I CAN DO HARD THINGS! By Maddie Martin Introduction to Design ART 130, Fall 2023 St. Norbert College
This book is dedicated to Jo Nakashima and his origami penguin tutorial on YouTube. Real one since the start.
Are you called to creative work? If so, how do you recognize that calling? If not, to what do you feel called? I like to think that I am called to creative work. I’ve never necessarily been super interested in or good at design or handcrafted art, but I think my creativity manifests in different ways. I have always been very into music; I played piano for many years as well as the trumpet throughout middle and high school. At the moment, I don’t have an instrument that I am currently practicing, and I have been itching to pick up something new. Music is an outlet that I have always loved, so not having that outlet has been tough. As an English major, I’ve also always loved writing. I was very much into creative and fiction writing throughout most of my teenage years, I loved creating worlds and characters and getting to explore them, even if my projects never went anywhere. Towards the end of high school and beginning of college, I started drifting away from creative writing, and I kind of forgot how much I loved it. Recently, I started writing a new project and have been having so much fun. So even though I’m not the most artistically inclined, there are other ways that my creativity manifests itself.
What’s something you’ve made in the last two years that you’re proud of? During the pandemic, I got very into wood painting, specifically birdhouses and other wooden trinkets. I found the process of painting the birdhouses very calming, even though I’m not usually an “arts and crafts” person. I liked picking out the colors and painting little designs on each of the wooden trinkets. I don’t do it as much as I used to, but every once in a while, if I’m bored, I will pull out my paints. I used mostly acrylic paint, so it was very forgiving and I was able to paint over anything I didn’t like. I am proud of these pieces because I think they actually turned out looking really good, and I had a lot of fun making them.
Crash Course The Crash Course project helped us to get into the mindset of a designer, and get us used to working at a quick pace. The goal of the project was to interview our partner, help them identify an issue in their life that needed a solution, and then design a product that would help solve the problem. We worked in very quick cycles, which forced us to generate ideas rather quickly. This project also made us get comfortable with feedback, and adjusting to that feedback. After each part of the process we shared our ideas with our partner, and then revised our work based on what they said. Ultimately, we had a few minutes to come up with a prototype design using the materials in the classroom. We then got feedback on that design, and documented ways we could improve the product if we were to work on it more.
This exercise was definitely more fast paced than I am used to. I tend to sit and overthink for a long time before I actually do any work. This exercise forced me out of my comfort zone but I think that is a good thing.
If I had to do this exercise differently I would be in the mindset of product design from the beginning. I’m not sure why but I wasn’t really thinking about that aspect until later in the process so I had to scramble to come up with a product. I’m happy with what I came up with but I’d like to see what I could’ve done if I was thinking about it for longer.
My prototype was definitely impacted by having to show it to another person. If I had been the only one who would see it, I maybe would have just drawn on certain elements because I know their function. But because I was showing it to someone else , I felt I should come up with a quick way to represent certain aspects of the design beyond just a quick drawing.
The Dot/Line project introduced us to the principles of Gestalt, as well as familiarized us with abstraction. We were to pick three words from a provided list and create three compositions representing each work using only dots and lines. This project was specifically designed to move quickly in order to get us comfortable with imperfection, as well as generating multiple ideas, rather than focusing on only one. We first created multiple thumbnails, which we then took the strongest components of each to turn into three larger compositions. We were also encouraged to focus on how the compositions worked as an abstraction of our chosen word, that is, they don’t rely on illustrations to get the idea across.
Dot/Line
It was pretty difficult for me at first to make the “well-crafted” version of my compositions because a lot of the work felt really tedious. Especially because the concept was so abstract I felt like I had to place everything exactly right to convey what I wanted. Overall, I think for a project like this it’s really important to spend the time to get the details right because of how tedious it is, if anything is off it becomes pretty obvious. I think in other projects, though, I might lean more towards doing it quickly because I think the lack of a “finishing touch” could be really interesting in certain pieces.
There were definitely some words that were more difficult than others. For example, I initially picked out Joy as one of my three words, but ended up going with Scarcity instead because I just couldn’t find anything I was happy with for Joy. Others I didn’t struggle with as much, such as Terror, as there are concepts that are inherently terrifying, but that don’t necessarily have to correlate with a certain image or situation to still be scary.
During the thumbnail stage, I was still planning on working with the word Joy. I eventually switched to Scarcity. These sketches from my book include a few of my ideas I didn’t end up going with.
I really started to understand abstraction during our critiques, as the strongest compositions, in my opinion, were the ones that were still successful, despite everyone having different interpretations. Basically, this project showed me that a project can still be successful even if someone views your work completely different from what you had in mind- in fact that might make it even better.
Comfort
Scarcity
Terror Put simply, Gestalt is how we see the whole of a piece before we distinguish individual elements or relationships. I think these principles really applied to the project as we had to choose a word (that would eventually be the “whole” meaning of the project) and then play around with simple figures like dots and lines to make the individual components. I think the Gestalt principles became really clear in our critique sessions because while we were paying attention to individual details, most of our comments ended with how these details did/did not coincide with the overall piece/goal. I think that it’s important to keep in mind that people are going to recognize the whole before they recognize individual parts, if they even look that closely to begin with. So I think in the future I will keep in mind that while it’s good to look closely and be thorough with the details in your work, many people will only notice the whole picture. So even if I can’t seem to get one small part right, as long as the overall project is successful, that might be okay.
Letter Forms The Letterforms project mainly focused on (shocking) letters! We were to choose a word to print using the letters we carved as a class. We learned how things like negative space, leading, and kerning could affect the meaning of our word. There were four different compositions we had to make, including a straight print, which was just the word printed legibly. We also were to make a composition with a typographic variation, so messing with things like kerning, leading, or the content of the letters. For the third composition we had to modify the letters in some way, like cutting them out or messing with the scanner. For the fourth composition we could do whatever we wanted. The goal of this project was to learn how to work with or change the content or meaning of the word without using illustrations.
Working with the letterforms was definitely more tedious than I would have imagined. It was very cool to see the different ways you could manipulate the work both with the ink (things like kerning, leading, etc.) and with the photocopier. The process of printing the letters was definitely a learning process, as you really had to be precise and focused if you wanted the letters to show up where/how you wanted. I also learned, by looking at all of the finished projects at critique, a word can take on as much (if not more) meaning if it is manipulated.
If I had to work on this project further, I think I would come up with some more compositions that involve outside elements and photography. Only one of my compositions ended up being photographed (the lamp one), but I really liked how that one turned out and I think I could come up with more cool ideas if I kept working with the letters. I also enjoyed printing the letters, so I think I would just keep trying to come up with more cool ways to print the word.
I really liked a lot of my rough drafts, and it was hard to choose the finals. These are a few of my favorites that didn’t make it to final critique.
Straight Print
Typographic Variation
Modification Variation
Choice Variation
For the Iterative Illustrations project we were to choose an animal or object that we wanted to represent through various forms of media. This project introduced us to multiple different art styles, and urged us to push past cliche representations of our chosen animal. We had to create two collage pieces, one traditional and the other made up of type. We also had to choose two “master artists” and try to imitate their style. We also learned how to make a continuous line drawing, that is, you draw the subject without lifting the pen at all. Finally, we had to create a geometric iteration where our subject was made completely of shapes. We also had the option to make an origami composition for our geometric iteration. We had to become familiar enough with our subject to represent them without relying on cliche.
Iterative Illustrations
I learned that both the male and female chinstrap penguins incubate the eggs, which I discovered because of the abundance of pictures I came across when looking for models of them doing this exact thing. Luckily, there were still plenty of dynamic poses for me to reference. I also was surprised to learn that the chinstrap penguin is one of the more aggressive breeds of penguins. I wouldn’t have guessed this based on their funny appearance.
I think the curves tool is really handy when it comes to playing with the contrast of a picture. I felt that a lot of my iterations came to life when I messed with the contrast, and brought out certain parts that would’ve been lost otherwise.
Rough Draft Collage
Rough Typographic Draft I found the geometric iteration, or in my case the origami iteration, to be the most difficult. This was definitely enhanced by the fact that I didn’t have actual origami paper, so folding became pretty difficult. I’m happy with the end product, but the process of making it wasn’t fun. I really liked making my Keith Haring rendition. I’ve always enjoyed his art, so trying to replicate his style was fun, and I found it a bit relaxing.
I think doing a sculpturetype iteration may be fun. Chinstrap penguins build their nests out of stone, so I think playing with that idea might be interesting. I think it would be cool to do a 3D iteration, just to see it from all angles.
Rough Draft Collage
Rough Draft Collage
In-Process Version
Final Version
PSA Poster The PSA Poster project asked us to be both the client and designer. We first had to choose a topic we cared about and write a creative brief on it, describing what we wanted to see on the PSA poster. We then gave that brief to our partner who was responsible for designing the poster. We were then asked to take on the role of the designer and create a poster based on the creative brief we received from our partner. We had to establish visual hierarchy with the material we were given, and figure out the most effective way to present the information. We had to be in contact with our partner throughout the whole process and communicate with them about the choices we were making.
I thought it was very challenging being limited to type only. There were many times I found myself wanting to put some type of illustration, even if it was simple, just to make the poster more exciting. Eventually I realized that I could achieve something I was happy with, even if it was just type. I ultimately think that had I been able to include pictures or illustrations, it would have been too much, and taken away from the overall poster.
I mainly used scale to establish a hierarchy. I made the things that were most important, or were supposed to grab people’s attention the biggest, and then made the more specific information smaller. I ended up adjusting where the contact information was, and how big it was, because I think that information was getting lost in my original poster. I played with the opacity a little bit, just to keep the poster visually interesting, because it was a lot of information.
I definitely learned how to fit a lot of information into a confined space. When I saw how much text I had to include, I was super intimidated at first. Even though it was frustrating at times, I think I was able to work with the sizing and spacing enough that it all fit together well.
After we received the text from out partner, we had to make a few sketches of our ideas. I found it difficult to come up with this many ideas due to the fact that we were limited to text only.
In-Process Version
Final Version
When I was deciding what minor I wanted to pick up, the decision came down to graphic design or communications. My instinct was to go with communications, as that is something I am comfortable with and knew I would be good at. After a discussion with my advisor and some self-reflection, though, I decided to go with graphic design, despite the fact that I didn’t have any previous experience, and have never been particularly called to art. I have a tendency to shy away from things that I think are going to be difficult, or that I’m not going to be good at, so taking on the minor was a big step for me. I told myself that if I could find art calming and comforting when it came to the birdhouses, maybe I could find that same comfort with graphic design, even if I wasn’t the best at it. So far this class has pushed me to explore art and design in ways I haven't before. It’s been tough for me, as I expected, but there's been a sense of accomplishment I’ve found in the creative process. Ultimately, while it was scary at first, I’m glad I’ve picked up the graphic design minor.
This book was made as part of Introduction to Design at St. Norbert College in the fall of 2023. The fonts used include Engravers MT and High Tower Text. It was digitally printed and saddle stapled at the college’s print center.