Team Separation- Final video: Lauren, Jessica and Justin

the truth..

Truth of the matter is that in the beginning of the semester it was kind of mandatory that we do all those silly little exercises just so we could learn new things and start using new programs and all that nonsense. Well, it was like the internet gods came down and granted our wishes that we didn’t have to do those exercise anymore due to issues with the books site.

I couldn’t have been any happier when I found this out. I honestly thought there were a waste of time and for the most part stressing me out. I felt as if I was losing focus on the actual main projects that were due for a grade. When I was told that I didn’t have to go back and fix anything after the site was up and that if I didn’t start anything it was fine was almost like a weight lifted off my shoulders.

For the whole semester it might have been more worth our time to work on small actual projects like the brochure and poster to help build our skills for a grade instead of silly exercises. Even if we still just kept the main projects, didn’t add anything new and got rid of the silly book nonsense the semester could of went by a lot smoother and we would of got a bigger bang for our buck.

Between the projects and posting these blogs I feel as if that would have been more than sufficient for the course (which ended up happening anyways).

stormbraining!

First, a definition of brainstorming: a group creativity technique designed to generate ideas and solutions for a problem.

Brainstorming is a great tool, whether you are on the job or in school it’s an amazing way to get together and share ideas and bounce them off of other people or just with yourself. Another benefit of brainstorming is the ability to see more clearly why an idea may not work or why an idea is better than the first. With your mind working in over time thinking about a solution for accomplishing a goal it might be found more easily and quickly if you think it out.

Even if you don’t come up with a solution right away the idea is to get all your creative ideas flowing. If you come into a project with a blank slate and absolutely no clue on what you might want to do you are basically screwed and not being productive. If you are having issues with making a decision don’t be scared to ask someone else for an opinion, you never know what they might say could help you and get you on a better track.

By writing things down or creating a diagram you are helping yourself get the best ideas on the table and opening your mind to figuring out what would be the best ideas to try out. Also, when you are brainstorming don’t be afraid to keep and open and welcoming environment to people who want to help you and give you a little criticism and teach you new techniques.

There is always going to be something that is unavoidable but if you find yourself getting off track just re focus and start writing things down again to help get you back going in the right direction.

magazine layout say what?

When it comes to magazine layout I feel that cosmopolitan does an amazing job catching the reader’s eye and attention.

They do an amazing job at using bold colors and bold font choices. Everything and anything to capture the reader they do it brilliantly; especially if you are just in the store and you’re waiting in line and a cosmopolitan magazine and sitting there you can’t help but want to pick it up and see what is inside. The cover is always covered with bold color and bold font choices; the articles that are the juiciest always stick out the most and there is always an amazing celebrity on the front of it that just draws you in. It’s very admirable when a magazine isn’t scared to take chances.

Every issue is always different than the last; they aren’t scared to try new things and use different set ups for each story. You can tell that everything is chosen with such precision to make sure that each article goes along with the pictures and that the color scheme also makes complete sense. Cosmopolitan also isn’t scared to push the envelope especially since they are a racier magazine with their sex tips and all.

It’s a nice mix of a lot. Each page is filled with a wide variety of different articles which keeps the reader guessing on what will be next; whether or not you are interested in the magazine or just reading it to check out one story, you want to keep going to the end just to see what else could pop up and that in my mind is an amazing magazine that knows how to get their name out there and to stay out there.

When dealing with a successful magazine everything that goes into it is very important. To be on top and to stay on top you can’t be scared to take chances and use things that others would be scared to even think about. The design and layout can make or break you, this is why cosmopolitan is the number one woman’s magazine, because they know exactly what the reader wants and won’t stop till they get it right.

FIN.

Ohhh project number four how dare you give me trouble and creative block. Well as any normal person some things just don’t come as easy as others; I had created a first version of my brochure and just felt ok about it, it wasn’t anything great and didn’t really impress me, sooo I got rid of it!

I Completely started over and designed something that was 100% better than the first and really pleased me. Its colorful, very nice to look at, the right amount of text to get the camps point across, and overall looks like a real brochure. I am a perfectionist and wasn’t going to stop or give up until I felt deep down I had made something that others would like. Also I had an image of what the camps actually brochure looked like and I must say the one I made is way better and easier on the eyes.
Coming up with the topic was easy. Everything else was the downfall; as soon as I started going on the new brochure and pulled better colors from the logo and the grass graphic I used everything started to look amazing and how I originally wanted it. Everything I had written on the brochure we’re things I had already known about the camp from working there for 8 years! Working on things that are near and dear to you are way easier to portray. Sometimes I’m very indecisive and picky but in this case it really made a difference and I’m very happy with the outcome of the second brochure.

My main goal for this brochure was to make something that looked inviting that gave you the feel of summer and shows how happy this camp makes people.

c'est la vie

The semester is finally coming to an end, and I feel that I have learned a lot about many different things and accomplished many tasks. Ive learned different aspects of indesign, photoshop,as well as illustrator. When class first started it almost felt like a task to want to use these programs and actually learn all the different tools, but not its almost second nature when I open up the program I am very familiar with using them.

Every project was different from the last. I enjoyed learning new things and new ways to portray what I wanted to come out of it. Everything we designed I loved the task of doing, as a whole this class was a great experience and hope that everyone gets out of this class what I had. In my future my dream is to be part of an amazing marketing team where I can explore, learn and design more things. I will take everything learned from this class into my future. I have just received an internship with After Dark Events working with the marketing department. I am very excited to start working with them and learn many new things. Everything designed in this class will be put into my portfolio to show other future employers so they can get a feel of the things I have worked on.

This class truly helped to open my eyes to things I never thought I would be doing.

merp

At this point in the game everyone is finishing up their project four. I missed one day of class when we all started due to me forgetting I had traffic court (oops) but I was able to think of a concept I wanted my brochure to be on and think of how I wanted to design it. This wasn’t my first time making a brochure so I wasn’t worried about not getting it done in time. I did my brochure on the summer camp I work at in Rochester for kids with disabilities; it’s a place that is near and dear to my heart so it just made sense. I used direct information and pictures from the camp as well as tied in colors from the logo by using the dropper took to pull those out.

So far I have loved everything that I have created. It’s a relaxing and good feeling to love what you do and know that what you have done is done well. I have really enjoyed just making everything from start to finish and having someone beautifully printed out from FedEx and getting good feedback from their employees also.

As I said before I love just being hands on with things and creating things and being creative. It gives me a sense of relaxation to just play around with different software.  I have so much to show from my college career here at Buffalo State and many different things to show future employers which is exciting all in itself since many people can’t show one piece of work that they can truly say they worked hard on and having that show.

do the damn thang

This semester is coming to an end very shortly; with the work on our last projects everything has really come together. I’ve learned a lot about the graphic design process; some people just get it and can instantly create the picture they have in their head and others might need a plan.

When you are designing, whether in real life or in a classroom there is always a criteria that it pointed out. Requirements are a huge deal when designing whether or not you have all the freedom in the world there will always be some things that are always required (could be a logo or a deadline).
For some it helps them to draw everything out and really get a feel of what they might want; they might draft a few ideas before they come up with something they actually want to do. Me personally I just like to jump in and play around with different ideas on the computer because I never know what could happen just from the top of my head.
Deciding the look, font type, colors, wording, pictures, structure, layout all comes in time; I’ve seen many people just rush into that part before they even have come up with a concept (this is a no no).

People need to realize that Rome wasn’t built in a day; you can take your time to create something amazing and something that you and others will truly love. Everyone needs to learn to just relax and stress about thee small things. Everything always comes together in the end.

Last but not least always be creative and have fun with what you are doing; in the end it truly shows what person actually enjoyed what they created.

how Lauren got her creativity back

This class has really broadened my horizons and really brought out my creative side that I haven’t felt since high school. I am learning new techniques and having fun doing it; my head it filled with tons of ideas and things I just want to create and make come to life. My eyes I feel have been opened to seeing new designs around in the world and seeing how beautiful things are and seeing how they were put together and knowing that I could accomplish something like that. There are so many thing that I have never noticed before; I find myself stopping and looking at different things often and try to take things apart and try to figure out how that person designed it.
I have a new found appreciation for all the hard work that goes into everything we see on a daily basis from signs, to magazines, and posters. As a class we all have worked really hard on everything that we have created; not as serious as blood, sweat and tears but some things were harder to overcome then others. We have come a long way from where we all first started off.

To design something you have to have creativity and some heart in what you are trying to produce. Hopefully my designing career is only going up from here and I improve on all my skills that I have learned and will one day create something amazing.

project three

This was my poster for project three. My original idea was to do a poster for the American Diabetes Association; this was going to involve the silhouette of a hand with a blood drop coming out of a finger with facts inside the blood drop. I felt that a lot of people were doing posters on different kinds of illnesses and such so I decided to do something that was not quite like anyone else’s.  I chose to do a pro smoking marijuana poster with a link leading to facts and statistics about it; I figured with the amendment in Colorado and Washington being passed recently it was good timing. I used the silhouette of a girl smoking a bowl with the common red, green, and yellow Rastafarian color background along with the saying “who says I can’t get stoned”.

Each project we do I fall in love with the creative process of it. Once again having the creative freedom to do what I want and have it represent someone that I believe in makes it that much better. My design for this came to me when I was taking a nap actually and made it that much more clear that I should do this when I was smoking with my roommates (real fact, had to put it). I have had my head wrapped around these projects pretty well; it’s a good feeling that you can do something on your own with little to now help.  It’s a powerful feeling to do something you are learning to love more and more every day.

Everything that I put together almost happened by chance; from the text and font type, to placement and everything else (sometimes just playing around with different things something beautiful comes out of it) I feel that if someone was walking by my poster they would definitely stop to look at it.

I feel that the words are really powerful and to the point; “who says I can’t get stoned?” its direct and sticks and makes you want to think about it, like “psh yea who says I can’t!”

mmm project two

For project number two I really enjoyed working on it and having freedom in what I want my topic to be. We were told to write something and find pictures that related or make our own. I am not one for writing down my ideas and the same went with this project, I just let things happen. I knew when I started I wanted to both draw something and use my own pictures. I wanted to do more of an abstract feel with using a minimal amount of words and pictures to paint the picture; everything from then on came together on its own.  I used the chorus from the Kendrick Lamar song “swimming pools” and created my own designs using indesign to represent the words; then I took pictures of myself and what a weekend with me would look like which consisted of working and parting, and the words I used on someone of those pictures were words that related to drinking.

I feel that I did a really well. Obviously there is always new things to learn and what not but I feel that I delivered exactly what was due. I could of probably worked on the lettering more in the text and such but all the pictures and the design work I did I feel came out great and I expressed exactly what I was looking to do. In the end I love what I did and love what I came up with, and it was fun to do. Day by day I learn more about what I am capable and finding a bigger love in being hands on and creating things.

35 Inspiring Color Palettes from Master Painters

When I went to the art varsity website I wasn't quite sure what I was going to be looking at. When I started to read and saw the amazing artwork with the certain different color pallets that these great artists had chosen I was pleasantly surprised that no two colors were ever the same and that none of the colors were very shockingly bright, they were all modest and subtle and darker hues. The website really does a great job on helping you to think about your own color pallets and gives you the option to go and extract colors from your favorite paintings that might not already be presented on their site. It's refreshing to see how certain colors were mixed together to create such amazingly artworks. It really does inspire you to want to do it on your own and make your own pallet and hope its something worth while.

wooo!!

As of this very moment I have completed 10 blogs and feel caught up and its such a good feeling, I made sure not to bullshit my way through them I actually thought about what I wanted to say and didn't just throw ten blogs together just to have them. I also passed my sign language midterm and have started working out for the first time in my whole life, two very awesome accomplishments I must say. I have exactly an hour till class begins, I still haven't received my new debit card in the mail yet which results in me having no money and I am unfortunately hungry. Now I am done with the rambling and I think I will start my other blog project for my other class so I can get a head start on it.

See everyone in class and sorry if I blew up your sidebars with all my nonsense :)

Repetition and Cloning

At the moment I am still working on the Amelia Earhart photoshop exercise and for some reason it is just taking me forever. Everything else I had no problem with but for this one I can't seem to wrap my head around it and actually motivate myself to finish it. Clearly I will eventually get it done and Im sure it will look some what like the books version but again my whole procrastination out look on my life is taking over :). Today in class I am presenting my final magazine layout and I am pretty excited to hear what critiques everyone has about it. I am very pleased with how it turned out.

to be continued when I eventually finish this actual exercise....

Oh exercise 4

Exercise 4 was very simple after reading all the directions was said and done. There were 3 different smaller projects mixed into one. The first we had to create 5 squares which all had to be 1 inch by 1 inch. We then had to make a lot of editing adjustments to colors and we then had to make duplicates of all the boxes and change those to greyscale. After changing them to greyscale we had to arrange all the colors from darkest to lightest which was simple for me because the colors I had originally chosen were all fairly different. The next parts of this assignment were easy as well and I had them done in no time. Everything is consistent with trial and error, yes the reading tells you what to do but sometimes you just have to play around with the program to really get a feel for it and actually see what you have the power to do.

Magazines!

Im pretty sure I have fallen in love with how people can design and layout certain things in magazines. I look at and read magazines all the time and unless that article really jumps out at me then i'm just going to skip right past it and move on. A good article needs to grab your attention and convince you that you should spend a few minutes on it. This project gave me the opportunity to explore all kinds of different magazines and different layouts. I googled magazine layouts so I would get a wide variety of different kinds.

Each one of the layouts above are all completely different and speak out to people in different ways. They all have the aspect of having an element that can grab on to the reader and make them read what has to be said. It amazes me how brilliant people are and how they can come up with so many different things. When I did my layout and it was all said and done I really didn't want to stop I wanted to keep coming up with new things for different articles. I think I might of found my niche.

Helvetica

The movie Helvetica I thought was very interesting, at least the parts we saw in class I was intrigued by. I never realized that almost every aspect of the design industry is so dependent on one typeface. Everyone is just so used to seeing exactly what in front of them, many people only notice typefaces when reading or certain ads. The movie shows that it is on almost everything in plain view. Since the movie I take more time looking at signs and billboards and such to see what has different types on it and whether or not I think it really suits that product. I compare almost everything to Helvetica and always wonder why more companies don't use it and chose something else. The typeface in reality can make or break certain things. Helvetica was explained as being so commonly used because the font is simple and everyone can trust it, it gets the information across to the people and is very straight forward and clean. Their are things in our everyday life that need to be conveyed and clear such as traffic signs, you need that information right then and there. It was fun listening to the different points that the designers gave and see how in love they are with the field of work they are in.

Human Corpse and the Double Exposure

Our first Photoshop exercise proved to me that I am a little rusty when it came to Photoshop I haven't used the software in years and it kinda showed. But, once I started getting familiar with it again things started looking up and the program started coming back to me. For me It is always a task going back and forth from the text to the program, I feel like I get lost in the words and skip steps (Im pretty sure I have ADD). At times even tho you are following the instructions and doing everything to the book what you are doing looks nothinggggggg like theirs, but when that happens you fix it and move on. Things like this take awhile and I always just want to get things done but I really need to learn to slow down and enjoy the experience. I have a valiant effort and feel like this exercise came out well.

Very First Project

I absolutely loved doing this project and had a good time designing it. Doing magazine layouts and putting things together is what I would love to do with my future. I get inspired all the time by how things are put together and whether or not it grabs the readers attention or even someone just passing by. Once again I didn't pre plan (probably something I should plan on doing) I looked at all my options and chose the great pumpkins since I believed there was more I could do with it. As soon as I got the text how I wanted it everything else started running smoothly. The layout of the pictures and the texts I feel go really well with each other and my choice of colors fits the article. I was in love with my final project and how it turned out, even the guy at Fedex said he really enjoyed what I had done.

Exercise 1

For exercise one  we had to create a dynamic composition using the Rectangle tool in Adobe Illustrator. We had to copy The Poet, 1911, Egon Schiele, oil on canvas. I thought it was fun trying to copy an image done on canvas and try to portray that through a computer software. The only issue that I came across was size it was hard for me to judge how big or small I actually wanted it. With my fianl project I feel I did the best work I could of done with the coloring and positioning of the different rectangles to make it somewhat actually look like Egon Schiele's work.

 

The books rendition

 

My rendition

 

Original work

 

On Wednesday September 5th....

On Wednesday the 5th we spent a good amount of class time working and playing around with indesign. I actually really enjoyed it after I got the hang of using it again and remembering come of the commands. It reminds me of Photoshop and I've had experience with Photoshop over the years but using some of these programs is like riding a bike and once you get used to it its easy.

Indesign came to me really fast. I really enjoy editing things and designing different layouts and seeing what possibilities there are out there. I didn't do that much brainstorming since I enjoy just going into things with a blank slate and playing around with different designs and colors and such. With the initial project I took it upon myself just to throw a bunch of different things together and see where it took me. I need to practice on all the different aspects of the program but I feel what I came up with was a good start. It would be nice to sharpen my tool on making different designs and shapes and layouts. I love playing around with different colors and texts. Things that pop out at you really catch my eye and clean looking designs I'm a fan of but I enjoy being bold and get my point across.
The colors, lines, words and everything else that brought together my project I think showcased me in the way I wanted to be portrayed by just my initials and some buzz words.

Dear COM 322 fellow students....

In all honesty I have been extremely lazy and caught up in everything else that I have neglected to blog for this class (except for the very first post). But! starting at this very moment I will get myself caught up and blow up this blog, I just wanted to give everyone a heads up :).

world of design

It is very important for communication majors to study design for many reasons. By definition communication is the exchange of information between people, by means of speaking, writing, or using a common system of signs or behavior. The message can be spoken or written, the act of communicating is to relay information to others, and it’s a sense of mutual understanding/sympathy.  Communication is focused on the main delivery of a particular message to a particular audience. Our job in the communication field is to try and persuade certain individuals to buy a product or inform the public on certain things or just for pure entertainment purposes, commercials are what drag us in to many of the shows we know and love. To get the right message across and to be viewed the correct way every message needs to be thoughtfully designed and laid out. This is why as a communication major it is very important for us to study design.

Every design matters and every little aspect of that design doesn’t go unnoticed. An out of this world design with capture the viewer’s attention and bring you into whatever you made a design for. Every design has a purpose and a message that the designer is trying to get the audience to understand, it’s almost like telling a story and if that story isn’t told the right why no one is going to understand what you are saying. My friend nick has his own tattoo shop and decided to make a website for it, well without fail he managed to make it look awful and not inviting if I wasn’t his friend I wouldn’t of went to him for a tattoo or even though he was a good artist, it was just a plain site without any wow factor. So recently he hired someone who has a design major who could make amazing websites and got across that his shop is the place to go and that he is a spectacular artist. It was an amazing change from what a poorly thought out design and concept became something beautiful. But that goes for anything you’re not going to stay in a hotel if the pictures on their website a dreary and looks awful you want to stay at the hotel that shows views and people having a good time and color.

 Commercials are the best kind of communication and design combination out there I feel. The company and the designers want to leave the viewers with a happy feeling after watching the commercial. That also goes for newspaper/magazine articles, billboards, busses, etc. the company wants you coming back for more and will do what they have to make you stay. Anything poorly made will only achieve failure; this is a big deal when it comes to donating money and getting people to volunteer.

I am very excited and intrigued in taking this class this semester. I am hoping to learn a lot of InDesign and working more with Photoshop. My main career goal is to do sports marketing and design commercials, billboards, print ads and all that fun stuff. I love being hands on and actually working on the computers I feel as if it’s a better way to learn your craft.