Note: This video has music.
For the critical mass project we had to make a video in which there was an allegory for a scientific term, in my case it was Evaporation. This project introduced me to After Effects and I learned how much time and work goes into animation. I also realized that despite all the work, I really enjoy making animations. This has been perhaps one of my favorite projects so far.
This is the third map for the Personal Geography Project. It’s about the decisions I take on how to spend a regular weekend. It shows the questions I ask myself and the yes or no answers that lead to various actions. Out of all the maps, this is the one I am least satisfied with in terms of design and organization. Although I tried various ways to organize the symbols and connect them, I think the end result still looks cluttered which makes it confusing to follow.
This is the second map for the Personal Geography Project created in Illustrator. This map shows a meal consisting of a tuna sandwich with a soda and Doritos and how I perceive it through the 5 senses as well as the sub senses’ different intensity levels. In my perceptual map I tried to show as many of these sub-senses as I could such as the crunchiness, the spiciness and the temperature among others so that the experience of eating this meal could be felt at its fullest. I am not entirely satisfied with the final product because I feel like I paid too much attention to making the symbols that I forgot about the big picture of how these were all displayed.
The Artifact Map is the first map for the Personal Geography Project and it was done in Illustrator. My map shows the route I take from my house to the University. Since my route is basically a straight line I focused on certain stores and movie theaters that I use as landmarks. The map is pretty simple because, since I’m not the one driving, I’m not paying a lot of attention to what I’m passing by. I am not entirely satisfied with the end result because I think there could have been other types of landmarks I could have included to add more depth.
In the Combine project, we had to choose prompts at random then answer the questions with collages created in Photoshop. We gathered a lot of textures and images for our collages by scanning them in weird ways. I had a hard time making the collage because I didn’t know how to use Photoshop to select specific sections at first.
Process Book
The Material Studies project was about using everyday objects to create our own typeface. After experimenting with various materials, I chose plastic vampire fangs because I felt it was the strongest out of all the materials I experimented with. Afterwards, I named my typeface “Bitten” because I thought that it represented the essence of the material. For our final product, we turned in a process book with all our research and experimentation and a poster that had the name of our typeface placed in an environment that went with its name and material.
Phase 1: Brainstorming Phase
After brainstorming for the main topic, I brainstormed for the subtopics and their attributes.
Phase 2: Creating Symbols for the Topics.
Three of the symbols were photo traced, three were hand drawn and three were abstract.
Phase 3: Using the matrix to create symbols
In this phase we used the matrix to create 12 hybrid symbols from the initial 9 symbols we had. We combined photo with hand drawn, photo with abstract, hand drawn with with abstract, and all three for each category. These were the sketches I made to help me decide which ones to combine.
Phase 3 continued: 12 Hybrid Symbols by Using the Matrix
After the sketching previously done, I drew the 12 new hybrid symbols. In class we had a critique where they provided feedback on the ones that they felt were the strongest and they recommended I simplified the strings on the guitars, the details on the dresses and the features on the face with the violin. the This helped me choose 3 out of these for the next stage.
Phase 4: Vectorized Artwork in Illustrator
We turned the three chosen symbols from the last phase into vector artwork.We had another in class critique where we received feedback on how to make each symbol better in craft and overall design by simplifying, scaling and changing stroke weight.
Phase 5: Iteration Process
In this phase, we generated many iterations from each of the three symbols and then chose three for each symbol.
Phase 5 continued: The 3 Iterations for Each Symbol
After generating many variations, these were the three that I chose for each symbol. In the class critique, we voted on which one out of the three in each category we thought was the best. I chose one from each section to polish and use for the final.
Final Phase: The Final Product
This is the final product for this project. The final three symbols from the previous stage were polished and made into one final product.
In this project we had to make sculptures that represented the four elements: fire, water, air and earth and then photograph them. I chose to make all of mine out of play dough and focused on using the color and shape to portray the element. While I was photographing them, I also learned how specific lighting and background can play an important role to the overall composition of a picture.
The objective of this project was to take pictures of things in our surroundings and then connect them to each other using the elements of design. Then we had to place them in Photoshop and turn them into a Jpeg to display on a webpage. The part that was difficult for me was trying to connect the pictures to each other and avoid repeating the element of design in the other pictures.
For this project, we had to photograph objects in our surroundings that looked like letters and then place them together side by side in Photoshop to form a 3 letter word. While doing this activity, I learned that pretty much anything could be turned into a letter if you took the picture from a specific angle and focused on a certain section. After finishing this project, I kept seeing letters everywhere.
This assignment was about tracing a duck image in illustrator by using the pen tool to create the different shapes and then filling them in.
Type Specimen Book- Cover and Inside Cover
In this project we chose a specific typeface (ITC Galliard in my case) and made a type specimen book to showcase its different weights and how it would look in different situations. I learned how to use InDesign and the basics of formatting a book. This project helped me see how type can be used to emphasize the meaning of the text just my changing the size or the weights such as bold, light or italic.
In the Design Culture Now project, we were to create a poster for an event using illustrator. We took into account who the people were and the nature of the event. In this project, I learned about using a grid system to organize the content. I also learned how to show hierarchy by choosing different typefaces, changing the size and color and by the placement on the poster. Design wise, although gradients are normally avoided, I think that they work well on this poster because they have a subtle transition and the black surrounding it balances all the color.
In this project we designed our own typeface using Illustrator. We began by making various iterations of different typefaces in a grid with only the letters A, B,C , P, Q and R .After choosing the one we felt was strongest we made various drafts to polish the final letters. After finishing this project, I learned how long the process to make your own typeface is and how much thought and detail goes into creating one. It also explains why they’re so expensive.
