All about the
Process
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A Process
Journal Kylar MaryEm Ware University of Louisville Professor Meena Khalili ART 574 -Bookforms
Table of
Contents FIVE DOLLAR TOY Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5
DUTCH FOLIO Week 6 Week 7 Week 8 Week 9 Week 10 Week 11 Week 12
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Preface T
his journal follows my thought process throughout each of the projects I completed in ART 574-Bookforms. This has been a very unique semester in my time here in the design program. This class in particular has been taught by our new professor, Meena Khalili. Therefore, our class was not only taking a new class, but getting used to a new professor as well as her teaching methods. Meena informed us at the beginning of the semester that we were in no danger of being bored in this class and that at the end of the semester we would
breathe a distinct sigh of relief. In addition to the two main projects we completed in this class, we were also required to listen to podcasts and keep up with a weekly blog. I have arranged my journal in chronological order with each section header being the blog post that I wrote that week. These designs weren’t created overnight. They took a lot of hard work and thought. Here’s to all the late nights, the coffee breaks, the frustrations, and the quest to find the best possible solutions. I hope you enjoy getting inside my head.
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FIVE DOLLAR TOY
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WEEK
H
ONE
ello! My name is Kylar Ware and I am beginning my junior year at the University of Louisville with a major in Communication Art and Design. I am only 5 days into the semester at this point and already I have been exposed to all sorts of new things. New sorority sisters, new restaurants on campus, new classes, new professors, and new assignments. That’s a lot of new all at once! New assignments are where this lovely blog post you are reading comes into the equation. One of my new professors, Meena Khalili, is requiring our Bookforms class to update a blog every week with our reactions to podcasts. This week we listened to “99% Invisible- Holdout” as well as “Design Matters” with Chris Ware. Listening to podcasts was another new thing for me. Having never heard anything about either of these podcasts I assumed that they would be about design. That’s what our class is about, so that would make sense, right? You can imagine that I was a little thrown off when I started off with the 99% Invisible talk and it was about an old woman who refused to sell her house. Nonetheless, I really enjoyed listening to Edith Macefield’s story. Long story short, a developing company wanted to buy her small home in order to build a shopping mall. When she refused to sell, they decided they would just build around her home. Everyone assumed that Edith was upset with the changes that were taking place around her. A mall was practically swallowing up her home, why wouldn’t she be upset? Ms. Macefield actually wasn’t angry at the change, however. “It always changes…that’s
just the way it goes”, she said. Then, it struck me. Edith Macefield and I did have something in common: change. As I have mentioned, In the past few days I have experienced an abundance of new things. At a different stage of my life I would have hated all of these new things. I used to dislike change. It can be scary and uncertain, but Ms. Macefield is right, that’s just the way it goes. I have found that embracing change is the best way to grow. In the design world especially you have to be flexible and open to change. There are always going to be new trends, new technology, and new things to learn. The second podcast we were assigned was Design Matters, an interview with cartoonist Chris Ware. The main idea that stuck out to me about Chris was his emphasis on empathy. He wants to inspire empathy for his characters and even empathy for inanimate objects in his stories. He wants his characters to be human and relatable and emotional. In the same way, I want my design to be human and relatable and emotional. Design is about communicating to an audience, so you have to have empathy for who you are designing for. If you are unable to put yourself in the place of your audience, how are you going to design something that speaks to them? The photo that goes along with this post is of some of my supplies and notes for our $5 toy project. I went into the hardware store with a specific idea for a toy, but I came to class the following day with a completely different idea. I was not afraid of pursuing something new and I am very excited with the direction I am heading.
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Every Project Starts
Somewhere
O
ur very first project of the semester was to make a toy with materials we purchased from the hardware store for no more than $5. Not only that, but after we built the toy we had to create a logo and packaging, then photograph the toy, and after all of that we had to create a poster for the toy which then folded down into a booklet about the toy. No big deal, right? Those instructions were how I found myself wondering around Home Depot at 9:00 on a school night picking up random pieces of hardware and hoping that somehow I would be able to build something with them. As I was walking to check out with arms full of 10 cent washers and nuts and random pieces of wood I passed the paint swatches. Now, I was no stranger to Home Depot. I had accompanied my dad on many trips when he was working on
carpentry projects when I was younger. The best part of those trips, besides the fresh wood smell that always hung in the air, was looking at the paint swatches. Being the art nerd that I always have been, the colors always captured my attention as I fantasized about repainting my room. Therefore, when I passed the paint swatches on my five dollar toy errand, I knew I had to grab some. The next day with my bag of random hardware and about 50 paint chips, I was brainstorming ideas when suddenly it hit me. What if I made a matching game out of the paint chips? And thus, Brush Up was born. After coming up with the idea the next thing on the list was to sketch some different ideas for what this matching game could look like as well as name ideas and logo ideas.
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Who’s the
Audience? B
rush up isn’t an idea that just randomly popped into my head after staring at my supplies. It was actually inspired by my niece. For the past year she has been absolutely obsessed with matching games. Christy, her mom and my older sister, always tries to carry some cards with her, but sometimes
fitting all of her toys in the diaper bag or purse she’s carrying is hard. I designed Brush Up to be hung on a key chain so that it would be portable and easy to attach to a purse or a bag. That way moms like my sister would always have some kind of entertainment for their kids.
Worksheet Designed by Meena Khalili
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WEEK
TWO
T
his week our first podcast was entitled “99% Invisible- Structural Integrity”. It is a story about the CitiCorp Center building in Manhattan. As the story goes, there was a church on the lot that CitiCorp had to build around. Therefore, the building was put on stilts which, instead of sitting on the corners of the building, sat in the midpoints of the four sides. The building was built and everything seemed fine until one day a grad student doing a project on the building noticed that some of the math wasn’t adding up right. The student ended up contacting the structural engineer inquiring about the miscalculation. William LeMessurier, the engineer, took the student’s advice and realized that they were correct. With the right storm the entire building could topple over. The changes to the building were made overnight and no one knew that the error had been made, and then fixed, for about a decade. This story resonated with me in an atypical way. Most people would respond to it and say that it teaches us that no matter how successful we are, we should always be humble a listen to even the smallest of people on the totem pole. Yes, this is important to remember of course, however since I’m not wildly successful in my career (though hopefully that will change), I look at this story more from the lens of the grad student, not the engineer. This story told me that no matter how young I am, and how early in my career I am, that I still have valuable input. In the first year of this program I was extremely shy about giving my peers critiques. Why on earth would they want my advice? I have realized however as I have grown in the program that sometimes a different perspective is all that is needed to make your work better. Even people in my class whose work I envy need critiques to grow as designers. I am also taking a creativity
in advertising class and one thing our professor tells us is to put our butts on the line, or, to put it more elegantly, to put our all into whatever it is that we are creating. Ideas are difficult to share, but it is in sharing ideas that great ideas are born. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in our own work that we don’t see our flaws. The Design Matters interview this week was with Massimo Vignelli, who is an incredible designer. One of the questions Millman asked Vignelli was about his use of typefaces. Vignelli operates under the idea that only a few typefaces are really worth using. In his opinion, once you have a typeface that is well designed, such as Helvetica, any other sans serif typefaces are just redesigning Helvetica. Why use a knock off when you can use one that is better? It was very interesting for me to listen to Massimo speak about typefaces in this way, because it is a thought that I have had before, however I still disagree with him. I enjoy using an array of typefaces, because while it is true that a typeface is either serif or sans-serif, there are so many different shapes and tones that you can get from different typefaces. Having an opinion that opposes such a famous and successful designer is very odd for me. Where do I get off thinking that I know more than someone who has been in this business longer than I’ve been alive? I have come to realize however that when it comes to design that everyone’s opinion is valid and that some choices are simply a result of different personal tastes. I have posted an in progress photo of my $5 toy. It’s a matching card game where kids can match the colors. Throughout every stage of this project so far I have been asking my peers for advice and giving them advice as well when they ask for it. I have been both encouraged and humbled by this exchange of ideas.
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The First
Iteration N
ext came building the toy and making digital sketches of the backs of my cards. I started by coming up with a shape for my cards. Following the name I came up with, “Brush Up�, I obviously went with paintbrush shaped cards. I also figured out quite quickly that cutting out all of the cards individually so that they looked nice was going to be nearly impossible, so I set to work finding a way
to cut them all exactly the same. One of my Pi Phi sisters is super into crafting and owns a Cricut, and she graciously offered to meet up with me for 2 hours to help me cut out my cards. Reason number 2,342 why joining a sorority was a good idea. So, I made my shapes and designed a back for my cards and met up with Megan to cut them all out.
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Time for some
Feedback T
he next step for this project was to get some feedback. For our first mini critique we all set our toys and in progress logos out and then moved around the room to write comments for each other. Ideas are difficult to share with each other, especially when they are in the early stages, however feedback is part of what makes good ideas great, so it’s a necessary step for any project. On the opposite page are the comments that I received from my peers at this stage of
my project. Many of the comments I got were positive, however there were still many things I could improve upon, one being the backs of my cards. No one likes to receive negative feedback, especially when you’ve put so much time into something, however what you do with criticism has a major impact on how your final project turns out. Therefore, even though I died a little at the thought of recutting all of my cards, my next step was to redesign the backs of them.
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Try, and Try
Again W
hile it was difficult to go back to the drawing board for my cards, it completely changed the outcome of my project. Not wanting to take up another afternoon of Megan’s time, I needed another way to get all of my cards cut out. Luckily, the day after our first critique, the art gods smiled upon me and I overheard one of my coworkers mention that we had an office Cricut. I immediately stopped what I was doing— this could be the answer to all of my problems. Brandy happily told me that of course I was able to use the Cricut for
my project. I had about an hour before the office closed for the day and hadn’t begun redesigning my cards yet. On a time crunch, I decided to go back to my original sketches and see if another direction would work better. There it was, right next to the first idea I went with, I could use a pattern! I quickly took to Illustrator to whip up some paint splatters and layered them into a loose pattern. Thanking myself for picking up twice as many paint chips as I needed, I set to work printing and recutting my cards.
Photo taken by Meena Khalili
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USH UP
Logos upon
U
Logos
p until this point I had been so focused on creating my toy that I hadn’t spent much time on my logo. After redesigning my cards I dove into working on my logo. Honestly, a lot of what I came up with
was really bad. I must have gone through at least a thousand different fonts, color combinations, paintbrush styles, splatters, and even name changes for my game before I decided on a direction that was working.
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Photo taken by Meena Khalili
WEEK THREE
T
his week, instead of listening to two podcasts, we listened to one podcast and then were instructed to read a few chapters out of the book “Layout Essentials” by Beth Tondreau. The running theme between the two was the topic of constraint. I think that constraint is a word that typically has a negative connotation for people, especially when it is paired with the topic of creating art, which is a very expressive free-form outlet. If I have learned one thing while being in this design program, however, it is that sometimes my best work is done under constraints. The 99 Percent Invisible podcast spoke specifically about the broadcast clock and how it regulates what seems to be a completely natural conversation on the radio. Everything on a radio show is planned, down to the smallest detail. One specific quote from this podcast that stood out to me was, “Constraint, or in this case restraint, makes for better art.”, which I find absolutely true. When I have no rules to follow my design gets muddy. There are too
many options: too many colors, too many styles, too many different fonts. It’s mind numbing. Therefore, as designers if we aren’t given restrictions on what we can and cannot use, we make our own rules and then stick to them. Limited color palettes, only a few fonts that work well together etc. These rules help tighten up the design and make it look cohesive. The Layout Essentials book tied really well into this idea of constraint. As you can tell by the name, it is about layouts but more specifically about using grids. Grids are such an important tool to help your design look cohesive. They provide a hidden structure that everything hinges on. As an update on my $5 Toy Project, we did a photo shoot of the finished product yesterday! Now, I have been tasked with creating not only a poster, but a poster that folds down into a booklet for it. I definitely plan to use a grid system to set up my booklet so that each page will look like it belongs together. I am also going to limit myself on fonts and my color palette.
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Photos taken by Meena Khalili
Final
$5 Toy H
ere is my final five dollar toy! After many trials and a lot of hard work all of the content for my project was created. Redesigning the backs of my cards opened up a lot of options for
playing with the paint splatter patterns which I decided to carry through to my packaging and later, to my booklet as well. I really wanted to convey a fun look, as my toy was targeting children.
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Dummy
Books T
he first step I took to create my poster and booklet for my toy was to make dummy books. This helped me to visualize what the larger version would look like. It also helped me to understand
what my file on screen needed to look like in order to function correctly once printed out. They were a little rough, but they served their purpose and helped me to get to the next stage of my process.
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My Initial
Layout T
he initial layouts were a little rough, but I often find that the first draft is just a good way to get started. By putting down all of my bad ideas I end up coming
up with better ideas. As soon as I printed these I already had ideas for how to make them better. I also took this opportunity to get more feedback from my peers.
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WEEK
FOUR
T
his week we listened to a Design Matters interview with Jessica Hische and read a few chapters out of our Layout Essentials book. I really enjoyed the Jessica Hische interview. This has been my favorite Design Matters podcast thus far. Jessica seems to be very down to earth and I think that I relate more to her than the other two designers that we have listened to because she is younger, a woman, and because I absolutely love hand lettering. One quote of hers that really stuck out to me was that, “The work you do when you procrastinate is the work you should be doing for the rest of your life.” That really resonated with me, because people keep asking me which area of design I want to specialize in, and I keep telling them that I’m not sure, but when I design for fun I am always either illustrating or hand lettering. I also try to incorporate those things into the designs that I do for class as much as possible because that’s
when I get excited about design. I also really liked that she commented on how specializing in something is a good thing. Specializing is always something that I have struggled with. I always feel as though there are so many things to learn and that there is no way that I can ever learn how to do everything. I try to though, and then I end up being sort of good at a lot of different things instead of really good at one thing. This is especially hard when it comes to our program because I feel as though everyone expects us to be an expert on everything. It’s nice to know that focusing in on something can be helpful too. This week in class we have been working on layouts for our posters and booklets to accompany our $5 toys. The Layout Essentials book has been extremely helpful with this. I love the way it is chunked up into easy to digest tips for using grids.
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Photo taken by Meena Khalili
WEEK
FIVE
T
his week our assigned podcast was titled “The 99 Percent Invisible: Revolving Doors”, which seemed like a weird topic to me. What’s so special about revolving doors? The podcast went along to describe how the modern revolving door was invented by Theophilus Van Kannel. It turns out, he was really just socially anxious and hated having to open doors for people, so he figured out a way to never have to open doors anymore. The podcast then went on to describe a new problem that was created by the invention of the revolving door. The revolving door was a successful invention, however people continued to opt to use normal doors, even though the revolving doors were more effective at conserving heat, carbon, and energy and preventing rain, snow, wind, dust, and noise from entering the building. Studies were done and it turns out that simply hanging a sign on the regular door asking patrons to use the revolving door increases the use of the revolving door dramatically. Also, using a sign that utilizes the colors and themes of the institution where the door is located gets even more people to use the door.
After I thought about it for a while, I found a lot of ways that this podcast relates to design. Van Kannel’s situation mirrors some of the basic things we do as designers. We are given a problem and it is our job to find a solution to it. On a large scale however, this podcast speaks about how important our job is as a means of communication. So many people learn that I am an art major and assume that I just make things pretty, but it’s so much more than that. I make things visually interesting for a reason. I make people feel emotions. I can influence decisions and social change, sometimes just by creating a sign! It is so much more than just making something pretty. As I am writing this, I have also come to the end of my $5 Toy Project! I had plenty of problems to solve with this project. Our reading for this week definitely came in handy with helping me solve some of these problems. When I first began to work on the layout of my book I struggled with creating a layout that wasn’t too overcrowded, so referring to chapter 21 and 23 of my book were very useful to me.
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Finally the Final
I
Product!
n the spring semester of 2015 I was just beginning my journey in the graphic design program here at the University of Louisville. Before I took ART 205 I had never heard of InDesign or Illustrator and the most I was capable of doing in Photoshop was changing the contrast of photos. Not only was I not at all versed on the programs we were using, but I was competing with around 50 other students for one of the 15 spots that meant I would get to continue in the program. It would have been easy to give up after the first few projects and choose a different major. Most of my peers had gone to larger high schools and taken design classes already so I was clearly starting off with a disadvantage, but instead of using that as an excuse, I persevered. I took notes, I asked questions, I stayed up late- anything I could do to keep up with my classmates. After the semester ended I applied for the program and then anxiously waited for the letter that would essentially determine my future. Needless to say, I ended up getting into the program, but the long nights, the asking questions, the struggling to keep up- none of that has gone away, and I don’t think it ever will, but that’s okay. I am now a full year into officially being a part of the Communication Art and Design program and my class has just completed our first project in Bookforms: the $5 Toy Project. This project has hands down been the most demanding project I have ever had to complete. Just the first portion- to create a toy out of $5 of materials from a hardware store- was enough to stress out any normal person. I remember getting the assignment and thinking, “what on earth am I going to do”. Honestly, I was still thinking “what on
earth am I going to do” as I roamed around Home Depot for an hour trying to figure out what to buy. I had no phone battery, no time, and what felt like no ideas, yet the next day in class I somehow managed to come up with something that worked. This project took a lot out of me. It took hard work, sleepless nights, some tears, and a copious amount of coffee. I have learned that when you’re generating ideas, no idea is a bad idea. I have learned that taking criticism can be difficult, but that I need criticism to grow. I have learned that taking my project in a new direction doesn’t mean that I’m giving up on my first idea, it just means that I am humble enough to realize that I probably didn’t get it right on the first try. It’s very easy, in this class full of such talented people, to be discouraged. Sometimes I look around the room and wonder if I was the last person they let into our cohort because everyone else’s designs are so different and seem to me to be so much better than mine. I was looking at my work today however and I realized that I have come such a long way as a designer. Last semester I would have never believed that I could achieve something on this scale. I made a toy from scratch, I created a logo for it, I packaged it, I made a poster for it, and I made a booklet for it, in just a little over a month. That’s a far cry from where I was a year ago. No, my project might not be perfect, in fact, there are a million things I still want to change, and there may be some that are better than mine, but I learned so much from this process and in the end I produced something that I am very proud of.
Photos taken by Meena Khalili
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doing so much more for your child?
Why pick up just any old game when you could be
reasoning and cognitive skills
• improving academic performances
• boosting brain functionality and enhancing
• overall positive effect on the child’s mind
• increasing memory skills
• improving overall brain power
• increasing concentration power
• providing healthy exercise for the child’s brain
to have many beneficial effects on children such as:
stroller, your backpack, your diaper bag, or wherever
keychain so that you an clip them to your purse, rse, your
innovative design allows the cards to be strung ng onto a
easily take with you to entertain your kids. Brush ush Up’s
Brush Up is a simple matching game that you u can
another turn. Their turn is over when they do not
cards. If a match is made, they keep the cards and get
Each player will then have a chance to turn over two
(6 cards in each row is suggested)
Next, lay each of the 24 cards pattern side up.
the keychain.
To play Brush Up begin by unstringing the cards from
Brush Up isn’t just about entertaining your kids,
memory games such as Brush Up! have been proven
else you need them. When you’re ready to play ay you
find a match.
just unstring the cards and lay them all face down.
Moving around the circle each player will take their
turn. The game is over when all of the cards have
been matched.
The winner is the player with the most cards at
the end.
Alternate Play
Older children can also play Brush Up on their own.
Simply set a timer and race the clock to see how
quickly you can match them all!
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DUTCH FOLIO
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Our next
Challenge W
e began our next project over fall break. It was broken up into two separate parts. First, over break we were to research 3 different Dutch designers and create one spread for each of them. We weren’t allowed to choose any graphic designers and the spreads were to show the designer’s work to the best of our ability. As an added bonus we
had to actually reach out to our chosen designers by email. After we created the first 3 spreads we were to choose one of those designers and create a folio about their work. This next section walks you through the process I went through to create my Dutch Folio.
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WEEK
SIX
T
his week has been an incredibly busy week for me, not that my weeks aren’t typically busy. I have become very accustomed to cramming as many things as possible into my life, however with it being midterm season this week has felt particularly full. Therefore, this morning after over sleeping, I found myself listening to the Design Matters podcast on my morning drive to campus. I chose to listen to the podcast while I was driving purely because I am officially out of time, however it’s funny to me now that I’ve never thought to do so before. I live about 30 minutes away from campus, but in the mornings during rush hour my commute typically takes closer to an hour. It’s the perfect time to squeeze in listening to podcasts, so I think that this is a trend I will continue, next time I’ll start earlier in the week though. This week the Design Matters podcast was an interview with Maria Popova, who is the editor of Brain Pickings. As I was driving and listening, I was trying to determine how I would structure my blog post. How could I connect this woman’s work with what I was doing in my life? It took me awhile, but then I realized that I was listening to a woman who writes a blog and trying to determine how to write a blog post about it. Duh. After I made this connection I realized that I have a lot of connections to make. I really liked listening to Maria describe her typical day. She
spoke about how she wakes up, does some light reading, answers emails, and then goes to the gym. She also meditates every day. Every day I think about how I would love to be one of those healthy and fit people who go to the gym every day but I have never been able to work it into my schedule. I then realized however that Maria Popova probably just manages her time really well. She takes things to the gym with her to work on while she’s doing cardio. Every moment of her day is probably organized and she makes use of all of her time. That’s definitely something I need to work on in my life. I think that one way I can begin is by listening to my podcasts on my morning commute. The overarching theme of this podcast, our reading from our book, and our new project for class is organization. Our new project is to create 3 different spreads for 3 different Dutch designers. We have to include body copy about the designer, a timeline of their lives, and an image of the designer and their work. Maria’s blog is about curating information from many different sources. What do curators do? They organize. One of the chapters in our Layout Essentials book this week was titled “Control a Variety of Elements”. Not only do I have to control a variety of elements in my life, but when I begin designing my spreads I will have a lot of different elements to control as well.
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Research, Research,
I
Research
t’s difficult to make spreads about Dutch designers without actually knowing any Dutch designers. Therefore, the first step to this project was to throw myself into research. I starting by perusing the list of designers provided and ended up choosing Scholten and Baijings, Anneke Copier, and Louise Cohen. After thoroughly looking through each of their websites, I used trusty old Google to find
out even more about them, taking notes and writing down sources as I went. Not only did I take notes about the designers I was researching, I also kept a visual inventory of their work. I wanted my spreads to convey the essence of their work, so this was a good way to get a broad look at what their work was all about and decide which direction best suited each designer.
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WEEK SEVEN
T
his week’s podcast was entitled “Guerrilla Public Service”. In short, Richard Ankrom, an artist and sign painter, was once driving on the freeway through downtown Los Angeles and he missed his exit and got lost. Years later he moved to Los Angeles and after driving the same stretch of freeway he realized why he had missed his exit. It was due to poor signage. The California Department of Transportation had failed to indicate the I-5 exit on the overhead sign. Therefore, Ankrom decided to take matters into his own hands and he created the blue shield sign, and installed it, illegally. About 9 months after he had installed the sign one of his friends leaked the story to the press, but instead of taking his sign down, CALTRANS left it up for over 8 years because it had passed inspection. It’s difficult for me to find a way to relate this story to my current work. After all, I don’t plan on illegally forging a public sign and installing it above the highway any time soon, or doing anything illegal really. I am, however, doing research right now, which is exactly what Ankrom had to do in order to pull of making a sign that passed inspection. When most people think of design I don’t think they realize the amount of work that goes into creating a piece. Whether you’re
designing a spread for a magazine, packaging for a product, or a sign for a highway research is an important part of what we do. Without researching what you’re designing you have no direction. Oftentimes there are specific brand guidelines we have to follow, but even more than that you simply need to know about what you’re designing for. I remember one of the first things I was told when I began this project was that if you are designing something, you need to read it. If you’re designing a book cover, read the book. If you’re designing a spread for a magazine, read the body copy. When you design, your design should reflect what you’re designing, which is a lot of what our current project is about. I have been tasked with choosing 3 Dutch designers, emailing them with a few questions, researching them, writing body copy for a spread, and then creating a spread for each of them that reflects their work. Each of the designers I have chosen have different styles of work, so their spreads need to be different in order to showcase their work to the best of my ability. The reading in our Layout Essentials book this week talked a lot about the use of color in design. I’ll definitely need to refer back to this reading when creating my spreads so that I don’t get too crazy with my colors.
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Photo of Cohen’s Lampshapes project hanging in the nursing home Frittemahof in Sneek.
LOUISE COHEN 2003
Portrait Award for Life is a Party
2009
Icebreakers chandeliers created
2013
Louise creates her first Minute Movie
2014
Lampshapes project is completed
LIFE IS GOOD Louise Cohen is a Dutch designer whose main goal is to create the best possible environment for everyone around by focusing on enlarging the good things in life. She is most inspired by looking at the experiences of others on a general, personal, and individual level. She then attempts to optimize those experiences in her design and bring to them to an overall sense of wellbeing. She wants to bring out a smile and sense of belonging in every home, garden, or building that her work is installed or presented. She characterizes herself as “polyvalent” and designs a wide variety of different objects ranging from napkins to façade-size objects that can weigh between 3 grams to over 3000 kilos. She also works to create things that are made in an honest and environmentally friendly way in addition to being both practical, technical, and emotional. She strives to embellish her work in an elegant and tight way. She also works in an honest and environmentally friendly way and creates her work as both series and unique pieces. Her work has been featured in many international exhibitions, in various catalogs and specialist journals, and in all major Dutch newspapers as well as on local and national television and she has also won many awards for her work.
Louise Cohen |7
ANNEKE COPIER Artist and Fashion Designer Anneke Copier is a fashion designer and artist with a passion for felt. Due to this passion, her work often has a unique flowing style about it. In 2006 she began collaborating with designer Claudio Varone on a project entitled Felt for Architecture. The main idea of this collaboration is to create felt art which is then introduced into spaces in order to convey, with its tactile and visual acoustic features, the magic and
sacredness of life. The project has become a collection of carpets and three-dimensional wall hangings that are made of wool felt. These pieces are not only meant to dress up spaces, walls, floors, but to evoke, protect, and tell stories as well. The colors and shapes that have been developed in this collection have originated mainly through the contemplation of the landscapes surrounding the designers. This has led to them have
a very natural and flowing aesthetic. Anneke not only works on fine art pieces and tapestries, but has her own fashion designs as well. Her fashions are often also created out of felt, however she uses wool and silk as well in her designs. She strives to use materials in her designs that are environmentally friendly and that follow high ethical standards and follow the code of fair trade.
Felt fashion and felt tapestries by Anneke Copier.
2006 | Ethical Fashion Show, Paris, France 2006 | Began working with Claudio Varone on Felt for Architecture project 2008 | Introduction of her collection at the Pret-aPorter Fair in Paris 2015 | Exhibition in France
Anneke Copier |11
Dutch Designer
Spreads H
ere are my final three Dutch Designer spreads. I really enjoyed learning working on the Louise Cohen spread as well as the Scholten and Baijings spread. The designers both used very nice color palettes and they had many images for me to work with in my spreads. The Scholten and Baijings spread ended up being my favorite however. It came together really nicely for me and I had a lot of fun arranging the elements. Having the couch show through the textile to the left was actually a happy
Scholten & Baijings Furniture, textile, and ceramic design duo
accident. I had made the fabric panel transparent so that I would be able to layer the text on top of it and when I moved the couch over it just happened to look really nice. After that I decided to experiment with even more transparent elements in order to add some depth to the spread. Needless to say, even though Louise was the online designer to reply to my emails, I still ended up choosing Scholten and Baijings to focus on for the second part of this project.
Stefan Scholten and Carole Baijings are a Dutch husband and wife design team. Scholten studied at the Eindhoven Design Academy however Baijings is a self-taught designer. The two met in 1999 and had instant chemistry. They ended up getting married and opening their own design studio together in 2000. The team uses the atelier, or studio, method to working. With this hands on approach they emphasize constructive thinking and create most of their own materials for their projects. Their attention to detail and love for color is what really stands them apart from other Dutch designers. When they first began making textiles they realized that creating the gradients they so often used in their ceramic pieces was much more difficult to do with fibers. “We thought we had failed,” Scholten commented, “because the goal was a gradient, but then discovered that people liked the work very much. It was an eye opener that a mistake could be part of the process.” Scholten and Baijings use grids, light effects, colors, transparency, and layered patterns for their work, however they keep the patterns minimalistic. The colors in their work range from soft pastels to bright neon colors, however they try to keep the color palettes rather neutral. If Baijings selects a color palette that Scholten thinks is too soft, they discuss it until they reach a new solution. Their rule in the studio is that if 80 percent of the team does not lie the design, then the design does not work in the end.
Stefan Scholten and Carole Baijings
1972
1973
1999
2000
2011
Stefan Scholten born
Carole Baijings born
Scholten & Baijings meet for the first time
The Scholten & Baijings Studio for Design is founded
Begins textile collection for Hay
Scholten & Baijings |9
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Scholten WEEK EIGHT & Baijings
T
his week’s podcast was an interview with Marian Bantjes. Bantjes is a Canadian designer, artist, illustrator, typographer and writer. She utilizes a lot of ornamentation in her designs and sometimes her type is more experimental and is difficult to read. I had never seen any of Bantjes’ work before, or if I did I did not recognize it as hers, but I really enjoy it. She spoke about how she loves design because she loves thinking, and solving problems, and making beautiful things to put out into the world and inspire people. A direct connection I can make with Bantjes’ work is that we are required to use experimental type in our current project. Her work is definitely something that I can draw inspiration from, not just in this project, but projects to come. One thing that Bantjes talked about that really stood out to me was that she took a break for a little bit from design because she didn’t love it anymore. She needed to find the part of it she did love in order to “save her life”. Loving what you do is something that I think about a lot. I think that everyone can say that they want to do something they love for the rest of their lives, but doing so isn’t as easy as it looks. Every day I see people who have majored in things for
the money, or just because their parents wanted them to. For me, leaving high school was very stressful because it meant that I needed to figure out what to do with MY life. Art had always been my passion, but I had been told time and time again that it wasn’t a feasible major to pursue. Deciding to become a design major has been one of the most important decisions of my life. Yes, sometimes it’s stressful, and sometimes I doubt myself, but I need to remember how lucky I am to be pursuing something that I love. I can honestly say that I enjoy going to my classes (at least most of the time, we all have our off days), and that’s more than a lot of people can say. This is something I need to keep in mind, especially now, midway through the semester when things are busier and more difficult than ever. Our readings in the book seem as though they are hand chosen to be relevant to the current project in which we are working. This week, there is an entire section on Timelines, one of the main elements we are to include in our Dutch Designer Folio. There is also a lot of good information on the use of color, which will be really helpful for me in this project as well as my chosen designers use a lot of color.
Furniture, textile, and ceramic design duo
le Baijings are a Dutch husband
holten studied at the Eindhoven
r Baijings is a self-taught design-
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hey reach a new solution. Their 80 percent of the team does not
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Stefan Scholten and Carole Baijings
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1972
1973
1999
2000
2011
Sketches & Dummy
Books
A
s always, jumping straight to working on the computer is never a good idea for me, so I began with sketching ideas for what my folio could possibly look like. This project was made infinitely more difficult by the caveat that the folio needed to have 6 pages, and 3 spreads. Essentially, this created an extra page that we had to figure out how to attach. This made getting started very difficult. Did you start by sketching? If so, what did you sketch? Possible layouts or possible structures for your book? Having
never done this before, it took me awhile to get into a good groove, but I eventually got tired of thinking about what to do and just began cutting up paper and taping it together. As soon as I began working with my hands the ideas began to come more freely. I ended up with some unusable scraps of paper, but they were a minor casualty in the whole scheme of things. Once I figured out a few structures that could work I began to do some sketches of possible layouts.
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WEEK
NINE
T
his week’s podcast was another from the 99% Invisible. It was about awareness, more specifically, the little awareness ribbons that we see everywhere nowadays. I had no idea that the first cause to employ the tiny ribbons was AIDS, so it was very interesting for me to learn about the origin of this symbol that has become so ubiquitous. It was a group of artists in Manhattan who decided that AIDS was a cause worth recognizing. They then wanted something that would be a symbol of their cause. The inspiration for the ribbons came from the yellow ribbons that people tied around trees in honor of servicemen (a symbol which apparently originated because of a song, who knew?). The ribbons began as a simple art project, but it grew into something that none of the artists who began the project could imagine. The artists got their ribbons on stage at the Tony awards and then their idea became a phenomenon. I in no way expect MY current project to become a phenomenon, however, I think it’s really cool that their’s did and I can relate to art become something I could never imagine. I always find it interesting to see how different my projects turn out from my original plans. I’m never really sure where, but somewhere along
the way my carefully thought out plans crumble and something even better ends up taking their place. I think that’s one of the things I like most about what I do though. I get to watch my ideas grow and take different shapes. Even if I start out with an idea that I think is fantastic, with some critiques and some hard work, that original idea gets shaped into something unrecognizable, but much more beautiful in the end. My current project has been like that in many ways. I started off not knowing where to start at all, however as I keep working and keep trying new things new ideas have begun to take shape. This project has also forced me to learn a lot of new skills in general. We were required to order our own paper, and that was a journey all its own. I’ve always known that there were different types of paper to choose from of course, but until I began looking at paper samples I don’t think I really knew. I ended up ordering some 100c Classic Linen paper from Neenah, and I was ridiculously excited to arrive home and find the box sitting in my doorway. Oh, and as always, in case you were wondering, our grid book has provided me with some wonderful tips to inform my folio design, my favorite being to remember to play with the grid.
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Fifty Percent
Print Out A
s you can see, my 50 percent print out was still extremely rough. Because of the structure I chose, simply creating a document to design on took significantly longer than I expected. I actually ended up having about 3 different documents that I had set up. Each one showed the layout in a slightly different way, so I would use them to work on different sections of my folio. At this point in the process I was really struggling with the middle vertical spread. I really liked the way the bottom half was working, but with all the weight on the bottom I didn’t have many options for the top half of the spread. It took me a really long time to finally scrap what I had and start over, but it needed to be done. It was at about this point of the project that I had gotten hit with some serious creative block. I had gotten some good feedback at first and was so sure that I was on the right track with what I had
already done that I was unwilling to change too many things around. That kind of closed-mindedness got me into a rut. Soon I was out of options and drowning in frustration. What’s that saying? Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result? Well I was going insane, so I forced myself to try something new. I reevaluated my design by comparing it to my designer’s work and realized that it wasn’t really showcasing their work very well. I looked back over my research and noticed that I had written down that Scholten & Baijings utilized color, gradients, and patterns in much of their work. I also looked through my visual inventory and realized that while my design felt very heavy theirs was very light and simple. With a direction to head in once again, I set off to make major changes to my design.
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WEEK
TEN
T
hese week has been another busy week for me, but then again, I’m starting to wonder if I’ll ever have a week that is NOT busy. I’ve been on a good kick lately though. Starting about a week ago I have been on a creative kick. Every second of every day I wanted to work on design. The ideas were flowing and life was good, but I knew it couldn’t last forever, and today was the day it came to an end. Creative ruts are something that I don’t think I’ll ever get used to. Even when I’m expecting one to appear soon, it’s still demoralizing to have no ideas and no direction to take. It’s always nice to realize that it’s not something that just happens to me. Even Stefan Sagmeister said he gets creative block, but just knowing that creative block is something that is normal doesn’t mean it isn’t hard to deal with. Like he says though, you just have to move on. So I have moved on today. I left the lab to get some fresh air, I got lunch- and then I got back to work. I think that remembering to take breaks, especially when creative block hits, is important. Not only that, but it was a relief to hear that even for someone like Stefan Sagmeister thinking is hard. Thinking is such a weird thing to say you struggle with, but it’s true. Coming up with ideas, finding a direction, creative rut, being creative in the first place- it’s all just about thinking. At the
beginning of this semester I decided to take a Creativity in Advertising class because I hoped it would help me with idea generation and maybe make me a better thinker, and in some ways it has, but it has mostly just made me more aware of the fact that everyone in the creative field struggles with this. I think as I have become more aware of this I have found new ways to get myself out of my creative ruts. One way is for me to take a break and do something fun, whether that be hanging out with my friends or just taking a walk to clear my head, but I have also found that I am way more creative when I remind myself to have fun while I am working as well. I think that train of logic is how I found myself piping bright pink icing onto pieces of paper a few nights ago. One of the requirements for our Dutch folio is to include experimental type, so I figured it was an opportunity to do something fun, even if it was a little crazy. Perhaps then it would eventually lead me to something more unique and therefore “creative”. Either way, I had fun doing it, and that’s part of the reason I chose this major in the first place. Our book once again provided great advice this week. Creating a balanced viewpoint, guiding my reader, letting my images shine, and implying hierarchy are particular things I need to keep in mind when it comes to my Dutch folio.
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Experimental
Type
A
s mentioned in my blog post, we were required to have experimental type in our folios. My type ended up doubling as my metaphorical image, another requirement. Scholten and Baijings’ work is just so colorful and fun that every time I looked at it I was reminded of confections. Not to mention the fact that some of their ceramic pieces literally look like little tiered cakes. In one of my early critiques it was suggested that I literally use a photo of a tiered cake as my metaphorical image, however that felt a bit heavy to me. I felt that icing would get the point across in a more
subtle way while also allowing me to play with the type. I actually ended up piping icing on two separate nights. After I got some feedback on my initial experimentations, I decided to try again and to refine what I was actually piping. It was suggested to me that I focus more on the ampersand as it could essentially mean a joining of things, which is part of what makes Scholten & Baijings so unique. While I’m sure they are great designers on their own, what makes them truly special is their process of working together.
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100% Scale
T
he 100 percent scale print out was probably one of the most stressful parts of this project for me. It was one of those anything that can go wrong, will, kind of days. I had just finished overhauling my entire design, so I hadn’t been getting much sleep, traffic was awful, and when I went to print at the office where my internship was, I discovered that the printer was down. Therefore I had to run to the art library and try to figure out how to print on their computers,
something I typically had the luxury of avoiding. After spending about $10 to print, the prints came out the wrong scale, so they were basically unusable. Luckily, I had printed a copy at my home that I could use for our mini critique. It was a little funky, but hey, it was functional. On the bright side, the redesign was very successful. My spreads were finally flowing together nicely and were much better at showcasing my designer’s work.
Now that I had spreads that were working, I needed to figure out the cleanest way to assemble my book. It was determined that the best option would be to have it printed double-sided on 17x22 paper, just like out first project. I then had
to contact Michael Winters, the printer who printed our $5 Toy Posters to verify prices and see if he would be able to print my document for me in time.
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Photo curtesy of ScholtenBaijings.com
WEEK ELEVEN
T
his week’s podcast was another from the 99 Percent Invisible. It began by reading a letter that was sent out geologists, linguists, architects, astrophysicists, writers, and artists in the 1990. The problem? The government is using a site in New Mexico to deposit nuclear waste and they wanted to design a marker system to warn people that the area was dangerous. Simple, right? Except they needed to marker system to be functional for 10,000 years. Let that sink in. 10,000 years. 10,000 years ago humans were just figuring out how to farm. Since then languages have changed, clothing has changed, technology has changed. We have nothing but biology in common with the people who lived 10,000 years ago. So how do you communicate with someone 10,000 years from now? So, these geniuses who gathered in New Mexico brainstormed…and brainstormed some more…and then some more. Ideas were continually shot down because flaws were found. When they began to talk about using symbols and pictures as the solution I thought that they had found the perfect solution, however, they soon explained that even the meaning of symbols can morph over time. For example, I never knew that the skull and crossbones were originally a symbol of resurrection, which then morphed into a symbol of death, and then came to mean danger, and then represented pirates in general on children’s clothing and accessories. Not to mention the fact that all of those changes took place in a lot less time than 10,000 years. My favorite solution that had been proposed to solve this problem was actually thought of in
the 80’s by two European philosophers. They decided that culture was the most durable thing that humanity could create. Therefore, they decided that they would genetically engineer cats to change color in the presence of radiation. Genetically engineered cats. I’m not even kidding. They would engineer these cats, and then they would write stories, sing songs, draw pictures and basically just work them into the culture. The moral of all these songs and stories would be to stay away from anywhere where the cats changed color. The podcast even played a snippet of a ray cat song, which I now have stuck in my head. The moral that I got from this podcast is that I am creating things that are going to be interpreted by other people. Unlike the fine arts, where things are more open to interpretation, I want everyone who sees my designs to understand them in the same way. Therefore, I always need to be thinking about the way others are going to be interacting with my work. That includes doing research and being conscious of all of my design decisions. The book was extremely helpful to me this week. I was having trouble getting my spreads to flow. I had a lot of imagery, but I didn’t know how to get it to look less blocky and static. The answer? Silhouettes. I am much happier with the direction my book has taken now that I took the time to rework everything. I took a step back and reevaluated my designer’s work and how to best reflect it. I ended up redoing much of what I already had, but I think it was really beneficial in the end.
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Off it goes to
Press!
I
t took some doing, but I finally arranged my spreads into a final document that I could send to press. Michael had been extremely helpful in our emails and had no problems getting my print back to me on time. When I began laying out my final document I was actually still making edits. In this new format I could see the way the middle spreads interacted with each other. It felt silly to separate the “wings” from the main vertical spread, so I ended up using a background image that bled from the vertical spread into the left
wing. It also took awhile to move all of my spreads into this final layout. Due to all of the layers I had in my design I wasn’t able to simply export my spreads as PDFs and place them in the final document. I had to rebuild everything from the ground up so that my gradient and vector overlay were even across the entire middle spread. After a million checks and double checks to ensure that everything was perfect (or as perfect as it could possibly be) I sent my file off to press!
Scholten & Baijings Stefan Scholten and Carole Baijings are a Dutch husband and wife design team. Scholten studied at the Eindhoven Design Academy, however Baijings is a self-taught designer. The two met in 1999 and had instant chemistry. They ended up getting married and opening their own design studio together in 2000.
Kylar Ware 2016
The team uses the atelier, or studio, method to working. With
Typography
this hands on approach they
Archer Book 78/72
emphasize constructive thinking
Archer Bold 13/15; 20/15
and create most of their own
Archer Semibold 15/23
materials for their projects. Their
Avenir Next Condensed Regular 9/15
attention to detail and love for
Avenir Next Condensed Demi Bold 9/15
color is what really stands them apart from other Dutch designers.
Printing
When they first began making
Michael Winters
textiles they realized that creating
Material Printshop in Louisville, KY
the gradients they so often used
Epson Ultra Premium Presentation Matte
in their ceramic pieces was much
more difficult to do with fibers. “We thought we had failed,” Scholten commented, “because the goal was a gradient, but then discovered that people liked the work very much. It was an eye opener that a mistake could be part of the process.” Scholten and Baijings use grids, light effects, colors, transparency, and layered patterns for their work, however they keep the patterns minimalistic. The colors in their work range from soft pastels to bright neon colors, however they try to keep the color palettes rather neutral. If Baijings selects a color palette that Scholten thinks is too soft, they discuss it until they reach a new solution. Their rule in the studio is that if 80 percent of the team does not like the design, then the design does not work in the end.
Images http://bit.ly/2f55k4q http://bit.ly/1ffDU4l http://bit.ly/2ebJUTP http://bit.ly/2ebHIMd http://bit.ly/2fsFmoc scholtenbaijings.com
1972
Stefan Scholten is born
1973
Carole Baijings is born
1999
Scholten & Baijings meet for the first time
2000
The Scholten & Baijings Studio for Design is founded
2011
Scholten and Baijings begin designing their textile collection for Hay
“Stefan is really good at the big picture. I’m good at the details,” —Carole Baijings
2012
“Everything has a story”
their third Dutch Design award
—Stefan Scholten
Scholten and Baijings receive
2013
Colour Porcelain collection nominated for Design of the year.
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Photos taken by Meena Khalili
Crafting the final
M
Piece
ichael delivered my print to my internship just two days after I ordered it from him. I was at lunch when he dropped it off, but once I got back to the office it was like Christmas. The colors came out absolutely perfect and the paper quality was fabulous. Now came the hard part- I had to assemble it. I had two prints to work with, which didn’t leave me a very large margin for error. I took my time making my and made sure my exacto knife was sharp enough to make clean cuts. After trimming the first print I folded it up, and to my horror, it wasn’t lining up correctly. I had followed all of the lines of the design perfectly, so that wasn’t the problem. After looking at what had happened I realized that the problem was simply that the front and back were about an eighth
of an inch off, which is normal, however it was something I had never had to take into account before. After taking a lot of deep breaths I took my final print, said a few prayers, and began to carefully measure and cut. This time I took into account the fact that the print was a little off. I sliced and scored and folded and thankfully everything matched up this time! Unfortunately, my blade was a little too sharp and ended up cutting a little too deep when I scored my left wing, so it ripped a little. While I was disappointed by that, I was still very happy with the way my final folio turned out. I genuinely like all of my spreads and feel like they are a good representation of my designer’s work. I think that this is some of my best work to date even though I feel as though I struggled with it the most.
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WEEK
TWELVE
M
y older sister’s best friend, and by default one of my best friends, came over to visit a few days ago. I was working on design homework, so she asked me about my current projects. I immediately launched into telling her about my Dutch folio and my projects for my other class, and after a little while she commented on how happy I seemed just talking about design. Until now, I never realized how special my situation really is. I love my major. I love going to class. I love working on my projects. I love presenting my work and getting feedback. Yeah, sometimes it may be difficult and it is easy, amidst the stress of deadlines and creative blocks, to forget how lucky I am to be pursuing something that I am passionate about. I am realizing that not everyone is so fortunate and I can’t imagine dreading to go to school every single day. “I love coming to work every single
day, It’s my happy place”, Tina Roth Eisenberg commented in this week’s Design Matters podcast. That’s the kind of job I hope to have one day. There was also a nice running theme this week between the podcast and the book. Observe the masters. Eisenberg comments on how she spends each morning looking at what’s new on the internet, which led to her creating her blog “Swiss Miss” to keep a visual inventory. The book talks about learning from masters in order to create designs that pay homage without just copying specific elements. On another note, I’m done! My Dutch folio has been completed! Well, as completed as it needed to be for my critique. All the stress and frustration and work that went into this project really paid off, and I am very happy with the finished product.
Photo curtesy of www.disegnodaily.com/article/scholten-baijings
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A sigh of
Relief M
y journey in Bookforms has come to an end. This class may have almost killed me, but every single bit of it was completely worth it. This class has been one of the most intense classes I have ever taken. I think that the intensity of this class, the fact that I bumped myself back up to taking 15 credit hours instead of 12, as well as this being the first semester working my internship made this semester extremely difficult for me. That being said, I have accomplished so much and learned more than I thought I would ever be able to in 3 months. I made a toy out of $5 of hardware store materials. I researched and ordered paper from a real paper
company. I began building a relationship with a printer. I constructed a completely unique folio. I did all of these things, in ONE of my five classes, while also keeping up with a weekly blog based upon podcasts. I multitasked, I struggled, I created, I lost some sleep, but most of all I grew. I grew more than just as a designer. I grew as a person in general because I was forced to get in touch with people and I was forced to teach myself to do things and solve problems. These are skills that I can take with me to the next chapter of my life. Now I can breathe that huge sigh of relief we were told about at the beginning of the semester.
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