Final Review Proposal

Aspects of design that I would like to focus on specifically:

• growth in ability to problem solve
• focusing on both the process and the final product
• articulation of concepts and ideas/ learning formal vocabulary
• attention to both fine details and the larger whole

This is almost definitely too many; I'm aware! I would rather MINDMAP my work, and then REFINE it, and start knocking out too many from the get-go.

Off-the-Top Questions:

• Is it ok to tile scaled-down versions rather than plot large things such as posters, to save space. Or just print on 12x18?
• Can evidence of progress (like one of our binders) be included? even if we just use one page or something as an example?
• can we show parts of projects instead of the whole thing (specifically, the experimental type). The experimental type is what I want to include, not the application of the images to the busses and billboards.
• Will we get stuff back that we turned in earlier this semester?

DOT BOOK

The dot book was a my first lesson in combining type and image together, and also a lesson in high-quality craftsmanship. It's also where the elements of design were initially introduced.

LINE BOOK

This was a good exercise in working with a variety of different tools, and combining all the different methods of image making into a cohesive whole. It was also an exercise in communicating visually between two, where extra meaning is added between the juxtaposition of two images.

TAXONOMY

My taxonomy is pretty. But I know that's not a good enough reason to add it. It's also a good example of my high levels of craft, and is a good showing of documenting a process, and presenting it in a tasteful way. Of course, I would juxtapose this with my motion haiku project.

HAIKU

Another thing that I would like to try in do in my 35 minutes is bounce between my work so that it shows the ways that we explored the difference between TIME and STATIC images, and DIGITAL and PRINT work. So, combining this with the taxonomy would make sense. Now I just have to figure an order that makes the rest of them work.

LETTER TRANSFORMATION

Working with type, working with motion, working with sound.

COLOR BOOK

This would be an example of how we learned about color, and applied all the termed we learned into a photographic assignment. This was also a really long project. I need to think a little harder on what I would want to say about this, but I am really proud of it so I really want to keep it in!

SEVEN SINS BOOK

This was one of my favourite assignments, and I loved being humorous and ironic about a theme as serious as the seven deadly sins. This was a project where I took complete control of all the aspects of the scene, more so than the color book. This was an exercise in planning and constructing ideas, keeping it to a high standard of quality and executing everything. Of course, there were also lots of problems throughout this project, so this was a big problem solving piece too.


SELF PORTRAIT or FAMOUR DEAD PERSON POSTER?

I know I don't need both of these, since they both deal with learning the semiotics, which I feel is one of the most important things that I learned this semester. It's interesting to see how things that are normally literary devices, like rhetoric and semiotics, translate into design work.

CHANGE ONE THING

This poster was 100% all what I wanted to do! Because I got to choose the topic, and had to research all the information that led me to the final design. Also, this was the only illustrated thing that I did!
SIX DEGREES

This was the only seriously group project that we did this year. It was intense, and learning to work with someone else so close was a good experience. Developing better communication skills was an important thing I learned from this project. Also, this is a good example of a series of work that is all cohesive and unified, but still separate enough to not be redundant. This would be what I use to represent all the series sort of works we have done this semester.
MURIEL COOOOOOOPER

Important: I like it! Researching the designer, and then trying to reference them without blatantly just mimicking them, this was a fun project that require me to refine my ability to translate the feel, the idea of the designer into the poster.
MAGAZINE (LAYOUT AND INFOGRAPH COMBOOO)

I also really love my magazine, even though I need to do some more refinements to it before putting it out for someone to see! This is a great example of my ability to sort through a lot of information and facts and organize them into visually pleasing, organized, informative diagrams.

ICONS ICONS ICONS ICONS ICONS ICONS ICONS ICONS ICONS ICONS

ICONS ICONS ICONS ICONS ICONS ICONS ICONS ICONS ICONS ICONS ICONS ICONS ICONS ICONS ICONS ICONS ICONS ICONS ICONS ICONS

ICONS ICONS ICONS ICONS ICONS ICONS ICONS ICONS ICONS ICONS

Of course, everything icon related will be involved. But since there is SO much to it, I want to try and thread the icons in and out with all the other project, relating the back to older projects, and new project, and showing how this continuous project pulls from all areas to make the final work, the museum exhibit...which still needs work!

Finishing things up!

Here's the neeeeew version of the designer poster! I freshened up the color, vectored all the wire framing, and changed the "Information Landscapes" perspective a bit. Tiled and ready to go for a last crit before sending it to the plotter!

Improvements for Museum Exhibition

Poster improvements

A few things noted:

have some bright yellow lines that mimic the website lines?

line weights are thick when it is too big

colors are dust and organic, need bold synthetic colors, change the bg to black

outline her name and see what i looks like, magentaaaaa?

maybe try wrapping the text like the top building image?

title messed up, fix it

bottom building drop a bit more

Time to get to work!

Three Directions

This is from wednesday! These are the three directions that I had for class.

PATTERN

The patterns are one of the directions that I am continuing with, although the need a lot of work. I need to work on all the the text, and on unifying the colors, keeping things ucluttered, etc etc.

PHOTO/QUOTE


These photo are something that I plan on working into the pattern series, making a hybrid of them!

JUST PHOTO
This is the direction that is getting left behind. Poor thing. That picture of Julia on the bus booth is terrifying! love it!

New Posters

DEMENTIIIOOONNNNNNNNNNNNN
woooosh. Ok, still adding a lot of dimension with these, but trying to clean them up a bit! No more photos, although you can still see the buildings in them, not too abstract. Now I gotta figure out the text! Gonna try doing it digitally and analog, seeing what works to get the dimension.

Julia Child Quotes

Just throwing some of the quotes I collected out there, keeping them in one spot!

“Find something you're passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it.”

“I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate.”

"I think every woman should have a blowtorch."

"Always start out with a larger pot than what you think you need."

"A cookbook is only as good as its worst recipe."

"Always remember: If you're alone in the kitchen and you drop the lamb, you can always just pick it up. Who's going to know?"

"You don't have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces - just good food from fresh ingredients."

"On what her longevity is attributed to, “Red meat and gin.”

"Once you have mastered a technique, you barely have to look at a recipe again."

“It's so beautifully arranged on the plate - you know someone's fingers have been all over it.”

Muriel Cooper Posters, Plus a Laugh

Here's my first shot at the Muriel Cooper lecture posters! For all of these, I tried to keep with the look and feel of her work with the Visible Language Workshop that she taught for twenty years, instead of her earlier, more concrete work.

I'll be continuing along the lines of the first and third versions, the versions with more dimensionality and spaaaaaace. Time to refine!

And now for the joke!

My first attempt at using the press! I think it's pretty clear from this that I need to pay more attention!

Museum Exhibition Title Ideaaas!

1. The Dinner Ritual
2. Recipes for Disaster
3. Instruments of the Trade
4. Aspiring Amateur
5. Yearly Tradition
6. Family Traditions
7. Playing with Fire: Cooking Mishaps
8. Cozy Cuisine
9. Recipe Relations
10. Producing the Final Product

EDIT :

I've been working on thumbnails this evening, and working through it, I've been thinking about the suggestion to make the exhibition theme about a particular chef. This seems like a fun idea, and Julia Childs is the chef I wanted to choose, so I've started brainstorming ideas that a relative to her career/life. I'm still keeping it in the mix with some other ideas, and I'll see how they shape up. I'll continue to think through the other directs, but might need to think of some new, more appropriate titles if this ends up being about Childs..

First Round of Patterns

To be honest, I'm not really sure where I'm going with these, I'm a bit confused on what's working and what's not. One thing I am proud of is that every single one of these are legit tiles, and could go onnn and onnnn forever. Learning how to make them seamless was a lot of fun, and it's something that I would like to try on my own, without having to use icons, if I ever have time.

Lupton: Pattern

This was a really informative article to look to while I was working on my first round of icons, since it was clear clear on how dots and line form grids. Dots can also form lines, that then go into a grid system. The pages with the many ways to implement the same shape in many different ways way cool too, although some of those relied on overlaying, which when I tried to do with my icons, looked TERRIBLE. :( BUT STILL, it was good to see how a simple shape can make so many patterns, both simple and more complex. Seeing the patterns with random repeats were interesting too, and it would be a cool challenge to try and create my own pattern with difficult-to-find- edges.

Final Statement : Book Covers

The final set of book covers are finished now, complete with their own little books to wrap around. From the last round of revisions, I changed may things, but most of them were tiny details meant to help unify them as a set of books.

Don't Try This at Home is a collection of short stories told by chefs about their mistakes made before they became successful. It relates to my icons and my story because of a the disaster aspect of the short stories. To convey the theme of the stories on the cover, I combined a stop sign with a rather unappetizing piece of food. This combination of normally unrelated objects makes a message of warning.
Good Housekeeping's Family First Aid is an instructional book focusing on first aid you should know for accidents that might happen around the home. Because of it's family-oriented theme, it seemed appropriate to show a children's toy patched up with a band-aid, an easily recognizable object related with the medical theme.
Food Preparation and Presentation is another instructional book, this time about the art of food presentation. Even though it's a pretty formal topic, I decided to go with a lighter kind of image, adding bow-ties to cooking utensils. I tried to keep away from actually showing food on this book cover, since it would have been redundant, both because of the title and also because of the food images in 2 of the other book covers in the set.
The Frantic Family Cookbook is a recipe book containing fast, healthy meals for busy families. Again, I wanted to avoid being too redundant with the title, so I avoided showing a family, or children, or recipes from inside. Instead, I used a clock to indicate the fast-paced theme of this book, but used it as a plate on which one of the meals is placed.
By juxtaposing seemingly unrelated images using a simple plain background, bold complementary colors, and clear imagery, these book covers are meant to represent their contents by hinting at their overall theme.

Infographics Linear Progression

The Research

For this infograph, I took the information from a magazine article. It was a very useful article, with lots of factoids about food, and then a timeline of food that a person ate over the period of two days. On one day she snacked all day, and on the other she planned out her meals. The purpose of the information is to convey the importance of forethought when it comes to eating.

Round 1
For the first step of the graph, I needed to just get the information down on paper, and give it some organization. The idea of meals around the clock is formed, but at this point there's no hierarchy or real system to it.

Round 2

These two versions play with a more refined version of the clock (although that clock is not a good clock to use). The icons are used as a coding system instead of just standing with random blurbs of information. The pizza box is used for poor choices, and the carrots are used for good choices. There is color coding in this stage, as well.

Round 3

In the first round of digital translations, it was a challenge fitting all the information into the space a page-sized document, and the infographs became rather cluttered and confusing. I removed the icons next to each food item, and just used them at the top as a key. This cleared up some of the mess, but not much. I also tried to clarify the clock, and the beginning point of the information listed in it. Everything is these are very messy, and the type is all different and hard to read. From this point, I needed to cut down my information, de-clutter everything, and try to unify the elements of my infographs with the magazine article they're to be inserted in.

Round 4

Lots of cleaning up! This is a BIG change from what I had before, but it's a lot more clear than it previously was. In this version, I changed the type and the font sizes so that all matched with the article. I also set it up in a 3-line grid, just like the article. In this though, there are some informations (like the ket at the top and the information at the bottom of the clock) that needed to be presented differently, since they are not the same information as the other boxed elements.

Final

Ta-da! This is the final that was added to the magazine. It is a gate-fold that flips out from the second spread. In this version, I attempted to resolve the issue of the information divide by added bars to the top and bottom, that echo the shape of a recipe card. The bottom portion still needs some resolution, but it's gotten a lot better!