The Promise of Surprise

Final Portfolio Post

Mon, 06 May 2013 04:42:59 -0400

Okay!

So there are two posts with the images for my final portfolio, couldn’t upload all of the images at once.

I’m ….happy with how it turned out?

Honestly, it turned out better than I thought it would.

I realized very quickly how much I’ve grown over the semester and how much gross nasty design I made at the beginning. I hated the fact I had to show it in my portfolio, but like Tim Gun would say, “Make it work!” (Sorry I’ve been watching too much Project Runway these days)

SO. I had to pick pieces I may hate and make someone else find them appealing. After talking to Kristen and others after their Dallas trip they made it clear that employers want to see designs in different contexts. So I tried to attemptttt to show that as best I could. I learned how to use Photoshop Action files, so woo for learning. It’s actually a pretty cool deal, so that’s where you see things like my websites implanted on iMac images, or the teton’s poster being put onto a mug, etc.

Those aren’t REALLY put into a different context, because I didn’t initially design them to be put on an iMac screen, or on a water bottle, but I tried to adjust. It’s better than nothing. And now I now for the future, that I need to design other things besides just the main project. It can’t be THAT terrible. Action files make things a little bit quicker.

Overall, I think it’s clear that I’ve flushed out some of my really terrible and ugly design habits. And I think we all need a class like that here and there. I got all of my disgusting craft and hand skills out in Design II, so woop woop, hopefully they can improve. And now I feel like I’ve gained a real understanding of what makes good design and how to tailor my style to that.

I’ve started to dig in to design blogs, things like Behance, looking at design on pinterest, obsessing over my fonts, watching Photoshop tutorials, etc. It’s so much more fun and interesting to create something when you have the tools to create. At the beginning of the semester I had no idea what I was doing. I was going to dafont, slapping things on a page, and editing an illustration that took me like 2 hours.

Now I feel like I’ve started to put a lot of energy into my work. I decided to re-do the bottle project TODAY. AND then work on my final portfolio. And I was totally cool with it, because I had a new vision and I didn’t want to just let it go.

I think I’ve finally got the drive and quite a few more skills under my belt after this semester. As much as I hate the fact that my portfolio from the first half of the semester sucks and we’re still getting graded on it which is kind of ridiculous, I know I’ve gained something from it.

And I ain’t even trying to be cheesy. I just am more excited to design now, and try to learn more. But! I think Kristen said this in her blog post, you really have to learn to push yourself. I think for awhile I was comparing myself to other people for awhile, and when they were trying hard I would try hard, and if other people slacked and met the bare minimum so did I. But now it’s about getting a job when I get out of school, and not caring all the time isn’t going to cut it.

I feel like I’ve got a lot of things lined up for me. I have the internship this summer where I’ll be designing, a design job for the fall and spring, I’ll be the Junior Art Director at Detours next year (WHICH IF YOU WANT TO DESIGN FOR US PLEASE SIGN UP CAUSE WE LIKE VIS COMM MAJORS) and yeah. I think I’m starting to feel it now, so that’s cool.

This is really long. Probably because it’s 4 AM. Typical! Even staying up this late before the final. Time management…that needs to improve I guess.

The end of this super long post.

Last half!

Mon, 06 May 2013 03:04:21 -0400

Last half!

First half of the portfolio.

Mon, 06 May 2013 03:01:37 -0400

First half of the portfolio.

Why NOW

Sat, 04 May 2013 15:21:34 -0400

So I’m starting to put together my final portfolio.

I’m so frustrated with myself!

This semester has pushed me to want to not even become a better designer, but to understand what it takes to be a good designer.

I’ve been trying to get a feel for my aesthetic, and I think I’ve finally figured out what I like….but! I’m frustrated now.

I’ve picked out a few things for my final portfolio, but the stuff from the beginning of the semester? It’s so shitty! So horrible. I don’t want anyone to see it. But they have to, we HAVE to have 15 pieces. I wish I could go back and redesign it all, but I can’t. I’m in a time crunch.

I’m tempted to redesign some of my bottle stuff tonight honestly. I know that’s a risk, because we all like to get the Rusty approval before we go out on these limbs. But right now….I’d rather have some pieces that I feel are worth showing to someone else, FOR ME. I don’t want to just throw in a piece because Rusty approved it and it’s done.

I’m not saying I don’t respect Rusty’s opinion, I just don’t have time to get his opinion because we have, oh idk 2 days?? I’m so frustrated I’m just figuring this out now, and getting this mindset now.

I’m just gonna try to put in some of my strongest pieces in here. Be proud of those and go up from here. I think the beginning of VCII was weeding out and getting rid of all that bad design. It was like shaking it out of my system. It just sucks because now I have to show that off and act like it’s good when I know it’s AWFUL. Oh well. It is what it is.

I guess I can be happy that I have come to a realization and am wanting to design awesome things, not just to get them done, or to get it out of the way, but because this is what we’re all here to effing do. BLEH.

So sad. We’ll see what this little bottle redesign brings.

Oh and here are my contact sheets. Woo.

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 10:05:42 -0400

Oh and here are my contact sheets. Woo.

Okay. So she’s done and printed. Woop woop. OF COURSE...

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 10:01:00 -0400

Okay. So she’s done and printed.

Woop woop.

OF COURSE THERE WAS AN ORPHAN ON ONE PAGE CAUSE THAT’S WHAT YOU GET WHEN YOU SEND THE PDF TO PRINTING SERVICES AT MIDNIGHT AFTER A DAY WHERE YOU’VE BEEN UP FOR FOREVER AND NEVER SLEEP.

But I will most likely reprint. It’s fine.

Still trying to figure out how to bind this…

I ended up at 29.25 hours for this, so I’m under budget, and I think that’s fine. I worked my butt of to get it done and had to work pretty fast because I have plenty of other things to do. And I think that’s saying something about what I’ve been learning. Basic things are becoming easier, there are so so many tools in these programs we use, so when you can figure out how to do things quickly of course the work will done quicker.

No this isn’t the craziest layout ever, BUT, I think I balanced it how I wanted to. I still had some interest.

I used a good mix of fonts (Futura for headlines, Didot for body copy, and Didot italic for random fun copy…? I’m sure that’s the official name for that)

I used small illustrations just to add that extra something to this. And next to them I added small quotes from the text that related to the illustration. That was one of my favorite touches added.

Overall this was my favorite project. I really enjoy editorial design, so finally getting my hands on a big spread to deal with was fun. I wish I had more opportunities to work on typesetting throughout the semester.

I also think I finally let my aesthetic show through on a project without compromising the mood I wanted to portray. I loved the heavy use of photography, without a bleed to kind of give it a look book feel. And I enjoyed the fonts I ended up using and the pops of graphics and illustrations along the way.

So this is done…besides the binding….and the possible reprinting.

This is how my time broke down:

Planning: 5 hours (I know…I planned and thought about this a lot before diving in)
Actual Sketching: .25 hours
Graphics: 2 hours
Layout / Font Choice: 17 hours
Photography / Illustration: 5 hours
Production: LYKE 5 MINS cause I sent this shit over to printing services cause I’m not gonna be the one to eff it up, WE KNOW I WILL.

The end!

Okay so here it is. I’m in “Nuance Stage”...

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 10:14:25 -0400

Okay so here it is.

I’m in “Nuance Stage” according to Rusty. Which is good. Just have to throw some small things in to make things interesting. Mess with small things…try to get some more air on the sides, etc. I’m hoping I can print like…tomorrow. I want to go to printing services…because let’s be real I’ll f it up if I do it myself and they can probably do it quicker. I’m willing to spend a few buckaroos on this. Just because I like it too! I want it to look professional.

I like the overall aesthetic, I think it’s probably the best reflection of my style as a designer. So that’s good to come out with. I feel like some layout things could’ve been more fun, but again, I struggled with making this something that a normal person will find enjoyable to read and not obnoxious and crazy. I think I finally balanced that.

I’m at 27.25 hours. So phew! I’ve been hauling through this.

We’ll see what small things I fix today, and try to send off. Hopefully all goes well.

Okay, I have no desire to export this whole thing right...

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 19:48:45 -0400

Okay, I have no desire to export this whole thing right now.

I’ll probably work on it in the wee hours of the evening.

I’ve really been working hard on getting this the way I want it to look.

I changed quite a few things today. After talking to Rusty, he said that having full photo spreads are fine, I have a few pull quotes on this big photo pages. Just to break up all the boring text. So that was cool, but I have a lot of largeeee photos, and we played with switching those from page to page. That meant switching up all my content. WOOOO, fun.

But it was good. I’m glad I was pushed to switch things up. I’ve changed a lot of other things. Like my fonts. I changed my headlines to Futura, just to switch up all the serifs that were all over the place. I’m still deciding where lines should and shouldn’t go. I’ve got a set folio now. I’m just trying to switch up the content right now and make it seem more interesting. It’s hard to balance that with consistency but I think I’m starting to understand!

So yes. I hate how simple things can look but you’ve put so much though into it! So ridiculous. I’ve put about 24 hours into this right now. I’ll work on it later. Just thought I’d take some screenshots of some of the little elements I’m adding to things.

We’ll see if this takes any more random turns.

That’s it for now.

Also, my the text on my headers looks skewed when I upload the .jpegs. Not sure why!But it’s...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 01:27:29 -0400

Also, my the text on my headers looks skewed when I upload the .jpegs. Not sure why!

But it’s not. Don’t think I’d be using some playful weird font for this, cause I ain’t!

So here’s my initial layout. Don’t judge it quite...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 01:16:13 -0400

So here’s my initial layout.

Don’t judge it quite yet. This is just me laying out the shit ton of copy we have to deal with.

I’m having a hard time figuring out how crazy to get with it. I’ve been getting a lot of inspiration from books and such…but at the same time, this is a “brochure/newsletter” whatever you would like to call it on a place in Kirksville. This isn’t a newsletter for designers, or people interested in editorial design, or a high end magazine. This is a newsletter for people coming to Kirksville, they want the info plain and simple. I’m just hovering this line of how to make it interesting, but not too crazy….I don’t think crazy is part of this.

Anyway. I’ve thrown some type on some of the photos, at first I was upset because I wanted this to have a look-book kind of feel, BUT, I actually don’t mind it. I just need to be careful of the size of the font and such, it’s hard to just throw white type onto something and have it print well.

There’s a lot of things that still need to be taken into consideration.

Like the title page for instance. I’m working on a logo actually right now…the one they have is horrendous and I have an idea. Just haven’t put it up yet. So there’s my replacement idea for now.

SO YES. I’m at about 18hours on this bad boy already. So. Yeahhh. Shooting the photos and editing them took quite some time and then trying to find text to forever and then having to lay it out and mess with fonts had to happen as well. But I’m enjoying it. Lots of work still needs to be done on it for sure though!

The end!

And here are the last of my images. PHEW! Took me awhile to...

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:56:53 -0400

And here are the last of my images.

PHEW! Took me awhile to upload these…tumblr is touchy!

I’ll talk bout them l8r.

Photo

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:55:14 -0400

And more.

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:49:48 -0400

And more.

Here are some of my pictures!

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:49:09 -0400

Here are some of my pictures!

Spreading the laughs.

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 01:23:56 -0400

No more bitching.

Just this.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/the-best-sloth-tattoos-of-all-time

The 29 Best Comfort Foods On The Planet

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 01:03:58 -0400

The 29 Best Comfort Foods On The Planet:

Tell the haters to go ahead and step off. You deserve this.

FEELING DOWN ABOUT YO FINAL PORTFOLIO?

EAT YOUR FEELINGS INSTEAD OF DEALING WITH THEM

Brochure

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 00:58:00 -0400

Okay. So!

E-mailed the Chamber of Commerce….no help at all. They sent me a brochure with maybe 300 words TOPSSSSS…and said, “If you need something around 5,000 words this should help!” ….Like. what.

They gave me a lot of brochures too. Nothing with anything appealing.

And Matt was all, “Get it done by the deadline, regardless of what you do!”

Buttttt I feel like I don’t want to choose something and hate it. Lately I feel like that’s all I’ve been doing.

I’ve been thinking about my portfolio, and honestly I’m disappointed with what I have after this semester. I don’t think anything is very reflective of my style, or my aesthetic, and projects were done just to get done. That’s so frustrating! Mer. SO!

I’m glad we are doing a brochure. I love editorial design…typesetting, etc. (I have like 5 books from Mobius on them right now…so nerdy) And I’m starting to think it’s something I’d like to get into. I also love how much photography can affect editorial design. And I love photography. So this sounds like an awesome project, I just wanted to wait to find a topic that I was cool with.

THEN. I remembered working at Jackson Stable’s….one of the most beautiful places I’ve found around here. It’s a huge log cabin looking building…they have wine tastings, weddings, etc. I’ve volunteered at their events through ASG and am always impressed with whatever they are putting on. The place is GORGEOUS.

There’s a fair amount on their website…but dem photos they have….not so hot….

I e-mailed them and I’m gonna head out there on Thursday and get photos and interview the head of the whole sha-bang…she says whatever she can do to help she will…which is so awesome. I can tell this will be a project I invest my whole self in. And I’m so pumped.

I have a lot of ideas about how I want the general aesthetic to have. I love the idea of using photo as much as possible…I’m super into fashion lookbooks, and think it would be cool to use the photos in a similar fashion (JUST USED FASHION TWICE IN A SENTENCE). I may even make my own scripty type…WHO KNOWS. I also want to print on something cool. I was thinking a light newsprint…cause I’ve been seeing that and loving it….gotta go talk to printing services about that shite though.

I have so many ideas right now it’s not even funny…I just want to START. I’ll probably get a layout going tomorrow so that will help.

I wonder if anyone read this. If ya did, congrats.

OKAY. So. I still don’t have my copy. I e-mailed the...

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 10:07:54 -0400

OKAY.

So. I still don’t have my copy. I e-mailed the Chamber of Commerce and I think they said they’d be getting back to me sometime today. So I’m curious to see what they end up giving me. I’m just glad I’ll have some copy to get started with.

I really love editorial design. I think it can be so interesting if you let it be. And I’ve actually been a nerd lately with it…ordered 3 Mobius books on editorial design, HOLLA.

But the one featured here at the bottom Turning Pages — is ahhhmazing. It’s expensive so I can’t buy it right now. But there’s so much in it! Chapters talking about photography, typography, structure, the cover, etc etc. It’s really cool. Lots of info, lots of inspiration.

I’ve been taking a lot of their examples and finding them on Behance and repinning. So there’s my Pinterest board for this. (Also found out how to save my Pinterest boards as PDFs so I’m gonna start printing them out more often and hanging them up around my desk in ma house)

Idk. I want this to be cool. I realllllly want to print on newsprint, that’s been a trend lately I’ve been seeing lately. A lot of photographers are using it. I just like how it’s almost a statement about print…
We shall see though.

The iPhone dealio is being stupiddddd. So I’m just gonna...

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 09:14:33 -0400

The iPhone dealio is being stupiddddd.

So I’m just gonna wait to do it on my computer at home and try to upload it from there.

So idk why that top image is so yellow, it wasn’t on my...

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 23:08:00 -0400

So idk why that top image is so yellow, it wasn’t on my phone.

But anyway. These are my mockups for everything. The cover is SO close to being perfect. I just want the flaps to bend in more easily. They need a little bit more on the edges so they can bend.

The CD dealio is a little too small as well, but not by much.

I’m glad I got it printed. I actually printed it on some Neenah paper I had from awhile ago. It’s a cream color, and has little specs all over it, so that kind of adds another little texture to it.

I like how the colors turned out, so that’s nice. I’ll print it again one last time. Make the POP, and yeah.

This project hasn’t been that bad. I think I’m at 18 hours. A lot of that was time not shown here, photography that I didn’t really end up using at all, other layouts other than this. But yeah.

I’m not stressed about this right now. I’ll print again tomorrow after I show Rusty everything. And get it all together. I don’t even have much to say about it. Definitely a nice break from the bottle project, which drove me to insanity.