Riley GD Process

Sophomore Graphic Design Process Blog

[rileysoph-gd]

James Broad Lecture

Designer James Broad did a talk about his work in apparel that our class went to. It was a really interesting insight into designing for fashion/sportswear brands. The main thing I didn’t realize going into the talk that I thought was really interesting was the prevalence of patterns in apparel. It seemed like a lot of the work he did was creating new pattern designs to be integrated into the clothing. I think it’d be really interesting to just do a series on creating patterns—with no real central area. I haven’t really explored patterns that much in my own work and think it’d be really fun. James’ typography was also really interesting, I thought his site letters were really well done and fluid. I think the most important thing I discerned from his work was the amount of intention and historical background put into each piece. He talked a bit about delving into the archives of the brands he was working on to create backgrounds. I think I really learned a lot about how important intention is in design this year. It seemed a lot of his more powerful and successful pieces were drawing from a story or other context that was informing the work. He referenced the trend in Japan of keeping the security tags on clothing as a style, and then incorporated that into his next work. For his designs for Usain Bolt’s jersey, he referenced older Jamaican running icons into the design. I enjoyed how much thought was put into these designs and it made me reflect on how I work. In my own pieces, I tend to make things based on if they look how I want them, and less about context. I think employing more historical and other real world references would make a lot of my pieces more effective. I thought the talk was really informative and I thought his style was really interesting. (https://www.automaticletters.com/)

[rileysoph-gd]

Broadside Booklet Process

For our broadside booklet, we had to choose a historical event and created a poster that also functioned as a booklet to convey the narrative. When I started, I was thinking about doing the launch of Windows Xp, as I’m really interested in the 90s and early 2000s Windows aesthetic. For my first iteration, I was playing around with using the different windows within the desktop for creating the poster. When I was playing around with this design, I realized I was having a lot of fun messing with the MS Paint interface in creating the center title.  

I then decided to pivot to focusing on the development of MS Paint as my historical event, as I felt the design of the poster could have a really free, handmade quality, which is a style enjoy working with. For the second iteration, I created the poster inside of the MS Paint interface, and had a lot of fun making all the little sketches. It still however felt too compressed and boxed in. For my audience, I was trying to focus on making the design really accessible and friendly, open to anyone interested in learning about the history of MS Paint. 

For my third iteration I broke the walls of the interface and used the top bar and color palette in order to keep the poster structured. This really free’d up what I could do with the design. 

I then set out to recreate the tool icons, color palette and window bar in illustrator. It was kind of challenging at first making pixel art in illustrator, but I got used to it really quick and was happy with how they all came out.  

For my final poster, I wanted to integrate all of the tools I made into the design to make everything feel very interactive. It was additionally very helpful that I had the MS Paint color palette as I then used only those colors to create a cohesive color profile throughout the project.  

I was really happy with how the final poster came out, I think it’s really fun and inviting which was what I was trying to achieve throughout the project. It was also my first time in class working with a lot of body text, and writing and formatting was definitely a new challenge. I’m really happy with how I pushed my type on this project, I think there’s some interesting moments when the tools interact with the type, and it gave a pretty cohesive story of the history of MS Paint. I chose a pixelated font in order to keep with the early 2000s Windows aesthetic. 

Overall, I think I was more focused on creating the booklet rather than the poster, but I think it functions well as both. I’m happy with how the project came out and really enjoyed making it!

[rileysoph-gd]

Exercise 3 Process

I had a lot of fun creating the stage for this project. I went to the build lab after buying some balsa wood and cut the piece into a bunch of cubes. After band-sawing the cubes, I used the electric sander to smooth them all out. This took kind of a while because I didn’t really know how the build lab operated, but I was really happy with how they all came out. After making all the cubes, I super glued them together to make a bunch of structures which I think came out really well. I tried to make the structures as candle holders, fitting in with our “shrine” theme. I was inspired by the sugar cube structures that we looked at before class when making the structures. 

We also had pieces of denim that we had lazer-cutted a design from a previous shapes project onto. After a couple photos, we had the idea to drip wax onto the structures, and that became the final stage. We additionally used a bunch of the light filters to create a more dramatic effect. Overall I think the stage turned out to be really interesting and I was really happy with it. I really enjoyed how we played with scale and definitely think it could’ve been pushed further.

For the overlaying text, I decided that I didn’t want to manipulate the actual photo too much as I was really happy with how the photos came back. For the typography, I wanted it to both interact with the stage as well as feel kind of like a poster, so I had a mix of the two. I was really happy with how the top text came out, I think the pattern it created was really cool.

I think looking back at it, I definitely could've done some more image manipulation to make it more interesting. I’m really happy with it however, and I think it has some cool scaling effects. I additionally created another iteration, which I think is a little more cohesive, if less interesting.

Overall, I think I pushed my type a lot in this project and was really happy learning new skills at the build lab.

[rileysoph-gd]

Exercise 2 Process

This is my final GIF for the symbol. I definitely had a lot of fun with this project-animation is what really got me into art. 

I initially started deciding to do the animation in After Effects, I thought that animating waves would look a lot cleaner using shape rather than frame animation. I think it would have been interesting to see the GIF using a frame by frame style however.  

I struggled the most with timing, animating each individual element didn’t prove to be that difficult. Changing things after multiple sections had been timed out however was really hard. To cover up for slow sections, I actually ran the GIF through a program that speeds up GIFs, and I think it turned out well. 

I also changed the frames per second from 25 to 12.5, as the animation was almost too smooth and looked unnatural. 

My initial GIF was also black, and after getting input from classmates, I changed to blue. I still think the black was strong just how it flattened out the sequence. I also added actual fill to the water so it had more presence on the screen, and I think this helped with transitions a lot. 

Overall I’m happy with how the GIF came out and learned a lot about After Effects shape animations. 

[rileysoph-gd]

Exercise 01 Process

I selected Nintendo’s Wii Remote for my object. The controller had a big influence on my childhood and continues to influence my life today, as I still own and use a Wii. 

For my denotative processes, I tried to break down the functionality of the remote, into its different parts-and then subsequently breaking down those individual parts.

Here I break down the buttons of the remote, trying to additionally play with its naturalistic playful connotations of people actually using the remote. 

I enjoyed using digital processes to create the object’s images, as the digital world of the Wii is very recognizable and important to the console’s design. I really enjoyed scanning my drawings, as well as drawing additional content onto existing scans, I found it was a really personal way to engage with the object. 

I then really found it engaging to explore written and scanned imagery in a more abstract form. Here I look at the design of the remote’s speakers and the sound waves that they create:

I think it’s my favorite image just because of how cohesive and interesting it turned out. I was additionally really happy with this image, I think it came out differently than my other images while keeping the same general style, I think it’s very clean and interesting. 

Working with half toning and bit-mapping was a new technique for me that I really enjoyed, I found it really helpful in evening out a set of images. 

I could definitely clean it up, but I think at the least the images look consistent. I want to continue using half toned images in future work. I really also want to continue using pixelated art, making the remote in pixel art was super fun. 

I think overall I had a lot more fun scanning and drawing than I that I would and definitely want to continue in the future. I had a lot of fun making the images, and while struggling with the connotative sometimes, overall thought it was a pretty successful project.