other students to create works of art. I had a lot of fun being able to actually do the screenprinting process. My favourite part of this event was being able to put smiles on peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s faces, the excitement and joy that each one had as we worked together to create these screenprints, it was nice to break away from the day and just have a good time.

All Hands on Deck Assignment 2

To help start off our research for the first project of the semester, a presentation, or in this case a “deck” was to be made. This deck is basically an explanation as to what is planned for the first project. I had to design a deck to show the audience what I planned, the objectives I had, the concept, my budget and scheduling, and type of outcome I wanted to have. This deck was actually a lot harder than I had thought it would be. Since the deck was presenting my ideas, I also had to design it, the typeface, the size, margins, etc. I wanted to keep the style of the deck similar to that of the topic I was talking about, clean, crisp, and simple. I chose to stick with black and white because I think that that’s a nice and clean look, black on white always has an attractive appearance in my opinion.

Passport of Human Rights a philatelic project Project 1

“Freedom from Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, and Correspondance.” For this project, the philatelic project, our goal was to design a set of postage stamps with human rights integrated within our concepts. Along with our stamps, a carrier, thank you card, and poster was to accompany them. This concept was taken from the Passport of Human Rights, courtesy of Amnesty International. The idea was to use one or more of the human rights that we all have, and design around that. My idea I took from article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in short, “Freedom from Interference with Privacy, Family, Home and Correspondance.” At first what needed to be done was a lot of research, the following were images that helped bring my ideas to life. These 3 images all dealt with the concept of fingerprints and faces, which spawned the idea of overlapping people’s faces with their own fingerprints. This shows the connection between recognition, these two subjects both deal with biometrics, as well as identify someone.

To start off my project, I had to gather 2 essential things, mugshots of my class and their fingerprints. I wanted to incorporate my classmates into my project through creating a collaboration, as well as interacting with something other than my computer. Combining mediums has always been something I enjoyed doing, so this was a perfect time to do so.

To finish off my collaboration with my classmates, I took everyone’s fingerprint of their right index finger using stamp ink. It was very helpful that my classmates were so cooperative and I’m grateful to them for participating in my project. It was really interesting studying each person’s fingerprint and looking at the similarities as well as the differences they had. I was quite shocked as to see how many patterns there were. To help capture each fingerprint and transfer them to the digital media, I used a very high quality scanner which allowed capturing small details.

After collecting my fingerprints and mugshots, I then combined them by overlapping their fingerprints on top of their faces. The outcome was fairly successful in what I was wanting to do, it was kind of fun to see how each fingerprint formed around each face, creating some fun imagery. My next plan from here was to incorporate the stamp into my design. To add some digital aspects to the stamp I simulated some fingerprint recognition lines to help communicate to the audience what the whole design is derived from.

Final Solutions

My postcard/thank you card was pretty simple, sticking to the same design as my carrier and using my face as the main focus point on the front, and my fingerprint for the back. I wanted to keep my thank you simple but meaningful, it was nice to have some help from classmates and outside helpers to help me decide what I want to do. Sticking to the black and white design I think added a little more to everything since I kept it a neutral and consistent colour palette.

The poster design I feel turned out really well despite reusing my fingerprint template. However with the way it was designed, it invited the audience to in a sense, interact, with it, and drawing the eye to my poster was what I wanted to mainly do.

The carrier didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t turn out as well as I had hoped but for my design I just added the fingerprints behind the stamps. I now realize that it created too much and made it a tad cluttered and busy. The back of the carrier had my thesis and initial reasoning as to why these carriers were made, helping the consumer understand the point behind this project.

Thank You Notes + Custom Postage Stamps Assignment 3

This assignment wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t as heavily tasked as the previous ones. The goal of this assignment is to send out thank you cards or letters to those that have helped me this year with my design work. My thank you cards, in this case, postcards, are the ones from my philatelic project with a slight modification to the text content. Unfortunately the stamps that were needed for this assignment I was unable to acquire due to restrictments from the custom stamp provider, Zazzle.com. Thankfully I was able to just buy some regular stamps to still send out my cards.

Typography + the Underground

Assignment 4

To help out with preparing for project 2, my class and I took some time to visit an exhibition of underground newspapers, analyzing the type and imagery used within them. The exhibition was very amazing to see, I didn’t imagine the magazines to be so large, photos of them definitely don’t use any justice. The main newspaper that caught my eye was the “Oracle” newspaper, it was very colourful and integrated image and text very smoothly. I explained a lot in the following paper that was written about my visit, the end of the day required at least one paper discussing what the visit did for us all.

Research + Design During my research and studies I took an

in-depth look into the underground newspaper based out of San Francisco, The Oracle, vol. 1. Looking into the design aspects of how it was all put out, they were considered one of the more sophisticated newspapers in the community at the time. The entire newspaper was focused around the psychedelic movement and incorporated graphic design heavily into their layouts. The layouts were very intruiging as they were thought out very well, matching colour schemes together, considering how each colour matched with the other, weaving in design with typography. Each layout was very colourful, givin the time it was produced. Most of the pages were two-toned prints with a heavy use of gradients between the two tones. After some research at looking at the history of this newspaper, they were located behind a printing press, which allowed them access to such technology and ability to create such vibrant and wonderful designs within their pages.

went through my mind as I changed my ideas around. I plan on using quite a bit of text with my box, but deﬁnitely want to add a lot more imagery, as it can say a lot more than just words. I’ll be experimenting and doing a lot more research with playing around with overlapping text and imagery, or just adding a simple image overly on top of text. However, the hardest problem is creating that with spray paint, as that’s the medium that I want to use right now.

One of the main aspects of this newspaper that really caught my attention was the article, Environment for Expanded Awareness by Neil Smith, located on I believe page 7. This article incorporats an illustration behind the text of the article in the same tone of the text, just slightly lighter so as to prevent readability issues. I thought that this design approach was very clever and got me thinking about my design for my box project. My plans for the box project have changed a little bit as I’ve decided to move towards a “street art” aesthetic, and work with stencil design and spray paint. The text stated that “design is key. Although words are the building blocks of meaning, visual ideas can be expressed much more persuasively through the medium of grpahic design.” I really enjoyed this statement as it basically is what

Top left: Oracle page 7 Top right: The Oracle, volume 1, front page Bottom: Quote from Merz to Emigre and Beyond: Avant-Garde Magazine Design of the Twentieth Century by Steven Heller

Build a Box to Build Out of Project 2

For project 2, the goal was to hand build a box to design on and potentially in. For a couple of classes the duration was spent in the workshop in order to build the boxes. The process of building the box was quite fun, however I feel like I spent a bit too much time trying to build the box, but it was a new medium to work with and the experience was very valuable. The wood was a little heavy, but I think it turned out well, I had a pretty polished and well-crafted box. The idea behind the box was inspired from Mr. Fred Rogers and the legacy that he left behind. My concept of this project is to celebrate the forms and energy that dance brings. Dance has always brought about happiness with itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s high movement and artistic performance, I wanted to use that to communicate to the public sphere. Celebrating what Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve loved to do for years seemed like the perfect idea After the box was made, I had a bit of a struggle coming up with a strong and decisive design, I ended up creating quite a bit of iterations, some dealing with text, imagery, and a combination of both. I wanted to keep it original again like I did for my poster, so the images I used consisted of just me. The next pages are all of the iterations that I came up with before coming up with my final design.

Create your own art forms

Emotion Just dance enjoy life

Creativity

What is Dance to you?

Dance is... Emotional

Dance ___________________________

Dance is... Emotional