The objective of this assignment was to create a weather video using LATCH (locations, alphabet, time, category, hierarchy) structures. I chose to use Location, category, and Hierarchy. Conceptually I was approaching a futuristic design in order to fully attempt the futuristic weather report. I worked hard on my introduction, again my time management wasn’t very good and I slacked a bit on the actual LATCH structures. If i were to work on this project again I would focus more on them.
The objective of this assignment was to come up with a truism and create an abstract zine about it. For my truism, I chose “we are all just watching each other slowly die.” My concept behind this idea was to photograph a girl in a field of wildflowers, flowers being something we often watch die. The girl is facing the flowers watching them, representing my truism. We then had to print the zine on the Risograph which was exciting since it was our first time using that printer. Only using spot colors was challenging because we had to make color separations.
The objective of this assignment was to create a user interface for a Microsoft Word-like app. The designs had to follow the Google Material Design handbook and work on a smart phone. Coming up with a concept for this project was hard because every time you would come up with a design concept you would realize your design did not follow the handbook. It was hard to have creative control and I was afraid that if I made bold choices, I would not be following the handbook. I enjoyed the idea of following a handbook because it is something we will most likely have to follow at sometime in our career but I think it was especially difficult because it was a handbook we were really unfamiliar with and we didn’t have a lot of time to get and in depth understanding of it. My designs followed the rules and were appealing.
The objective of this assignment was to create a set of instructions by using the Pathfinder tool in Illustrator to decorate the Tungsten typeface and then draw the final product on posterboard using the Graphtec. The hardest part of this assignment was create a set of directions that somebody else could follow and properly replicate your own design but with their own creative touch. This project was frustrating because 1. We were plotting someone else’s design whether we liked it or not and 2. We were taught by each other to use the plotter so if the person who was selected to teach you incorrectly taught you something or didn’t feel like putting in the effort to explain it all, you were setback by somebody else which I think is unfair. My final print is a classmate’s design drawn using a metallic gold sharpie. I plotted the whole alphabet to get the extra credit however there were complications with the printing process, the design file has too many points on it which causes the Graphtec to have technical difficulties. I simplified the design as much as I could but the problems were not completely fixed because if I altered the design any more, I would not be following the original set of instructions. This was another frustrating setback I had to deal with because I was graded based on my print with somebody else’s design, not my own. I chose the gold metallic sharpie because I thought it looked nice with the design I was given, other than that I feel like I could not make many conceptual design decisions for the part of the assignment that we were graded on.
The objective of this assignment was to create a decision map. I decided to continue with my of the crying maps. When just looking at my artifact map, how would you know which place you should choose? So I chose to make a decision map that eventually told the view which place would be best for them and gave them instructions on what to do when they got to their desired location. I wanted to keep with the same graphic style and color choices in order to make the maps coherent. I wish I would of had better time management in order to make more graphics for this map.
The objective of this assignment was to create an information map. I choses to create a map based on the about of each color of produce that was bought each month. The colors of produce I chose to represent were red, yellow, green, and brown. I think I accurately displayed this information however I wish I would of had better time management in order to make the graphs more appealing.
The objective of this assignment was to create a map with an agenda. I decided my agenda of my map would be the best places to cry alone in South Austin. I spent a lot of time researching and picking the best spots to have on my map. I spent a lot of time coming up with my idea and planning it out that I didn’t get to spend a lot of time actually creating it. I was also dealing with a lot of health issues at this point that set me back. I think I have some good progress so far but would like to still fully develop my ideas to have a completed assignment.
The objective of this assignment was to create a set symbols for a single concept. We had to create abstract and literal symbols and then combine them for our final set of iterations. We then had to choose our top three to cut on the Graphtec. After many iterations I decided to create symbols for spirit animals. Each animal represents something different and each things that is represented has it’s own abstract symbol. My final designs are combinations of a literal representation of the animal along with the abstract symbol of what each animal represents. The bear is combined with the abstract symbol for health, the turtle with the symbol for navigation, and the otter with the symbol for love for others. Each designs is a final representation of the spirit behind that animal. A concern that Tuan brought up when designing my symbols was whether or not the design could be scaled down to a small size and still be recognizable. My concept behind the scale issue is that the symbol has details that enhance the design when scaled to the original size or larger, if the symbol is scaled down, you lose the detail but the symbol is still recognizable and still represents the original idea.
The objective of this assignment was to create a type specimen book based on Beatrice Ward’s The Crystal Goblet, for our chosen typeface. My chosen typeface was Courier & Courier New. I conducted research on my typeface to learn more about it and it’s creation. Using my findings, I created a book that showcased the Courier and Courier New typefaces.
The objective of this assignment was to create a visually stimulating poster for the AIGA event, Things & Context. There was not a lot of instruction for this assignment so they way we presented the text was mostly up to the student. I decided to break the text up into four quadrants, each quadrant having its own purpose. The top left hold the title, the top right has information about the time and date, bottom left has the address, prices, and contact information and then finally the bottom right has information about the event and speakers. To support the Things & Context idea, I chose to incorporate bright colors and graphics to resemble “things” and then had them interact with the context of the poster. If I were to redo the project now, I would most likely focus less on colors and graphics and more on how the text interacts with each other and is laid out, but I still do support my original idea of incorporating the name of the event with the design concept.
The objective of this assignment was to visually represent the sound of a word through manipulation of that word in a given space. I was assigned the word “echo”. My goal was to make the sound legible but also so vibrations that visually represent an echo. I wanted the design to be clean so that I could heavily manipulate the word but have the word still be recognizable. Looking back now, I can see that I was a total nooobie. The project is not very creative but it follows the assignment guidelines and fulfills the assignment.