Speed Running Design Andrew Lopez Art 130, Introduction to design St. Norbert College Fall 2023
Introduction
Crash Course I think the fact that I was able to actually pull ideas and thoughts of what somebody else was envisioning for themselves was interesting in the way it affected what I was creating. I think if I was given a piece of paper with the same complaints/experiences about the school, my creation would have been a little different. I’m not sure in what way or how exactly, but I just know that having the physical presence and actual communication of guidelines changed the product. I was not a fan. I do not like sharing/presenting unfinished work, especially with somebody I know well or see frequently. I would almost rather push it off until it’s the standard I want. Although, in the end, I was given good feedback on how to make my little sculpture better, I still felt like I was unready. I did not like the quick iterative cycles. Since art/design is pretty foreign to me, I do not feel confident in my work and would rather make, change, evaluate, and then present. I can do some work very quickly and create a good product, but usually only on subjects or in areas that I am very familiar with and enthusiastic about. I think I would take a little less time to make my little sculpture look good and focus more and just getting all the properties that I was thinking about. My sculpture lacked a few important pieces of what I was envisioning and I think that took away from the effectiveness.
Dot Line
Final Products Gestalt is noticing the entirety of something before analyzing or seeing the specific parts that make it up. for the Dot-Line project, we used this idea to create different or unique ways of representing words while trying not to follow the rules and laws of life we normally deal with or experience daily. I would rather spend extra time on a project and try to get it right and make sure I am covering all the details of the project. I don’t think this makes it more difficult for me to make a “well-crafted” project, I just believe that well-crafted to me is different than what “wellcrafted” might be for the person to my left or right. I think the biggest change this project brought to my idea of abstraction was that it’s not always as crazy, random, and weird as I thought. Whenever I heard “abstract” I associated it with random or without structure, which is not necessarily true. I think for the most part it was pretty difficult to to represent ideas without actually illustrating them. Many times I would find myself with what I thought was an abstract layout and then I would look at it 30 minutes or a day later and see
that it followed many of the set rules or laws that we experience in life without really any distinct questionablility about the forms themselves. I think outside of this class I won’t be using either of the idea of abstraction gestalt much. That’s not to say ever, but given my interests and my career path, I just don’t see abstraction being in there much. On the contrary, I do see myself thinking about Gestalt, whether it be in my free time while taking pictures or maybe in my military career I may just get to the point later in my career where I don’t focus on the small details and will be big picture oriented.
Letterforms
Final Products I learned how delicate and precise letterforms can actually be. Throughout most of the project, I thought it was just a dumb task to work with ink, but I now see that it was actually to get us to pay attention to detail and to fully grasp the difficulty of some projects and pieces. -I think I would want to explore more with some photography of the letterforms once they are cut out or photocopied. I tried a few pictures of what I thought would be really cool and still liked the idea but the pictures I took just didn’t turn out the way I had wanted so I didn’t end up using any of them. I think I would just try again with some different placements, lighting, or locations.
Iterations Overall I found this project to me the most time consuming and had a very hard time working on it. That being said, I found that after this project, the PSA poster and the this process book became a lot easier to understand ad work on. With this project and the two to follow, I was very far behind in the class and had very little time to worry about whether my seals were actually conveying the right message or looking the way I really wanted them to. I think overall, I was able to finish with a pretty good product, but know I could have done more, earlier to make the final piece a little more put together and “complete”. The goals of this project were to really start to get a grasp on Adobe Photoshop and InDesign. I think I accomplished both of those, but definitely struggled with Photoshop for a day or two trying to figure it out.
Final Product I learned how simple of a silhouette seal have. Additionally, although they are simple shaped, their bodies are so fluffy and malleable that they can still be contorted in strange ways to make them look goofy. I really enjoyed doing the continuous line media. Although most of them didn’t look very good in the end it was always fun to see how they would turn out and how much they represented the seals. The most challenging media for me was definitely the painting for my master artist. I was not really a fan of mixing the blacks and whites to get different shades to use. I had never used Adobe Photoshop before this so it was definitely confusing and hard to use at first. I think the “clone stamp” tool was super helpful to me and I could see myself using that or something similar in the future. If I continued making more iterations of seals over the next year, I would probably explore more with bigger collages or digital iterations. I think a digital collage would be a cool concept for this project.
PSA Poster
The PSA Poster project was in my opinion the easiest project to complete. It didn’t seem to have the challenges of creating something abstract or completely unique that I felt with the Dot/Line or Iterations project. That being said, I still found the poster to have some challenges. Like the iterations project, I was quite fair behind in class and had little time to make sure my poster was perfect, but I made something I feel confident in and like the results of. The goals of this project were to learn how to handle text in InDesign and create a poster that is effective both close up and further away. I think I met all these goals, even with a simple poster.
Final Product At first, I did find it challenging to be limited to only type, but as I worked through the poster a little bit, I found it to be kinda nice not having to worry about images or anything else that could be in the poster. I think the most unique part of my poster is the outline saying “art sale” 4x all in different directions. there are only two that are oriented in a way that looks “normal” but from those two you can tell what the other two are saying. I thought this was a cool
A r t S a l e r SNC Student, l Alumni, and t Faculty Art Sale a S S Join us Thursday, Nov. 30 a and Friday, Dec. 1st, t 9 AM – 3 PM, Room 100 of the Bush Art Center l r el a S t r A Come by to get original art for you and yours!
All proceeds will support our very own art students and their activities!
For more information, please contact: katie.ries@snc.edu with any questions
orientation of the words and I did my best to make sure there was fairly even negative space on all sides of the outline. I didn’t really play with opacity at all, but I used quite a few different scales in my text and I think the way I used them makes the most sense in terms of the importance of information. I learned how to manipulate text in InDesign mostly, but I also learned the importance of conveying a message from afar and up close. I don’t know how many more times I will need to make a poster in InDesign, but now I feel confident and comfortable doing it again.
Who Designs
Stefan Sagmeister is a renowned name in the world of graphic design and visual communication. He is known for his unconventional and thoughtprovoking work that blurs the lines between art and design. Sagmeister’s ability to seamlessly integrate typography, photography, and other elements into his designs is remarkable. He takes a sabbatical year every seven years to recharge his creative energies and explore new avenues of design. Sagmeister’s designs communicate complex ideas with simplicity and elegance, engaging the viewer on a deeper level. His willingness to take risks and explore new ideas has resulted in unique and unconventional designs that challenge traditional norms. Through his work, he advocates for design that evokes emotions and inspires thought. Sagmeister’s influence extends beyond his design projects, as he also shares his knowledge and experiences with the next generation of designers His work serves as an inspiration to designers, reminding us of the transformative power of creativity and the endless possibilities of design.
I did not select a designer in time for the project, so I was assigned one instead. Although I did not share this post on time, I do not mind sharing information with my classmates. I feel that information is just that, information, so there isn’t really anything to debate or critique or judge. I don’t feel the pressure of sharing a project or a product with peers/ classmates when sharing simple information. If I had to choose one designer to research more I would choose Khoi Vinh. I am very engaged with his work, whether it be the colors, shapes, or sort of comic book look he has in some of his pieces. Although I have a few tattoos and would never really think of his sort of work as a tattoo, when I see it, I feel it would make a super cool tattoo.
Vocational
Are you called to creative work? If so, how do you recognize that calling? If not, to what do you feel called? I do not really feel that I am called to creative work. I think I am a very analytical/statistical thinker and am capable of creative thinking. I don’t think everyone who is an analytical thinker can’t be called to creative work, but I think it definitely hinders the ability. I feel called to help people and make an impact on the lives people live. I take pride and joy in knowing the actions I can and want to take will make people feel safe and secure with the life they are living.
If you were guaranteed it would support you financially, What would you want to design or make for a living I would want to be a high school sports coach and teacher. I think that in high school kids go through a lot of changes and are greatly impacted by the adults in their life and what they experience during that time. As a kid, somebody might experience something and won’t know how to process it but in high school, we have lived enough to react in a way that we CHOOSE. Sports have shaped my life more than anything I have done this far in my life and I would want nothing more than to have some of the same effects on others that my coaches and teammates had on me. I would want to make a difference in the lives of young adults.
Small Notes
Although I did not really end up enjoying much of this class, I find it to be no fault of the professor. I have never taken an art class in high school or college and wanted to take a specific one next semester. Eventually that class got canceled for next semester and what little interest I had in design vanished. I would still like to thank professor Ries for encouraging me throughout my struggles inside and outside of class this semester. You may not have seen or believed it, but I did still try in your class.
This book was made as part of Introduction to Design at St. Norbert College in the fall of 2023. The fonts used include Crobel and Franklin Gothic Book. It was digitally printed and saddle stapled at the college’s print center.