Kismet Arts Tangent

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Hanko Stamp

May 17, 2012
Music by DoKashiteru-_The Annual New England Xylophone Symposium

I got the music for this video from http://dig.ccmixter.org/ It is licensed under creative commons. I really like this concept of intellectual property. I was inspired to make this because of Ze Frank and his new videoblog that I am a little short of being obsessed about. He’s been convincing his followers to cultivate their creativity through positive psychology. This ancient form of a signature is a graphic way to brand creative work, in a way, putting a seal of approval on it.
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Brainstorming a Logo

May 17, 2012
Last Friday, I had a meeting with the group of instructors (along with my team of Ted and Alex) to explain the progress of the Summer and Evening Marketing Materials Project. (More so, we need a catchier name for this assignment.) We presented the logo for the program and Chris made a face. He can’t really hide his disgust at the logo we are working on. It has floating icons and a text circle that doesn’t really go all the way around. It was interesting how suddenly, all three of the teachers started to brainstorm in front of us, sketching out how this concept of symbols in a circle could possibly be worked out in a graphically pleasing way. I liked that even Doris (who is known around the 5^th floor as being somewhat copywriting focused) had made a doodle. We discussed how a pencil icon is continuing to have less relevance in the program and that the camera icon reflected only a small part of what classes were offered. In the brainstorm, we discussed the classes, the Adobe Creative Suite, interactive and web, and what was referred to as “old school” being Letterpress. The solution was partly inspired by Doris’ doodle. She had divided up the circle unevenly in such a way that two acute triangles met in the middle (we already discussed how we needed to play with cropping). I saw a pencil tip up top and a cursor pointer counterpoint to it. And sketched that out. Chris liked it. So, that’s good. He’s always very encouraging.

I love that feeling of being in a think-tank with visual thinkers. Everyone’s pens are scrawling half-baked ideas because it’s so necessary to try out things on paper before thinking it doesn’t work. Or the subtle cooperation. Showing half of the puzzle to your group thinking that in their brains, currently untapped, they have the other bit and just needed the extra nudge.

(Earlier Post Relating to This Project)
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Microsites

May 16, 2012
I presented my sitemap to the group of teachers as well and Chris pointed out that it’s for a microsite, so I didn’t need all the features I had originally planned. It kind of bugged me, because I wanted something segregated from the main credit-earning program because these people are in the Summer and Evening program for different reasons and are at different points in their career. Another reason was that the main site isn’t engaging. I think I want to integrate social media into every website. One of my favorite Art Sites is Boooooom! And one of the greatest things about it is their sidebar. You can see the activity of people on the site while you’re on it. If a link is liked somewhere, the homepage viewers know about it. That’s pretty cool. I would think for a professionals/alumni forum, the same widget would be beneficial and perhaps cause some conversations to start. I’m sure there are places like that and the Facebook page for the program is a good place to start. Facebook has annoyed me so much. (Not enough for me to quit, there’s not enough annoyance in the world for me to give up the Facebook lifeline. Everyone’s on Facebook, so we tolerate it when they willy-nilly change the format. (tangent!)

Anyways, Chris said that microsites plaster most of their content on the homepage, with a couple of adjoining pages but mostly point back to the mothership of content. Tim said that you shouldn’t make people click away from your site where you can’t control their experience, what about microsites? Is there a way to keep the header that reminds them to register whilst they click away?

I made my case that there at least needed to be a separate staff page. Only a fraction of the teachers teach summer and evening courses and I didn’t want to give the user information that wasn’t relevant to them. I stated that a microsite needs a microstaff and Jill laughed. In the program, I have no idea what it means when teachers laugh. I think that it’s ambiguous every time.

Next, wireframes.

(Earlier Post Relating to This Project)
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Bike To Italy

May 15, 2012
I’ve started to design this final project of typography. It is a 12-page brochure explaining an Italian Bike Tour. I approached this style by first looking up travel posters. I wanted to convey the sense of tourism, sights to see, open air, emphasizing the locale. I saw a poster that collaged elements of the locale with the silhouette of the place and thought that would be a good style to be inspired by. Along with the copy, the instructor provided some photographs. I used those to create this collage using Photoshop (clipping masks! Thanks Jason). I am no doubt subtly inspired by the Swiss Beach travel posters in my choice of type and by Schwinn’s branding. Slanted Sans Serif screams bicycles now. It can’t be undone.

Whenever I design something like this, (derivative) I think to myself if that’s what design is. At the heart, it is repurposing elements. Putting together something new out of the cultural symbols we’ve all agreed on works. Sometimes when I design, I am ripping a page out of more obscure books and therefore feel more creative, but at the end of the day, that’s what education is. If I done this for a client they would say, job complete. They have something compelling, crisp and functional. If someone did this for me, I would look at them and wondered if they had a soul, a unique thought in their wormy brain. Are all just remixes at this point? In this supersaturated culture of ours where everyone gets the same jokes from the same places, can’t we come up with ideas totally uninfluenced by our environment? Or is that what design is in comparison to art. Design is the sign, the frame of reference to something we already know to something we’re trying to figure out.
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To Mom

May 14, 2012
My mother takes mother’s day very seriously. I opted out one year and she didn’t like that at all. This year I made her a video (because I am currently so in love with video). She gave me a camera and only this year did I take advantage of its video capabilities. For some reason, my PremierePro program doesn’t recognize the video as files no matter how I reformat it to be an avi or a mp4. So, I used Microsoft Live Movie Maker (and yes I pressed the Automovie button again). I feel like this program (perhaps it’s my laptop) is slow, clunky and clumsy, so I try to fuss with it the least amount possible. I used PremierePro to edit the audio at least.

My original concept for the movie was to have my sister in it, but due to some scheduling issues, it’s just me. I think it makes the shots a little weird because I am playing in a playground by myself. It was going to be interwoven reasons (my sister’s and mine) as a voiceover and then us playing together (which my mom loves—perhaps because her sisters and herself had some tension, so she’s always looking out for sisterly harmony). I used Nora Jones instrumental music because my mom loves her. I originally tried Dixie Chicks but country seemed weird for the tone of my voice in this project.

Mom, I know you’re out there reading this, and remember that I love you and I do all these things, paintings, video and this blogging, too because you’ve encouraged me (among other reasons which are that I am me, which is because of you, too.). Happy Mother’s Day!
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Don’t Be Intimidated by Software

May 13, 2012
Through this graphic design program at Seattle Central, I am mostly learning (by “mostly” I mean, I value this a lot) what should and shouldn’t intimidate me as a person going into this field. The software I will have to learn and relearn is structured similarly in a sense. The tiers of styles (i.e. character styles and paragraph styles) are the same, but what they affect are different. Same with the cursors. There are features that I didn’t know existed. The software is here for me. They allow me to proceed with speed, consistency and ease of editing. Column break is cool. Frame break, even better. Each day when a shortcut is learned by my motorskills and not just my brainskills, I feel like I am closer to my goal.
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Beyond Label

May 12, 2012
It never ends. I think that we’ve said everything there is to say about packaging. Design not for designers, but consumers. It’s about making something for a total stranger and making them fall in love with it.

Define your product on the front. Make the display type unique, challenge the edges, perhaps. You have to ask yourself, “Does this look like a student did this on a computer?” Go for friendly and approachable. Don’t let your product be shy. Embellish the meaning. Have your label reflect the quality of the name of the product. Take some risks and experiment. Do things with your market in mind. And lastly, avoid black type. It makes a package seem dead.

As for my label attempt (sandwich bags), he had a few things to say. Mostly, he emphasized no character. I think it’s because for the second time, I churned out some unlovable illustrator-vector-Franken creature whose features aren’t exaggerated enough to be endearing and aren’t realistic enough to be convincing. These guys should get together and form a family of icky misfits that should be on a cereal box of malformed apple jacks.

(Future reference: “When developing a character or hiring a spokesperson, consider the following traits: 1) appearance 2) likeability 3) trustworthiness 4) Expertise 5) Credibility” -Margo Berman and Robyn Blakeman, The Brains Behind Great Ad Campaigns p.140)

He said to use type. Keep pushing it. He said exaggerate perspective and make it all caps.

My product’s name is “Beyond” and with that should come some special feature that sets them apart. Ah, yes. I was going to add a snipe that extolled some lovely technology that the bags possess.

As for the finishing process, I advise all of you working along at home, when cutting out your die cut for the folding dummy: 1) score on the print side 2) trim 3) fold 4) glue.
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Pen and Pencil

May 10, 2012
I’m making a calendar for Jason’s InDesign Class and we’re allowed to do illustrations.

For Jason’s next assignment, I am working on building an identity system. The goal is, as with any branding system, to make sure these pieces look like they are married. I pitched my concept to Jason last tuesday and he seemed to get it right away.

Pen and Pencil seems like a government agency to me. So, I wanted to take cues from currency to make the brand feel official and authoritative. I made some vector art (spirographs) in illustrator to convey that complicated pattern that is found on money. For the calendar piece, I wanted to keep a consistency and frankly, I don’t know how to engrave. I had this idea on the bus that I would make sheets of this spirograph pattern with different densities, then using Photoshop I would create layers of them and make an illustration of a bust. I used the artistic filter cutout (four levels) to get the value blocked out and then used the magic wand tool to select certain sections and make the layers clipped to the contour section that matched the value. My first two attempts, I used photographs with lower contrast, so the portraits came out muddy and unrecognizable, but this one of Dali worked really well. I don’t feel like I can use this one. The copyright has not expired yet. I’ll go into art/english history and see what I can find.

I was really excited about this method of illustration. I turned to my classmates and smiled, practically yelling “I’ve just done something I haven’t done before.” I’m excited.
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