āChalkā is a lowercase-only font based on traditional handwritten script and is intentional styled to look low-resolution.Ā
Classic script fonts are distinguished by their timeless character and touch of class. They are usually used for personal or formal occasions like weddings, baptisms and graduations or on menus and place cards.
For my font, I took inspiration from calligraphy manuals and guides that are usually given to school-aged children learning to write. I compared these and worked out what letter forms were attractive and what didnāt work out at all. Because of the strict nature of using pixels to achieve elegant loops and diagonals, it was a challenge to make each letter readable and distinguished with their own little flourishes and personality.Ā
This was a project where we were to redesign an existing album. My album of choice was Blurryface by Twenty One pilots.Ā
Research
The album is the creation of the two artists who make up the band, Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun. Itās a very dark album, being the brainchild of Tyler Joseph about how he feels when he deals with depression and anxiety.Ā
During his shows, he likes to use a lot of harsh strobes, red-and-black imagery, and patterns. Some of his songs are loud and abrasive and some are soft and soothing, but all revolve around his alter-egoĀ āBlurryfaceā which represents his anxiety. Because heās said he feels his anxiety in his hands and throat the most, he wears black paint on his neck and hands during his concerts.Ā
Because of this, I wanted to capture these themes in my pre-comps, shown below:
I ended up going with the hands that were meant to signify puppet strings. I combined this with hands that drip down to form the letters BLURRYFACE in the same red-and-black color scheme. In the albumās art direction, every song has an accompanying pattern. I took those patterns and put them on my back cover with the song titles and again on the inside insert (where I put the patterns of the two singles on the album).Ā Ā
Les Quatre Elements is a package design for a package of our choice, with the products being any 4 products that could work well in a set. Each product had to had to have a title that matched the elements,Ā āLa Feuā,Ā āLa Terreā,Ā āLāeauā, and āLe Ventā. For my package I came up with a set of lip balms that would be designed as a quirky, fun ice cream themed package.Ā
ResearchĀ
Package design is very important to any company that sells any merchandise or product. The product may be an excellent one but without good package design, it could be overlooked or disregarded. Package designers have to be critical not just with the design, but with the shape and material as well. Some designs may be really good, but may prevent the product from fitting properly in a shipping box. They may try be conscious of materials they use and end up with a flimsy package that doesnāt support the product well.
The package is the very first thing a consumer would see when they see an item. In the space of 1-5 seconds, theyāll decide whether the product is something worth taking a closer look at. Something with unappealing shapes or colors can put of a customer at a store. This could also be a chance of personal preferences.
With all this in mind I set out to create my pre-compositions. My first set, shown below, wasnāt my strongest.Ā
It described what elements the items were supposed to embody very well but it had no character or narrative. I wanted my package design to have more to it than just shapes and colors. After a bit of refinement, this is what I came up with:
I wanted my product to be unique and stand out among the common lip balms usually sold in stores. I found that some of the most popular lip blams are ones that are uniquely shaped, like the brand EOS with itās egg shaped plastic covering.
After working out how the product itself would look like, I set myself on working what the package would look like. Because they are shaped like ice cream cones, I thought naturally the package should look like an ice cream truck. It should contain bright colors and be made to look fun. This way it can appeal to kids, pre-teens, teenagers, and young adults. Instead of the abstract look of the truck in my pre-comps, I came up with the fleshed out package you see above.Ā
As a companion piece, I designed a truck that this product will be delivered in.
This is my contribution for a display kiosk for the Visual Communications Design program as a whole. Although my design wasnāt used in the final outcome, here is my collection of work to a group project made up of three individuals. In the end, we ended up using bits and pieces from each preliminary composition in our final design.
Research
When it comes to kiosks, displays, and their designs, the first thing I think of is the place I work at: Bath and Body Works. Everyday were changing a display or creating a new one. These displays can take up a whole table, or one shelf. Sometimes these displays include props and items that can be placed with the shampoos and soaps. These items can also be sold. The last image is a picture example of directions were given for each wall.
Although these are some great designs, some displays come with fixed features such as touch screens and display cases that you canāt move around. Some of these packages just miss then cut off for registering your design.
Some info desks or customer service desks are round and able to fit some people. They can also be used to display and sell merchandise for small amounts time.
Iām a huge fan of things you can interact with or walk through so some of my designs are just that. Some are generic items in display cases type design.
From here I was able to revise my strongest sketches into a 3D model.
However as a group we decided to go with another design, shown below.
This project to design a bus shelter poster, invitation, brochure,bush side ad, banner, and a medium of our choice for a MoMA exhibition for an artist of our choosing. My artist was Regino Gonzales, a tattoo artist that specialized in Irezumi or traditional Japanese tattooing.
Research
The first thing I did was google past exhibits that featured tattoo artists. Tattoo art is often an overlooked industry and heavily stereotyped. Tattoos are one of the most unforgiving art types out thereā¦ if you make a mistake, itās on that person forever.
I really respect what Regino Gonzales does. To be good at tattooing is one thing, but Gonzales is gifted in many different types of tattoos when most usually find their niche and stick with it (ex: realism). Heās also skilled in painting, sketching and illustrating and photography. For my concepts, I mostly thought about color and and the placement of the tattoos heās done.
As for the header font, the āRegino Gonzalesā in white, I knew I wanted a font that wasnāt too fancy but something heavily stylized. Right now Iām taking typography 1 and I was drawn to how the words were written, like the soft curves of the āzā. It reminds me of something thatās regal without being too over the top like some script tend to be. Overall, for the type, I wanted to be simple, nothing too eye-catching that would distract from the already striking accompanied images.
On the title, I fused the ālā and ānā by accident, when I placed the two words together and they overlapped. I found that I really like this concept of fused letters.
The colors I were mostly picked from pictures of his work and what I thought was most prevalent. Itās hard to do a color theme for someone like Gonzales because he uses almost all of the colors for his work (including paintings and others). The main ones I see myself using is black, white and gray, as well as the deep reds and bright blues Iāve seen in most of his tattoos. I added sepia tones because I know that the medium Gonzales is working on is skin.
At first I made two pre-compositions that could possibly work for this project. Below is the other concept that wasnāt chosen to move forward. Compared to my final piece above, this one is very colorful and bright and geometric, when Gonzales usually draws with darker undertones and imagery.
U-Bike was a logo application project undertaken by me and my group of 3 others. Together we came up with the concept, design, and application for a logo for a fictional organization which we came up with.Ā
Our organization provides bikes to inner city children and teens from low-income families to ride bikes in warm weather. We named the organization āUbikeā because of its literal meaning, to display that the bikes we offer are for āyouā to use (to the teens and the children.) While coming up with our CBO, we thought about our target audience and decided that the organization would be leaning towards the ages of 12-17 years old. The organization requires that the parents of the children pay a monthly fee for the use of our bikes. If the family cannot afford to pay the monthly fee, the alternate way rather than paying would be community service.
ResearchĀ
For our moodboard, we wanted to emphasize the feel of Ubike. The orange and blue colors are to give a feel of the Spring/Summer. The image of the city is to give a sense of the inner city feel. Picking the right type faces was tricky, because we want the letter āUā to stand out as a Serif and to represent the handles of a bike, while the word ābikeā would be a Sans Serif. Mixing a Serif and Sans Serif need the right fonts because both need to contrast each other. Ā Ā
Our logo evolved many times. Logos are one of the most, if not the most important aspect of a companyās brand. Even if we donāt mean to, we all judge a book by itās cover. A logo can determine anything from how inviting color schemes are to customers to how the staff interacts. Without a solid logo, people can be untrustworthy of the company.Ā
A good logo must not only be pleasing to look at but it must be able to be applied to a variety of different mediums. The colors must work well together on any color background and must need to be able to translate well into black-and-white for certain applications. It must be readable small or large.
Below are some of our pre-compositions:
We wanted to keep our logo simple and limit it to two colors. We wanted to include a pictorial aspect to put on smaller applications like letterheads, mobile phone apps, and more. We took the bottom logo and refined it into its final version and came up with a wide aspect of applications we can use with it.Ā
Sypnosis:Ā Miles Benson lives in small, sleepytown Riverview, Maryland with his small-knit group of friends. Between working after school flipping burgers at the local Burger Shop, homework piling up from AP classes, and being Vice President of his high schoolās newspaper club, Miles is quickly becoming burnt out. By far his favorite pastime is managing his āAsk Munshieā column in the school paper, Weekly Occurrences. Going by the penname Munshie Breakeroni, Miles reviews student submitted questions and posts them with silly, funny, and helpful answers. Most of the questions he receives are the usual, āHow to avoid the schoolās awful cafeteria food?ā or āHelp! Me and my friend accidentally picked the same prom dress!ā And then one day he receives a chilling inquiry: They told me if I donāt deliver the pills, theyāll come for me. I donāt know where else to go. - Anonymous. Milesā entire world is thrown off axis as he attempts to uncover the identity of the person who submitted that question. His probing doesnāt go unnoticed and soon heās being told at every turn by letters and emails sent from Anonymous persons to discontinue or face consequences. Not one to back down from a challenge, Miles vows to get to the bottom of things. And in doing so, he uncovers a sinister scheme that plagues the school and the entire town.
Research
Above are some of my favorite book covers. They are mostly YA novels because YA novels tend to have the most colorful, interesting, or eye catching covers to appeal to young adults and teens. And since my version of āYikes! Mushie Breakaroniā is a YA thriller novel, I look at a wide range of genres pertaining to teens and picked my favorites. They are a mix of photographs, type and image, and type (although the type in āEverything, Everythingā includes tiny images.)
One of the ideas Iāve had is to have the the title as a neon sign on the window of a fast food place. Of course, it would have to be type and image unless I could fine a way to get a neon sign designed and take a photo. Iām also inclined to use my skills as an artist for a portion, similar to the āMade You Upā watercolor style above.
Iāve added these movie posters because they are some of the few that have caught my eye, and if I ever saw one on a book, Iād most likely pick it up. Unlike the actual book covers above, these are minimalistic and use limited colorsā¦ yet it gets itās concept across nicely. While the YA book covers are design to catch oneās eye, these remind me that it can also be clean and neat, yet just as powerful.
One of the aspects of my synopsis is that it takes place in a small town. This is important, because a big part of the book is that nobody suspects anything in a small town, yet this one in mystery, drama, and danger.
Because color will be a big part of portraying that mystery, I intend to use a dark, cool color palette: Greens or dark greens for the forest that surrounds the town, Purples, blues, and blacks for the nighttime/danger aspect.
My first set of rough thumbnails were based on photo, type and image, and type only.
Keeping my thumbnails in mind, I decided to use my sketchbook for bigger and more detailed thumbnails. This is what I came up with:
Ā
For my preliminary comps, I chose two thumbnails from my sketchbook and one from the smaller thumbnails on the separate piece of paper and refined them. I have book covers based on type only, type and image, and image only :
My favorites of the three was the first (type only) and third (photo) but the most fun to make was by far the third. With feedback I edited it Ā for my final design. One of the changed I made was the picture itself. The one used in the preliminary comp had ink lines that could be distracting to the viewer so I found a better picture without the lines. I also changed the positioning of the words to be easier to read.
From left to right: Shuttle Bus Stop, The Global Education Center, The Center For Writing Excellence, The University Library, Advisement Office.
Research
Looking around Montclair, I notice the similar color of red and white, red Spanish-style roofs with white walls, the red hawk, our school colors. The images above are some of the most common signs, recognizable in almost any country. For example, the bathroom signs are so ingrained that we hardly have to think about what we need to look for, we just know that it would either be the words āMaleā or āFemaleā or a variation the of the man/woman graphic. Below are some of those variations.
From what I noticed walking around Montclair, we have our own symbols, graphics, and themes that are incorporated into buildings and signs.
MSU tends to use red and white, the schoolās colors or a variation of red and white paired with the red hawk, the mascot. Even the buildings have a similar red/white theme. Many of the schoolās buildings have a spanish villa style, with creamy white walls paired with tiled red roofs. Itās an unusual look for small town New Jersey, the style is commonly see in California or tropical regions. In this instance, it makes the university more distinct and stand out more.
Another common theme is the bell tower. I wanted to use this theme because it used in the schoolās coat of arms and in another icon, now outdated. In my first set of thumbnails, I focused on the objects of concentration in each sign set we are to design.
In my pre-compositions, I played with two themes, one centered around a circular border and one that was more rectangular. Although I liked how the circular theme came together, They didnāt unify as a set of signs whereas the bottom row had the checkered Montclair symbol in each sign set.
For my final versions, I added a unifying theme to the circular sign sets so they look more like a set that fit in a theme rather than on their own. I also changed some of them so the reflect what they are, rather than abstract symbols.
jimmyeatworldofficial
turnnoffyourmind
blakekathryn
gamechangershow
yousharknotpass
theartofmadeline