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Before taking this class, I had already begun to learn to use Adobe programs for graphic design in high school. My first class using Adobe programs was freshman year, and it was an introductory course to several programs, including Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, and Dreamweaver. In my sophomore year I took a more advanced graphic design course and used Photoshop and Illustrator. I repeated this class as an elective course senior year. And before all of that, I took several years of art classes in middle school.

Of course, none of this includes various hours (and days, to my parents’ chagrin) that I spent on my home computer exploring open source programs similar to these Adobe programs. The ones I used most were GIMP and Inkscape, the open source equivalents of Photoshop and Illustrator. I began using these before my high school courses, and have been continuing to use those (and the Adobe programs once I acquired them for myself) both in and out of school.

All in all, I’d say below is a rough estimate of my time spent practicing various graphic design aspects (both illustrative and symbolic):
3 hrs/day x 5 days/week x 36 weeks x 5 years = 2700 hrs
4 hrs/day x 7 days/week x 9 weeks x 6 years = 1512 hrs

Overall, my total number of practice/expert hours is around 4200.

The interface app project was my first experience animating with After Effects. For this project, I used the deconstructed parts of the application UI package for Apple’s iPhone 6 and my own class work to create a simulation video of a portfolio app for my work in Image Methodology to that point. I put together “pages” (first as paper prototypes and then later in Photoshop) using the provided UI elements and photographs of my previous classwork, and then I brought them into After Effects to be animated as a pitch for how the app would work. I was able to make four screens (as required by the assignment) that were personalized to the function, color scheme, and overall design that I wanted, and then exported the After Effects file as a QuickTime video.

The plotter assignment was my second time using the vinyl cutter, but with a different purpose. I was introduced to a pen plotting method for this assignment and used techniques in Illustrator to create interesting line drawings that the plotter could reproduce. Additionally, this project emphasized the use of creating rules before the finished product to make them more spontaneous. My rules consisted of listening to Christmas music on the radio, and creating lines that could represent the rhythm of each song. I blended the lines to create the final shape that was to be plotted through the vinyl cutter. However, I took my assignment a step farther by plotting on fabric with metallic fabric paint pens rather than using paper and ballpoint or gel pens. I felt that using a different material would enhance the idea behind my plotters as holiday gifts, because I get very excited about the Christmas/winter holiday season and wanted my plotter designs to serve an additional purpose beyond decorative posters. The plot featured below represents Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite.

The zine project was created through a unique truism that has positively impacted my life, and potentially the lives of others. My truism is based on my family’s way of always having a positive outcome whenever there are challenges that we face, whether as individuals or as the family as a whole. Additionally, as a side-assignment to the zine, I created chromatic-type styled lettering of the words that made up the truism my zine featured. I created a hierarchy through the positioning and scale of the words to emphasize parts of the phrase that I considered more important visually for the truism. Like the specimen posters in Typography 1, these zines were printed on the Risograph and then hand cut and folded to turn into small booklets.

The style lesson was used to creatively interpret various aspects of “style”, such as what creates a style and why a certain style might be important. For this assignment, I was part of a group of three, and we were assigned the task of creating portraits that resembled three individual styles, one of which had to resemble the “preppy” style of the 1980s, one that was of our choosing, and the last would be a blend of the two. My group members and I decided to imitate a “bohemian” style alongside the “preppy” style. To do so, we focused on fabrics and patterns. The preppy fashion we studied was primarily made up of solid colors and similar fabrics, whereas bohemian fashion was heavily reliant upon patterns, earthy tones, and varying fabrics. We used those aspects of each style to put together outfits and photograph them, and I was the member who dressed in the “bohemian” style. A studio was chosen for the preppy style because it is often very refined and sterile, influenced more by status than things, my group felt, whereas bohemian fashion is more influenced by nature and physical objects.

For the object lesson, I watched a film and then attempted to create a matchbook, or matchbox, design that could perhaps have been part of the props on set. The matchbook design is intended to be a reflection of the film and set design, as well as having potential to be an actual product of the time and setting of the film that I chose to study. For my particular matchbook, I watched the film Snowpiercer and observed the setting that most of the film revolves around: the sharp divide between the rear train cars and the front train cars. The digital design of my matchbook was simple, and I instead relied upon physical properties to give it interest and make it fit into the setting that I chose. I recreated the logo of the industry that built and funded the train, and printed it on silver paper that was representational of the elite class for which the train was originally furnished.  I printed two copies to reflect a “before and after” of the product; a free novelty item to boarding passengers versus a utilitarian possession to those who need the warmth it provides.

The last map was a decision map reflective of an important decision that I have made or will have to make. The focal point of my map is deciding where to live once I graduate college and begin to pursue a career. Currently, I live at home, but once I graduate, I’ll need to find my own place. This decision map served to visualize the major questions that I’ll have to consider before choosing a place, and gives two options for each. The information is structured as a combination of decision map structures, but particularly pulls influence from “pros-and-cons”, “preference trees”, and “elimination by aspects” structures. This map relied heavily on creating universal symbols to represent my choices, and I really enjoyed the process of translating text into images.

The second map I did turned a set of raw data (a yearly bank statement) into more easily visualized categories. To do this, I divided the information by category of spending (necessities versus leisure activities, bills versus food, et cetera) and displayed the monetary totals of this information as pie graphs. I was able to create symbols to represent these categories of expenses to avoid cluttering the poster with too much text, or text that would be too small to read from a longer distance. The map is organized as a two-page spread, able to display all of the expenses in one graph, or divided between necessity and leisure.

This first map was a personal geography map. Rather than making a map showing the viewer my route from home to school, I made the subject of the poster more useful for me. My commute to school would have been quite ineffective and boring to create and display, so I wanted something more engaging for myself and anybody viewing it. The final map shows twelve of the closest bookstores to St. Edward’s, within the boundaries of Highways 71, 290, and 183. Because I don’t spend much of my time in Austin (and even less time north of the river), I wanted to be able to figure out the best places to go to unwind, and for me, I love taking sporadic trips to bookstores. So I decided to make a map that could indicate which places would be the best to go to.

The symbol assignment was a way to practice iterating a final idea through the use of an umbrella concept and sub-categories. My inspirations for the symbol assignment were different natural environments. My umbrella concept, was “biomes”. Each of my nine initial iterations of symbols was an interpretation of a different biome, and two of the final symbols were then a unique combination of multiple biomes. The non-objective symbols were the most difficult for me to create because I often think very literally about my work and tend to see an end goal and work toward it rather than the other way around, so coming up with a method to draft form before assigning an idea to it seemed backward, and still does. Eventually, though, I was able to create forms that blended multiple biomes while still being unique.