Starting From Scratch
A Process Book by Scarlett Suhrer Introduction to Design Fall 2015
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Table of Contents A Note From the Author......................................................................7 D*School Crash Course.......................................................................8 Dot and Line......................................................................................10 Expressive Text.................................................................................14 Continuous Line................................................................................22 Object Iterations................................................................................23 Designer Presentation.......................................................................30 Collaborative Children’s Book..........................................................32 Design and Vocation.........................................................................40
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This process book is a collection of the projects I created throughout the 2015 fall semester of Introduction to Design at St. Norbert College under the instruction of Katie Ries and Don Krumpos. This class was designed to further students’ understanding and appreciation for visual communication through physical and digital mediums, taught us how to effectively use the elements and principles of design, and enhanced our problem-solving capabilities through our design work. I took this class to rediscover my love to create, and I do feel like that I have made progress. This course was challenging, fast-paced, and a bit stressful at times, but it was also very enjoyable and reaffirming for me as an artist.
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D*School Crash Course For our very first design endeavor, we were partnered with a classmate and given the task of redesigning the gift-giving experience for one another. We needed to interview eachother, analyse this data to create five ideas, reiterate the best of those ideas, and make a prototype for the gift in under an hour. My partner and I were equally anxious about this assignment, but I was surprised by how we were able to work together to help each other create our prototypes. It is always difficult for me to show my work to others, but it was very helpful to get my partner’s feedback on what worked and what needed to be improved upon throughout the process. Having insight to their personal preferences for the project was the key to designing a prototype that would work well for them. I didn’t really enjoy the time crunch we were given, but I am also the type of person who needs to work under a time constraint sometimes in order to produce my work.
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I have applied a similar method to my own work when I have worked on large art projects in the past (gathering information, creating initial designs, getting feedback, etc). I do think that this type of process can be applied for other projects, like research papers, and it can definitely be beneficial for a lot people. There is no one process that works for everyone, but it is a good start for people to work out their own process that works best for them.
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Dot and Line For our second project, we were tasked with creating minimalistic abstract compostitions to excerise our knowledge of scale, line, value, and visual hierarchy to convey the meaning or emotion of a single word through only dots and lines. For my project, I chose the words “joy”, “fear”, “freedom”, and “chaos”. Our main point of influence was gestalt theory, which states that people tend to observe the whole of a work before they distinguish its individual components. As such, I created work while keeping in mind how the overall composition was going to be interpreted or understood by the viewer before the viewer started to investigate the finer details of the piece.
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In the early stages of this assignment, we made 20 practice swatches for the words we chose to work with and interpreted each word in five different ways using various combinations of dots and lines.
This project reminded me that there are many ways to use visual abstraction to illustrate concepts. It was fairly difficult for me to represent the ideas that I chose because I was not confident in my ability to convey concepts without the aid of more detailed visual information. This project was definitely a good exercise for me, though, and I plan to use gestalt theory in future projects to improve upon the initial impact of my work. It was also a little difficult to get excited about this project because I did feel hindered by the limitations, but it was still a good learning experience, and now that I do have this experience it will be much easier when I work on simplistic abstraction in the future.
The second step for this project was to reiterate our previous swatches based upon feedback from our classmates. For each word we chose the best swatch and then created five new iterations to further push the concept we had created.
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Joy
This project was pretty quickly paced - we had a total of about 12 days to complete it from the initial sketches to the finsihed products. I was a little anxious about this because I prefer to take my time and render everything to the best of my ability before moving on to the next step of a project. Another challenging aspect was crafting our final iterations. In theory, it is not too difficult for me to produce “well crafted� work, but when put into practice it can take me a long time to produce the quality I expect from myself. While I was able to successfully and neatly complete my four final iterations, I can still see areas that can be improved upon.
Chaos
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Fear
My two most successful iterations were those for ‘fear” and “freedom”. For the former I was able to create strong negative space, and the central white allignment emphasized the focus on the gray dot in the middle of the paper. For “freedom”, I accentuated a sense of movement between the gray dots with the angles of the thick black lines.
Freedom
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Expressive Text The objective for this project was to experiment with hand lettering and typography through creating multiple iterations of a single word. We began by practicing our own hand lettering and learning how typeset and presentation can affect the meaning of a word, and how even subtle changes - such as the addition or subtraction of serrifs - can greatly impact how the word is received by the viewer.
Before I started my iterations for “beam�, I created a mind map to help trace out my thoughts.
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Hand Lettering
Using my mind map as a reference, I began to create various hand lettered representations of my word; I created around fifty drafts altogether.
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I played around with many different fonts I created inspired off of other fonts I had seen before online.
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Not every version of my word was successful, but there were some concepts that I ended up combining for my final products. For example, I took the concept of white on black and created a stencil to shine a light through for one of my final iterations.
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Final Products After we recieved feedback on our sketches, we began to create the four final versions of our word. While nothing in particular surprised me about this project, I did find it very difficult to follow through with some of my initial ideas, so I had to alter or combine them in different ways to make them work. For my final iterations, I tried to convey the meaning of my word, “beam�, in different ways with each piece. I would like to try more typography in the future, in particular creating whole images from words. I have done this for projects in the past, but I would like to try to explore it again with more difficult images. I would also like to try more perspective-challenging typefaces for single words.
For this piece, I created a stencil for a crescent moon inspired font I made and filled in the stencil with white spray paint atop a black background to evoke the glow of moonbeams.
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For this version, I used a bouncy cursive font written in black ink to illustrate the sense of joy in someone who is "beaming" with happiness. This iteration was the most difficult for me to complete; it was a very long process and there were many failed attempts to get the font equal in height and distance. Additionally, even if I was able to write the word as I wanted, after the ink dried I would notice that some areas had more ink than others, so the color was not uniform. While only a minor issue for the physical version, I was able to clean this up very easily by adjusting the curves of the piece in Photoshop.
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For this version, I used a block font and enlarged it from left to right to give the allusion of a beam of light.
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For the final piece I created, I made another stencil in a bold typeface and photographed light shining through it onto a blank wall.
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Continuous Line To lead into our next project of Object Iterations, we spent a day in class practicing different forms of continuous line drawings. A continuous line drawing is when the artist does not lift their drawing utensil from their paper while they are drawing. For me, this has always been a very relaxing way to draw, and I often draw continuous contours when I am warming up to draw for the day. In class we practiced blind contours, in which one keeps their gaze on the subject and does not look at their paper at all while they draw; modifided blind contours, in which one still focuses on the subject and can only draw while they are looking at the subject, but one can also glance at their canvas to see their progress if they stop drawing while they glance down; and continuous contours, in which the artist may freely draw while glancing between the subject and the canvas, but they still may not lift their drawing utensil at any time.
Blind Contour
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Continuous Contour
Object Iterations This was my favorite project I worked on all semseter. We chose a single subject (an object or an animal) to study and then focused on creating as many clear and interesting iterations of that subject as possible. The iterations needed to be in grayscale, and the top 6 (or more) were then coallated into one poster for presentation. For this project I chose the kiwi bird of New Zealand as all five species of kiwi are endangered; this could develop into a bigger project in the future to raise awareness about the endangerment of these tiny birds. We started our iterations by creating various contour drawings of our subject. Since contour drawing is something I enjoy and takes very little time, I drew about 18 total variations using multiple image references. These contours were also my favorite part of this project; I have always liked contour images because they are very charming and have the ability to convey a surprising amount of emotion.
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Master Artists Upon completing out contour iterations, we moved onto creating iterations using inspiration from two master artists; I chose Yayoi Kusama and Wangechi Mutu. I was already familiar with Kusama’s work, so I was very excited to create an iteration of my kiwi using her installation work as a source of influence. I was not familiar with Mutu’s art prior to this project, but upon researching her work I fell in love instantly. Mutu utilizes vibrant colors and imagery for her mix-media collages, which tend to be very large. Since our iterations for this projected were limited to gray-scale, I used old magazines for the body of my kiwi and watered down ink to create the background.
Yayoi Kusama
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Wangechi Mutu
Yayoi Kusama
“I Who Have Arrived in Heaven”
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Wangechi Mutu
Untitled Mixed Media Collage
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Collage The most challenging medium for me was collage. It was hard for me to come up with combinations that emphasized abstraction while still holding the “kiwi-ness� of the piece.
Typographic Collage
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Final Poster For our final poster, we scanned all of our iterations to enhance them digitally on Photoshop. I have used Photoshop and other image programs in the past, but it was a little frustrating to adapt to Photoshop’s layout again. As the bulk of the work was completed, I only need to adjust the curves of the iterations I picked. Following the in-process critique for the poster, I played around with outlines for my images and inverted two of my iterations to create greater contrast and interest across the whole image. I think that this presentation of my iterations definitely amplified my work. The poster emphasized a variety of mediums and ideas, and I did my best to arrange my work so there was a balance between values. I think the most successful aspect was the inclusion of the contour iterations; during critique someone mentioned that they helped bring an organic element to the poster, which is exaclty what I wanted. If I were able to continue with my kiwi iterations, I would try sculpture, short animations, and utilize more “unconventional� tools and 3D methods to create more interesting pieces.
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Designer Presentation
Before going full-swing into the next project, we chose a professional designer to research and present to the class. I created a short presentation on Alice Wellinger, a designer from Austria who specializes in illustrations for editorials. It was very difficult for me to find any articles about Welligner, and when I did they were in German, so I had to rely mostly on her website and my own interpretations of her art. I was really drawn to the conceptual aspects behind Wellinger’s artwork. She chooses many difficult and sometimes controversial topics - such as egg donation and mental health - to discuss, and she presents them in a way that is simultaneously figurative and literal. I also admire her use of color and abstraction. Our presentations needed to be presented pechakucha style, meaning we discussed 20 slides for 20 seconds each. The pechakucha style of presenting wasn’t particularly difficult, but I personally have always had a very difficult time doing any type of public speaking because of my anxiety. I love sharing information with others, especially when it is something I am passionate about, but even talking to a small group of people is very difficult for me. If I could present this again, I would add a few more things to say during my presentation so there is no more than one or two seconds of silence between each slide.
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Editorial Illustrations
"Mommy-Burnout: Juggling With Too Many Tasks"
"Prenatal Diagnosis and the Impact on the Situation of Disabled People in Society"
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Collaborative Children’s Book For our final project, we were partnered with students from another class who wrote a children’s book that we were responsible for designing and illustrating. We actually began this project at the beginning of the semeseter, but that was so we would have ample time to meet with our partners and go through the planning stages of our project over several weeks. While this was the longest project, it was also the most satisfying to complete. My partner, Megan Curi, wanted to create a children’s recipe book which was later entitled “Makin’ it Sweet!”. Megan was initially very vague about how she wanted the book to look, so I had a lot of creative freedom when I was brainstorming the layout of the book. My main source of inspiration for this project were the illustrations of E.H. Shepard, the illustrator of the original Winnie-the-Pooh books. His illustrations fade into the pages of the book, and I tried to a achieve a similar style with digital coloring and transparent layers. I was surprised by how supportive Megan was when it came to my art and design decisions. I thought that I would need to refine my illustrations and layout choices more, but she were very fond of my initial designs and the art style I chose. She helped with initial planning and gave me feedback throughout the process. I sent her in-progress jpegs of illustrations and later PDFs of the book as I worked so that I could get her immediate feedback and tweak my work as needed.
E.H. Shepard Illustrations
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The Process
These are some of my initial layout plans. I structured them this way so that I could easily see how I wanted the book to flow and I could move around images and jot down ideas very easily.
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Rough llustrations
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Step by Step Thumbnail
llustration
Digital Coloring
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The most challenging parts for me during this project were creating the illustrations and coloring them digitally. I started by making several thumbnails for each image, then I created the final illustrations based off of those thumbnails. It took me several attempts to make each illustration before I was satisfied with the outcome. It was also hard for me to use a mouse instead of a tablet and pen when coloring in Photoshop. It took nearly two hours for me to color each of the larger illustrations that included the little girl, but once I became more comfortable with the mouse I was able to color the smaller illustrations and individual objects much faster. If I were to do this project again, I would include more detailed illustrations to use for transitional pages, but overall I am content with the final version of the book.
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Excerpts From the Completed Book
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Design and Vocation Are you called to do creative work? How do you recognize this calling? I can remember taking drawing seriously as early as first grade, and around the age of ten I started to recognize where I was improving in my drawing as well as the areas that needed more work; since then I have never been without some kind of sketchbook at all times. When I was around twelve or thirteen, my best friend and I began making a comic together that we would work on periodically for the following 4 years. We would write the story together, then she would create storyboards and I would make rough layouts and the final illustrations; she colored them digitally. In high school I began building my first art portfolio, but it was also during this time that I began to falter in the confidence I once had in my art, and while I do still want to do creative work, I am also still struggling to continue pursuing it. What is the difference between a good life and a significant life? In my opinion, a good life is one in which you are comfortable with where you are, who you are, what you are doing, etc. A significant life has the same qualities as a good life, but those qualities are pushed farther. I think that a significant life is one in which you are able to positively affect the world around you, whether that means curing an illness or helping a friend through difficult times. Having a significant life does not mean you have to be the best at one or multiple careers, change the world or have your name immortalized in history, but I do think it entails being a positive influence for others. If you were gauranteed it would support you financially, what would you want to design or make for a living? I am still unsure of what I want to do as a career after college, but I think part of me will always want to create either a graphic novel or an animated television show. Animation is especially brimming with potential and it is used to break barriers and progress with society, and it is able to reach millions of people from every walk of life. I would love to be able to follow the path of Bryan Konietzko and Michael DiMartino (Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra) and Rebecca Sugar (Steven Universe) and create a progressive, beautifully animated show that has a well developed story and characters that challenge norms in the animation industry.
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What distinguishes art from design? If you have to pick a side, which to you choose? To me, the term “art” covers a very broad spectrum - from painting and sculpture to writing and life itself- whereas design is a particular type of art. Design focuses on intent and organization; it’s a form of problem solving. While I do enjoy design very much, I would have to choose art over design. Most of the time when I create, I am not doing it to solve a problem or with a particular intent other than self-indulgence. What is the greatest failure that you have experienced? The greatest failure I experienced was when I submitted my art portfolio for AP Studio Art my senior year of high school. High school was a difficult time for many reasons and I struggled a lot, especially with my art, but I spent three years working to build my first art portfolio for submission. While I did not fail the submission, I just barely grazed by, and it completely devastated me. Of all of the AP exams and whatnot I had to take that year, I had the most confidence in my art submission, and that turned out to be the lowest score I received. Since it was all original work, I internalized it a lot and I was honestly ready to burn all of my art; I did not draw for nine months afterwards. Starting around January 2015, I slowly began to sketch again, but it was very little and far between each attempt. When that summer began, I set a goal for myself to draw as much as possible, and then in July I decided to make myself draw everyday, and I was able to stick with it for about a month. I haven’t been as good at keeping up with that since classes started, but I am drawing regularly now. I still struggle a lot with my art, but I’m digging my way out of the hole I’ve been in at a steady pace now. What is something that you have made in the last two years that you are proud of? Even though it caused me a lot of emotional strain, I am proud of my high school art portfolio. I spent three years building it, and countless hours and sleepless nights on each individual project, including the tens of others that were not selected for the final portfolio, and I grew and learned a lot during that process. I honestly never want to go through that again, but I do not regret it, either. And, after I finish my time at SNC, I will be able to look back to compare and see how far I have come in my art since 2014.
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This book was created as part of Introduction to Design in the fall of 2015 at St. Norbert College. It is typeset in Georgia and Chalkduster.