working...

the process work of mike rich

[mikerichprocess]

Final FD_Branding

Old Logo

Final Logo

Print Publication Ad, arranged by me. Furniture cut out meticulously and framed by Jarrod.  The wood scrap piece with a drop shadow that frames everything took me a couple trials to get to. The chair at the top looks like it’s galloping to me so making it large and tilting it in such a way to imply it was popping out was my intent to create some action.

The com photo group that took documentation shots for our branding also took some b-roll footage. Jarod made the motion graphic at the end first, and using that I made an intro with our brands colors and kinetic type. Arranging the videos was simple enough, after effects is pretty intuitive.

[mikerichprocess]

FurnitureDesignBranding

These bubbly cut out shapes were made with inspiration from how CNC router will cut out parts for some furniture design projects. The idea of puling shapes and aesthetics that are naturally occurring in the clients work came naturally to us. I haven't used the composite and mask tool a lot in illustrator and found it super useful for this test.

This is the title page of the .PDF presentation for the furniture design Instructors to use when they go to high schools to “enlist” new students. The bit maping of materials used by furniture design student felt like a solid fit for certain applications. When gathering research one statement stuck out “this is not an exclusively wood working program, we are about contemporary furniture design. Teaching how to manipulate and shape all kinds of materials is what we do here” This was translated by us using our branding colors on textures that would other wise be wood brown or organic, in an attempt to speak to the nature of manipulating materal.

[mikerichprocess]

ArtiFACT Postcards

The coffee filtration system was originally invented by Melitta Bentz. A huge part of the day is the ritual of breakfast and coffee seems to be on of the most relatable staples for Americans.  Bellow is the postcard we designed with artifacts that should lead the viewer to the idea that she invented the filtration system. Bellow her image are the original images of what her filtration system looked like, and above her is the modern advancements. 

I put some fun text on her collar: “The Queen of Caffeine” and “buzzzzzzzzz”

The Post card below didn't make it into our final set but Its imagery was meant to tell the story of Blue Jeans. The duck is a reference to The style of pants that the first blue jeans were based off of; Duck Trousers.  The pretty flower is where Indigo Dye comes from. I would have thought the petals would be blue. 

[nikki-richardson-designer-blog]

This is one of our final designs for the postcard, the system we have come up with is that I will find the reference photos, create a sketch, choose fonts and send the document to michael so he can illustrate it. This is the first of 3 ideas we have for the camera. @mikerichprocess

[mikerichprocess]

This has to be the best postcard design we've made.

Why ? I think it has to do with our new approach letting one group-member ideate and play “Art Director” and the other one generates it as fast as possible, that way there is a lot of content to trim down together. 

[wallace-graphic-design]

Rabbit Hole meeting to reorient ourselves and move forward

[mikerichprocess]

>Choose your own prompt via chance

>Interactive series of pdfs and folders on a google drive, as a way of generating creative content and or exploration. 

[mikerichprocess]

ArtiFACT PostCards

Regrouping after out presentations we came to some interesting conclusions about our ArtiFACT project.

1. If its for kids (or both kids and adults) it needs to function as something kids want.

Our solution was incorporating a interactive aspect to the post card. Rather than just a set of accordion postcards that are illustrated, we are making the illustrated front intentionally sparse for the inclusion of stickers by the user. The idea is that the stickers will be of a certain shape that corresponds with the post card fronts, this way if a kid wants to put the right shaped stickers in the right place on the post card they can, and if they want to put a bike sticker on the telephone post card they can too (I guess, lol) 

2. it cant all be stickers, the postcards should adhere to some framework 

3. The stickers should be of varied styles. So a row of 3 detailed stickers, a row of 3 basic looking sticker, a row of realistic image traced sticker

we made postcard format and sticker mockups. 

see.

[mikerichprocess]

I was playing with some junk from my backpack and found enough cut off strips to make a book. 

The drawings with captions are from a game I made and the letters were just floating around in my back pack. 

I was experimenting with seeing if they would have a connection or cohesion when paired together. They do not. their only link is that their both black and white. 

It is an unsettling book though, and as a viewer it just feels confusing. The letters would work well on their own, i might make a book of just randomized letter combinations. 

[mikerichprocess]

Rabbit Hole 4

Last weeks spread (image) made with experimental variables: Tape and Burnt things. The other variable was an external influence on the creator: recent news.

I learned from this experiment that acetate works really well as a surface for using tape as a creative medium. I realized that I would use the acetate as a substrate to hold the tape and feed it into a vinyl cutter for perfect cuts. I have yet to test this idea but I would have never thought about that without going down this rabbit hole.

Again acetate paper is awesome for putting on your scanner to avoid messing it up. The raw dough ball above was placed on acetate then scanned. 

Burnt dough can make some interesting landscapes 

[mikerichprocess]

Play

Jake has an Evebot portable hand held Printer. I gave him $5 to play around with it. 

Its got plenty of quirky applications. I could see using it for instant hand drawn comics, or handwritten interviews.  In conjunction with a phone camera it could act as an instant camera. It’s super neat and after fucking around with it i might buy one. It would be interesting at book signings if authors would use this to print a picture with a fan on their copy of their book .... like I said the applications of this are endless.

[mikerichprocess]

Bicycle Issue of ArtiFACT

Bellow is a scan of Kat Von D’s tattoo book. The style applied to the lay out is very close to what our vision for ArtiFACT was. At first we weren’t sure how “old’ or dated we should make it look but the use of Tuscan Fonts and distressed text make for interesting headers. 

When we made it look like a newspaper it was too busy, so the aim now it the arrange the info spaced out enough not to cause anxiety while also holding the flavor of a time gone by.

This poster is what inspired our cover design

[mikerichprocess]

Rabbit Hole project 1

Mike Rich Week 1 Analysis & Reflection 

Role: 2ndCreator 

Experimental Variants: Location//Environment 

Specifics Determined: Off the Ground//Hostile 

Time Limit: 3hrs 

Time Used: 2hrs 40 mins 

After reading over Bryson’s (creator 1’s) analysis and seeing the final spread I decided that I’d use the original variant (pork rinds bag) for my version. I built my concept for what graphic I’d make by listing out 14 words that described the bag. Then I rolled a 6 sided die and got 3 groups with 3 descriptive words each. Then by looking up the dictionary definition of those words I was able to create an original narrative from what was essentially a piece of garbage. Brysons quote also made for good inspiration. The quote talked about how the bag was light and destroyed in a way. It was empty yet it had properties that allowed it to catch the wind and fly. I used that influence to help my narrative. 

In the end my narrative ended up being about a bomber that was unnaturally immortal and was empty or falling apart. My further interpretation of that was a predator drone that was damaged and falling apart but still flying. In my mind it painted this picture that after a war this drone just kept cycling the planet in search of targets with none to find. The drone would be solar powered so it could have perpetual flight. And with all its bombs already spent it would spend its last days slowing dropping pieces of itself. 

Super bleak, post apocalyptic, and in a way our use of plastic and insistent product consumption speaks to that already. So if there was an argument that what I derived from a simple plastic chip bag was morose or morbid I would argue that our culture and acceptance of unnatural means for acquiring capital at the expense of the planet and each-other is far worse than my bleak collage.

[mikerichprocess]

FD Branding

OK...

So its been a couple weeks since our group last talked with our client. We’ve each been juggling other projects. And i think we’ve all put this one on the back burner. But We have a plan:

Make Style Scapes showing the potential graphic treatments, fonts and colors to brand the department with. Then we’re going to show these to the client and then reconvene to adjust and combined approved ingredients for the brand. 

Sounds like a solid plan, If we can meet with the client again. Im hoping it hasn't been too long, and I want to have enough to show them. I feel like i might have to put other projects on the back burner now to get this one up to date.

This is a little sample of my style scape so far. 

I should email the client tomorrow morning asking for a meeting time next week to discuss directions 

[mikerichprocess]

Heres a Kinetic Type project I made in my motion graphics class.

I used the song If (Stomp) by Fairport Convention (great band).

they use some slang in the song that I thought was interesting, but didn’t have the chance to make graphics for. When he sings the line 

“If I could stitch enough, I’d save you nine and throw in the dixie too” 

Hes playing off of this old school phrase “a stitch in time will save you nine” which means if to take care of a problem now it will save you from having a bigger problem later.

also the dixie part had me confused but I found that in British slang a “dixie” used to mean a big cooking pot. So maybe when he says he’d throw in the Dixie too, its like saying hed also give a whole lot ? 

I-don-know, but the tune is solid, and I’m glad this was my first project.

[mikerichprocess]

Wrong time for experimentation

Check these out. I ditched the last half of senior studio to fuck around in the darkroom. What was my rational ? I wanted to used the die cutters in the library with chemigram paper, and now that I did it I think i can let that idea rest.

But while I was in there I realized, I could use a silk screen with a photo sensitive emulsion to make a negative of a portrait, then using rubber cement as a resist (like I used for these chemigrams) I could (and this is just a theory) make a chemigram portrait that has chemigram qualities. 

I guess this rabbit hole has yet to end

[mikerichprocess]

Furniture Design Major Branding

I was lucky enough to have an opportunity to do branding work for the furniture design program on campus at Appalachian State University.

The program has never done any advertising or branding to speak of, to most outsiders the program looks similar if not the same as product design. 

I’ll be working with two other graphic design majors, Jarod and Jake. We met with the faculty over seeing this new branding project and got their input (what they want to happen with the branding, what audience they want, ect. 

Recently we met this weekend to discuss how to divide the work, what research we need to do first and our time line for deliverables 

[mikerichprocess]

Extraordinary Ordinary Objects Newspaper

My first capstone project pitch was a group project with my wife (https://nikki-richardson-designer.tumblr.com/). 

The idea is a newspaper type format that focuses on everyday objects that have an interesting history. This project was developed from the want to give people a way to stop and look back at the objects that they use now that changed history ( kind of a vehicle for sponsoring appreciation for past innovations and people).

From our first mockups and the feed back this is a bullet list of things to change and include in the new version.

-Riso printing is an option

-trim information back, less info and more illustrations 

-not timeline, focus on one bike that changed life for the future

-alternative grid, less newspaper format more alternative news paper like

[mikerichprocess]

Kinetic typography project using after effects.

The song is Fairport Convention - If (stomp)

So far so good. Well see on monday what effects can make the type communicate more 😅👍