Bouncing Around Ideas: My Process of Design Laura Beckmann Introduction to Design: Spring 2015
Table of Contents Introduction
Page 1
D School Crash Course
Pages 2-3
Dot Line
Pages 4-6
Expressive Text
Pages 7-9
Object Iteration
Pages 10-12
Children’s Book
Pages 13-15
Introduction My name is Laura Beckmann, class of 2015, and I took Introduction to Design this Spring of 2015. This course was taught by Katherine Ries. This class introduced the basics I needed for design. We learned different skills such as Photoshop and InDesign. This was my first design class and I definitely had my worries. After starting our first project, I was definitely worried that I wasn’t artistic enough. I always enjoyed crafting but when it came to drawing my skills they were not quite to that level. As we went through each of these projects, my nerves slowly started to disappear. I always like bouncing around ideas with my classmates and friends to have the best outcomes for each project. As we near the end of this course, my confidence and skills have definitely improved. Overall, I am very satisfied that I signed up for this course and was able to learn new skills that I can use in my future job.
D *School Crash Course Process Objective: learn about graphic design and the process for any design project; work together with a partner
During the D *School Crash Course process, I enjoyed having an outside opinion about the project. My partner gave positives and negatives about the prototype to help improve the idea. It is always good to have another opinion to help improve the work. It was helpful during each step to be able to receive feedback even when it’s not creating the prototypes. Especially if you just keep looking at the prototype over and over again. You might not even think that it needs to improve until the other person suggests it. I disliked the pressure we were under by having a time limit. It was also scary hearing feedback for the first time after only ten minutes of making the prototype. It was a helpful task that I was able to use throughout the course.
D School Crash Course Process and Final
By learning this design process, I feel I am less scared about the work I was producing and as well my future work. The end product of the crash course was awful because of lack of time, but help the future processes for me. Next time, I would go back and come up with a different prototype to test again. Then I would do the changes and go back to test it again. I would also go back and ask more questions about the work. I think it would help generate better ideas.
Dot Line Objective- Create a design that represents a word(s) using a combinations of line(s) or/and dot(s)
By learning about Gesalt Theory, I was able to apply the principles such as negative space and continuation. I was able to make work that had these qualities and have higher quality work. My favorite word to represent was “freedom” because I think the lines that are continuous demonstrate the act of pushing the brown dot out. It is giving motion to the piece. The hardest part about this project was gluing because it would get on other parts of the paper when doing the project. I also had a hard time cutting perfect squares for the framing. The framing paper was hard to cut through and I would get too frustrated. This project made me also think outside the box. It made me try harder to meet the requirements. It was additionally fun to come up with different combinations to represent each word. If I did this project over again, I would take one day to just cut out the squares, so I wouldn’t get frustrated and try to rush. The next step I would take would be just placing the objects first then gluing.
Dot Line Process
Dot Line Finals Rejection
Freedom
Stability
Abundance
Expressive Text Objective- To understand the different types of typeface and use different ways to represent a word
Hand lettering takes time and patience. I redid the lettering multiple times to have the desired look I was looking for. I think it was hard overall to think of ways to represent a word. It was also hard to just stick to one way to think of a word. The mind map was a helpful way in thinking outside the box and finding different meaning of the word. I like this project because I had to think of ways to represent my word I picked “melt”. Anyone can make digital rendered letters but it takes time and effort to do something by hand. My favorite physical melting structure was melting candle wax on paper because it looked like the real melting. To me that is pretty powerful. Overall, if I could do the project again I would think of different ways to represent “melt”. I went with the same meaning of the word to represent it for this project. I would also try representing “melt” with food or sculpturing it.
Expressive Text Process
Expressive Text Finals
Object Iterations Objective: To find different ways to represent an object/animal
The hardest part of this project was my Eric Carle iteration because I was didn’t know how to do his style. Katie demonstrated for me on how to mimic his style. Once I had that under my belt, I was able to experiment. The iteration took a lot of time to do and I wasn’t able to redo it in time. It was hard to represent the object the way I wanted it to. Another hard part was trying to place the objects on the grid to make it pleasing to the eye. I also had a very hard time using Photoshop as well as InDesign to get the desired look for each object. I enjoyed both the continuous line and collage because it was something different. Collage especially was a different way to look at a penguin and it’s shapes. It was interesting to think of what represents a penguin. I would never have thought of the animal penguin to have such distinctive characteristics and one can know that is a penguin just from the distinctive features.
Object Iteration Process
Object Iteration Finals
When doing collage it was interesting to see how putting random stuff together can represent an object or animal. Overall my favorite was the penguin that was made out of charcoal because it wasn’t required and I was free to do whatever I wanted. Having that freedom really made a wonderful piece. It also looks like the penguin is moving. If I could do something to change it I would change up my Eric Carle iteration by just doing the outline of a side of a penguin or changing up how each iteration is represented. I would turn my continuous line iteration back to uninvert.
Children’s Book Objective- To illustrate children’s book written by a fellow college student at St. Norbert College; to gain experience of being able to work collaboratively with a partner.
While working with a partner she was very accepting of my ideas and being able to work together. She was very patient and I was able to meet her deadlines as well. We would meet with each other if we needed to collaborate. What I liked about this project was being able to water paint again. It is one of my passions because it just blends well together. The strokes always look beautiful as well. Because my book was based on a garden I was able to make those beautiful water strokes. I also like being able to put together a book that a child will someday be able to read as well.
Children’s Book Process
Children’s Book Finals What I wasn’t too excited about trying to put together the pictures and placing them so it would look the best when it comes to a children’s book. I also didn’t like how long it took to make all the pictures looking semi perfect. I keep throwing them away and starting over. If I could redo this again I would just take my time and done one based background and added in the additional illustrations after. It would have saved me a ton of time. Otherwise this was an over enjoyable experience.
Babybug Ladybug was born in a garden. She was born with a bad wing that made it very hard to fly.
Her family now had too many children and not enough space. They all had to go somewhere with more room. When her family flew to a park across the city, Babybug Ladybug could not follow!