Elle's Amazing Blog

A student at the University of Kansas, Elle Perkins is an aspiring designer. To follow along with her class projects and random thoughts concerning design, go ahead and click that follow button at the top of the page.

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There are three main steps to forming a habit

1. The Cue A good example of a cue is what happened to me last year. Every other day I had an evening class directly after another and to get there I walked through a cafe. There I would think to myself wow I’m pretty tired I should get some caffeine. So I would buy a bottle of Mr. Pibb and be on my way. So whenever I walked by that cafe I thought how a Mr. Pibb would be really good.

2. The Routine Basically the repetitiveness of the same action.

3. The Reward The following feeling or action that makes you want to repeat the routine. In my example my reward was that I stayed awake in my class and got to taste my favorite drink during it. Altogether it made me stay aware in a potentially boring class.

This information came to me from CBI Nuggets X

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Provoko

The game my group and I created, required a lot of experimenting. Once we got the general idea how the game will work we then go to have fun creating the challenges. All together this is the most fun I’ve had doing a project.

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Children in the United States foster care system start life at a disadvantage compared to a child in an average home. But how can I show this in an infographic while get away from the all being pie chart. That is what I’ve been trying to do this weekend. All my information was found here.

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My first use of after effects went relatively well.

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Emmeline Pankhurst 15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928)

was a British political activist and leader of the British suffragette movement who helped women win the right to vote. In 1999 Time named Pankhurst as one of the100 Most Important People of the 20th Century, stating: "she shaped an idea of women for our time; she shook society into a new pattern from which there could be no going back."She was widely criticised for her militant tactics, and historians disagree about their effectiveness, but her work is recognised as a crucial element in achieving women's suffrage in Britain

source

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Emmeline Pankhurst's speech “Freedom or Death” is easily recognized as one of the greatest speeches in the 20th century. Advocating for British women's right to vote, she is known today as one of the most notable suffragettes in history. Her fiery passion and dedication to this cause is overwhelmingly apparent and is inspiring to me even one hundred years later. Obviously there is major emphasis on the later portion of the speech particularly in the iconic line “give us freedom or give us death.”

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Early throw back Thursday to past projects that never made it onto this blog. One not featured here is a mailer for a font I created, maybe some other tbt will address that but as of now shown here are...

Poster series for ITC New Baskerville which displays the different characteristics of this classic, transitional font.

Final print out of my first project of the year, mouse drawings. Each square represents a category that I had to make many many mice for. Ranging from abstract to typographic this project really stretched my drawing abilities.

Thirdly info-graphics on how to plant a tomato. One originally created off the computer, one image based, and one done typographically.

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Pentagram's Abbott Miller: "Branding Has Become Oppressive"

We talk to Miller on the occasion of his first monograph about his work habits, seductive books, and logo haterade.

What is a brand? According to Abbott Miller it is something oppressive, static, and uninspired. Instead of a brand Abbot prefers the word identity which implies growth, fluidity, and most importantly the ability to be used in context. This is especially true for exhibits, which he describes as “a room with a plot,” because the context of the show needs to be used to design the identity of the room. Unfortunately exhibits don’t last long, they typically pack up and move in months. So what also has a plot but stays around forever? Books! According to Miller books have a “permanence that is really appealing... you can count on them being around for decades as opposed to months.” Something so long-lasting has to be resilient and truly special or else it can simply get tossed aside. To avoid that a book and its designer have to work hard to create something truly spectacular that can stand the test of time.

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Designing a magazine sounds simple enough but turns out it is more difficult than previously thought. By using the beautiful photos by Sebastiao Salgado a magazine was created that I believe showcases his work in the best way possible. To make it the best it could be two types of grids were used, a leading grid and a module grid. A leading grid obviously used to make all leading in the article uniform and the module grid to organize all the elements on the page.  

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Sebastiao Salgado

Sebastiao Salgado, as Brazilian documentary photographer and photo-journalist is my new favorite photographer. Ranging from portraits to landscapes to large group shots Sebastiao is first and foremost a storyteller. If the average photo is worth a thousand words, then his are surely worth a million.

Recently his photos have been put together to create a longer story. From 2004 to 2011 Sebastiao worked with his son on his latest book of photographs called “Genesis”. In this work, different than his others, Salgado focuses on landscapes and animals from all over the world. This is a stark contrast from his earlier work which focuses on humanities struggles. Genesis was also adapted into a film under the same title. 

With 8 books of his photographs he has a large quantity of work all held in high esteem. His other books include “Other Americans”, “Terra,” “Migrations,” “The Children,” “Sahel,” “From My Land to the Planet,” and “The Scent of a Dream,” Each book focuses on a different struggle that humanity is facing. One that is re-surging in popularity due to recent events is “The Children” which showcases harsh photos of refugees and migrating children form all over the world.

Not only his books but all of his projects are made to bring awareness to an issue. For example in 2007 Salgado displayed his photographs of coffee workers from India, Guatemala, Ethiopia, and Brazil. The idea was to make the public be more aware of where their favorite drinks are coming from.

Although he was born and raised in Brazil he now lives in Paris. There he started his career as a professional photographer in 1973. After working for many different photo agencies, in 1994 him and his wife, Leila Wanick Salgado, formed  their own agency named Amazonas Images. Over the years Salgado has visited and documented over 100 countries. Because of his amazing work he has received many photographic prizes, some of the most notable being his status as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and an honorary member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences in the United States.

At 71 years old Sebastiao had a documentary created about him and his work, which was released in theaters in 2014. This film, entitled “Salt of the Earth,” showcases his 40 years of dedication to documenting deprived societies in hidden corners of the world. Written and directed by his son Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, Salt of the Earth was nominated for an Academy Award and competed in the Cannes Film Festival.

The documentary features Salgado explaining, in French and Portuguese, how he took some of his best-known images, such as those shot in a gold mine in the Amazon over 30 years ago.

But it also makes it clear that his path to becoming a renowned photographer was anything but easy: He was born deep in the isolated Brazilian interior, scrimped and saved to get his economics degree, left his country as a refugee after a military dictatorship seized power in Brazil, and in the mid-1990s he suffered “a deep psychological crisis” after covering the genocidal civil wars in Rwanda and Bosnia. A true testament to Sebastiao's career, this film is a great tribute to an amazing and talented man.

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This is Magazine History!

All these images are the works of historically significant designers who worked in print. Ranging from the 30′s to the 90′s these are the designers that set the precedent for what is happening in magazine and typographic design now.

Starting with Alexey Brodovitch who was the art director in Harper’s Bazaar. He had complete artistic freedom with magazine so some crazy type usage came out of it. He enjoyed making the type play with the photography by mirroring lines and placing the texts into shapes. X

The next work shown was done by Fred Woodward who worked for Rolling Stone. His work was more picture dependent and used as little type as possible. He was also inducted into the Art Director Hall of Fame in 1996. X

Gail Anderson also worked at Rolling Stone Magazine with Fred Woodward. Later she took over and became the art director. She like to use type differently than others, making it out of objects or using quirky designs that looked like it was a part of a photo. X

Tibor Kalman also worked for a magazine but used it in a very different way. He used Colors magazine to showcase controversial and difficult subjects He focused on using striking imagery, design, and color to make a statement, while still making the page interesting and exciting to look at. X

Besides being a magazine director Neville Brody also designed several typefaces. Relying on a minimalist approach Neville worked in the high fashion world and therefore tried to not distract from the art he was showcasing and compliment it instead. X

You know the grungy style of the 90′s? Well David Carson practically invented it in the design world. Breaking every rule known in typography he embraced the rebellious force of the new trends seen in fashion and transformed it into type. X

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Sebastiao Salgado Presentation. An amazing photographer and an amazing man. 

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I deserve a lot of gifts from Santa because this girl has been working hard. This post shows off my final application for “The Big Meltdown” food truck brand. Not shown is a to go container and the fully mocked up business cards. I hope to add those soon.

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My final artifacts for the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport mock up. Business cards, paper cups, t-shirts, and an indoor advertisement.

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By starting from the logo and working outward I am able to apply this brand to different artifacts. Here are some of the first ideas towards that.

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A booklet is required to display this brand. The first look at what that might look like.

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Getting closer to a better business card