Journal #5 TED Talks

I watched three movies on TED talks including Stefan Sagmeister and Paula Scher, and I really enjoyed what I heard. First of all, one thing that really got to me is something that Stefan Sagmeister talked about. One of the designs that made him happy was from a designer in New York that put cloud bubbles on posters and other people wrote in them. He commented that that design not only let the designer make the living environment more enjoyable, but it also let common people interact with design and they were able to make the design their own. I think it would be cool to let people who interact with designs all the time have an influence on those designs.

Paula Scher talked about the different between serious and solemn. It is interesting to think that the designs that really changed the world or design itself, are the designs that are ruined once they become popular. Once a design becomes popular it isn't serious anymore because you have expectations to reproduce more and more and more and it loses its oomph.

If I did have the opportunity to talk to Paula I would ask, even though she does more solemn than serious, do you enjoy the serious more than the solemn or vise versa. Which pays the bills and if you were to depend on either/or, which one should to do?

Sagmeister, I can see, is a popular designer because he gets it; he can relate to the common person. He can also relate design to non-designers. Sometimes designs can be hard to understand (which might be a problem with the design itself) and he is a man that can do designs that more people understand and can react to or interpret in their own way to make it their own design.

Final Typography Project #1

Journal #4-- Bruce Mau

Bruce Mau's Incomplete Manifesto

1. Allow events to change you.
You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.

2. Forget about good.
Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you'll never have real growth.

3. Process is more important than outcome.
When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we've already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to
be there.

4. Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child).
Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.

5. Go deep.
The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.

6. Capture accidents.
The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions.

7. Study.
A studio is a place of study. Use the necessity of production as an excuse to study. Everyone will benefit.

8. Drift.
Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgment. Postpone criticism.

9. Begin anywhere.
John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere.

Who is Bruce Mau???

Bruce Mau (born October 25, 1959) is a Canadian designer. Mau is the creative director of Bruce Mau Design, and the founder of the Institute without Boundaries.

In his talk, visionary and innovative designer Bruce Mau shares his optimism by painting a picture with ideas of a future civilization that does not rely on oil, but instead thrives on alternative energy sources. His look into a flourishing 21st century explores exciting developments in urban planning, social philanthropy, material science, radical economics, architecture, and social networking to demonstrate that change in energy is within reach.

My Mantra for the week will be:

Love what you make; if you do not love what you are doing (or at least have an interest in it) then you will not put enough energy in it to make it a design that will change the world around you.

I like this mantra because, especially with graphic design, you must love what you are designing in order for it to be something that can be great. You can tell when a designer put a lot of effort into their design because those are the designs that are more well-known. I am not saying that I want to be famous before I get out of college, but I could like to have an influence in American graphic design, even if it is just a small influence. I also believe this mantra will help me become a better graphic designer. When I love my design, I will push it to make it better. And when you push your design, you learn and you grow.

Hopefully I will continue to love what I am doing this semester and hopefully I will grow as a designer.

Journal #3 -- Twenty Rules

Pull Twenty Rules pdf off the school server. Summerize, reflect...Which 3 do you think are the most important? What 3 do you think you need to practice more? Which 3 do you want to ignore?

Summary:

1. Have a concept-empty although beautiful

2. Communicate, don't decorate- support concept

3. Speak with one visual voice- parts talk to each other

4. Two typefaces families max define purposes for

5. Use the one-two punch! focus viewer's attention and then move it

6. Pick colors on purpose- carries feelings

7. If you can, do it with less then do it. less is more

8. Negative space is magical, create it- calls attention to content

9. Treat type as image, important, needs to relate composition

10. Type is only type when friendly, legible

11. Be universal- not about you, design for all

12. Squish and separate- contrasts in density and rhythm

13. Distribute light/dark life firecrackers- photo wide range of tonal value

14. Be decisive, purposeful, strategy

15. Measure with eyes, visual may not look the way you think

16. Create images don't scavenge, make what you need

17. Ignore fashion, design around movement

18. Move it! Static = dull

19. Look to history but don't repeat

20. Symmetry = ultimate evil.

The three most important are utilizing negative space, do it with less, and have a concept. I am a simple person. I really like simplicity and using negative space in designs. Sometimes I do feel, because I like simple, that my designs are lacking something more. To be honest, I am surprised at some of the grades I received in typography last semester because I thought my layouts were simple and clean. I guess that means that simple is usually better.

Three I need to practice more is certainly finding my own photographs. I scavenge a lot. I also need to work on steering clear of symmetry. I am okay with symmetry but I guess I would shun it. And I also probably need to work on movement and three-dimensionality.

Three I want to ignore is the symmetry one, ignoring fashion because the fashionable thing could be the easier way to go in a design, and not repeating history. I agree with that, but I do think you can still pull a lot of good stuff from the past and make it your own.

Three Book Covers (needing refinement)

Who is Chip Kidd? John Gall? Journal #2

Who is Chip Kidd?

Chip Kidd is currently associate art director at Knopf, an imprint of Random House. He first joined the Knopf design team in 1986, when he was hired as a junior assistant. Turning out jacket designs at an average of 75 a year, Kidd has freelanced for Doubleday, Farrar Straus & Giroux, Grove Press, HarperCollins, Penguin/Putnam, Scribner and Columbia University Press in addition to his work for Knopf. Kidd also supervises graphic novels at Pantheon, and in 2003 he collaborated with Art Spiegelman on a biography of cartoonist Jack Cole, Jack Cole and Plastic Man: Forms Stretched to Their Limits. His output includes cover concepts for books by Mark Beyer, Bret Easton Ellis, Haruki Murakami, Dean Koontz, Cormac McCarthy, Frank Miller, Michael Ondaatje, Alex Ross, Charles Schulz, Osamu Tezuka, David Sedaris, Donna Tartt, John Updike and others. His design for Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park novel was carried over into marketing for the film adaptation. Oliver Sacks and other authors have contract clauses stating that Kidd design their books.

Why is he so important?

Kidd is important because he is a man that when outside the box in cover designs. I think he is most famous for his book designs. Even if you just look at his work, you don't see that anywhere else. I think he was the innovator of the book cover design and he helped others be inspired to be more creative with his work.

John Gall

Gall’s stylish sensibility, simple but elegant use of typography and quietly rebellious spirit infuse these literary works with an added dimension. Subtle and compelling, his covers play with the perceptions of the viewer in unexpected ways, and to satisfying effect. Scanning the table of trade paperbacks at the local bookseller, one would have no difficulty spotting Gall’s distinctive and visually articulate work. Collage, photography, typography and art are all grist for the mill, yet no matter how varied the medium, the end result is pure Gall.

Journal #1 Typography II

Toolbox

As a designer, I am constantly trying to figure out solution to problems that arise in my life and through my work. Everyday problems like, how much food do I need to feed fifteen people?, I think, can be figured out in a creative way.

While I read this toolbox reading, I found myself relating to some of the ways you can come up with solution for problems. I do use a lot of word lists or "To-Do" lists. It keeps me organized and I feel more productive when I know I have done everything that I know I could have done. I also use concept maps to help organize in some situations. These maps are more for design problems. When I was younger in high school, I remember "free writing" for fifteen or twenty minutes and I remember that relaxed me a lot. I have never used a free write exercise in solving a design problem.

A lot of these techniques can be used to help solve design problems because they open up parts of your mind that normally would not have been accessed. The more words you have, the more ideas you can come up with. More creative ideas. You might think your first few ideas are awesome ideas, but generally those ideas have been thought of many times before and have been used in many other designs. You think you have a good idea, but it is already old to the rest of the world.

I feel like I could do more free writing or concept mapping more in my design process because I have found that a lot of good ideas come from it. Like Leonardo da Vinci, I should also start the habit of carrying around a journal. I like journaling but I feel what I write is repetitive and boring. But I guess if I continue to work at it, the journal will get past dry ideas and more creative and new ideas will come to me.

Concept Statements

Hopefully this is what you were asking for.

Concept Statements

Jane Eyre series:

Why are women attracted to men? They are so confusing; their harsh, unaffected faces seem severe compared to mine. They always seem like they have something to hide; what is he hiding? Being with him is like being lost in dark haze, brooding, haunted, searching for light, searching for knowledge and truth. I feel lost, I feel like we do not connect. I am angry; he is impassive. Why do I love him then? His harsh exterior, his murky mood, but I am drawn to him like a fly to a bright light in the darkness. There is something there, something human about him, and somehow I have the desire to find it even if I fail.

All you need is love? That can’t be possible. Love does not heal wounds of deceptiveness and malice. I feel lost without her though. My life is dark, my face is dark; I do not feel complete. But, I hate her; I hate her for leaving me, for making me feel this way. She leaves me, his misjudges me, and now I am gone. I sit alone in the dark, thinking, asking, what happened? Her memory seems to fade ever more each day. I must find her. I must bring her back. I am nothing without her, but she makes me feel so empty, so cold. I need her. I love her. She will come for me.

Nicholson series:

Ohmygiddyygosh!!!!! Does he like me? Does he notice me? He is such a part of my world. I need consultation. Yes? No? Maybe? What he needs is to break up with that one girl. Find me. And Voila! Maybe I should say something to him…but what? Should I talk about the weather? Or what he is wearing, or food…no that would make me sound like a fatty. Which reminds me, I need to stop eating for the dance next month. Oh the dance, if I could only go with him. If he could only see me the way I see him. What am I going to do? Oh, he is coming over! I need to check my make-up…

Love, love love. I think I love him. I must love him. We haven’t talked but I do; I know it that I do. Love. Oh love. I talked to my friends. We are getting together soon to converse about the subject. Everyone has a boyfriend, except me. But soon, I think, soon, he will look at me and see stars. “How have I been living without you all of my life?” he will coo to me. Softly whispering into my ear; we are connected. Oh, look at the time! I need to put make-up on and meet the dang! Man, prepare to meet woman!