The Zine assignment revolved around the idea of our own personal truism. My truism was “Misery Creates Happiness.” We had to pick two colors, in which I picked green and blue as they were cool toned colors that would give a somber feeling to my Zine. We used Adobe Illustrator to make and process the images, so they would properly be printed using the Risograph. I made use of the overlapping technique. which can be used when printing a Zine on a Risograph, so that I would be able to make use of a 3rd color (a mixture of blue and green). I chose to use a bird getting shot by an arrow as a storyline for explaining my truism. This was because I felt that death was something that everyone could relate to, and many times when someone is faced with death of a loved one, they often start to internalize it. Therefore, my goal for this Zine was to aid people in the process of grief and overcoming it.

This Typography assignment was built off of the Display Typeface assignment. We had to use our personally designed Display Typeface in a series of 30 different type specimen posters inspired by our typeface. Amongst these, 5 were a full character set, 10 were a single character, 10 were a sentence or quote and 5 were a combination of the previous. In the next step, there were 4 that picked from the 30, one from each category. We had to refine these 4 as our final designs and they had to be set up so they would properly print on a Risograph. Finally, out of the 4 chosen we had to pick 2 that we further revised. It was revised by picking an existing typeface that complimented our display typeface. In these 2 posters we had to write a 3-5 sentence paragraph describing the typeface, include the typeface name, and add our name, location and date. These 2 designs were then sent to the Risograph to be printed out as a physical copy. In my posters, the initial Display Typeface was inspired by planets, therefore in my final posters, I made a design in a circle shape to represent a planet and the consecutive letters to represent a shooting star, as stars were a part of the typeface. I chose to not print on colored paper as my color scheme for the typeface did not match any paper colors as it would have drowned out the type.

Initially, in this assignment we were each randomly assigned a photo set from a blog. We were supposed to create a display typeface inspired by a photo set. The photo I was assigned was a set of close up photos of a planet. We used the website Fontstruct to create this typeface. Due to the system we were working on, I was constrained to making my typeface in a grid form using given shapes and strokes, this proved to be very challenging. A display typeface is a typeface intended for short sentenced and large-scale purposes. Therefore, they are often very exaggerated or to express a certain attitude or vibe. In my final display typeface, I used small stars and banner-like streaks to represent shooting stars and space.

The Matchbook assignment was to make a real-life Matchbook that was inspired by a film. The film I chose was Pan’s Labyrinth directed by Guillermo Del Toro, specifically focusing on the scene of the Pale Man. This scene was very rich with red and gold tones as well as fruit and food that were red. This scene inspired me to make this Matchbook be something that could be found in this particular scene. Therefore, I included digital art pomegranates and berries on the inside of the matchbook and made the outside be a dull blue. This color choice was because the scene of the Pale Man took place “within” a vivid colored imaginary world, whereas the real world was very dull. We also had to use an appropriate type for the matchbook that would fit the film that we chose. This taught me a lot about how to choose appropriate typefaces by researching the different types of font and backgrounds of various fonts.

The Monogram assignment was to create the initials of our own name using a kit that provided parts that could make up a letter. I found this assignment to be somewhat challenging as you were forced to work within the parameters of the kit. We also had to use 2 formal elements of type specimen we had made in a previous assignment. Therefore, mine had elements of Display and Serif classes. It was Display since it was bold and abstractly put together and it was serif since it had Slab Serif elements within it.

1. How many hours of practice time per week would you consider excessive? How many hours would not be enough to create sophisticated work? Where are you situated?

I think the hours of practice would depend on the person’s previous experience, but for me over 6 hours a week would be too much for me as it would start to affect me studying for other classes. Again, depending on the project there are different amount of time you should put into that project, I would say a good amount of time would be at least about 12 hours for a project in total. I think I was prepared to spend an adequate amount of time on some projects since I had worked on them previously, but others I had to work a little longer on, either because the program decided to crash when I was working on it or because I hadn’t worked on it as much as I’d liked previously.

2. What does the “next level” look like? What would the next level in the designs of your maps look like?

I think “next level” would be an improvement of your previous work and be unique to something you created. I think my projects had improved as I gained more experience with using Illustrator than I had before and it let me create my ideas easier. I also incorporated aspects on some of the other projects to make interesting illustrative choices in my projects such as the cutout of pie charts that I used in the Perfume map which I learned how to do in the Bills map even though I hadn’t used it in that.

3. What was some meaningful feedback you received about the maps and what did you do with that feedback?

I got a lot of good feedback from the feedback sessions, I’m not too confident on the aspect of choosing Type so hearing how others chose theirs and how they came to their conclusions helped me decide what to do for mine. I also got a lot of feedback from Reina outside of class when we worked on our projects together. It helped to see my project from a different perspective as I could sometimes get sucked into my projects after working it on a long time.

4. Describe what level of challenge you encountered in the creation of your maps. What was the hardest part / what was the easiest part? What was the most enjoyable part of the process?

I definitely encountered problems with illustrator where I wouldn’t know how to make specific aspects on illustrator such as the zig zag line on illustrator and how to vary the colors on that stroke. This ended up in me having to restructure my initial idea for the project to something else which I actually felt that this made the project better even though it proved to be more challenging.

5. Did you do anything else outside of class, extracurricular, related to art, design, or creativity?

I made a chalkboard sign for the salon I work at to promote sales for displaying outside the salon. I also designed loyalty cards for the salon which I made on a program that was specifically designed for making those types of cards. I also continued to work a little on the French curves to practice for making the symbols I use in the last 3 projects. I worked on personal art at home too which included painting a painting I have been working on for a while.

6. Whether positively, negatively or neutrally, how has your life outside of school impacted your school work?

It’s been a lot better, but I did recently get under a lot of stress when my class for next semester was cancelled a week before finals as I had to get that fixed immediately so it wouldn’t mess up my personal schedule (work) for next semester. That caused me to have to have a lot of work that I ended up getting behind on due to it not being something I was planning on having to deal with. However, I did end up getting it solved by talking to my advisor who helped me figure out what to do.

7. What does the most ideal classroom environment look/feel like to you? What does it mean to be part of a class? This semester, what was your part / role / contribution to this ideal vision? Looking back in the semester describe the physical location you think you were at your most optimum and flourished the most.

I think the best type of classroom is one where everyone feels as though they have a voice, being able to comment on other people’s projects so they can also reflect on their own work by constructively criticizing other people’s work. I think I aided a lot in giving people feedback on their work as well as challenging but listening to what other people wanted to give feedback on my work so I could better understand where I went wrong. I think the place I got most work done was in the library because I was alone and I tend to work best when I am alone as I don’t get distracted as easily.

1) about your expert hours in relationship to your use of practice time,

For the Consistent use of practice time it would be if you were spending 6 hours on Graphic Design each week. The Uneven would be if you were able to do so some weeks but not every single week. Sporadic would be if you were not using the time that you got or you were using it doing other things that were not productive. I think that I would be Uneven, I have been able to consistently go to study at the library and work on the symbol project every week on Sunday and Monday as needed. With other classes I budget the hours as evenly as I can unless there is a class that is needing additional attention whether its due to an upcoming exam or a paper. I would say I spend about 3-4 hours working on Graphic Design every week outside of class, whether it be on the project or on the French Curves if I’ve had extra time in the library. I have been working a bit on the French Curves but not as much as I would’ve liked to.

2) the sophistication** of your work,

High sophistication of work is if you are following criteria closely and developing a complicated piece based on those criteria. Whereas Medium would be having a general awareness of what needs to be done regarding the criteria and lightly working with those in mind. Low would be a disregard to the criteria and just doing what you want. I think I had a Medium sophistication, I feel that I could’ve made my piece more intricate or thoughtful. I did follow criteria making sure not to make the symbols too bold or too lightweight in the stroke weight. I also made sure to have enough black in the symbol so it would stand out and not have too much negative space. I did have some instances where I had to change the stroke weight of some symbols because they would’ve been printed too thin. I also kept in mind from feedback that I got from others to not make it look organic since my topic was opposing that, so I made my lines sharp and harsh to avoid that. I used uneven line strokes to make the “bar code” within the eye look more uneven and bring attention to it as it doesn’t seem uniform with the whole piece.

3) how you dealt with feedback,

For Meaningful use of feedback it would be if you were taking in all factors such as the criteria and critiques that we had in class to work on improving your symbols. Useful would be if you were taking in critique passively and only tweaking minor things. Trivial would be if you were being dismissive to the critiques and criteria of the project and just doing your own thing. I think I was in the Useful category, I take feedback well, especially when we were rotating our printed symbols around. If there were multiple people that agreed with a suggested improvement I made sure to do it. It also helped to give me new ideas as I tried tweaking my symbols according to suggestions that students made about my symbols. An example being the image below which was suggested that I use zig zag lines instead of straight ones to make it more unnatural looking.

4) the level of challenge you gave yourself,

For the Intense level of challenge to yourself it would be if you were to pick a subject that may be difficult to interpret or if you chose symbols that needed a lot of time to work on. Medium is if you were struggling with creating the symbols but not excessively. Mild would be if you picked an easy subject or picked symbols that weren’t too complicated, such as premade shapes like circles or squares. I would say I was in the Mild section for this. I started off this project on the fence with what I should do for the meaning behind the symbol. I could either have made a symbol for my personal artwork or I could do the symbol for media photos that have been Photoshopped. I choose the latter because I thought it would be more of a challenge for me rather than making the symbol about an area that I’m comfortable with. I had never used the program that we used before so it was certainly challenging for me in that aspect but it was fun to learn it and I think I caught on quicker than expected. I think I could’ve ended up making my symbols more complicated if I had the time and inspiration to do so. Looking at other symbols, I think mine could’ve been more expressive, I feel that what I made was too simple in its nature. The simplicity of it can be seen below, I feel that I could’ve tweaked my symbols more as I went along. I was proud however of the images that I traced initially at the beginning of the project as I think I did that well, as seen in the second image.

5) other expert experiences,

Lots of extra stuff for other expert experiences could include being part of a Graphic Design club at St. Edwards or making posters for St. Edwards, it could also be attending multiple on campus or off campus events regarding Graphic Design. Just the class assignments would be if you were keeping up with your classwork and not doing much outside of it. Other “stuff” would be if you were procrastinating on work and not getting in the assignments on time because you are doing other unproductive things. I wouldn’t say that I’ve been doing anything outside of class other than the class assignments and the French Curves. Realistically, I don’t believe I would have the time to be able to join a club like making posters for St. Edwards as I know other students are doing. I believe in doing so it would directly affect the quality of my work as well as being able to hand it in on time in general. I have also been going on Pintrest to try and inspire myself for my class.

6) social emotional development,

Mature in social emotional development would be if you were surrounding yourself with positive people who respect your schedule and make you feel good about yourself. Young would be if you had a problematic friend who was somewhat hindering your classwork. Adolescent is if you are surrounding yourself with toxic people who are making you feel bad and you can’t keep up with school at all. I would say that I’m in the Young section, while I’ve been able to hand in assignments on time for a lot of classes, it’s been difficult to do so. This is the first semester I’m working and going to school. I work for 20 hours a week and go to school on Tuesday and Thursday 9:30-6:30. I really enjoy my work environment as I’m a receptionist at a privately owned small salon, my boss is very nice to me and lets me study while I’m working. While that’s said, it is challenging to study when the phones ringing off the hook some days. I’ve also had some health issues, that I only recently addressed, but after some blood work results I figured out that I’ve been very low on Vitamin D3 which has been affecting me often with fatigue and other symptoms that have been very bothersome. I definitely think that its affected my ability to do my best as I have low energy and caused me to have a negative mindset. I’ve been trying to fix this by taking supplements, although I’ve only started recently they have been helping slowly so far.

7) and your contribution to the classroom climate.

Warm contribution to the climate is if you are being friendly to your classmates and speak up often and let others feel heard. Room temp is if you occasionally speak up in class but generally keep to yourself. Cold would be if you were self-reserved and not participating in the class environment. I think I’m Warm, I’vebeen good about speaking up if I have questions that may benefit other students as well as helping my desk mates if they need feedback on the project they are working on. I wouldn’t say I’ve been acting dismissive to anyone unless I was having a particularly bad day.