Second Semester!

Hello, hello again. Yes... i just found sufjan stevens on someones itunes library.

anyways, i have been so busy since the first day back from christmas break, and i havent had time to post anything on here! but also i didnt really have any projects completed to post. But now i do so:

Typography:
Project 01- Type Blog
Just the class blog we have to post to- same as last semester.

Project 02- Type Sequence Redux
So our first project was basically just a exercise to delve back into type. We had to revise our Type Sequence Book (the last type project we did last semester). We had to change the grid system, convert it to black and white, and just generally make it better. We did this in a week, so it was really just a warm-up exercise. PS: it folds up into a booklet.

Project 02- Reading Systems
I love love love this project. We had to choose a text (we convinced Martha to let us choose fictional texts) from before 1950. Then we designed a booklet using all the traditional book design rules/guidelines. The final book includes a cover, half title, title page, complete text, and colophon. We also had to have folios (page number) and running heads or feet. Because of this project my knowledge of InDesign has multiplied by like 10. There are so many awesome things it can do! And i've officially fallen in love with book design. Its so fascinating to me the work and thought that goes into creating a book—things people dont even consciously realize. I chose The Twenty-One Balloons as my text and I love the way it turned out. We had our interim critique today and it went really well. As a second part of the project we have to create a modern book using the same text + a supplementary text. So thats what we just started working on. Then both books are due at the end of february, so we can make adjustments on our first book. I think I'll wait and post pictures of both of them then. So youll just have to wait. I'll show you my master page though. This page is the basis of every page, and it shows the grid system, the golden rectangle of the text box, and how the margin proportions are designed. You see how much goes into that book youre reading?

Imaging
Project 01- Panorama Montage
For our first imaging project we had to take a panorama photograph (which PS: photoshop can do awesome panoramas with the click of a button—it can merge 5, or more, pics into one panorama!) So we had to take our panorama and create a photomontage with it. I decided to base mine on a piece of japanese folklore about fox wedding processions. And just in case you were wondering... its all my photography—even the alligator (from the zoo) and the horse heads (from waxhaw). And i drew the foxes in illustrator. Click it to make it bigger.

Studio
Project 01- no name?
I dont really like this project... so im not going to talk about it right now. Well, ok i will. We were assigned a lecture series or workshop series going on around town and we had to first create a poster representing the series and then we had to choose a location and design an installation to help advertise the series using elements from our poster. But we arent actually installing the installations because we dont have the money (lame.) so theyre just in our digital imaginations. Anyways its due on monday so ill post the final pictures then. This is my element from my poster im using for the installation.
I made it using all the symbols of different religions (my workshop series is on religious discrimination. It uses the symbols of Sikhism, Islam, Judaism, Jain, and Buddhist. Also, we're using google sketchup to recreate our settings, which at first i hated, but now i kind of like it. i dont really want to do it again though. so i guess im glad im not in architecture or landscape.

Further Design:
Internship with Birds Inc.
In case you didnt know (im sure ive told all of you) I got an internship!!! Hoorah. And its much better than i could have even hoped for. With all the other internships i applied for id just be cropping photographs and other such things the senior designers didnt want to do. But this internship... im the senior designer! Birds inc is a brand spanking new poetry publishing company that will soon have non-profit status. Its made up of 4 poets (one in raleigh, two in NY and one in texas) and me and the web design intern. The first book theyre publishing is Chris Tonellis manuscript, called The Trees Around. I get to design the entire layout of the book and the cover of the book. SO EXCITING. Im already working on it now, and ill be working with them for about one year. At the end we will have published 4 books (each of the poets manuscripts). Then they have this special publishing conference thing in colorado where they want to unveil theyre new books (all designed by me). And they said I can come with them to the conference! ive always wanted to go to colorado. But thats not till NEXT april. Long time from now. But it just blows my mind that I was given this opportunity to design 4 books that will be sold online and in bookstores (they said maybe even barnes&nobles!) I WOULD FREAK OUT. But im freaking out anyways kik. I just cant wrap my head around my design being in someones home and being used in the real world. Anyways enough of my starry-eyed talk... heres my first iteration for the cover. Its a rough draft, and ill have tons of iterations completely different than that one, this is just the first one. I've also stopped working on the cover right now to focus on the layout of the inside of the book because I realized (after doing our type project) you are supposed to design the inside of a book before the outside. So now comes the difficult task of choosing the typeface... anyways, heres that cover draft.

This is the first one i did. its based on one of the poems from the book. they have such great imagery, i just had to work with it. I drew this illustration in my sketch book, then scanned it in and re-drew it in illustrator. I like how its a fine line between creepy and cute, which i think reflects Tonellis poems nicely. But again, this is just my first iteration. not the final. I'll do lots with completely different imagery and type.

Then I did this one as a sanserif and a little depth.


Then i did this one as i got a bit carried away kik. i made this at about 2 am. its the graphic design hipster version of the book. and it doesnt fit the book itself at all. general rule of design: often the coolest one is not the right one.

Badass T-shirt
So hunter sent me a letter saying that they can help design a tshirt for their flight to wear on graduation day. Each flight will have their own shirt representing their flight. But no one in his flight can draw so he told me if i had some time, i could submit something. He told me it had to have two things: their mascot is a bulldog, so it had to have a bulldog, and his entire flight says it has to be badass. So i was like, alright, i can do badass. And this is what i mailed him.
Outside of Design
In self defense news: I can now successfully gauge out your eyeballs, burst your wind pipe, break your nose, and break your symphisis pubis therefore breaking your pelvis in half preventing you from getting up for a while.
Also, hunter is still doing great. His tech school has been confirmed for Mississippi, and starting monday he'll be in Beast Week which is the toughest week physically. Also we got our tickets today, so i am officially going to his graduation now! I cant wait to see him in his uniform and little hat! so cute. er...i mean...badass.
And heres a pic from the NCSU vs. UNC game to show how close our seats were—row J! i could actually see the players faces!
Oh yeah and we had a SNOW DAY! like a week ago. Now im officially done with winter. I got snow. Lets move onto spring now.

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.

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.

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.