Thursday, December 4, 2008

FINAL PROJECTS OF 2008!

wow... im done with design for 2008! Feels weird... All I have left to do is sophomore review. That should be cool, seeing everyones stuff, hopefully Ill post photos on here.

Imaging
07- Historizin
We had to pick a moment in history and create a collage to represent that event. I chose the Titanic, and more specifically, the Glory Days of the Titanic. I wanted to stay away from the actual sinking of the titanic, because thats all anyone talks about or thinks about the titanic. Also, I thought the irony would be strong because everyone knows what happened to the titanic, its not like you really need to spell it out. Our collages had to have many different layers.
The first was the Basis, which was basically just a background and a few basis images.
The second was the Minority report (the photos and keys in the upper right hand corner). This layer had to show aspects of the event that arent normally recorded in the history books. So I chose the third class passengers because they didnt really get to see most of the glory of the titanic, they were sort of pushed to the background and forgotten about (and also died).
Third was the Causal layer which had to represent the cause of the event. In my collage this is the illustration of the pocket watch (that i drew in illustrator), and it represents how time goes on, everything has to get bigger and better to keep up, and that is the whole reason the titanic was built.
Fourth was the Effect layer which had to show the effect of our event. The effect of the glory days was that people started to become a little promiscuous on the ship because it was seen as a new world (being on sea) and many moral/cultural rules did not apply. This is represented by the prostitute and the illustrated hand.
Fifth was Mnemonic (no one knows why it was called that because it has nothing to do with what a mnemonic really is), it was supposed to be type somehow represented as a spatial element. We werent allowed to just type in words with the type tool, we had to print the type out, then photograph it, then cut out the letters in photoshop, and then place it onto our document. So i printed mine out and folded it over my desk to create a 3-d illusion and to highlight the word "strength".
Sixth and finally, was the Subtext, which honestly, I dont remember what it was... but my teacher said mine was perfect (the iceberg).
As our final project (It lives!) we had to animate our collage in photoshop, but the blog wont let me post it because its a quicktime movie. Its cool, I wish I could post it.

Type
08- Type Sequence in Space
We were each assigned another students essay they wrote for their Smithsonian posters in studio, and we had to pick a 300 word excerpt and create a typographic book on it. I got the object credit card, and the excerpt I chose was about the invention of the ATM.
I tried to create a sort of contrast between paper money and plastic money with the colors, type, and other aspects. (The green color are off on some of these pictures, the real color is the one in the fourth image.







Studio
05- Experience Book
My last project with my beloved corn, we had to write a short story (aprx. 300 words) about an experience we have had with our object. I chose to write on my experience of moving from Kernersville to Waxhaw, and my first impression of waxhaw (full of corn.) We also had to do it in a maximum of 12 pages, and that was very hard for me to fit it in there, but finally it did fit.







I dont know what to do with my time now...

Poster #2 RE-DO

Studio
03- Smithsonian Posters
This is my poster #2 redo. I changed a bunch of the type, type colors, and took out some stuff. Looks much better now I think.

Monday, November 3, 2008

High in Fructose and Jiffy

Studio
Project 03- Smithsonian Posters
For this project we had to choose two points from our timeline we made and create two posters on those two objects. The posters were to be from the Smithsonian Musuem of American History so we had to incorporate their logo into the poster. The first poster was to advertise an exhibit about the object and was to be posted (hypothetically) at bus stops. So people would be in a rush and wouldnt have time to read a full poster, so it could only have the exhibit name, date, and Smithsonian logo as text. The rest had to work solely by imagery. The purpose of the poster was to get people to come to the exhibit.
The second poster was to be posted in a high school setting and was to be much more informative than the first poster. The purpose of the poster was to inform the audience of what the object in a more full way, and assumes that the person is not coming to see the musuem, so they must get the information through this poster.
Sorry if the text is too small for you to read, these posters are 24"x 36" when printed out. We also had to write a short paper on our concepts so here is my explanation of the poster concepts:

The concept for poster one is that Jiffy Pop was invented in the 1950’s which is when television had become popular and most everyone had one in their home. Televisions were also popular with children and there were many shows, many in the form of cartoons, created just for children. Because of this new audience advertisers quickly jumped up to the occasion and started creating TV commercials with cartoon characters and jingles geared directly towards children. One such product was Jiffy Pop. The commercials for Jiffy Pop often featured cartoon popcorn characters as well as cartoon children. I also found a quote by Erma Bombeck that was very relevant to my concept: “In general my children refuse to eat anything that hasn’t danced on television”. These new television ads with products such as Jiffy Pop changed the way advertising companies marketed their products—not just to the parents who buy the products, but to the child to empower them with the demand for the product. Today, most commercials I see on television seem to be geared towards children. I think Jiffy Pop and other products like it were key players in making the marketing world what it is today. This poster communicates this idea by a cartoon drawing of jiffy pop characters jumping out of a jiffy pop bag from children. There is no television or real children, so the idea is a bit abstract, but I think this works for the audience because the person will see the poster and soak it up quickly since the poster itself is simple, and then as the person is sitting there they will wonder what the meaning of it is and quickly work it out in their head, becoming involved and interested and then going to see the exhibit to cure their curiosity.
side note: I created this in indesign and hand drew all the characters in photoshop with my pen tablet.


The concept for poster two is to clear the air about High Fructose Corn Syrup and present the facts to the reader. The poster explains how HFCS is not any worse nutritionally than table sugar, how HFCS came to get its “bad rap” and why it is false, why manufacturers like to use HFCS and how it is therefore used in a large amount of products, and how HFCS is not the direct cause of obesity. The main message of this poster is that HFCS is not as awful as the rumors make it out to be, but that any sugar in high amounts is bad for your health, and in order to eat less HFCS you must eat less processed foods. Poster two demands the reader to read the information on the poster by starting at the top (the biggest type) and working your way down with the flow of the syrup image. This is much different from poster one because you must study the poster in order to get the full effect, instead of just grasping the idea and thinking about it later. This poster would work best in a nutrition, health class, or even a cafeteria, because it covers the nutritional values and misconceptions of HFCS. I feel this poster would be interesting to high school students because they grew up with their mothers always telling them HFCS is bad for them, but now there are these new commercials from the Corn Refiners Association saying HFCS isn’t bad for you, leading the students to be very confused.
side note: I created this in indesign and created the soda can vector drawing in illustrator.

ps. this will probably be my last post until the end of november/early december because my current projects in type, imaging, and studio arent due until then. Im currently making a collage in imaging, a book in type, and an experience book in studio. Im really excited about all three, and specifically the experience book.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Do you like pancakes?

Type:
Project 07: Azif Factor
For this project we were to find two quotes from a blog entry at the Design Observer blog, one quote from the author of the article, and one quote from a comment on the article. Then we had to design two 18"x18" posters constituting a dialogue between the two posters. One of the posters had to show the Azif factor which is kind of like typography without rules... its sort of a vague term that im not sure how to explain. And then the second poster was to work in a more traditional typographic way. We were also to pick three pantone colors out of the pantone library and those were the only 3 colors we could use. This is definately my favorite type project so far. And im falling more and more in love with type. So these are mine. (Azif is first, traditional is second) Click the pictures and they will enlarge so you can read the quotes. If you dont read the quote you wont get the full effect.




Imaging
Project 06- Rebus
We had to pick a well-known phrase and create that phrase through imagery, like a rebus. Then we had to screenprint that image onto a t-shirt. This project cost a boat load of money, but it was all stuff i had wanted to buy before but could never fork out the money. Turns out the whole class bought the same screen which we were later informed were "craft screens" and wont last us very long. bleh. Im going to ask for a metal one for christmas. To create our rebus we were to find images of what we wanted and then use the pen tool (which i love now) in illustrator to create an outlined image. Then we had to clean our screen, coat it with chemicals, let dry 30 minutes, then coat with thin layer of emulsion (which is light sensitive so this had to be done basically in the dark). Then we stored our screens in a cabinet for 2 hours. Then you place your screen and image (printed on a transparency) on this special light table and it vaccum seals it and then it burns the image onto your screen in the emulsion. Then you rinse off the extra emulsion and let dry for 30 mins. Then you print by squeezing the ink through with a squegee. So i burned my image backwards the first time and had to redo it. I was banging my head on the wall when that happened. But then the rest went fine until i had to print. I only got one perfect shirt out of the 4 i bought. But at least i had a perfect one to turn in for a grade kik. Now that i look back on it, and on everyone elses, i think i definately should have made my lines thicker and it would have printed much better. But we made our images before we were taught/shown how to screen print so i didnt know thin lines would pose a problem. I had screen printed once before but it was the old school way with a screen, a piece of paper, some tape and an exacto blade. Yeah for technology!So anyways, heres my rebus. Im not going to tell you what it is, youll have to figure it out yourself. You can leave a comment if you really cant figure it out, and ill tell you, but 95% of people have gotten it. I mean not to make you feel bad or anything...
This is not my perfect print (its being graded right now) so this one is a little faded at the bottom, but you get the idea. The ink showed up much better on the other shirt.
This is a picture of all the sophomore GDers wearing our rebuses. Of course we would organize ourselves based on colors...

Further Design
First Year Algebra Book (circa 1923)
I found this book at a used book store and knew immediately what to do with it: deface it. I am officially done with math classes for the rest of my life and feat i never thought would come true. For those of you that dont know, math is my greatest nemesis. I hate everything about it. No matter how simple it is. Numbers and i dont mix. So... im covering up all the math in this book with things i think are more delightful. Such as audrey kawasaki drawings. I actually started this about a month ago, but just havent had the time to put it up here. The first drawing is a drawing of one of her paintings, and the second started out as a drawing of one segment of one of her paintings but kind of got exagerated. Its a work in progress, and im sure it will take me a long time to finish it, but my goal is to cover every page. (Theres like 200 or something)

Miscellaneous
So this is my adaptation of another one of Audrey Kawasaki's paintings. (my favorite artist if you havent noticed). I first drew this in my sketch book, then scanned it in and then put it in illustrator and outlined it with the pen tool. It represents the dual sides of my personality-- both the laid-back, care free, artsy side; and the prepared, organized, designer side. I've realized lately that i really am a contradiction in myself. But, i wouldnt have it any other way.

Original kawasaki:

Photography
So i found these photoshop actions online that are awesome and went crazy applying them to some of the photos ive taken recently. These are my favorites.

Little Italy, NY

NY, NY
Sunset at the Tetons in Wyoming.
This one is Pseudo HDR, like HDR photography. Its amazing... (Tetons)
HDR again... i loooove these bacterial mats. I could stare at them all day. My favorite part of yellostone.
Sunset at my grandparents dock in Savannah, Georgia.Retro photography. Waxhaw, NC
Chicken house in Waxhw, NC. (11,000 chicks)

Life outside design:
Sushi-- er... shrimp wontons.
State Fair
heh.
Squirrel Nut Zippers LIVE
I gave up going to the design school's halloween bash to go to a squirrel nut zippers concert at Cats Cradle, and it was so worth it. I think this is the best concert i have ever been to. I've been listening to SNZ since i was like 12 and am obsessed with them right now. They were so lively and entertaining and all so talented! Katherine Whalen has an amazing voice (and she reminds me vaguely of imogen heap). These pics arent from my concert (i didnt bring my camera) but katherine was wearing this amazing dress and 50s fedora. Jimbo Mathes was so tiny but was really energetic. And the fiddler was amazing, ive never seen someones fingers move so fast. They also did one song to the video of a cartoon (which i think is on youtube) and they sang and played along with the cartoon in the dark. Amazing concert.

Food (im such a foodie)
If you're in the area:
Red Room Tapas Bar--
great tapas, and delicious paella! (half off on thursdays)
Nofo at the Pig-- great sunday brunch. the tastiest grits ive ever had.
LocoPops-- best popcicles ever. mexican chocolate, rosemary chocolate, cranberry orange, and raspberry hibiscus are my favorites.

well that was quite a long post. but it had been a while since my last post and ive been busy! ta-ta.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Fall break

A few pics from fall break in wah-haw...


this horse walked over to us, and all the rest followed, each one taking its turn to pose...



if these horses look like they're looking down on me, its because they were. They were freaking huge!
i think if i had taken one step past the fence, this bull would have killed me. he was watching every step i took, while also doing his manly bull pose.there was an adorable baby black sheep that was so tiny, but as soon as we walked up all the other sheep herded him away and made a wall of sheep protecting him from our cameras.

Monday, October 6, 2008

Corn, knives, GDers, and FAT DAY

Studio
Project 02- Timeline
**you'll have you excuse the awkward looking colors... they're in CMYK which is for printing, not web use. There is probably a way to change it to RGB, but im not exactly sure/too lazy to figure it out. They're all a little (actually a lot) off, and the last one is more green than brown. gosh they look awful on the web...**
So basically, we had to create a timeline with the information from our concept map we made earlier. The timeline also had to have a sub-problem which was supposed to a story telling aspect of the timeline, but myself and others didnt get this from kermits explanation, so I just did my sub-problem as popcorn, as a social aspect of corn. So that will be the main thing i fix in my revisions. I had images of hunter eating popcorn (as you can see below in an early version) which would have been perfect for the sub-problem, but kermit said they were a nuisence because the reader only wanted to look at the pictures and not read the information, which is the main point of a timeline- to get the information across. So i guess I'll try to somehow incorporate the popcorn eating narrative without over-powering the info.
Printing was a nightmare with this. Most of my colors were made by transparencies, which i found out (the day of printing) dont print well on printers. So i had to go back and handmake the colors using different mixtures of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (instead of just choosing a pantone color) oi. what a mess. but i now have a better knowledge of how to make the color i want kik. i suppose it was a good lesson.
When im making something big like this, i often save lots of different copies in case i want to start over at an earlier version, so i thought it'd be interesting to post all of the ones i had saved. I had more, but i deleted some of them along the way. So these are the ones that made it. The last one is the one i presented at critique, but we have until wednesday to revise it before we turn it in, so ill probably change a few things. Ill come back and post the real final one on thursday.
edit: ok so i updated this since monday (or whenever i oringially posted this) and now the last one is my FINAL timeline. i changed the sub-problem to a narrative of hunter eating corn on the cob. I think it works much better than the popcorn sub-problem, which was just me misunderstanding the sub-problem assignment. hooray its done! now time for posters...





Imaging
Project 05- Adbuster
For this project we were supposed to find a magazine advertisement (one that is mainly visual, no paragraphs of text) and analyze it to find the message behind the imagery. Then, we had to scan the ad and manipulate it in photoshop to create an entirely new message. Our goal was to create as vast a different message as possible with as little manipulation as possible. So I chose this Sketchers ad that says "nothing compares to family" and has a mother and her daughter holding hands, implying the mother takes care of her family by buying them quality shoes like sketchers.
this is the original ad:

So... see if you can see the difference in this altered ad:
Further Design
Micheal Beirut Lecture

Today, Micheal Beirut came to NC State to give a lecture and Q&A to the graphic design students while he was in Raleigh working on the identity redesign on the NC Museum of Art.
Short Bio on Beirut in case you didnt know:

Michael was born in Cleaveland, Ohio, studied graphic design at the University of Cincinnati's College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning. Straight out of school he first worked for Massimo Vignelli (famous designer/amazing first job!-- http://www.vignelli.com). He worked his way up to become vice president of graphic design at Vignelli Associates. In 1990 he switched jobs to work for a studio called Pentagram, which does all sorts of design, from architecture, to industrial design, to graphic design. Here Michael leads a team of graphic designers who create identity design, environmental graphic design, and editorial design solutions. He has won hundreds of design awards and his work is represented permanently in places such as MoMA, National Design Museum in New York, Library of Congress, SFMoMA, Denver Art Museum, Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe in Germany, and the Museum fur Gesaltung in Switzerland. Michael is very active in the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), serving as president of the New York chapter from 1988-1990, and president of AIGA National from 1998-2001. He currently serves as a director of the Architectural League of New York and New Yorkers for Parks. In 1989, Michael was elected to the Alliance Graphique Internationale, in 2003 he was named to the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame, and in 2006 he received the profession's highest honor, the AIGA Medal, in recognition of his distinguished achievements and contributions to the field of Graphic Design. Michael is now a senior critic in graphic design at the Yale School of Art and is a co-editor of an anthrology series of critical writings on graphic design, and co-founder of the online journal Design Observer. His commentaries about graphic design in everyday life can be heard nationally on the Public Radio International program "Studio 360", and his book "Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design" was published this past spring.
Impressive, eh? He was also very nice and funny.

Heres some examples of his work:
Design Observer
GO MAD- Museum of Arts and Design Identity Project
Pentagram Blog- List of Bieruts Work
His lecture was about the Robin Hood Foundation Library Initiative which you can see an entry about in that last link above.


IBM Pathfinder Mentoring Program

So I signed up for this program IBM does with ncsu where they pair you with someone within IBM that does a job relating to your major (they do it for computer science, engineering, communications, GD, and ID). And you meet with that person once a month to just talk to them, ask them questions, etc. And they also do about one event a month, with events like mock interviews/portfolio reviews, job shadowing, and networking events. So today I met with my mentor for the first time. Her name is Lisa and she is a user experience designer at IBM. She graduated from a design school in Iowa, and started working at IBM straight out of school. Shes been working there for 20 years. She used to work at their inhouse studio, but she now works from home, as she said many of the GDers in her section do. I havent talked to her in-depth, but i think user experience designer basically means the user web experience, but that includes much more than just web site design. So a few other people from my studio that came and all of our mentors went out to lunch and it was really cool to talk to all of them about their jobs and how they got there. I think this program will be really cool. Plus its FREE!

Life outside design
speaking of free... tomorrow is our self-proclaimed "Fat Day" for our dorm! At 12:45 we're going to the Chocolate Festival (which grace got us free tickets to, because shes an RA and shes awesome) which raises awareness for breast cancer. Once you go in you get 5 tabs and theres like 30 stations and you get to pick 5 stations to get chocolate from and stuff your face.
And then for dinner we're having a dorm program (because word got out that molly loves to cook, and i love to bake) where molly is cooking mexian dinner for the dorm and im making peanut-butter bars! So yeah, tomorrow is basically the best day ever. Possibly pictures to come...

Also outside design, Hunter and i went running at Lake Johnson (and by running i mean walking), and we saw like 15 ducks sitting all in a row on a log in the lake taking baths! It was so adorable, and unfortunately i didnt have my camera. I also tried lamb for the first time! And i also realized that i seem to take pride in the vast array of animals i have eaten, so i think im going to make a blog post about all the animals i've eaten. It sounds grotesque, but oh well... hopefully no vegetarians read this blog.