Final book julia

A Work in Progress

Julia Allen/Design- 131

I dedicate this book to my Into to Design class for helping me better understand mistakes that I make throughout my art techniques.

I was asked during the year what I thought the difference between a good life and a significant life is. This class helped me come to a realization of what that difference means to me. I feel that anyone can have a good life but in order for your life to be significant, you must believe it to be.

Anyone can tell you that you are significant but in reality, you are the only real judge of that. This class helped me see that because in order for my art work to seem significant, I had to believe in myself and know that I could create something significant.

Dot- Line The objective of this project was to incorporate different elements of Gestalt, such as value, scale, and line, into a abstract composition. The challenge of the design process of this project was that each composition required minimal components. The final goal was to express three words through the composition of dots and lines.

Stability

Energet

Rejection I enjoyed this project because my eye tends to be drawn towards structured layouts in art that are easy on the eye. I felt like these little compositions were aesthetically pleasing which made it exciting for me to create.

When I first started the design process, I was inclined to illustrate the ideas rather than represent them through shapes. As I got more comfortable, it became less difficult for me and I really was able to use my imagination to express different ideas.

I had a difficult time with trying to make the compositions that I was creating look perfect. It definitely wasn’t easy to create a well-crafted object because even though the individual compositions were small in size, the details that were required had to be worked with a lot of precision and patience.

D-School The objective of this project was to design a object for your partner based on an experience in their life. To start the project, an interview was conducted to gain empathy for the partner and learn more about what you could incorporate into their product. Next was the sketching process where several different product alternatives were quickly drawn. Finally, the final product was made with whatever materials you could find in the classroom.

For the final product, I created a model airplane for my partner because she talked about the enjoyment she gets when traveling and visiting family. Due to the limitation that I had on time, I only used cardboard. This resulted in unfinished work in the end. It felt strange showing my unfinished work to my partner because usually when I turn in work I want to feel satisfied but I didn’t feel completely satisfied about this piece. The limitation on time and materials caused the piece that I showed to my partner to not look best that it could have been.

The perk of this project was working with a partner who posed as a real life client that I will be working with in the future. Engaging with a real person changed the direction that the prototype took because it gave me a better feel for what the person was interested in/needed rather than just having me create a generalized product. Also, knowing that I would be presenting the prototype to a person gave me pressure to try hard and put as much effort as I could into my work. I interviewed my partner to make sure I knew exactly what they were looking for.

If I was given more time, I would have included more detail to my prototype because to me it looked very childlike and unfinished. I also would have used more material rather than just cardboard and sharpie to give it more of a realistic feel. I decided to recreate my original prototype and showcase what I would have liked it to look like from the start

Final

Object Iteration My object for the iteration project was a wolf because they are my favorite animal. As I began the design process, I had in mind that wolfs were simple creatures when it came to detail. However, as the project went I began to realize they are very detailed animals with distinguishable features like their pointed nose. I think the fact that there was a lot of detail that was required in my wolf iterations helped me because I knew where to start when I was depicting the wolf.

Blind Drawing

The beginning of the design process for this project began with blind drawings of the object. This was a very challenging exercise for me because I am used to looking at the paper as I draw and being able to erase. However, it was also helpful because after several practices, I gained a better understanding of the natural shape of the object that I was drawing.

Collage I had a difficult time designing the collage portion because I found it hard try and make a wolf out of different materials. It made me feel restricted because I could only have so much control over the material. For each of my collage designs I experimented with magazine pages and cut them into different shapes to represent a wolf.

Geometric

The geometric section of this project was my favorite to create. I enjoyed working with the minimalism of the lines and adding detail by using different line thickness and angles. For my final geometric wolf, I started with only a few lines that were relatively the same size. I improved the composition by differing sizes and using bold details.

Typographic Collage

Master Artist-Banksky For my master artist section of this project I chose to recreate my own version of Banksky’s spray-paint method. I drew a wolf stencil and cut it out with an x-acto knife. Then I chose the color silver to spray-paint the wolf design onto a piece of paper. The paint ended up bleeding through the stencil.

I was able to clean up the paint that went over the edge in Photoshop by us-ing the eraser tool. I then decided I wanted to create a black fill for the wolf to get more of a spray-paint feel.

For my final Banksky iteration, I ended up re-spray-painting the wolf design onto black background paper with a gold color. The spray-paint still bled through the edges of the stencil so I worked with that by adding several dots to the whole composition to act as stars in the night.

Typography The objective of the typography project was to epitomize the meaning of a specific word using different forms of hand lettering. Hand lettering taught me that there is a lot of work that goes into typography and sometimes you need to experiment with several different materials to get the right design. For example, when I wanted to create a thick bolded font I used a thick paint brush and black ink rather than a pencil. I also learned that different materials and fonts can really express words in different ways. Emotion can be conveyed through words if you construct them with the right form.

I really enjoyed working with ink because there are so many different styles of typography that you can get with just using different strokes and brushes. I would love to try to work with calligraphy because I think that lettering is very beautiful.

Data Visualization I created this infographic to convey that breakfast is a very important meal. I provided examples as to why this is true and gave reasons as to why the meal is important for humans and things that can happen if you do not eat breakfast. The objective of the project was to symbolized a particular piece of data that would be conveyed through various images and typography. I started the design process by testing out several different layouts that I could potentially use.

I learned a lot of skills during this project because it is still new for me to work in InDesign and also, I was relatively shocked at the length of time it takes to make a poster. One thing in particular that I learned throughout this process is that minor details are very visible in the final outcome of a project. For example, before my final I had the font of my texts off centered and when it came time for critique it was very noticeable to the audience.

Breakfast like a King Only 44% of Americans Eat Breakfast Daily People who skip breakfast are 27% more likely to develop heartdisease.

Breakfast enhances memory, attention, and information processing speed.

Breakfast increases blood sugar levels which provides energy for your day!

All Information credible to ConsumerReports.org

I created visual hierarchy by adding color to my objects making them stand out and have contrast among one another. . I also bolded the title and made it bigger than the rest of the words in order for it to have hierarchy over the entire composition.

I incorporated design Gestalt’s principles by adding texture to my piece. I added texture to the oatmeal bowl that was on my infographic. I also used different line shapes to add texture to the oatmeal itself.

My infographic used color in a way to relate to the images that were being shown. For example, I displayed a light bulb as one of the images and so I colored it yellow. Some of the other colors, such as the red that I used to fill in the people, wasn’t so much a color that related to the image but rather it was used to tie the infographic together using the same color scheme.

Designer Presentation

I chose to research Milton Glaser for my presentation. He is said to be the Founder of American Graphic Design because he has influenced so many peo-ple throughout his career. He combines understanding, conceptual thinking, and visual language to all of this works to create a sense of uniqueness. Alt-hough he focuses on graphic design, he has also specialized with books, maga-zines, posters, and writing. Throughout the research, I was informed of the many accomplishments that Glaser completed in his life such as designing the New York logo, founding the New York Magazine, and holding a one-man-show in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Throughout the process of researching Milton Glaser’s design career, I was very inspired as an upcoming artist. Throughout young adulthood, I have been interested in perusing a life of design but find myself constantly debating whether it would be a good career path for me because I don’t know if I am creative enough. After learning that Glaser didn’t think twice about following his ambition and becoming a designer, I gained inspiration for my own life. I have always wanted to design my own website that would showcase my travels around the world and different experiences that I have. I realize that if this is a true passion of mine, I should just go for it rather then dwell on the “what if ”.