History of Graphic Design Diagram

One of our final assignments in History of Graphic Design was to pick one relatively new image and connect as many graphic design movements in history as you can to that one image. I chose a Luke Rudolf painting and tried to make a unique presentation out of it. I chose to make little flip ups that reveal a connection and description to a previous movement.

East Austin Postcards

East Austin has a lot of life to it. Because of that, I feel this project had a lot of life to it. Our task was to make postcards about East Austin. Our concepts were totally up to us and through the use of collaging we were to create unique postcards. I had a very hard time with this project, mainly because I had a preconceived idea I wanted to use. This idea didn't fit the criteria of the project so I had to start fresh. This was a big stepping stone for me because I was pushed completely out of my "design comfort" and was forced to explore collaging , which I had never done before. I was shocked at how happy I was with the results! I loved this new, unique, and edgy look I had never gotten before. These postcards were also chosen to be included in St. Edward's first annual Juried Art Show. Looks like hard work does pay off!

East Austin Book

After completing our East side postcards and flash project, we then moved into making a book about East Austin. This book was a lot of fun to make. I loved the process of documenting a certain place and then making a book that showed it through your eyes. I wanted to keep the collaging element throughout the book because I feel it add a sense of life to each page and it also the reader to get a feel for the east side as well.

Found typeface

We created a new typeface out of found materials. I chose to make my letters... out of letters! We created the whole alphabet and then a word that went with our materials and setting. My setting is the library. The library is filled with knowledge just waiting to be learned. From knowledge I thought of the saying," Knowledge is power" and thus chose to use the word power.

Activity Booklet

We had to make a fair trade chocolate activity booklet for kids in grades 3-6. Our task was to design a booklet that children enjoy and find engaging. It was interesting having to design for children. I found myself second guessing or trying to see the booklet as a child would see it. This made the designing process tedious and difficult at times. But, this always made the pay off even greater and felt like it was a good stepping stone to becoming a better designer.

photography

Towards the end of my sophomore year in college, I became particularly interested in photography. That summer during summer school, I took photo 1 and fell in love with it. The top black and white photos are some of my favorites from that class. The color images are pictures I took on my trip to California my Junior year. Photography has helped my design thought process because it has made my eyes more aware of visual elements and their placement. It has also helped me become more aware of the world around me and the environment in which I live. I hope to continue utilizing photography within and outside of my design and growing more from it.

Kitchen of Meaning poster

We had to create a poster illustrating a word given to us. My word was denotation. I was actually really excited to design with this word because it is a word that you can't do a lot too so you have to see how you can make an interesting poster by utilizing the word to its fullest. I wanted every thing about the poster to be simple, to the point, and just... denotative! The poster is supposed to encompass the word in every way. I chose to have everything be black and white because that's how I visualize the word; not leaving you guessing, everything is just black and white. The poster simply says what it is- a piece of paper with letters on it.

Buttons!

For this project, we had to make buttons! What was so interesting about this project was working in such a small format. This was our first time really design for something that was about an inch in size and added some foreign variables that we had never had to think about, such as visibility of detail at such a small size. We had to pick a design movement and pretend that the Austin Museum of Art was having an exhibition on it. We were designing souvenir buttons for that exhibition. I chose the Swiss International Style. I researched the movement and designed the buttons based off of the pentameters of the style. I chose to have 4 different buttons that would be given throughout the week at the museum.

Instructional Design

We had to choose an activity and design instructions for it. I chose how to wash the dishes. I designed it in a booklet format and the packaging the instruction booklet would come in was a kit that came with everything you would need to wash dishes ( dishes, soap, sponge, etc. ). I wanted the booklet to be simple and easy to follow while trying to break away from the generic instruction design. I was pretty pleased with the end result.

Document

I made a book about these little shoes I collect and the book descried my collection interest through the connotation and denotation of the objects. These are a couple spreads from my booklet. The top one describes the free and effervescent feeling a dancer can have in her ballet shoes. The second spread relates to how a pair of heels can make a girl feel fun, energetic, and have a good time. This book related to the feeling a perfect pair of shoes can give someone.

transformations

We had to use Photoshop and image making skills in order to create unique images. We had a couple different objects that we scanned in different ways to make different images. Then we combined them in order to have repeating variables in every picture. We had to combine them together using the first object with the second, the first with the third, the second and the third, and then all four.

Critical Mass

For this project, we had to gather images in order to create images for a specific topic. We chose a chapter from a book and focus on an interesting angle on the story. From here, we had to create images pertaining to the original text. The final compositions have to use at least one of the major characters, principle figure, main setting, or places. For mine, I chose Where the Wild Things Are. I took the main character to create my image. I then took a news article about the movie being made and inserted my picture in the article. I was really surprised how the end result turned out and was very happy with it.