PROCESS BOOK 452
ADVANCED GRAPHIC DESIGN FOUR FIFTY TWO
DEAR SARAH Dear Sarah,
Looking back, I can see how much my struggles have pushed me forward in style and creativity. I remember you telling me that I needed to hit a wall to learn to get over it. I didn’t understand at the time, but that realization has been the biggest part of my growth as a designer. Now, I have learned how to reevaluate my situation and see what changes I need to make when I have backed myself into a corner. The first real struggle I encountered was my childhood obesity project in 351. I spent so much time researching applications for guerillastyle marketing that I neglected to find a strong focus for my project. I ended up scrapping the whole thing and going with a more traditional campaign that really didn’t have much depth. That semester, I realized I wasn’t using all of my resources, especially my classmates, to help me when I was struggling. Sometimes it takes someone else critiquing your work in order to get yourself out of your own head. In the same semester, we had our typography class with Deb. This class was also a huge challenge for me. I picked a focus that I had always found fascinating - heraldry. I thoroughly enjoyed researching and learning about the subject. I was happily surprised that everyone in the class seemed interested in the subject and challenged me to further my research. Again, as it got down to crunch time, I scrapped a fully designed book and redesigned it. Though it was a stressful couple of weeks, I was able to cut a lot of “fat” and make the book more interesting. The next semester I took on four design classes and barely lived to tell about it. Can’s class was extremely interesting, we learned about the “just-in-time” process as well as the idea of repackaging and
reinventing other people’s work. The class was hard to grasp, but the struggle to produce something I found interesting was rewarding. If I had to describe the class, I would say it was confusing, fun, cryptic, and probably one of my favorite classes at UT. I learned to make the struggle of creating fun. Chris Pullman’s workshop is still at the top of my list of favorite projects. It isn’t even that I love my final piece, it was learning from a great, humble, and interesting designer with years of experience. Chris found the sparks of creativity that most of us originally missed. There was not a single bad project out of our workshop. Instead of scrapping entire ideas, he gleamed parts of them and helped us to expand them into our final pieces. This was also an awesome way for our entire class to get to know each other. More recently, my LivingLight internship gave me a new perspective on telecommuting and working by myself. (I think I am going to steer clear of freelancing for a while.) I did like the aspect of having a client and being able to produce exactly what they wanted in a small amount of time. I had to learn how to quickly evolve and produce ideas. I also learned about the woes of working with people outside of my field of study. (Engineers do not care about the way something looks as long as it works.) It was a great experience to learn more web design and to work directly with clients. Last semester was a trying semester. Our branding projects were a lot harder than I think any of us thought they were going to be. I was quick to develop a logo and overall feel, but I was very slow to create an actual brand. Throughout the project I always thought about how this kind of project would work in a design agency. The marketing aspect of
the assignment was the hardest to come to terms with. I think I would have been able to make something if I had already had the company’s history, target audience and a couple other people to collaborate with. I do realize we are put in these situations to help strengthen ourselves as designers and problem solvers, but nothing about that project was easy. In the end, Hatchet (my company) was only a part of what I originally wanted to do with the project. That all being said, the best way I have been motivated to produce good work is through multiple deadlines where I have to show progress. When I am given three deadlines for an entire semester, it seems daunting. Making my own deadlines has worked in the past, but because they weren’t concrete I tended to take them a bit more laxly than I should have. Another major portion of my growing has been people telling me when I am over-thinking, over-simplifying or just plain being dumb. I have come to realize the way I form great ideas is by discussing them with those around me. By branching out of my ridiculously narrow idea of what design is, my classmates, teachers and friends have helped me to become a stronger individual. Now that I have probably written too much, I have to say looking back on my progress is sometimes unbelievable. Not to say I am the next amazing designer, but a few years ago I wouldn’t have thought I would be making the work I am today. I can only hope I feel the same way ten years from now. Sincerely, Taylor Dudney
FIRST IDEA
I have always had a fascination with heraldry and family/self identifying marks. Today we are not extremely interested in what family you came from, but people do seem interested in setting themselves apart. The idea is to look at how people set out to make their own identity in our culture without having the systems of heraldry. I am not sure about the final application but maybe, a new system of identity which could include a guide and prints as examples.
SECOND IDEA
SOPA (Stop Internet Piracy Act) has been a huge subject on the Internet. The idea of policing the online community is not exactly a popular idea. My idea is to assume that SOPA passes and the Internet has finally come to an end. How would our society get along without it? A survival kit of course! The idea would be to supply a user with all they need to survive in a world without the internet. Things like, prozac and pen and paper.
ONLINE CHAT WITH A NONDESIGNER
+ Observation Our society is too dependent on the internet for social interaction. + Argument/Proposition Without the internet, people would cease to function in society. + What Research back up your claim? Basically, what I have found is that as we move more and more into the digital realm, some loose grips on reality. We have become a ridiculous society who pays more attention to our phones than the people around us. + Audience The majority of the U.S. population/ people who use the internet for an average of 2 hour per day. + Audience Value - How to learn and act in the absence of the internet. + What is your intention with the outcome? delight + Definition of any key terms used above. • Internet: a vast computer network linking smaller computer networks worldwide Social relation or social interaction refers to a
relationship between two, three or more individuals Social relations, derived from individual agency, form the basis of the social structure. + What expert have/will you be speaking with+why+when? • Amy J. Elias (UT professor) taught an English class about virtual reality and ethics + Precedents I have not found many survival guides for the internet apocalypse, but I have found a few apocalypse and survival books. •”How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It: Tactics, Techniques, and Technologies for Uncertain Times” •”The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead”
DEATH OF THE INTERNET In order to obtain ideas and content for my survival guide, I decided to make an online survey. I asked people to share what they would need to learn or relearn in the absense of the Internet and tech. 36 people answered my survey and I was able to use a lot of the answers for my book.
INSPIRATION
THE START OF AN INTERNET SURVIVAL GUIDE
One style of illustration I was trying was to draw or trace an Internet meme or character and live trace them with illustrator. I quickly found that there just wasn’t enough contrast.
MIDTERM BOOK
TYPE CHOICES Archer abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ 0123456789 Palatino abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ 0123456789
MIDTERM FEEDBACK
- Does the tone need to be more satire? - Timeline of when and how the Internet is used. (During the day) - Refine your audience (less general) - How will they get this? How will they share? Should each package get a certain number of guides? - How can people “like stuff in this new reality? Bring meaning back to the word.“welcome to the real world where no one cares if you like something”. - Packaging? - “Break glass in case of 404” - Some kind of stencil to tag. - Interaction with books as webpages.
Mid term brought new questions and new ideas to my project. Spring break was a good time to relax and reflect on my project and where I wanted to take it. After my break, I decided to keep my content but scrap my illustrations. I was a lot happier with my new direction. But it was time to get some stuff done!
INSPIRATION
FINAL BOOK
TYPE CHOICES TUNGSTEN abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ 0123456789 Archer abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ 0123456789
FINAL Project Brief : 404 A Survival Guide OBSERVATION ARGUMENT RESEARCH
Society is too dependent on the internet for social interaction.
If the internet disappeared, generations of people would be mentally and physically unable to function in society.
• The Center for Internet Addiction- http://www.netaddiction.com/ Internet Addiction Clinics are popping up all over the world to help addicts seek help in a safe environment. This site has lists of signs and symptoms of internet addiction as well as a few tests. • Internet Usage Statistics for US - http://www.internetworldstats.htm/ This site has statistics about internet usage around the world.
FINAL FORM
• The Atlantic Magazine - Is Google Making Us Stupid?. The Atlantic is a magazine with a long history of making literary and cultural commentary about society as a whole. This article was written to show how dependent our culture has become on websites like Google and Facebook. It is very well written and very thought provoking.
The final form of this project is a printed satirical survival guide for an internet apocalypse in the not so distant future.
AUDIENCE VALUE EXPECTED OUTCOME DEFINITIONS
The target audience are internet users age 18–50 who spend 2 or more hours a day online. Learning to function as a human in the absense of the internet.
Delight
• Internet: a vast computer network linking smaller computer networks worldwide. • Society: a social relation or social interaction refers to a relationship between two (i.e. a dyad), three (i.e. a triad) or more individuals (e.g. a social group). Social relations, derived from individual agency, form the basis of the social structure.
PRECEDENTS
• “Keller’s Outdoor Survival Guide: How to Prevail When Lost, Stranded, or Injured in the Wilderness” This guide is used by the Boy Scouts organization to help prepare for extreme situations. This book is meant to be a literal life saver. • ”The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead” A look at how one would survive in the wake of a Zombie apocalypse. Though the book is fictional, they present arguments backed up by zombie folklore as well as historical events.
• ”Just In Case” by MENOSUNOCEROUNO This project was made anticipating the end of the world. The idea was to have a survival kit “just in case” the world decided to end and you found yourself withought the basics like; water, pen and paper, matches, chocolate and alcohol.
VALUE TO THE DESIGN COMMUNITY
It is extremely easy to find your identity and self worth on the interent and designers are some of the worst offenders when it comes to spending too long on their computers. Treating normal to advanced users as fullon addicts is meant to awaken a part of their brain that thinks its normal to spend so much time on something that could be hindering them as a creative or a general human.
FINAL FEEDBACK
PHOTO BY SIMON SOK
- Self publishing as potential market. Amazon for example - Holiday or Graduation Gift - Inexpensive paperback ~ $10 - College Bookstores - Strong Sense of Audience - Satire working well - Self Publishing could lead to distributors - Maybe share on Facebook (irony)
A WEBSITE TO SHOWCASE OUR CLASS’S TALENTS
WEBSITE INSPIRATION
My first few itteractions we made with the idea of having a single page with a single container to hold each person’s work. Each of the black rectangles would hold
a person’s name and each you would be clickable.
The person’s work would be held within the container and you would be able to cycle through. There would be a place for information about the person
and their work. Past years have had anywhere from three to five images per person and we aimed to have the same.
This is another comp of my original idea. I used “happier� colors that were a little more popular. Like the previous comp, the orange rectangles would have
had a hover state to show the person, as well as a clicked state for showing their work.
Though the container was a bit awkward on this page, I thought I might be able to tweak it if it were chosen.
My other comp was much better received by the class. The idea was to make a multipaged site that would highlight each individual classmate.
The front page would reflect the invitations to our show. Using custom lettering created by Simon Sok, Bitsy Conde and Amy Price.
Each “card” or cantainer would show a picture of the classmate and also a mini description of their work and person. We used a grey and orange pallet.
When you clicked on the card of an individual classmate, a plugin called “fancybox” would allow the viewer to click through the individual’s work.
PARALLAX
Parallax scrolling is a special scrolling technique in computer graphics, wherein background images move by the camera slower than foreground images, creating an illusion of depth in a 2D video game and adding to the immersion. The technique grew out of the multiplane camera technique used in traditional animation since the 1940s, and was popularized in the 1982 arcade game Moon Patrol. Recently Prallax was inplemented in webdesign, using jquery to control each layer and it’s speed.
FRANK CHIMERO
frankchimero.com
soleil noir
www.soleilnoir.net/believein
FRANK CHIMERO
makingconnectionseveryday.com
http://art.utk.edu/graphic_design/gallery/sshow12/
OUR FINAL YEAR HAS COME AND GONE, NOW LETS GET OUT THERE AND KICK SOME ASS!
TAYLOR DUDNEY SPRING 2012