#labteaching

[avrilh-grad503]

Week 5: Adobe Illustrator - Layers Importing, Adobe Acrobat, Saving, Printing

Lecture Summary:

As we are nearing the formative submission, this lesson is mostly dedicated to covering/briefing the class on what is required for submission. The latter part of the presentation is then dedicated to answering students’ questions and guiding us regarding our current progress. Most of this lesson is mainly given to us to spend working on our timeline design.

Lab Teaching:

We are also given another brief tutorial on using illustrator. In this tutorial we looked over using colour swatches and manipulating images.

(31.03.2022)

[avrilh-grad503]

Week 4: Adobe Illustrator - Brief and Timeline Discussion

Lecture Summary:

In week 4, we are given more details on the formative submission and what our timeline will revolve around starting from this week. We then moved on to discussing the design process, this is vital for us to review as we will need to follow this process when designing our timeline posters.

In short, the design process follows this pattern; defining the problem, brainstorming, gathering resources, drafting/developing ideas and creating works. To expand on this, we reviewed the designer, Ellen Lupton’s description of a design process. She narrows down these steps into three major categories; Defining the problem - inventing ideas - creating forms. In the presentation, we closely examined what these categories meant, and how we could achieve these steps in our design. For instance, we discussed how we could brainstorm and gather resources by using tools that are provided to us, such as the AUT library. 

A few other notable point in the design process was the use of mind mapping, documentation and proofing. Mind mapping, also called radiant thinking, is a form of mental research that allows designers to quickly explore the scope of a given problem. This was an interesting concept as I had not previously touched on this topic before. Mind mapping would be incredibly helpful during this process, as I will be able to organise and categorise information based on its importance. Documentation in this context refer to collecting every bits of work I will, or have produced throughout designing. This will be an important step especially for this paper as we will need to constantly jolt down thought processes, give annotations and context. Lastly, proofing was another interesting step to touch on. Though I am familiar with constantly gaining feedback on design work, it hasn’t really occurred to me that I need to be regularly ‘proofing’ (testing) my design solutions and reviewing parts that needs to be further worked on. 

Furthermore, in the latter half of this presentation we started reviewing various examples of iterative design processes. An example that stood out to me in the presentation is;

In Lab Teaching:

In this week’s in lab teaching, it is a continuation of our illustrator introduction. We are further introduced to other tools and functions, such as the use of grids in adobe files. 

(24.03.2022)

[avrilh-grad503]

Week 3: Adobe Illustrator Interface and Tools

Lecture Summary:

In this week’s lecture, we started off with some feedback regarding the work we have done so far. It is here that I realised my work and research are quite vague and was not enough overall. Following this feedback, I plan to go back to my previous posts and edit my research. I want to include more details in lesson discussions as well as my research on Tibor Kalman. After reviewing what information I had of Kalman, I realised that it wasn’t enough and for me to produce a timeline infographic, I need to understand Tibor Kalman style of work better.

Lab Teaching:

Today’s class mainly focused on lab teaching, where we are given a detailed introduction to illustrator, and various tools used in the programme. First, we are given an overview to the basics of illustrator. Here, Karol explained the contents of vector graphics, file formats, illustrator artboards. Following this introduction, David continued the session by directing the class through a more detailed explanation on how to use the tools while we follow along.

We are given an AI file that acts as an activity sheet where we can review the materials while following David’s explanation.

I really enjoyed this particular lesson, as it was fun to utilise different tools and play around with each functions. This was also extremely helpful for me to build a better understanding on illustrator. Though I have used illustrator before, I realised that there were many functions that I could’ve utilised better for a faster result.

(17.03.2022)

[avrilh-grad503]

Week 2: Overview of Timeline Poster

Lecture Summary:

In this week’s Lecture, the class is split into two parts, class lecture and in lab teaching. In the first part, we explore various types of design and what its influences were depending on the era. We looked over the development of poster designs as well as timeline examples. A few notable takeaways in this lecture was understanding how posters are structured and what purpose it serves. 

“Posters tell visual stories, announce events, and bring ideas to life. Posters are a simplification of complex information and ideas. Using visual metaphors and pared down icons help to communicate big ideas while reducing clutter - absence of elements.”

It was interesting to see how posters develop over time, as it was one of the earliest forms of advertisements (Dating back to early 19th century). When we reviewed each posters over the years, it was clear posters had a significant role in our history, communicating various ideas with large amount of audiences when technology was not as advanced as today. 

Here, we can see a clear difference in how drastically the designs have changed, from the Art Nouveau era and moving towards the post war era. For me, this part of the lecture was incredibly informative and helpful. 

Later in this lecture, we also looked at various timeline (infographic) examples.

“Infographics, a compound word of ‘information’ and ‘graphics’, are design compositions that quickly and clearly represent information, data, or knowledge. Infographics improve understanding by utilizing images, graphics and text to enhance an audiences ability to see patterns and trends and to make connections.”

“Timeline infographics are a type of infographic that offer a way to visualise a process over a period of time. This style of infographic is often used to portray the history of a specific event, a figure or movement. Timelines often have a very linear progression.”

In the second part, we were given the opportunity to explore an adobe programme, or more specifically photoshop. We went over different basics of photoshop and various functions such as filtering, layering and blending. I have little experience with using photoshop, so these tutorials are incredibly helpful, and I now have a better understanding on what I would need to work on.

(10.03.2022)