Art Collective
I’m at work now going through the display fonts we have. It’s been proven that when you associate something with how you feel about it you’ll remember it better. Here’s the beginning of a series of fonts I want to get acquainted with. I made this with the help of Adobe Photoshop’s brush tools.
It saddens me that I can’t share my work as freely as I used to, but I completely understand. Yesterday I discussed blogging policies with my supervisor and he said that I shouldn’t make things live before the company it’s for does and even then I think they might not want their design stuff featured so deconstructed here. (I’ll find a better way to anonymize the designs instead of a simple blur.) I am designing for a law firm’s stationery. I presented three versions of the businesscard, letterhead and envelope. I designed letterhead and envelope off of the business card design once I thought it worked.
My crtique: Two of the three versions had too much line action– attorneys are conservative. All versions had font sizes lower than ten, which especially for older people–my sup said “less-than-40-eyes”– it’s a pain to try to get a phone number off a business card.
I should change the font on the name and make it san serif to contrast with the serif-ed logo. Think white space and clean. Next round, I’m putting all of materials onto a tabloid sized paper so they all fit. (See sup’s diagram.) I am pleased that everyone here likes communciating with paper and pen.
My boss told me a story about how he and the team who does construction for his house had a few meetings to build trust and understanding before any paperwork was signed. He said that architects and ourselves have very similar jobs. He described the project process like a funnel (see funnel diagram), where you start by getting to know a lot about the client (the wide part of the funnel) and then with time and consideration you narrow it down by having meetings and analysis until it comes down to a very focused thing.
As an update to how I am adjusting to the 9-5 workday, I wrote down a simple time slot list, shortly describing how I am spending my time. It looks about right, spending an hour or two on a particular task before switching to another project. It feels a lot more like I am working if I can look down and see all the things I’ve worked on. It’s easy to feel like you’ve spent hours pushing around pixels and they still look the same after all that time.
I had my first day today at my summer internship. It is my first job where I am 1) sitting at a desk 2) working 9 to 5, monday through friday 3) using special skills acquired through institutionalized education 4) in front of a candy bowl 5) have an hour lunch 6) on the internet 7) not getting paid 8) have complimentary Pepsis. I volunteered at a haunted barn (no pay) and worked at a pizzeria (yes Pepsis).
It was really sweet. I had a couple of fresh yellow paper pads on my desk and some pens waiting for my brilliant ideas. I had my first real assignment: work on stationery for a law firm. It’s just like Jill’s class all over. The brand and address was decided on by someone else (thank goodness). In my school assignments, we had to come up with the name of our company and make logos, etc.
This assignment, I just have to arrange the information. I told myself to establish hierarchy and use color and size to dictate where people look first. (I didn’t sketch first. I totally forgot. I was so excited to set up all my InDesign preferences for this machine (a computer assigned just to me!) that I didn’t do the thumbnails that is always heavily suggested for better ideation. I thought it was interesting that one of my superiors gave me this handdrawn diagram of my deliverables due tomorrow afternoon: a business card, envelope and letterhead, specifically with the components in the top banner part with potentially a footer.
People seemed nice and fairly engaged with their own work and I spent half of my time working on the stationery and the other half looking at some side projects that they recommended that I think about. The company is really lacking in social media stuff, so every time I am side-tracked, reading a blog or something, I call it research. I’m going to get used to this stretch of time and find a way to structure it better. I don’t know how all you 9-5ers do it.
Part 3 of Kat’s First Year: A Retrospective in Flashback Format.
When doing a series of works, the last one is always the fastest and easiest to produce. This video comes from my fall quarter when I took classes about packaging, layout, InDesign and campaigns. So, that’s all for this year’s installment of my retrospectives. Stay tuned. I’ll be making one for summer’s work (if my boss will let me). I have been offered and accepted a summer internship for a Seattle advertising agency. I’m looking forward to interesting projects and working with new people.
Music: Kindergarten by Gurdonark. I got the music for this video from http://dig.ccmixter.org/ It is licensed under creative commons.
This is my last bit of school I had to do. I tidied up my Seattle Art Museum Skins. I scaled back some buttons and created hierarchy. I straighted out my layout a little and it’s looking pretty nice. Here’s the final presentation. I am impressed with how something can come a long way if you break it up into manageable pieces.
This is the video, 2 of a 3-part series. I wanted to give my fans (read: friends and family) an opportunity to see my graphic design work without having to read my wordy and terminology-ridden commentary. This video comes from my winter quarter where I took classes about color theory, video, Photoshop, typography packaging and marketing. I included in this series checkpoints in the work as well as the end result. I think it’s interesting seeing the process and seeing the choices I made and how it changes the work. I’m fascinated by all the roads I didn’t take and seeing the steps between point A and point B, the idea to the reality of the thing. There’s always a discrepancy from what I envision and what actually comes out. Sometimes for the better.
Music: Little Penguin by Gurdonark. I got the music for this video from http://dig.ccmixter.org/ It is licensed under creative commons.
I don’t know exactly what I was thinking when I started designing this label. Designing without a dieline (template for cutting) for a label is like walking a tightrope without a net. Even the most skilled (not to say that I am that) performers can fall. This first label (left) was applied yesterday and I stared incredulously. How could it not fit?! I eyeballed it for at least three minutes! I thought a half circle would be the top shape, but that wasn’t. And the sides were wider than I thought (note the way that the stripe stops short of the sides. I presented it to Tom anyways for a critique. I wasn’t sure that he would stick around for long after school (this was 3pm yesterday) but I had a meeting with him. He told me that it’s not very well put together. Designing with the dieline is essential. A student commented that the type for the type of oil looked too crisp. Tom agreed and added that the brand should be the dominant component. I reworked the file until I produced (right) the better label. It’s a great feeling to finally like the thing you’ve been working on.
I finished my last final yesterday. Later that evening, I was showing a friend a slideshow of one of my painting series when I decided I wanted to have a slide show for all my work I’ve done so far in graphic design. I wanted to make something simple, summarizing my time and easy to go through for people who don’t have a chance to keep up with all of my work. So, I took all the jpegs from my blogs over the past school year and made them into this video series. This one is Fall quarter’s work (hence part 1 of 3). I had five classes. I learned about Adobe Illustrator, logos, posters, photography, drawing, and graphic design history. For my next video I’ll probably make the slideshow a little faster. It’s fun going back and realizing how much more I know about graphic design now.
Music: Right Work by Gurdonark. I got the music for this video from http://dig.ccmixter.org/ It is licensed under creative commons.
(Quality Control: I notice that it’s a little skewed tight, not terribly so, but noticable– most obvious when you see the type. I am not sure at which stage that happened and I will be investigating this matter before the next video is produced. I exported the vid in widescreen. Messed it up. Re-uploaded it, so it’s fine now.)
Kismet Arts Tangent 