Day 17

Like lightning…

It finally came to me like lightning while Jimmy was talking to us about the final project. I have to be honest, I didn’t dream about it like Jimmy had asked us to do but I’ll take my idea for what it is and mold it into this prototype that I can be proud of and show to the class. Just like Aspelund said in The Design Process, once I had my idea I was happy and I wanted to show it off to others. Now it’s just a matter of me working on my idea, dissecting it, and attaching things to it.

Most of Wednesday’s class was spent with us, the class, going over our ideas to attract more students into the Graphic Design/Visual Communications Arts option. The Previous assignment was to come up with good ideas on how to attract students into the Graphic Design/Visual Communications Arts option. One by one, we discussed our ideas talking among one another what we liked and what we didn’t like. We don’t share one brain, so we don’t have the same ideas. The ideas that some of my other classmates came up with were really good and with a little bit of molding we can put some of these ideas into action.

The end of the fall quarter is near and along with it comes finals and projects. Good luck to all of you with all of your finals and have a great Thanksgiving.

The Design Process - Production

Finally made it to the last stage of The Design Process by Karl Aspelund, stage seven, in which he discusses production. This is the final step in polishing your idea before you get to present it to the intended audience. Though it may be the last step, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are done. If all the previous six steps were done effectively than things should go smoothly at the end.

In the production stage Aspelund discusses that the designers need to be a team leader and a team player with the production team. Accepting that you are not always correct is important to work in a team as a team leader. It is also trivial to accept all the members for what they can and cannot do, because at the end of the day they are ones finishing the job. One of the processes that goes into production is prototyping in which you make a 3D visual aid to asses if this is the finish product that you wanted. In the prototype stage you test various aspects of your ideas. There are three types of prototypes; concept prototype, throwaway prototype, and evolutionary prototype. At each prototype valuable feedback is given to benefit the three-dimensional object, which is the main purpose of doing a prototype before a mass production.

Money makes the world go round, and while working on projects the amount of money that you use has to be used in small doses. Taking into consideration all cost and leaving room for errors can be very difficult at times, but with budgeting and scheduling decisions on what to spend money on can be considered wisely. As it is in all experiences in life, learn from your mistakes in each project so that you can become a better graphic designer in the next one.

Day 16

"So, what’s your major?"

As I’ve discussed before, Monday’s are not always the best day for me in class and this Monday was no exception. My mind always feels very dry on Monday’s, and its not like I went crazy party boy over the weekend it was just long. What happened to my weekends in which I would rest and catch up on my homework? I guess those days are long gone along with my teenage years, but I wouldn’t trade this current fast life style for something more calm. I just wish my days were longer so that I can do all the things I need to start and finish.

Jimmy began talking about something that all of us in class have encountered one time or another, especially when asked,

Stranger: “So, what’s your major?”

Me: “Art/Graphic Design”

Stranger usually makes a face and says, “What can you do with that?”

The stranger usually assumes that being an art major I spend my time working with paint, which I do, but I work with a lot more tools than just paint. Being a graphic designer is a lot more than just working with software. At the end of the day being a graphic designer is about putting all the things you know and have learned, all the skills you have gained together to solve problems. We discussed in class all the jobs we can do as a graphic designer, and we came up with a vast list of all these job opportunities.

Once we discussed the topic and got it out of our systems Jimmy partnered us up and had us make up a story with a few objects that we had in our backpacks. First, we had to sit in a certain order, by first name A-Z. Then the person sitting next to you would become your partner. I got pared up with Daniel, he put in his sunglasses and I put in my car keys. We knew from the beginning that we wanted to try to tell a funny story; we just weren’t sure how to go about it. Were my keys and his pair of sunglasses just objects or did we have to personify them? With-in the ten minutes that Jimmy gave us to come up with a story, Daniel and I came up with something. We began telling our stories, going from the front of the class to the back, where we were. As the other classmates began telling their stories Daniel and I looked at each other and realized that our story probably wasn’t that great. We signaled at each other that when our turn came, we should make something up. I don’t know if it was for the best, but I just began talking, allowing words to come out of my mouth that probably did not make any sense together (I will rewrite the story and post it later). At some point I ran out of things to say and just said the end. I don’t think that was the smartest thing to do, but compared to what we had this impromptu story was better. I could tell Jimmy was not thrilled with any of our stories, I guess this is a skill I need to put more effort on.

Finally it came time for class to end, but before we could go Jimmy gave us a challenge with our next homework assignment. We need to come up with our best ideas to promote Graphic Design/Visual Communications to new students coming to Cal. State L.A. and undeclared students attending Cal. State L.A. To make sure that we worked on the assignment he made us stay in class for 30 minutes with our ideas and a blank paper.

Day 15

Allow your dreams to do all the work…

Wednesday’s class almost put me to sleep. We watched a documentary on dreams. The class and I were pretty certain that Jimmy had not planned on showing us a video during class for that day. Especially since he gave us the option to choose between a dream documentary, something about Mayan Culture, and another one I can’t remember. I should know better by now than to sit and wonder what the agenda for the class had to do with becoming a graphic designer.

We watched What Are Dreams? A documentary by Nova on the stuff of dreams, and measuring neurological brain waves. I was expecting a documentary on the interpretation of dreams and not about sleeping patterns and brain activity. Overall it was an interesting video to watch, it explained that our brains are more active while we sleep compared to when we are awake. In one of the studies conducted in the film in which the scientist watched peoples sleeping patterns by attaching wires all over their heads and bodies they noticed that some people moved, acting out what they were experiencing in their dreams. Something that most of us call sleep-walking, it seems that while they slept their bodies did not pass these neurons that paralyzed their bodies allowing them to move.

Just when I thought Jimmy was going soft on us, letting us watch a movie during class, he gives us the brief for the final. We need to make a five-minute video and post on youtube. In this video we need to discuss what graphic design is, what it means to be a graphic designer, why I’m studying graphic design, what creativity is, how we become inspired, in other words all the things we have thought of and discussed in class. In true Jimmy fashion he was able to connect the movie to the class, he told us that before going to bed plant the idea of the film in your mind and sleep on it! Seriously? That wasn’t very helpful, I’m not one to control my dreams. But lets see if it comes to me in my sleep.

I had a really good experience listening to my ipod this morning on my way to class. I felt like one of these posters when the ipod first came to the market. All I cared about in the moment is that the song never stopped playing.

Day 14

This is a what! This is a who!

I think Monday’s class was one of the most difficult day so far. I also think that it was more fun than game day. Jimmy introduced us to a new game, and by the end of the class I realized that it could be a fun drinking game as well. It was confusing at first to understand how to play it, even as I was explaining it to my friend after class I’m sure I didn’t explain it so well. You begin with two objects, one you name a who, and the other a what. You hand one object to the person sitting next to you and you tell them “this is a who”, the person sitting next to you then ask “a who?” and you respond back with “a who!” and then the person takes the object from your hand and replies a “oh a who!”. It gets more difficult as the object gets passed around the group, it become more complicated as both objects the who and the what are reaching the center where they are about to meet. For the first time I didn’t care if this had any thing to do with being a designer, I just enjoyed my time. But I should know better than to think this had nothing to do with being a designer, it had everything to do with being a designer. The main idea behind the exercise was to focus our minds.

The next part of class was a complete 180 when it came to use using our minds. Jimmy read us a short story, we were the main characters. He began reading this story in which we had to imagine our selves walking to a forest and then going into a cave. The cave had doors with out names on them. You open the one with your name on it and go through it. What is through that door was left to our imaginations because thats where his story ended and our began. We had to draw what we saw in our minds, I saw this big room with that was all mine. My own space, of course that would be in my imagination. It was a beautiful place in which I can be creative, be inspired and be ALONE. I live in a small house and I share a room with my older brother, so I guess it makes a lot of sense that I would want that.

The Design Process - Comunication

This weeks assigned reading of The Design Process discusses stage 6, communication. This is the communication that we have to do as designers during a presentation. It obvious by now how vital communication is, and how detrimental communication will be if not done well. Jimmy has told us time and time again that some of the most brilliant and talented designers are not the most successful because of their inability to communicate their thoughts and ideas to the client.

Communication has 3 phases: encoding, the message itself, and decoding of the audiences. In other words, tell them what you will say, say it, and tell them what you just told them. I still remember that from when I took my speech class my first quarter at Cal State L.A., it amazes me how that has come full circle now. The clients have different needs and wants so it is important to communicate, understand, and discuss with them in order to have all of their demands met. Use all the tools you have to help explain to the client your ideas. The easier it is for them to visualize it, the easier it will be for them to see it and respond with better feedback.

One of the best ways that Aspelund puts it is pretend you are in actor on stage. Know your lines, practice what you will say and say it clearly. All the props on set are the tools that you need to make the audience believe in you. During a presentation the props are all the visuals that you bring to the table. Excuse me, I have to go rehears now.

Day 13

Wednesday’s class feels like a cluster of emotions to me. Mostly because when I walked in, a minute before class was about to start Jimmy had already been discussing something with the class on the board. Making me feel dumb. Of all things he was discussing numbers with the class, binary numbers. When I finally sat down, I was confused an annoyed. It took me a good while for me to understand what this had to do with anything, actually that what I kept thinking in my mind. When it finally clicked in my mind that this had to do with communication I began to ease up. The binary process is a difficult thing, and this took Jimmy back to when he was an art student. I’m sure he had the same feelings about binary numbers as most of us did in the beginning. Lucky for us, this was a group effort, which really helped me out in understanding the binary process.

Communicating is something that we all need to do, its not just a job thing. When you are pissed you have to let some one know so that they aren’t around you. When you need help with something to need to communicate that as well so that you loose that overwhelming feeling. Jimmy has stressed many times that there are a lot of talented designers, but they fail when they have to explain and communicate with others. I am know realizing that I have to take my time when trying to understand something, so that when I explain it to someone else my answer wont be “because”. I can give a good response and that when I know that I am doing a good job.

Day 12

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose?” (Shakespear)

A part of Monday’s class was spent discussing the GAUGE speaker event. We were giving our thoughts on what we felt about Ismeal Obregon’s presentation and the name of his company. I didn’t realize that Oishii Creative, the name of his company, could have parts of his name in the in it. He mentioned that his friends called him Ish, oISHii. And then there is the big O, which reminds me of Obregon. Jimmy brought up the point that he is not shown or seen anywhere in his website. And in doing an image search on him not a lot of images of him pop up. Why is that? Most of the class was a little disappointed in his presentation, I guess they didn’t get the five star presentation they were looking for. I couldn’t compare it to anything else seeing as though I have never been to a GAUGE speaker event before, but his presentation wasn’t what I expected. The part of Obregon’s presentation that caught me of guard was that he didn’t speak a lot. He only talked for 5 minutes and the rest of the rest of the time was spent on questions and answers. Each person has there own idea on what a good speech/presentation/talk should go.

We then changed the topic of conversation to discuss our creative briefs. I didn't not have the easiest time working on it. Especially since we had to do it on the movie Powers of Ten, something that I had yet to get a grasp of in my mind. Jimmy was going over some of them in class, I began to loose some of my nerves as I was hearing some of the things my other classmates had written on there briefs. He then showed us some from Graphic Designers. It was interesting to see what other designers do.

The next part of class we spent going over our ten images one headline assignment that was assigned a couple days ago. Going over it know did refresh my mind on what it was that we had worked on. My headline is “what dreams are made of” using images of what people think dreams are made of. I made a list of various things, it was a very broad selection; I used the city skyline and a joint. At the end Jimmy had asked me about what my process on working on this assignment was like. It’s a little difficult to explain to some one else what goes on in my mind, it’s definitely not a lot, but it is complex. When I keep thinking about something, in this case the assignment, my mind just takes me places. Then I get that moment of eureka and I begin to put that plan in motion and see where that takes me. I hate to say it, but I do judge my ideas before going through with them, I guess I still need to work on that.

GAUGE Speaker Event

On Thursday November 3rd GAUGE hosted Ismeal Obregron from Oishii Creative to give a speech about his company and motion graphics. Before going to the GAUGE speaker event a did a quick google search on him and come across a lot hits, things he has done, accomplishments and accolades, and his company. I even took some time to visit his website, oishiicreative.com, and saw some of the most recent work from his company.

This was my first insight into the life of a very successful graphic designer, and I was very excited to see what advice he had for us young designers. Ismeal began by saying that a successful concept to have as a graphic designer is to understand language. He talked about the importance of being bilingual, but he didn’t mean that we needed to no more than two or more spoken languages. As a graphic designer we need to understand the language of words and visuals because it is one of the best ways to communicate with others. Ismeal showed the audience a video that was very effective in conveying the message of words and visuals. The concept of the video is to show images that would allude to words, for example a series of images that show different versions of “break”, it was everything from a broken arm, broken plates, a couple breaking up. There were a series of other images that continued unfortunately I did not get the chance to write them all down. The short video he showed was very reminiscent of a lot of the exercises that I’ve done in my Art 220 class with Jimmy. So I guess everything we do in his class has a purpose.

A lot us that attended the event were very interested to hear what led him to the path as a designer, and how he got his company up and running. Like many people do, Ismeal went straight to an art school, where he continued his education of art. While going to school he was challenged with the responsibility to keep the language of art, more specifically of design, alive and to keep it innovative while continuing to express himself. He gave us that same challenge, and it left me thinking if I would ever be in his shoes, challenging others and telling them the same things Jimmy and Ismeal have once told me. He also said one thing that Jimmy has often said many times, that there should never be any excuses for not being able to start/do/finish something. If you don’t know how to do something teach your self, if you can’t do this or that find away around it, stop placing obstacles in front of yourself that don’t exist.

One of the big steps that Ismeal took in his career was the start of his design company, Oishii Creative. He was candid about the fear he had when it all began. He felt compelled to start his own company because the company he was working for wasn’t allowing him the artistic fulfillment he wanted. It seemed like the right thing to do at the right moment, and today Oishii Creative is one of the most successful companies with clients like the NFL, NBA, and EA sports. A difficult thing to do while starting a company is creating a name, Oishii means delicious in Japanese. Ismeal said that when looking for a name it is vital that it is a word that you can own, something that represents the company in appositive way. Oishii Creative is a company that does a lot of work in motion graphics, a realm that I don’t know a lot about and is intimidating. As the owner of a company Ismeal has had to deal with a lot of reality and clients. One of the suggestions he gave us to deal with clients is to provide them what they want, nourish their needs because at the end of the day the client will keep coming back.

One thing that a lot us have in our minds as students that are close to graduation is all the competition that is out there. I fear that once I graduate I won’t be able to find a job as graphic designer, we are competing with people with extensive resumes and with a lot of experience. Ismeal gave us his insight on that, saying that people who have been graphic designers for a long time fear us because we have the freshest knowledge on all the new software being used. Which made a lot of sense and took a little stress off my back. The GAUGE speaker event with Ismeal Obregron was very insightful and I took a lot out of it, most of all he gave me a push to continue on.

Reading - Definition/Modeling

On stage 5 of The Design Process Aspelund gives us his insight on what the next step of the design process should be after you have already gone through Inspiration, Identification, Conceptualization, & Exploration/Refinement. This chapter, Definition/Modeling, is about creating a model, the importance of scale, & the importance of using the right materials to send the correct message to the client about the design.

Pay attention to detail is something that we become very good at, especially when working on layouts, it's amazing what moving an object a few picas up or down will do to the design. Designs will never be perfect, it will not always be the simplest thing to take and idea and tell others about it & expect them to understand it and feel the same about your idea. That is when the model comes into play. The model is the first impression that the client will have, & if its done wrong or half assed it can be the end of the beginning. This is where Aspelund suggest that it is important that the model is done well but don't become obsessed with the model because that client has to understand that it is still a work in progress.

"Do something unexpected, and don't be afraid to be weird or engage in magical thinking" (pg.125). I quoted Aspelund while he was talking aboutCreativity because it reminded me of John Maeda and what he was talking about in his TED talk. All the things that Maeda was talking about, and the things he created. He is a "weird" character that "engage[s] in magical thinking". For example the design he did with the field of fries, and the butterflies he did with the chicken nuggets. I was taken back that he went out of his way to do that, he even went so far as to write a software for it. That's passion...

Another topic of discussion is Aspelund's remarks towards "when Is GOOD ENOUGH enough?" I think is something that we have dealt with at point or another, just recently with one of the previous assignments with all the headlines. When did we feel it was good enough? Was it once he had ten, or once we had hundred? I guess it's all about making it perfect versus getting it done. There comes a point that we get fed up with a design, to the point that we just want to get it done this is the point that we have to reinspire our selves once more. Show our sleves once more why it is that we chose to go in this direction, what it was that we feel in love in the first place to make all the blood sweat and tears worth it at the beginning, middle, and all the way to the end.

Day 11

Envy

Today we had to present our idea of what one of the seven deadly sins looked like with a series of ten images that put together tell you which sin it is. I decided to work one envy, I choose envy because it was the only sin I could think of ideas. Part of the assignment was to not give away what the sin was with just one image, all ten had to be cohesive and show what they sin was. After seeing my classmates work I saw all the different ways that a sin could be represented, I was kind of disappointed that I couldn’t thinks of anything for the other sins.

The definition of envy is “a feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone else's possessions, qualities, or luck” (dictionary.com). I thought for a bit on how to represent envy, the idea came to me that one of the ways to represent envy is to show the haves and the have nots. The have nots are envious of the haves. I felt that I had to represent both because in the definition of envy it says “someone else’s possessions”. If I just showed nice things then the sins would come off as greed, and if I just showed angry people then the sin would come off as anger or wrath.

We went through each of our sins, talking bout what worked and what didn’t work. Jimmy also told us that we could make 50 dollars an hour as junior designer, I still don’t remember how he got to that point. The next part of class we saw a video called the Powers of Ten by Charles and Ray Eames. The video begins with a couple sitting in the middle of a Chicago park having a picnic, and then it begins to zoom and zoom out 10 metters making a perfect square and it keep going until it reaches 10 to the power of 26, showing what beyond the universe looks like. Then the video begins to zoom in, it shows us the couple in the park in Chicago, and it keeps going all the way to 10 to the negative power of 16. Showing us what an atom looks like, all the way to a nuclear space. I still don’t know what the video was about, and thanks to Jimmy I have to keep thinking about it because we have to write a creative brief for the video Powers of Ten. Wish me luck!

Day 10

Today was the day that we had to show the class our ten board game ideas. I have to be honest, not all ten were my best ideas, actually I only liked half of the board game ideas I came up with, the others were just fillers to complete the assignment.

It took me FOREVER to work on these ideas. My inspirations came from different moments and different things, and then came the moment in which no ideas were coming at me or to me. It was a new experience for me because for the first time I couldn’t be at home, I wasn’t working on a paper or studying for a test. I was trying to come up with ideas, and they weren’t going to come at me if I stayed indoors looking for things on-line. To get out of my rut I went out, saw the world. It was Halloween weekend, so I took advantage and went to get a couple of drinks and partied with some tranies in West Hollywood. They are very creative.

Jimmy showed us a video in class, this one was from designer Saul Bass called Why Man Creates? The video was about motion design, Jimmy gave us a brief back ground on Saul Bass. He changed the way movies began the intro of films was renovated due to his work. The video was really good at discussing 7 process of why man creates. Talking about edifice (which I just found out what it means, a large imposing building), fooling around, the process, the judgment, a parable, a digression, and the search. I guess this was more of what happens when man creates, because of all the things you go through after you create. I still don’t know why man creates, I guess it is because man has something to get out his chest and doesn’t want to use words or be oral about it.

We presented our ideas in class, Jimmy gave us about 10-15 minutes for us to go around the classroom and pick the best idea from each student. That was about a minute and half per student, we did manage to get though it, but we didn’t expect Jimmy to have us explain another students boar game. That was a little difficult, especially with my shot attention span on Monday’s. I didn’t exactly catch what all the games were about. I am still uncertain if he liked any of our ideas.