Blog Post #11

Part 1

Joe- Introduced a photography project that he has been working on for years. He takes pictures of his family members and almost shows their progression of growing older. It is an interesting concept and the photos were visually pleasing to look at. Overall, great presentation and images

Alex- Showed some art and things made by her children. It was an interesting thought but I wanted to see more of the work she has made and the pieces that are important to her. Overall, it was an entertaining presentation.

Bob- Gave a presentation on video games and pinball machines. It was interesting to see how he got his start in the video game industry and how he got his success. I found it fascinating how he showed his love for older video games in his presentation. Overall, his skills in the video game industry had me interested in this as a potential major or minor.

Part 2

This class has been great this semester and I am very glad I took it. I loved all of the presentations that others gave and I loved seeing beautiful works of art. We had fun activities to participate in and interesting topics we touched on. This is an awesome seminar and I am very happy I was apart of it

Sequence Book Prototype by Taylor Gonzalez

 

This is the first prototype of my sequence book. When making it, I didn’t come across any problems. I printed it with the ink jet printer and I thought it came out pretty well. As for the content, I feel like I should consider adding more pictures with the guitar because I feel like it isn’t emphasized as much as I would like it to be. I feel as if the main focus is the fire and not the guitar playing by the fire. I also think I should transition to the black picture better than I did and just make better transitions overall. But, I think the book turned out decent for my first time printing it. Hopefully, it will only get better from now on.

 

Blog Post #10

Part 1

In the last seminar, we had guest speakers who made video games. One of the people who spoke did the art within the game and the other did more of the programming side and actually worked on getting the game to work properly. They didn’t work for a big gaming company and they were making this game more so because they were passionate about it. They were basically not going to make any money off of it. I would say one thing I learned while listening to these people talk is that making video games is really hard. The simple game they were making came across many problems and it made me wonder what problems bigger game developers come across while making a game. Overall, the talk was interesting and was fun to listen to.

Part 2

question: how hard is the grading process of projects students turn in?

Sequence Contact Sheet

These are some of the pictures I have for the sequence book project. I don’t have all of the pictures yet but I should be able to get them this week. The pictures I am missing are the pictures of the wood on fire. I also thought about putting pictures of people sitting by the fire or me playing guitar by the fire because its one of my favorite things to do and I thought it would be nice to add something personal to the book.

Blog Post #9 by Taylor Gonzalez

Since I did not make it to the previous class when the alumni spoke, I decided to write about a musician that inspires me. I chose a musician to write about because I believe that art can be expressed in many ways, especially music. The musician I chose is Dave Grohl. Dave Grohl is a world-renowned musician who has been a countless number of bands and can play many different instruments. Some of the most famous bands he has been in include Nirvana, Foo Fighters, and Queens of the Stone Age. Dave Grohl got his start in music at a young age when he heard a song on the radio and he realized what a harmony in singing was. This eventually led to him learning how to play drums by playing to the music he loved by using his pillows on his bed as a drum set.  Ultimately, all of these events led to him being in his first band while building a name for himself. Eventually, in 1990, Dave Grohl joined the band Nirvana. This was a major milestone for Dave and an important event which will make him one of the most well-known rockstars in the world. After the end of Nirvana, when Kurt Cobain passed away, Dave decided to start his own band called the Foo Fighters. Dave recorded the first Foo Fighters’ album completely by himself in 1994 and released it in 1995. Ever since then, Foo Fighters have come out with about 10 albums and has become a huge rock band.

Overall, Dave Grohl’s work is very inspirational to me and has inspired me in my music and even in my artwork. I believe he will continue to be inspirational to me and many others for as long as he is releasing music.  

Taylor Gonzalez’s Progress on the Sequence Project

Since the last time the class met up, I have been taking photos for my sequence project. I was able to capture some nice shots of some trees and some old logs. I was not able to capture burning the logs yet because I did not have access to a place to burn them over the weekend. I mainly focused on taking black and white pictures because I believe that it adds a nice element to this book and could possibly make my pictures more professional rather than amateur. I also made progress on this project by searching for paper and practicing on my printing skills. I would like to make more progress later this week by making test books and learning more about InDesign. Overall, I think this project is coming along nicely and should turn out how I want it to.

Blog post #8

Part 1

Jimmy Luu’s graphic design work is very interesting and compelling. The work he did on the risograph was very beautiful and engaging. I believe that his work ethic is outstanding, which is important when it comes to graphic designing.

Kim Garza’s work was somewhat confusing and not really for me. I found that her working on a play while she was in graphic design did not fit so well. I’m sure her work is great to others but it was not for me.

Bill Kennedy’s photography work was incredible. I love the abstractness of his pictures. All of the colors popped and everything worked very well together. I also enjoy his landscape photos even though they were not in the presentation. Overall, his work is thought-provoking and outstanding.

The work within Tuan Phan’s presentation is something I would like to learn how to do. Everything he made in the slideshow was very cool and interesting. I find it interesting that he makes posters for many on-campus events (something id like to do). I also found his presentation to be very helpful because he gave a lot of information on how to become a better student and worker within the graphic design field.

Part 2

Within the next five years, I plan on pursuing graphic design and finding a job within that field. But before then, I plan on having internships and loads of experience so I can have the best job possible and the most knowledge possible. To accomplish these goals, I would say I need to build a strong work ethic and have a passion for this field.

Sequence Sketches

In this sequence sketch, I decided that I would find a fairly simple concept to create a sequence. The idea behind these sketches is the build up and death of a small fire. Although it may seem simple, I think there are many ways to build an excellent sequence out of it. In my sketches, I tried to incorporate daylight and the night to emphasize time is passing. I also tried to do transitions so the sequence would flow better. Although this idea is fairly simple, I think there is a lot of room to build more ideas on top of it.

Taylor Gonzalez’s Reflective Essay

After reviewing the videos of musicians assigned to us, I noticed that the two blocks had many contrasting and interesting sounds. My Bloody Valentine, Lush, and Cocteau Twins all had similar sounds and vibes that were different from Vinicius de Moraes, Caetano Veloso, and Tom Ze.

Within the first block of videos contained the bands My Bloody Valentine, Lush, and Cocteau Twins. These bands flourished in the 80s and 90s and they all have a similar sounding music. The first thing I noticed while reviewing these bands is that they all appeared to have comparable music videos. The music videos I found were mostly videos of the band members playing their instruments in strange locations with many psychedelic colors and imaging that would come and go from the video. Besides from the videos of the artists, I noticed that all three of these bands had very emotional yet delicate singing. Since the lead singers of the bands were all girls, they each had a similar sounding high pitched singing voice that was heard throughout all of their songs. This, however, is not a bad thing because this type of singing suits their style and it adds to their pop punkish sounds. Overall, the first block of videos were similar in many different ways and it was interesting to analyze the similarities between them.

The second block of videos included the musical artists Vinicius de Moraes, Caetano Veloso, and Tom Ze. After researching these artists, the first visual thing I noticed was that all the artists were men. Unlike the first block of music, these men had deep voices and had a completely different atmosphere while they were singing. They also all sang in a different language than those from the first block of videos. Having this language and the acoustic sounds that they offer, display true examples of traditional music from South America. The music played by these artists from the second block of videos has a simple but comforting sound that the other block did not have. The unique and simple sounding music is what makes these artists enjoyable to many around the world.

After researching both blocks of videos given to the class, my mind has been opened to a different type of music that I would not have listened to in a million years. I liked the first block of music mostly because it was weird. Each band had out of the ordinary sounds that they would use and it appealed to my ears. The first block was also attractive to me because of the female singers. I do not typically listen to singers who are female, but it was nice to find bands that could change that habit. Different from the first block of music, I liked Vinicius de Moraes, Caetano Veloso, and Tom Ze because of the acoustic elements incorporated in their songs. There is also something nice about listening to a different language within a song. Overall, I can see myself actually listening to these bands and I’m happy to be introduced to these kinds of music.

Although each block of music sounded completely different, it was interesting to examine each musical artist’s style and what made them similar or different.