Love your experiments

4D Branding for my Life

Hmm.. a brand that means something to my life..?

Gap.

I have worked at Gap for almost 5 years in college. I know it inside and out. And Gap has definitely had its ups and downs when it comes to how people perceive it.

When I first started working there in 2007, they had a scandal going on about kids working in their sweatshops in China. People kind of boycotted Gap for awhile. However, now they are all about designing in the US and trying to be more down to earth. I have been there through different designers and really terrible Spring lines.

So....

Functional - Gap creates the essentials for your wardrobe. You can layer on them and keep them for years.

Mental - Gap has been a staple in jeans and apparel since 1969. Customers associate it with American fashion.

Social - Gap is a social shopping experience, because it has men's, women's, kid's all in the same store. (At least in Lawrence)

Spiritual - Gap is an easy to look at, simple, nice place to shop. It isn't crazy or over-designed. It's a calming shopping experience.

Zag

"When everyone else zigs, zag."

What is different about your brand? You really have to know your brand inside and out. You have to know the competition inside and out. It's all about research. Which is great for me, because I'm all about evaluating. I think it's from my Journalism degree. We had to do soo much research on every brand and company that we worked with. I can't help but do the same thing in design.

Creative Problem Solving

I took a creative problem solving test and well.... it came out exactly how I thought it would.

The test rates your creative problem solving on 1. Experiencing, 2. Ideation, 3. Thinking, and 4. Evaluating. I was almost completely "Evaluating."

That truly is how I solve problems. I evaluate everything, and then I come up with a solution. I don't dilly-dally and I don't over think what I'm doing. I'm a very straight-forward, no nonsense kind of designer.

And I plan to stay that way.

Thirty Conversations on Design

"What problem should design solve next?"

I think that "education" is the right answer -- How children are educated, specifically. The way that children in America are educated in public schools is so static and so modeled after test-taking, that it really impedes children's potential. They should have the opportunity to decide what interests them more.

http://thirtyconversationsondesign.com/

Stuff that inspires me

Stuff from the Dieline awards that I liked

Final poster

I really like how this poster turned out :)

stuff I like

I really respond to handmade stuff like this:

http://www.designobserver.com/

Journal entry 13

"common sense"

This was an ok speech. It was interesting how you didn't know what he was talking about during his story and then he'd come out with something funny like "common sense."

User generated content - expands creativity. People do it for the love of what they're doing, not for money. It's what your kids are doing right now. Anybody can do it. They can remix stuff and make it new and creative. It's not piracy.

(Re)creativity. It rejects copyright, or instead, rewrites it.

Journal entry 12

Paula Scher was really interesting. I love most of her work. I really liked the "Jazz" signage that she talked about. She listened to the owner who knew about jazz and designed it like jazz would look. I also really liked some of her other signage. She made it fit into the city, on poles and in windows.

She says that she begun illustrating her own type, instead of using nice clean helvetica.

She said that a computer doesn't feel or smell like an art supply. She says that it's more like a car.

She also doesn't believe in process ;)

David Carson put typography into scenery and put stuff together that didn't really go together. He says that his lack of training probably help him. He says to pull from what you are as a person.. and put that into your work.

He did Raygun, which nobody approved what he did or anything. He did crazy stuff sometimes and you couldn't even read the articles. Some people said that it was disrespectful to the writing, and some said that it was genius.

Lawrence Weiner has a funny ponytail and he says that an artist lives in the stream of life. They don't live up on a mountain, they live within culture. He says that he prefers sans serifs that are non-authoritative. He says that he hates helvetica, because it's always saying the same thing.

He says to figure out a way to go around it, under it, or above it. Don't just accept it.

All of these designers don't really like computers....

AE Trial

Here is the first version of the first 7 seconds of my speech

Journal entry 11

Debbie Millman - is the president of the Design division at Sterling Brands, New York, host of the radio show "Design Matters" on DesignObserver.com, the Chair of the new Masters in Branding Program at the School of Visual Arts, a contributing Editor at Print Magazine, a design blogger for Fast Company and an author on the design blog Brand New. She is the President of AIGA and the author of three books.

Design Matters - "Design Matters" is an opinionated and provocative internet talk radio show. The show combines a stimulating point of view about graphic design, branding and cultural anthropology. In a business world dependent on change, design is one of the few differentiators left.

I listened to the interview with Dee Dee Gordon - She is a youth-culture expert and trend researcher. Her work was featured on PBS' Frontline special "Merchants of Cool."

It had a funny and interesting little story at the beginning about Debbie as a middle-schooler in the 70s. They then go on to talk about Facebook and other social media, and laugh about it.

Someone said that Dee Dee's skill is "understanding." She worked at Converse and has done some really cool things. Interesting fact: when Kurt Cobain committed suicide, he was wearing converse.

She feels that she's found her niche. She created the L-Report. She is interested in graphic arts, social media, trends, mixed media, creative writing... everything. It was called "a pretentious European arts magazine" and that no one would care about it. However, it is very successful now.

Awesome Type videos

Typolution:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVPfTlpCKaw&feature=related

This is an awesome video that makes rain and trees out of type. Love it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbwXnFbCTDA&feature=related

This is almost like our project.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHBSVhjufFo&feature=related

Super awesome.

Journal entry 10

"State of the Planet"

is a good After Effects video, but I think that there is a disconnect between the tone of the speech and the visuals. The visuals are fun and full of bright, childish colors. But there is good use of typography and the important words are emphasized using size contrast and color.

"Inner City Arts"

videos combines simple animation with video footage and music. The cute, simple animation at the beginning works really well with the rest of the video. The tones match, because it is for a kid's art organization.

"Saturday: Piles of Paper Medical"

is a great infographic. It shows the percentage of medical institutions that use electronic records, by showing these cute folders with faces. The smaller percentage one is accordingly smaller.

Speech

I am doing the Eulogy for Robert F. Kennedy for my speech project. Ted Kennedy is such a powerful speaker and the speech really made me think. Ted gives such dramatic pauses between his words, that I think it will work really well for this project.

"Like it or not, we live in times of danger and uncertainity.. That is the way he lived, and that is what he leaves us. My brother need not be idealized.. or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life. To be remembered simply as a good and decent man... who saw wrong, and tried to right it... Saw suffering, and tried to heal it... Saw war, and tried to stop it. Those of us who loved him, and take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us, what he wished for others, will some day come to pass for all the world. As he said many times.. in many parts of this nation.. to those he touched, and who sought to touch him: some men s-see things as they are, and say why; I dream things that never were, and say why not."













We made a book out of magazine clippings to teach us about sequence. It helped me think about pacing a lot. With this speech in particular, pacing is going to be key. The dramatic pauses need to be emphasized. Michael Selby did a great job with this speech last year. The music that he added behind the words worked really well also.

Google Topeka

Graphic Design - The New Basics reading

The reading starts out talking about how important balance is. If a design is unbalanced, then your eye can get stuck at certain points and it just doesn't look resolved. Balance creates relationships between elements. Symmetry creates balance, however, asymmetry is usually more pleasing to the eye. Balance can be created with contrast in asymmetrical design. Repetition can create melody in design, and a change can break it up. Repetition can also make rhythm in a design.



















Scale is also very important to a design. It is the impression of an object's size. Contrasts in scale can make or break a design. Contrast can imply motion or depth in a flat piece. A great example is the Loop logo and the colorful dancers.

Never having to say you're sorry... unless you use Futura

"And there they were — virtually all of them — typeset in Futura." Ahhhh!

Futura was inspired by the modern machinery in 1928. I'm sure it was beautiful then, and there still is a time and a place for it - just not everywhere.

We can't just "kind of like" a typeface. There needs to be a reason that we are using it.

"There are those who believe typography, like beauty, rests in the eye of the beholder. And while it is not now nor has it ever been a science, there are certain typographic tenets that remain somewhat protected by, well, the vicissitudes of cultural civility."

Typography is difficult for me. I still find myself not knowing if my type looks good or not. Type takes a lot of trial and error for me to get it to look correct.









Alternatives for Futura: Helvetica, Gotham, Gill Sans, Univers..

Journal Entry 7

I went to Austin for spring break, so I tried to take some pictures of typography there.

Journal Entry 6

Thirty Conversations on Design

I listened to:

Sean Adams - who said that the most influential piece of design for him was the Declaration of Independence, which was an interesting choice. He said that he thought it was the biggest accomplishment to design a government. Design is solving problems.

Steven Heller - said the Michelin Man. Haha. He thinks that it is a hugely successful logo/spokesperson. I feel like that is a really strange choice. I don't know if the Michelin Man would be the trademark that I would think is most successful...?

Erik Spiekermann - said the alphabet. Gutenberg invented the printing press and created the first typeface that was not just handwriting. It was the beginning of typefaces. -- like Meta. The alphabet is art.

Monica Nassif - said the spoon. The spoon is a great invention for the kitchen. She says that green design is working with what you have, and making it better. The spoon is a simple, well-designed tool that helps people make things better.

Joe Duffy - says that nature is the root of design. He strongly believes in reducing and reusing. Natural colors and natural forms create strong design. Ex: the Bahamas redesign was meant to mirror the look of the islands.

And to answer the questions for myself.... wow... that's hard. It's something that I'm going to have to think about over a few years of working, I think. However, I that design can change the world. Who doesn't want to live in a well-designed, beautiful world?