Project 10 - Missing Persons Advocacy

(Now with redone logo) Last week, my submission was pretty much critiqued into oblivion. I completely agree with everything that was said about the piece not having a unified visual theme. Looking at it again I do see the disconnect going from a ransom note (suggesting a kidnapping) to people with Alzheimer’s wandering away from home. My original theme, if you will, was just being dark and twisted. I wanted to draw people in with the ransom not, skeeve them out with the wandering/missing person facts, in hopes that they’d be more attentive to the precautions to take. Again, my final solution was too convoluted to be successful. I spent a lot of time in the library this weekend scrounging for inspiration. The only ad campaign that I came across for missing persons was produced in Australia and it was rather predictable. It was 2 shades away from one of my original concepts that I scrapped to avoid the generic/predictable tag of past projects. It was simply a family photo with one person cropped out leaving a blank spot in the picture. I did watch a few of the TV spots and they were more effective, emotionally charged. My main inspiration came from cycling through hundreds of Google images. I can’t say a specific one triggered my cerebellum more than another but sparks did ignite. I jotted down phrases that, to me, were dark yet intriguing. These phrases led to a general concept (ad campaign). I then spent more time finding images that could be manipulated and used for my visions. I mocked up 4x different versions and asked a fellow cohort for input. She said, and I agreed, that the images were too bright and warm. In Photoshop, I adjusted the color inputs, saturation, and hue levels. I left just enough color to be recognizable but grayed them up enough to emit an uncomfortable air. The images were imported into InDesign where the text was laid out. I did have to go back into Photoshop to darken some text areas with an overlay layer. The text was getting lost in the background image. I think the designs are more unified (both individually and as a campaign) than last week. In time, I would go back and try to make the ransom note concept work.

project10 Print Ad

Design 1 Alternative Design 1

Design 2

Design 3

For this assignment, I created a print Ad, featuring the value of my Illustrations. I wanted to express on e of the best selling points for natural science illustration, the ability to shown the desired details of a subject, and to reconstruct and fill in for broken or missing parts of the specimen.

I utilized the work that I had done on one such project. Beginning with the photograph of broken and empty husk of an already emerged stonefly, the insect was then carefully reconstructed and the illustration portrays and image complete and whole. The colors were made more vivid and life like than the specimen, and desired details of the animal were emphasized in the pencil drawing.

I wanted to indicate or illustrate a sense of transition from the ineffective photo to the clean, accurate and vibrant illustration. Within Photoshop a created an image which I feel does so effectively, and featured that in the Indesign layout. I chose background colors and text colors to coincide with the colors of the illustration. I played with the font hierarchy, choosing to place the main header in the center of the image, being it is the punch line of the ad, but needs to be preceded by a lead in of lesser impact.

Keeping the rest of the Ad simple, I offer a quotation which expresses the point being made, a sentence about Stormtree Studio’s abilities, and then finished with a logo for branding and contact information.

Project 10 Awareness Poster

This week’s project was to make an awareness poster for missing person advocacy. As soon as the project was describes, I instantly had an idea in mind. The concept was to use a moving image with very little text. The problem was that I had a very specific image in mind and I wasn’t sure if I could find it online. There was a great solution though; to use my roommate’s photography skills. With my creative direction, Allison took a series of beautiful photos that were perfect for the look I was going for. From there, I took the images into Photoshop, combined two and created a duotone. After that I converted the image to CMYK and brought them into InDesign. After that, the rest is history.

Project 9 T-Shirt Design

T-shirt designs, the ultimate project for every teenage wannabe designer. It is the first medium we’ve had to design for outside of printing on paper. This was a project that I expected to have some difficulty doing. However, this turned into more of a creative exercise than a “project.” The designing of this shirt started as a distinct sketch. Most times, my sketches are very rough and a bit all over the place. For this, I started drawing and didn’t want to stop until I had finished exactly what the shirt would look like. Overall, I am very pleased with the end result. What was great about designing for a t-shirt was that every idea sparked a whole new and different tangent to go off on. While I would love to be able to create all of these ideas, this was a busy week. I hope to someday make some time to let my creativity run free and design a million t-shirts; but this is not the time unfortunately.

Project 8 Redux

It’s time for a little reflection this week. After looking at my last newsletter, it was time to clean things up a little bit. The redesign is a very drastic change.

Project 7 E-Newsletter

Designing this week called for an all night work session and a full pot of coffee. For our latest project, we had to create an e-newsletter. This is the first time I have designed a publication that’s sole purpose has been to be distributed on the web (excluding websites). The project was based on an earlier web design, so the designs have to be cohesive. It has been a challenge creating this project because designing for web is not something that I am very comfortable with yet. When designing the newsletter I continued working on using visual solutions that are not in my normal comfort zone. Instead of relying on the intuitiveness I usually use, I had to really think about the positioning of every element on the page. While the design may not be as solid as I would like, it has been another exercise in creative thinking.

Project 9 - T-Shirt Design

Our assignment this week was to produce a T-shirt design of our choice with the only limitations being the use of two to four colors. By not having a specified objective to follow, it was a little overwhelming at first to narrow down the type of shirt that I was going to design. I was juggling between doing a humorous design that you might find in a novelty store and something much more structured and professional such as applying my logo as an integrated marketing piece. In the end I decided to combine these two paths of thought to create an iconic image that was not overly funny or too serious and would still let me create an engaging solution. The inspiration for this piece came from an Edgar Allen Poe quote: “They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.” I have always been very fond of this proverb but have never applied it to any of my work. As I was developing ideas for this piece I initially tried to create designs of an interwoven sun and moon. However, after a few attempts, I realized that my sketches looked a lot like what many other artists have created in the past and I decided that I had to take the communication of ‘night and day’ to a different level in order to be completely original. While I was resolving this issue I had become entangled with some music playing in the background and instantly had my solution. I wanted to create a surreal, psychedelic, depiction of a person wrapped up in a dream. I had recently looked at a few poster designs from the Art Nouveau era and decided that I wanted to incorporate this style into my piece to create something that I would not normally do. I turned my focus towards creating a peaceful profile of a woman’s face that was surrounded by swirling, interwoven hair. The addition of stars streaming behind her let me add a cosmic feeling to the piece and helped it relate to the quote a little more. All in all I found this project to be one of my favorites and was happy to explore and implement a different style into my work.

Project 8 - Newsletter Round 2

Our assignment for this week was to re-examine and recreate one of our previous newsletters by building off of the feedback we were given during our midterm evaluation. I chose to redesign my four-page newsletter layout from week 5. This assignment dealt with a large amount of information that had to be constructed in a way that was both visually appealing and easy to read. The initial project required the information to be mixed with images of our choice, within a two-palette color scheme, which would communicate the ideas of the text through our composition.

I developed a design that consisted of a clean, grid like structure, trying to arrange all of the body copy in a way that was easy to read and did not conflict with the imagery or accompanying elements of my piece. I felt that my initial design was successful in this manner, but I had incorporated many elements that were very predictable, especially my ‘straight-to-the-point’ graphics. In redesigning this assignment my main focus was to create a visually stimulating composition that communicated the ideas of the text without using literal images and precise structure (This is a major challenge for me because I am a very structured individual, and basic rules and principles tend to overwhelm my work). My first objective was to read through the copy again and to develop a different approach to communicate a somewhat dry and technical content that dealt with various means of composing and transmitting e-newsletters. In my initial design I fell into the trap of using literal images of computers and keyboards, along with very clean and legible text, which made the content even more boring. For this assignment I came up with the concept of movement – information moving quickly, but with direction. This concept influenced me to clear out all of the copy on my cover page and replace it with an engaging image that conveyed this message through the use of simple shapes and color. I kept my palette from the first attempt, utilizing complementary blues and oranges, which cause a form of visual contrasting movement on the page. This concept was then carried over into my information design on the inner pages. Though not as busy as my cover, I used simple gradations of color inside of simple shapes to further express a feeling of movement (Light shapes becoming darker). By using simple shapes, instead of boring images, I was able to keep the structure of my design neat and clean and was able to visually express meaning without being overly predictable. I am glad we had the chance to approach an assignment in a different manner and hope that I can use this exercise to add a little more thought into my future conceptual designs.

Project 9 Tee Shirt

In this assignment, I wished to develop a design that would show the fundamental importance of water. Using the general concept of yinyang or dualities in nature that give rise to one another, I superimposed the images of a fish and a fish’s skeleton on a yinyang symbol in counterbalance with each other, and signifying life and death.

I used the fish images and blue color to show the interaction of water with life and death. The text was used to state simply the importance of water, and arranged in a circular manner around the image. The inks are applied from light to dark values for the most part overprinting the previous ink, although areas of the blue are cutout to allow for trapping, and the inks should be flashed before application of the black to assure its density.

Invent T-Shirt

After our last assignment, I was still stuck in a European design theme, and therefore I decided to carry it out with this new assignment. The project was so open; initially I had no idea where to take it. After much contemplation, I decided to start with the word invent and see what happens. A lot of European designers make drawings with line design and random elements, and I knew this style would reflect the word” invent”. Whenever you invent something, you usually go through numerous ideas, all of which are mostly disconnected. I used this concept to create my piece. In it, you can see an owl, picture frame, flies, a young lady walking, and other random elements. However, if with all this random imagery, it still looks like a united piece. Over all, the design is very simple, yet interesting. If this design were to be screen printed, I would have to thicken some of the lines.

European Information Sheet

This week I decided to transform my information sheet into a European design piece. I thought it would interesting to see the same article portrayed differently. Being a big fan of European design, I already had a good idea for the kind of elements to use. Chucky black text, white space, unusual elements, flush left ragged right text are only a few of the characteristics associated with European design. Once I choose out a font for the cover, I was ready to tackle the cover image. I went to istockphoto in order to get a fashion photograph. The photograph of a blond girl with star tattoos had the perfect color and facial expression that I wanted. Most of the photos I saw were cheesy, and often had the subject smiling. My next decision was to have wires covering her face, and to have little hints of technology (pins, screw drivers, scissors, etc) hidden in the wire. Once the cover was made, it was then time to created the inside layout. For fonts, I decided to use Impact and Helvetica, since Helvetica is the mother of modern fonts and Impact gave me the boldness I wanted. I used bold shapes and circles to create the timeline, and made blocks of black to lay the title and call out in. On the back, I constructed the chart so it was very clean and bold. I also added more wires to mirror the cover. When reading this article, I wanted the over all look to be edgy, techy, and bold, and most of all, extremely European.

Online Promotion

For my online promotion, I wanted it to resemble my business card and website. This way I could create one big completed suite of design projects. Because of this, I ended up being in an awkward position. I wanted the design to resemble my website, but at the same time I could not use the navigation layout due to online restrictions. However, I was able to use the qualities I had in my website for the online promotion. In the design, I used a lot of white space, black and white color theme, and the same pictorial elements I had in my website, such as the dangling fish. When first introducing myself to a prospective design firm, I did not want to give away too much information. For my portfolio pieces, I decided to crop them so the whole project was hidden from view. This way I could hopefully evoke curiosity. One of the first things I wanted them to see was my name, e-mail and phone number. The black box on the top hosts all my basic information. To make them interested in actually looking further into my e-mail, I nestled my bird logo on top of the box. This way, it can grab their attention immediately. For the “about me” section, I only gave a brief description of myself. Overall, I am happy with the way it turned out, and considering the web restraints, I believe it still carries the same mood and feel that my site does.

Resolution Solutions

Our project assignment was to take two articles and create a newletter. When starting the project, I only had a couple of ideas in mind. First off, I knew I wanted to use the typeface Courier, due to its old school techy style. I did some newletter research, but was not very sucessful. I tried typing in "innovative news letter", but even that did not help. Working at a library has exposed me to different books, and there was one in particular I rememberd. It was a book explaining how electronic objects work. After bringing it home, I scanned a photograph of the inside of a cd drive, and extracted some detail to add to the pages. I then set the theme of a vibrant orange, going away from the standard blue bussiness theme. With a newsletter, it made sense this would not be the only article published. With this in mind, I thought of the future of this newletter and created a title for the newsletter- Resolution Solutions. I then proceded to make a logo for it, as seen on the cover. As I was pondering a cover for the publication, my mind wandering to the cattails I have outside on my lawn. I then made the connection how they resemble the connectors to the tv or playstation. Without further hesitation, I scanned in the cords and positioned them to my liking. After making the wires seem organic in nature, I then took the photographs and converted them into vector form in Illustrator. Once that was finished, I added some butterflies for a nice touch. On the inside, to make it more interesting, I added postscript to add a mechanical texture. Overall, I am happy with the way it came it, and feel it does not take on the standard "bussinessey" look that dominates most of the market today. Well, at least in Albany :-)

E Marketer Factoid

For the marketer factoid, initially I was not entirely thrilled. I’m usually not a “marketing” type of person. However, I am pleased with the way it turned out. To start off, I looked at a lot of images of grids and circuit boards, and loved the way the lines interacted. I had tons of neat ideas of doing fancy line work, but time did not prevail. I then changed my attitude to “ How can I produce a piece that is still me, but does not take a lot of work, and is visually pleasing?” I decided to use a stock photo, so I did some stock image searching. I went to istockphoto.com because I had photo credits already. After searching, I came across an image I thought would work beautifully and would be intriguing. I then began to construct my design based off of the photograph. The riveting blue and wild design made it young and hip. I then choose two fonts to work off of: Geo Sans Lights for the copy and Existence for the headlines. The san-serif quality of them made them look modern. I also wanted to have an airy feel to the type, so it did not feel too condensed with type. I feel that the less copy there seems to be, the more willing people are to read it. After all, an eMarketer factoid does not seem all that inviting at first, but I feel with my design it changes that. I wanted to add a little touch of my style to the piece, so I decided to add long lines to the typeface on certain letters. I was able to use these lines to make a grid for the text and a place to settle the timeline. Overall, I am happy with the way it all came together.

Portfolio Website

For my website, I decided to make it compliment my business card. I thought it would be a good idea to show how I could go from a business card to a website and have them look like one design suite. The first page is an introduction to the site, and it resembles the front of my business card. Once the person clicks on my logo, they enter my site. I wanted the main page to be fun and quirky. I also designed it around my word “eccentric”. The type on the website is slightly disorientated and has a mind of its own. I did not distort the words too much because I wanted them to still be legible. The site is also interactive, to help add to the playfulness. I took my logo, the bird, and made him do little interactions, such as “capturing” my design work. I connected the idea of capturing fish with my projects. For the portfolio page, I wanted to make it simple so my work stood out. I still kept with the interactive style, so my work dangles slightly on strings, which were hung from my bird. When someone clicks on a portfolio piece, the bird flies up to the string and cuts it off. The project then falls down and the description pops up for the viewer to read. In order to fly, the bird straps on leaves he collects from his environment. I did not want my bird to be believable, and I think I did a good job at this. I have never seen a bird made from scissors and an egg beater flying with leaves attached to his back. Have you?

Business Card # 2

Someone once told me that I was an eccentric person. The term soon began to stick, and it seemed to fit me the more I thought about it. I always had a quality about me that was somewhat different and twisted, both in my work and my personality. For developing a logo for myself, I wanted something that was obviously different, twisted, and a little unexpected. Right of the bat, I had the idea of creating a creature made from objects. I began listing items and started drawing them out. When I drew a pair of scissors, I saw how they resembled eyes. I then when through my list and envisioned an eggbeater and magically, by bird creature appeared. I really love the way it came out, and I think it does exactly what I wanted my logo to do. From far away, it looks like a bird because the feet are noticeable, but with further examination, you notice that the bird is made up of ordinary objects anyone could find in their kitchen. I feel it makes the expected become unexpected. It could just have been a regular bird, one you see everyday, but instead, this is one out of your imagination. I had Alice in Wonderland on my mind while doing this project, incase you were wondering

Business Card # 1

I decided to go with a psychedelic eye design, because I drew one like it before in another project and I enjoyed the way it came out. I then had the idea of cutting out the eye and inserting parts of my previous projects so it changed the color of the eye. Overall, I wanted the card in be unique and innovative. I also wanted to create a card that was engaging. I think I achieved what I wanted to do. I plan on using it as a “mini” portfolio in the future, once all the kinks are worked out. I believe the word “Ringler” needs more work, but it is getting there.

Personality Poster

For the design of this poster, I was asked to interview a person who I was not familar with. After asking numerous questions, I was able to form a visual narrative based off of his answers. He claimed he liked things that were handmade, loved the Art Nouveau period, and enjoyed romantic movies. He also stated at times he was quiet and creative and at other times he was outgoing and "crazy". With this information, I was able to come up with a poster that represented him very well. I started looking at photos, and I came across one that stricked me instantly. It was a foggy field with two trees emerging from the fog in the distance. I thought this would be the perfect photo to show his mysterious side. To make the photo more abstract, I copied the tops of the trees and dulplicated them so they emerged from the top of the poster. Texture from an aging book was also added to the photo. He also stated he loved the book Pride and Prejudice. To help show this, I handwrote a quote on top of the poster. The letters are handwritten and have little flourishes gorwing out of them, making them resemble the Art Nouveau movement. Overall, I think I was able to capture his essence on a sheet of paper pretty well.

Project 9 - T-shirts

In the past few assignments I’ve been trying so very hard to focus on one, and only one, concept/idea and run with it the duration of the project. Along comes project #9 with only a size and color pallet restriction; not good for my focus. I have files of sketches and even solid, colored drawings that I, at a moments notice, would offer up to place on a t-shirt. I love them all equally yet for different reasons so to pick one over another seems blasphemous. As of the writing of this statement I have three finalized versions as well as two other ideas that are in the rough, concept stage. The first shirt, with ink splats forming my new (and improved) website gallery icon, was designed as an integrated marketing piece. It has attributes from the logo/business card, website layout, and personal enewsletter. The only downside (if I can call it that) to this design was maintaining the stop light colors of the logo. It seems to hint at a Rastafarian motif which has nothing to do with the concept. I did consider changing the colors but felt it would lessen the impact of the logo itself. The next design, the vexed girl, was a sketch I did three years ago when I was so entertained with the way SIN Industries sounded (Yes I need to get out more). She was intended to embody unapologetic beauty, natural and dangerous, enticing yet unnerving. This stems from both my ideas on life and design itself. The people we read about in history books are not the ones who aped what others were already doing but those that took that next step, who pushed (and sometimes destroyed) ideals. The final finalized design, live outside the box, has roots in the over-usage of the “Think outside the box” slogan. In my chaotic mind, we are negating the message to be different by using a phrase over and over and over and over again. I believe Taco Bell has used that phrase in one of their ad campaigns. The shirt itself is intended to say “Don’t be different for a moment, be different (always)”. So, was I focused this week? Yes, just in three different directions. Did I enjoy myself? No doubt.

Project 8 - Do-Over

After the beating the original submission took, I decided to redevelop the 4-page newsletter. The main critique was that the newsletter itself, images and text layout, was extremely predictable. In defense of my previous design, I felt the original text lent itself to a standard, predictable design. This time around, with the knowledge that this newsletter was aimed at creative’s, I grabbed my pen and went to work editing the heck out of the original copy. I kept the important points intact while improving flow and getting rid of any redundancies or unneeded text. Any time I am reading a paper that is, in my opinion, dry I end up making mental wise-cracks to keep myself entertained. This is the birth place for my theme. The copy hints at trapping online audiences once they come to your website. The thought of having convicts running around text and hiding in holes happened first, evolved into hand-cuffs and other forms of restraint (this was rejected for gutter-minded folks like myself), and eventually mutated into my tangled vine theme. The original mental layout was primarily what the final product looks like: cartoon vines wrapping around the copy, supporting tags with my wisecracks or pull quotes; the background would be either woods or a wall of ivy duotone treated. As I did last project, I developed some large scale conte-on-newsprint layouts which I further developed into tighter pen and ink drawings. These were scanned, Pen Tool traced, and colored in Illustrator using various shades of Pantone 369C. I copy and pasted them into InDesign (Place was messing with the colors something horrible) where I inserted the text. The background image was manipulated in Photoshop and brought into InDesign. I used three different paragraph styles to streamline my work. The leap from mental image to printed version wasn’t as impressive as I’d hoped it’d be. I am, however, comfortable turning the project in since it shows where I am heading; I just haven’t reached the end of the path yet. I will invest more time sexing the piece up when life allows. In the end, I don’t think anyone can claim that this time around the piece is predictable.

Project 2 Logo

In revising the logo from assignment two, I wanted to make an image-text logo with the same idea process as the first one.

The descriptive words I was given about me were transition and perseverance. Additionally, one could say that the sum of the two would be adaptation or evolution.

I wanted to break out the image of the tree from the design to clarify it, and uncomplicated the first letter, D. I wanted to make the logo easier to read, even at smaller sizes, and a bit more organic.

I sketched out the composition, went with Black and White, drew the tree in Pen and Ink

on Mylar. I then scanned it into Photoshop, where I adjusted brightness and contrast, sharpened, and sized the image. Then I brought it into Illustrator and incorporated the text part of the design. I used Papyrus font for an earthier look, more homogenous with the tree, and incorporated the tree icon into the text.

Finally, I brought the Logo into Indesign, set up guidelines, and added the contact information text, and create the business card.

Project 3 SellSheet

Taking the feedback from the critic and a couple of my own observations, I tweaked the sell sheet by addressing it thusly:

1) Decreased the size of the general paragraph text from 12 to 10 , and changing the line spacing to allow more breathing room and white space.

2) Removed paragraph indentations

3) added lines to, and recomposed the chart. After wasting a large amount of time trying to recreate the chart in indesig, I did it in Illustrator and placed it into Indesign. The rest of the piece remains an Indesign product.

4) added color to the bottom of sheet to give it more visual balance

5) slightly enlarge, emboldened, and italicized the quote to give it more emphasis.

6) changed position of the “selling sentence” to the end , acting more like a punch line and summation of the sheet.

7) Enlarge the title size and changed text style to match header, giving the title more emphasis.