Claire Powell

Class of 2014 GDES Portfolio

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This is my favorite project by far! We were given design-related words (kitsch, melange, etc) to work from, and from there we designed posters that would be presented in the Fine Arts building as part of the "Kitchen of Meaning." We were given a lot of freedom in terms of what we could do, as long as we included certain text.

My word was "pastiche," which means either a knowing, tongue-in-cheek imitation or a hodgepodge of different media. I chose to combine both in an homage to the Sex Pistols' "God Save The Queen" album cover, but with a different take: "God Save the Prez," featuring St. Edward's president Dr. George Martin. I really loved the grungy, punk feel it ended up with, and I had a lot of fun photocopying and producing textures for this.

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This project, focused on instructional design, was a part of my Graphic Design II course. This was probably my favorite project up until that point, because we were given so much freedom — we were given the parameters of instructional design and then set loose to be creative and come up with our own ideas. I decided on instructions for washing clothes (much more difficult to explain clearly than it would appear!) and Angela helped me narrow it down to an installation piece in a dorm laundry room.

I love this design. I spent a lot of time on it, and I think that really shows. All of my drawings were hand-done on Illustrator with the pen tool (and this really shows the progression since the ducky in the fall!). I honestly wouldn't change a thing.

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My Advanced Typography course did not do the black squares project (or at least we haven't yet).

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The assignment with this one was to imagine that you were in the future, and you could travel anywhere very quickly, and so you decide to pull up the weather for the upcoming weekend and sort it to see where you wanted to go. It was created in After Effects.

I really feel this could have been better. Improvements are probably going to be made, but I spent so much time making the transitions good at the beginning that the end kind of got away from me, and I didn't have enough time. It was really frustrating to me that I couldn't do it the way I knew it needed to be done. I like the concept though, and I'm very fond of my little Van Gogh man at the beginning of the video.

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This was actually a really cool project. We were supposed to come up with a social problem and then create symbols for it. Part of that project involve combining two of the symbols to create a third. Anyway, the top picture is my final set of symbols related to disaster care: health, education, and business. The lower picture shows just how far my health symbol alone came between the beginning and the end. I honestly don't have any misgivings about any of my final symbols. I'm really proud of this project.

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This was a part of the symbol project in graphic design 1. We took three of our symbols and animated them in After Effects, with the idea of putting them in Flash and making them interactive (which we did not actually do, but learned how to do). This was a part of my learning curve with After Effects, when I didn't understand and then suddenly did. You can see that in this video — some parts are smooth and some parts are a little funky.

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My mapping project (which unfortunately could not be uploaded in the way I'd prefer — click the purple words to see the map) was actually a pretty cool one — we were assigned to create a map of a path we took frequently. It was supposed to be interactive, meaning that clicking on it made things change, and it was supposed to be experiential, in that you wouldn't find everything on our maps that you would on a regular map. Like my daisies or squirrel sightings.

I do think this could have been a little smoother, but Flash was really frustrating to me and this was, of course, my first foray into that program. I like it overall, especially the owl (infamously, my favorite animal) and the little popups around the map.

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This project was in After Effects, just introducing us to the program. Each square represented an axis or method of moving — for instance, the square marked "Y" should move on the "Y" axis. We were given an Illustrator document with the squares already created and asked to make them move appropriately. This video is a fairly basic representation of that, but it accomplishes the job.

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The very first Graphic Design I class was focused on creating this illustrator exercise — a rubber ducky. We were supposed to make it as lifelike and accurate as possible. This was my first real foray into Illustrator, and definitely the first time I had attempted to work with the pen tool. I have to admit, it was terrifying. This is definitely not representative of my ability with Illustrator — using the pen tool at first takes a really long time!

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This was the culmination of Image Methodology — a motion piece explaining a scientific phenomenon (such as earthquakes or tornadoes) via a metaphor. I chose a little boy excited to eat jello as my metaphor for earthquakes.

Considering that this was one of my first full-length forays into After Effects, I think this did really well. Some places are a little jerky, but I love the use of textures and illustrations.

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The last "scales" project from Image Methodology. This section's focus was on pop art — Andy Warhol-style highly saturated images and repitition. Again, we were given prompts and had to respond to them in a pop-art way. My prompts had to do with waste and capitalism. I liked these of all my scales projects best.

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This was another "scales" project for Image Methodology, this time with a focus on constructivism. As with earlier, we were given prompts and had to demonstrate them in a constructivist manner. I took the color scheme and linear focus and applied it to Illustrator shapes.

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This was the first of our "scales" projects in Image Methodology. Basically, we were given a style (in this case, it was "tactile") and then given a prompt (mine was "what brings you pleasure") that was drawn out of a hat. Then, in a very short period of time, we were to bring in a given amount of studies around those concepts. These were supposed to — and did — help with producing a lot of material in a very short amount of time.

My prompt was, as I said, "what brings you pleasure," so I produced a series of illustrations based on the idea of travel and my favorite places. The photocopied style was supposed to evoke a sense of being tactile.

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This poster above, and the process book below, were a part of our "Material Studies," a look at trying to make typography out of found objects.The parameters were that we couldn't use anything too "easy," like ribbon or pebbles. I chose X-Acto blades, and was pretty happy with the result.

I do wish that the camera I used had been of a higher quality — I didn't realize the resolution was so low until I went to print it. I liked my image, but the resolution just didn't turn out very well.

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This project was called "Scavenger Hunt," as part of Image Methodology. We were supposed to take a large number of photos at the beginning of the assignments, pull one from which we could discern a clear element of design, and then go from there, eventually having six photos and six elements of design. We then had to design a web page from there. I really love how mine turned out! The only thing I would have changed would have been renting a camera from the media department, because some of my images were a little small.

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This was our type specimen book from Type 1. We chose a typeface from a given list and then were supposed to display all the ways that typeface could be used, so that included glyphs, ligatures, different sizes and weights, and creative uses of the type itself. The format was fairly simple — printed on a color laser printer with a saddle stitch binding. I chose Didot for mine (still my favorite typeface) and I really love how it turned out.

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My Design Culture Now poster from Type 1 - we were assigned to create an advertising poster for a presentation by four different designers. I decided to focus on the address portion of the design, with a more modern approach. I really love how this turned out.