Reading - Exploration/Refinment

Stage 4 of Aspelund’s The Design Process, Exploration/Refinement, focuses on how a concept benefits from being examined and tested to its limits. We have to take our ideas that we deiced to go with and test it, stretch it, bend it in every way possible to get all of your questions and answers out.

Aspelund suggest to put your design through its life cycle, and pay close attention to how it interacts with the world. In others, see how the design would survive being packaged, displayed, and used. We should “go as far as you can” with every possibility so that we don’t leave our selves closed minded about what can go wrong, what can’t be done, what shouldn’t be done, and what the best solution for the design is.

An important topic of the reading was the Do’s and Dont’s of sketching. Sketching is like brainstorming for a lot us so we should take it as lightly as brainstorming and just let the images from our mind into paper, it serves a purpose. While thinking about or projects at hand “sketch every thought you have”, just because it might not be useful for a particular assignment that doesn’t that you wont be able to use latter on in the future.

There are those moments that we all get stuck in a rut when trying to come up to solutions for our project. It has happen to me that I get a good idea when I’m not even think about the project or problem at had. “Don’t underestimate the power of the unconscious, and give it time” (110). For example, on the latest assignment that Jimmy gave us that we have to come up with 10 different board game ideas, the ideas that I have gotten so far were while I was at a red light singing along to a song and while at work concentrating on helping some customers. At those moments when the idea hit I ran to my note pad and wrote them down as fast as I could. Unfortunately I still need a couple more ideas to come at me, lets see when they will hit me.

Day 10

Game day…

This wasn’t your typical game day that involved any form of footballs/basketballs/soccerballs or anything physical. These games involved boards, dice, little figures, and letters on blocks. It was a very productive day!

The main idea of today was to look at how some board games are played. Look at the purpose of the game, how is it played, how do people win, what's the symbolism. Board games are made for fun. What I realized playing the games today was that you can have a certain strategy for specific games, but that doesn’t always guaranty that you will win. For instance, take the game chutes and ladders, winning that game is completely lead to chance. It’s a simple concept, you roll the dice, depending the number you roll you move a certain number of spaces, if you land on a ladder you move up and if you land on a slide or chute you go back down. The first one to the top wins. What is the symbolism behind that game? Could it be good versus evil? Maybe in the older version of snakes and ladders due to what snakes tend to represent, which in this case would be evil. Ladders would be the good, meaning taking the high road. What do you think?

Each one of us had to bring a board game to class. I didn’t bring one due to the fact that I didn’t get a chance to get one. But there were plenty of other games to be played. They brought Clue, Monopoly, Scrabble, Life, Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders. I have to say, looking around the room and seeing all those game I realized that I was kind of deprived as a child. The only game that I had ever played was Monopoly. So I took advantage of all the other games and played the one I was the most curious about like Clue and Scrabble. I found Clue to be a very interesting game, once I understood how to play the game it was so much fun. The concept is a little difficult to explain so I won’t try. But the way to win is to figure out who done it. It’s a murder mystery game, by process of elimination and making rumors you figure who is the killer, where they did it and why.

The best part of today was that I learned something new. I learned how to play games that I never got the chance to play before. Our assignment for the weekend is to come up with ten different game ideas and sketch them out. Uhm, overwhelmed much? Lets see how I do, good luck guys! See you on Monday.

Day 9

Where are you guys???

I have to be honest, Monday’s class was not the easiest to sit through. I was completely out of it. All I wanted to do was to go to sleep, and It kind of doesn’t help when Jimmy ask us questions that are irrelevant to the subject. I would like to say that the class picked up after a while, but it didn’t. I guess I wasn’t the only one that wasn’t feeling like talking on Monday cause we were all pretty quite.

My home printer isn’t working, so I spend a lot of my time in the morning at school trying to print out the ten images for the previous assignment. Due to the videos and al the things Jimmy was talking and giving us his insight about we didn’t get a chance to go over the images.

Jimmy showed us two videos in class, both were TED talks so you can only imagine how intense the speakers were. The first video was by John Maeda’s message to the audience was simple, keep it simple. He made comparisons between simplicity and complexity by showing us some images of a day in which simplicity was trying to send him a message. Simplicity is about enjoying life, you could tell that he was a man that enjoyed his life and all the moments and things he was able to find. Maeda mentioned that it is important to be observant, to see things that the worlds and to pay attention to all the details. He also advocates the idea of exploration, and through creation we could explore all the things and all the possibilities.

The second video was a little more intense. The talk was done by Scott McCould, who is a well-known comic book artist. He had a lot to say and talked very fast that I really didn’t get a chance to write down some of the things he was saying. He used a lot of visual, similar to how we do in class by changing the meaning of the image by what he said. His main message in the video was to learn from everyone, follow no one, and to watch for patterns. There were two more thing, there was actually a lot more that he talked about that I wish I could have written. I’m going to have to look at the video a couple more times.

addictive

I'm changing the name of my post "the COOL factor" to addictive. Every time I look up what other graphic designers are working and find great images like these I become addicted to new ideas and want to work more as a graphic designer so that I could be as great as these people.

Today I came across this image of James Brown, I was paying attention to all the words that made the figure of his face. I can only imagine the amount of time they spend working on this. This is not a picture of James Brown, but it is a good depiction of him. I see the essence of him in this image. My favorite part in this image is the word "soul" on his tongue, that is where the soul comes out of to shine.

The Design Process - Conceptualiation

Stage three of The Design Process was all about Conceptualization. At this stage designers have a general idea of their design. This is the point in which designers have to be able to explain their ides to other people. It is the task of the designer to accomplish the task of making the design understandable and tangable for others to see it.

As a designer brainstorming helps to examine concepts. Aspelund explains that our concepts can become tangible, in order to do that we need to use analogies, metaphors, similes, all those great writing tools that we learned in our English classes. These various literary analysis allow the target audience or end user to better understand the design.

Clients will have their own ideas as to what they want, they will also try their best to communicate with the designer what it is that they want. Many times, lines of communication will get crossed and confused and the designer might come out with something that is bad and not a good solution to the problem. Its very easy to loose your way when designing, I'm sure it's difficult at first because all you want to do is satisfy the wants and need of the customer, but we need to keep in mind who the target audience is or who will be the end user of the product.

Day 8

Lie to me?

This was interesting. One of the exercises we did in class was to lie to everyone in class, how awesome is that? It wasn’t all about lying, as we all know by now Jimmy has a purpose for everything he has us do for the class. The main reason for the exercise was to practice our public speaking skills and to pay attention to our body language.

We had to think of two truths about ourselves and a lie to say in front of the class. While you were up there the class would be judging you to see what your body language was like; if it showed that you were nervous, confident, shy, or comfortable. At the end of our little presentation the class would try to figure out what the lie was. I’m not great at lying. My lie was that I new “how to do an oil change”. Maybe if I had chosen a smaller white lie I could have gotten away with it. While I was trying to choose my truths and lies I found it easier to come up with more lies. I’m not going to lie, cause I’m bad at it, but I wasn’t too comfortable with having all the eyes on me. I even said to the class to “stop staring at me” at one point. Obviously, as a graphic designer I need to become more comfortable with presentations and be conscious of my body language.

The next part of class we had to present our images with the ten headlines. This time around I took it more seriously. I had a list of about 25 or so, each time I came out with a new headline it would cancel the previous one. I honestly just looked at the image once, kept it in mind and then began writing. Once I had a good amount of headlines I would look at my image and see which ones worked the best. I feel I did a much better job with these headlines than the ones I did on the previous assignment. For Wednesday we have to do the opposite, 1 headline 10 images. Why do I feel this will be difficult ?

Day 7

Monday’s class consisted of us sitting in a circle, the way Jimmy likes it, and I don’t mind because the seat are the most comfortable than the ones in my other classes. Through out the class we went over the assignment that he gave us on Wednesday. We had to look for one image and provide 10 different headlines that distorted the meaning of the image. At first I thought this was going to be an easy exercise, but when it came time for us to share our images and ideas I came to find out that we all sort of did it wrong. Most of us got lost in translation of what Jimmy actually wanted us to do. After we all took a turns on our images it became pretty clear that Jimmy wasn’t to excited with our headlines, but he is giving us another opportunity to redo this exercise. The only catch is that we have to do with a new image. This time we all have a clearer idea on what he wants us to do. Let’s see what happens on Wednesday?

the COOL factor

So, ever so often I type in graphic design onto google to see what some of the latest graphic designers are working on. I came across this work by Alberto Seveso, I was drawn to this image in total awe over how he did it. The lines, the color, the way he blended in his art with the face of the woman. It's amazing!

Reading - The Design Process IDENTIFICATION

Reading on stage 2 of the design process, Identification, painted the image of what to expect when working a project. Aspelund stage 2 is about all the hurdles that one must go through in a design project and what to expect from constraints and how to come up with solutions. One of the most important jobs of a designer is to make decision that can solve the problem that we are faced with. I still remember when Jimmy said that as designers we have to think about what it is that we are solving? What is the purpose of this work? Making the correct decision is not always as simple as it seems because we won’t really know what the out come of all of our decision will be until the end. It is all about making the decisions that you feel are the best about that you should go with.

Many times when designing for some else there are many restrictions that you must follow, guidelines that the employer wants you to follow, constraints. Often, these constraints will get in the way of you being able to accomplish your goals the way you want. Recognizing these constraints early on will be beneficial in the long wrong because you will have a clear image of what you are capable of doing. Your “willingness and enthusiasm for working within these constraints-constraints of price, of size, of strength, of balance, of surface, of time” are the laws that we must follow. Constraints of a designer are probably the most difficult to deal with because it is all about you, the designer, and what you are able to with your time. This section of the reading opened my eyes to when it comes to dealing with all the details you must do to start and finish a project. You have to be very frugal with spending your time on other things in order to satisfy the finish goal. I try to be as organized as possible when it come to doing my homework/projects, but I can only do so much a day with out going crazy. Aspelund does suggest that “couch time” is very important in staying sane in these moments of over work and stress. I think its time for me to spend some “couch

Day 6?

So it's been a while since I've posted and there is a lot that I want to get out of my mind.

I didn't post on Monday because the class was cancelled, I’m not going to lie I enjoyed the small break and getting a little time to my self.

Have no fear, he still managed to give us something to work on. Via email he told us to look for three separate images that at the end could tell a story. I sat down, took my time and thought about the kind of story that I wanted to tell. I decided to tell a funny story, a humor. I thought some more about what was funny...babies, little children came to mind. Then I thought about what would be some wrong things that little kids should not play with. I got some suggestions by other people but soon realized they were too dirty to show in class, so I found a picture of a dog taking a crap. The next image had to be the conclusion of my story. I was able to find a little boy or girl that had crap all over his/hers face and all over the walls. Between the three images I had my beginning, middle, and an end. I was pretty satisfied with my story. When time came in class for all of to show our stories I was pretty surprised by the other concepts that my classmates went with, we all have our unique ideas.

The next part of the class consisted of Jimmy showing us a video, the video was of the author of Eat, Pray, and Love, Elizabeth Gilbert. I love to see her talk, just the way she expressed her self, she was so passionate with every word that she said. One of the things that I found fascinating of her was that she was afraid of not being successful again. She gained a lot of success due to her book Eat, Pray, and Love. Elizabeth was very real about telling us that she had a lot of people come up to her and ask if she was afraid that her next book would not be as successful as her book Eat, Pray, and Love. I was taken back by that, not only is she worried about being successful in her next book, at the same time there are all these other eyes on you seeing if you succeed of fail. Another topic in her discussion was the process one goes through to be inspired and what to do when it hits. It is refreshing to see a successful persons point of view on becoming inspired and how she deals with it. Elizabeth said that as long as you are working the inspiration will meet you half way. When I become inspired I want to get my ideas on something concrete and do it fast so that it doesn’t go out of my mind. It is a very fast process.

Reading - The Design Process INSPIRATION

Inspiration can be difficult to come by. What inspires me comes in different shapes and sizes. From time to time I’ll do a Google search and type in the words “graphic design” or “graphic design inspiration” to see what other people are working on. I’ll browse through the pages and just be in awe of what other graphic designers are capable of doing. Looking at other peoples work gives me motivation because I want to know more about the way it was done, what steps they took, how long it was worked, how many different formats they used. It sparks my curiosity.

The reading of The Design Process, Stage 1 of the 7 stages is Inspiration; Aspelund shares his ideas on inspiration and what to do with it. Finding inspiration, trying to become inspired can lead people in the wrong direction. Many times we sit and wait for inspiration to come at us, but we should really go out into the world look for it. One of the points Aspelund kept reiterating was that we need to re-inspire our selves, because it can be really easy to loose focus and want to change ideas. Finding your inspiration for a project is only the beginning, be careful that it doesn’t lead you down a path that you don’t intend to go on. We have all been in a position that we don’t want to loose our inspiration so we will do what ever it takes with out thinking it through what the step should be, and before you know it you have a piece of crap in front of you.

What I try to do when I become inspired by something is I will try to draw the image in my mind, then I’ll write notes all over it, label it, then I will do some research and look up other visuals that can help to continue my inspiration. Aspelund suggest keeping a design journal with various steps to keep the ideas flowing and keep them in a place that will give you more ideas. I think I will give it a try.

Day 4

Sir Ken Robinson

Sounds like the name of an important person, especially with the Sir part added to the beginning of his name. Sir? Does that mean that you have been knighted by the Queen of England?

On a different note, Sir Ken Robinson is a very enlightening and intelligent man. In the recorded lecture he gave at Hammer, that Jimmy showed us in class, Robison discussed the points of his book The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything. One of the points that he made, and that I found a lot of value in, is what he said about finding your element, finding that some thing that you are passionate about is essential for a person to be happy and want to continue working. Looking back at my short lived life, all the way back to high school, when I worked on my high school yearbook I saw this new world that excited me. I was working and doing things that other kids at school weren’t, I was learning how to use programs that were difficult at times to understand but I couldn’t wait to work on lay outs and see what I would come out with. I enjoyed every second of working on the yearbook, working on layouts, deadline, even pica spacing. I was in the yearbook staff for two years, on my second year I was the Editor-in-Chief and that’s when I realized that I wanted to keep doing this. To make a long story short, that is why I am in Jimmy’s Art 220 class today.

Robinson is a passionate man when it comes to art, at the end of his lecture he ended by saying that we shouldn’t do things that come easy to us, “rethink the ripples of our capacity”. I’m probably not quoting him correctly I was in a rush to get the thought on paper. That just blew my mind, “rethink the ripples of our capacity”. There is a lot that we are capable of doing, and there is more than we can do when we push and surpass our limits. After the video the class took a different direction, Jimmy left the room and gave us an opportunity to discuss some of the main points of the video. The discussion was really good and we all got an opportunity to release our thoughts on to one another. I noticed that we were much more open when Jimmy wasn’t in the classroom. Wonder why? We discussed our support system, we talked about the people that are behind us in becoming graphic designers and how important it was to have people support you. I am very fortunate that my parents have been supporting me from the beginning. I hope I never disappoint them.

Reading - The Design Process pp. 1-16

Tonight’s reading of The Design Process by Karl Aspelund consisted of pages 1 - 16, reading through the Introduction, Perspective, and Exercises. This is a great book to be learning from, Aspelund is really good at letting the reader know what to expect, what train of thought to be in, how to be prepared when working on projects. One thing that I found enlightening that Aspelund talks about in the Introduction is what he had to say about the relationship between the Designer and the idea. The connection between the Designer and the idea is much like a relationship. At the beginning you are so happy you want to take your idea all over town, you want to talk about it all the time, but when it comes time to being committed and see the idea all the way through that’s when you pull back and start to think it about all over again. As a designer you need to take your idea through the 7 stages of inspiration, conceptualization, exploration/refinement, definition/modeling, communication, and production. If anything new comes up at the end then something was not fulfilled in the previous stages.

“Designers should be creating interesting, revolutionary…environments for everyone” (12). As designers we have to design for a purpose, we need to identify the problem and determine what it is that we are being asked to do. On the Exercises pages Aspelund talks about “reverse-designing”, taking an existing design and take it through the designing stages 7 - 1. By doing this we gain a new perspective on others points of views to see how they got to the place of the existing design.

The Apple

this is the infamous apple that I will be working with for the rest of the quarter. You know what they say "an apple a day keeps Jimmy away".

Day 3

All this thinking is starting to hurt my brain…

I’m really starting to enjoy what this class is about. I like that Jimmy is forcing us to go to this thinking place in our minds that sometimes I would avoid because it felt like it was to much going on in my mind that I could never translate it into paper and images. Thinking is easy, we do it all the time, but thinking hard can be frustrating because it always feels like you are hitting a brick wall. Jimmy gave us a pep talk on what to do when that happens and the best thing to do in order to let the ideas come out is to do it with an OPEN MIND, be curious with what you are working on to explore new things, and new possibilities. If something that you are working on is really boring and it is difficult to be interested on, find a way in. Find something that you find really interesting and take that angle on it, explore all the possibilities, at the end of the day its for your own good.

Monday’s lecture for Jimmy’s Art 220 class was about brainstorming and mind mapping. Brainstorming was something I would do in high school for my English classes when it came time to write a paper on a topic, it is the same concept, but I enjoy it a lot more this time around because it involves visuals. Brainstorming is an explosion a flow of ideas within a certain amount of time, and mind mapping is the same idea. The notes that Jimmy gave us defined mind mapping as a “diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word”. It’s a very simple notion, until you work on it. Jimmy gave us the task of making our own mind map on anything that we wanted. I did mind on time management, it was difficult for me to start but once I had the ideas coming out I wanted to write them all down fast so that I wouldn’t forget my next idea, my next topic. Our assignment for the night is to do another mind map, but this time around embellish it with visuals and colors. Of course, in the spirit of keeping things light and relaxed Jimmy made it a competition, the best one gets extra credit. Lets see how this goes down!!!

Reading - The Design Process

“I shall join the creators, the harvesters, the celebrants: I shall show them the rainbow and all the steps…”

These are the first words that are found on the first few pages of The Design Process by Karl Aspelund that Jimmy assigned. Aspelund was quoting Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None by Friedrich Nietzsche. He was able to sum the purpose of his book in a few words, Aspelund wants to join all the other people that have left their mark on graphic design and show others the steps that it takes to get from an idea to a fully developed concept. The quote by Nietzsche speaks volume about every one else that is trying to get their foot in the door in anything that they have ever wanted to accomplish, in anything that they have always dreamed about doing. I speak for my self when I say that becoming and being a graphic designer is not just something I want to do, it is something I want to be great at, successful at, and respected at.

Part of our first reading assignment was to read the very beginning of the book, you know, the pages with all the roman numerals. The beginning of the book provided me, the reader, with valuable information on how the book is organized and how to use the book. It covered everything from table of contents, preface, and acknowledgements. The preface is where most of the general information is found, Aspelund is very good at letting the reader understand the purpose of his book and the use of his book. Today’s understanding of becoming a graphic designer “requires a book that describes how to travel the path from the World of Imagination to the World of Objects and helps students sustain themselves creatively on this journey” (Aspelund). It is important to understand how to go from designing from inspiration and move to production.

“Whats next?” Reading on the following 7 stages of design:

1. Inspiration

2. Identification

3. Conceptualization

4. Exploration/Refinement

5. Definition/Modeling

6. Communication

7. Production

I’m hoping that in reading this book I come to discover some answers, and become comfortable with the idea of curiosity.

DAY 2

It's our second day in Art 220, Concept Development, with Jimmy Moss. I understand that it took me a while to post this blog about Wednesday’s class, I’m still trying to get used to the idea of writing about my day and things that I did during class. It might take me a while to get comfortable with writing on my blog, do bare with me. The topic of discussion was Visual Literacy. What is Visual Literacy? I tried defining the term with the obvious meaning of the words, to me Visual Literacy means being able to read visuals, being able to interpret what one sees through an image.

The lecture continued with Jimmy showing us, the class, some slides to help us understand what Visual Literacy really meant and practice our skills. The first image Jimmy showed was a black and white photograph, he didn't give us any information on the photograph and all that he wanted us to do was to describe to him all the details that we saw. It was so difficult to do that because I would interpret the image, I would try to describe what was happening in the moment the photograph captured instead of the actual details/facts that I saw in the picture. What I saw was three people, the two people on the left had white coats with jewelry around the neck, wrist and fingers, they had smiles on their faces. The figure on the right had a dark coat, the opposite of what the other two figures had, it came across as a "haves and have nots". It's weird, looking back I can tell you more things about what the figure did not have instead of what it did have.

As we moved on with the lecture Jimmy showed us other images, each image was different, each image evoked different emotions. One image that I found intriguing was the one he showed of Jesus on the cross with a thought bubble that said "BRB", which means “be right back”. I found it to be very enlightening, funny and clever. I saw as someone trying to tell the story of Jesus Christ for the people of today. I laughed at it while I'm sure others found it to be blasphemous, actually the image is blasphemous. According to the bible that's what Jesus Christ did, he died on the cross and then came back.