the Designer in Progress

Welcome to my design blog! I'm Lillian. I post graphic design related things.

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Designer & Client DeeKay Kwon

A personal project by DeeKay Kwon about his personal experiences with clients provides a funny take of the Client/Designer dynamic.

Warning:  Don’t take this too seriously !

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Round-Robin Group Critiques — February 12, 2018

Today we hosted a series of group critiques in class and I got a lot of feedback on my project! I printed out some of the above layouts and showed the sketches to showcase how my capstone is coming.

4x6 Card

Not all the information needs to be there: name, sex, age, photo (small), informative icons, personality icons? Utilize front and back Reasoning for the card: helps direct traffic flow to “profile wall” and gives possible take away for adopters to reference later Put the SPCA contact information onto the card (small) Volunteer note option on the back? -When filled out, either slide into a separate container on the kennel (keep it organized to each animal), give to the front desk workers, or put into a box at the front desk to be checked at the end of the day by staff?

Icons

Draw the “No Dogs” icon Personality icons scale- utilize analogous/transparency to dictate the scale of how much it is of the trait -If not color, then fill in the circles to show the scale? -Personality set includes: playful, shy, curious, loving Smaller 7/8″ good size -Scale change for info icons? No cats icon- put multiple cats in it: change wording to “no other cats,” Decrease the stroke on the icons Declawed- remove the cross out: make it a clawless paw Use symbol for sex (M, ♂: icon for age? Include kennel number/numbering system

Hierarchy

Each print out (8x11 vs 4x6) is going to have a different hierarchy Sketch on paper grids and type layouts Softer typeface but with a lot of fonts (Tondo, Proxima soft, etc) Different sections of the icons (information vs personality) is helpful: allows person to quickly see the grouped information they’re focusing on Smaller body text (currently 15pt) Line of icons (horizontal or vertical) reads better than large group Breed of cat is less important than Age, Sex and Name Include kennel number/numbering system

General

Rewrite the paragraphs to exclude redundant information that’s demonstrated in the icons and the unnecessary openers and closersPossible taglines of the cats? (written by me or by the SPCA worker)-Ex: “Frisco—the flirty cuddly guy”-Maybe use hashtags?Multiple photos of the cats on the print out?Include the history of the cat: where it came from and why it’s there

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Icon Drawing and Process Start— February 5, 2018

Been busy working on sketches of my icons. There’s still a lot of  refinement, but I have a draft for every icon drawn (of my list I currently have).

I also started planning out my process book and my DAAPworks display. I’m considering bringing in a few fake pet carriers to the show to showcase the pet information system I’m developing.

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First Round of Sketching January 19, 2018

Delayed in posting this but I drew out a few icon styles a few weeks ago after doing some gesture studies to understand cat anatomy. After doing a few and narrowing to two sorta styles (line or shape) I realized that I need to take a break from the icons to decide how these icons will live. Mainly I needed to know how large they will be as the style will be affected by how large the icon will be.

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Inspiration Gathering January 21, 2018

As I started working on sketching styles for the icon systems, I conducted some visual research and found a few icon sets that I felt were strong in conveying their message or in conveying the gesture of a cat. These along with my book I picked up “Infinite Icons” are helping me to develop an easy to digest style for the kennel card icons.

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January 11, 2018—Getting back in the Saddle

Four months have come and gone, and it’s back into the thrall of capstone! Here’s an overview of somethings from today’s two classes

Over my Co-op

I realized I want to include more print EGD included in the project. So in addition to the kennel card, a social flyer for the web and some weekly pet feature boards for around the kennel itself.

Also want to try to make a small motion piece. Whether it’s a mini process video or a small animation of some of the finished icons, I don’t know.  -Found a helpful book called Infinite Icon that is just a plethora of different icon systems and their functions/projects. Should prove helpful.

During Classes

–Group activity of categorizing and finding relating themes among all of the Senior’s capstone projects –Broke into groups to look at the trends and patterns across all projects to come up with a name for the DAAPworks show. –My group came up with the name RE: Changing Convention. We’ll vote from all the group’s options to decide the name possibilities of the show.

Personal Growth

–Exercise helped me focus my project: the motivation is to invoke a response or action, the mood is friendly and easy to comprehend, and the activity is adopting. This will help dictate graphic styles and choices later.

—Idea for project display to have a replica cat kennel such that these fliers could live in context

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DJ Snake ft. Lauv - A Different Way [Official Lyric Video]

Cool paint swiping motion effects

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Should you trust your first impression? - Peter Mende-Siedlecki

Design Inspiration

Started following Ted-Ed and not only is it educational on a variety of topics but it also has some wonderful animation and motion graphics! This is one such example. They use textures and vectoring well and use them to stimulate but not over stimulate the voice over. 

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Final Poster- August 2017

Meant to post this a while ago but as the end of the summer semester came to a close, our class hosted a “mini DAAPworks” show in which we created a two sided poster explaining our capstone project and it’s goals and research. Overall I was happy with how the posters turned out and how my research and planning is going. Now to just go ahead and do it!

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In a Heartbeat - Animated Short Film (2017)

A closeted boy runs the risk of being outed by his own heart after it pops out of his chest to chase down the boy of his dreams. 

© Beth David and Esteban Bravo 2017

It’s here! After a year and a half of hard work, we are both so excited to finally share our film with you. Thank you all for your support and encouragement - this film means the world to us, and your kindness and enthusiasm has made this journey all the more meaningful. It is our great pleasure to share with you this labor of love, and we hope with all our hearts that you enjoy watching it as much as we did making it.

<3

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July 24, 2017—Wrapping up the Semester

It’s been a whirlwind recently! Finally kicked into gear to start buckling down on Capstone stuff since we are required to make a mini poster for the end of the semester. I spent the day mostly finding inspiration images and compiling this brand identity for my project. Had to spend some time rethinking the name for the project too. As of now I’ve at least started my final poster, in the aspect that a file is created and the pieces I’ll need for it are haphazardly thrown in. I’ll get to it tomorrow.

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July 10, 2017—A Look at the Present

I spent some time in class today looking at the current kennel cards from a few perspectives. In the first set of images I compared the printed out kennel cards to what information is available on the website. The second set of photos is looking at the layout of the information on the kennel cards as well as the information that could be removed and what it would look like. The final set of images are the current hierarchy of information to what a first look at reprioritizing it could be. 

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Interview with Corrine Dates - June 29, 2017

I talked with the program director of the Colerain Shelter at the SPCA today and asked her a few questions. These are some of the notes I took from the talk.

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June 28, 2017—Work Day

Today was spent focusing on catching up. I worked on revising and updating my project proposal since I’ve further developed my idea and project, and I’m trying to finish it before I leave for vacation for a week. 

Also got to talk with my professor today, who gave me some good advice on my next steps of which I was struggling to decide on. He suggested continuing what I am doing, reaching out to the SPCA, conducting interviews, and collecting data, but to also look into spreading word of an online survey for potential adopters by putting up fliers at pet stores and similar locations. If I have time I may try to make and post those before I leave for vacation, though I doubt I will be able to get them done.

While talking with him, I asked if I should start ideating a possible icon system and whether I should start type hierarchy layouts or if I should wait for more data, and he suggested trying to maybe aim for having the icon development in a strong place by the end of the semester. 

Nothing to really post besides those sorts of updates. While I’m away I may start concepting and drawing icon ideations or reading up on icon system and typography documentation systems. 

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June 21, 2017—Back to the Shelter

I headed back to the shelter today and passed out some surveys to visitors. I also got into contact with the management staff at the Colerain SPCA and am hoping to move forward in passing out more surveys to my different audience groups. 

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June 19, 2017 — Faculty Feedback Review

Today I presented to a few faculty members about my capstone project and where it is at presently. The review went well and I got some valid feedback along with some thoughts on what I should look into. One such thing was looking into a way of visually depicting the data on these kennel cards, which was something I was considering and looking into icon systems for depicting the information in kennel cards.

Some notes I wrote down during the presentation included:

Document system for this project- Use the Cats as a prototype for the entire system New system to contain information What about non-English speakers looking into adoption? Magnetic Cages—is there something that could be used there if they are magnetic? Kennel cards are visually stunted: no where to initially look Classifying intricate information

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June 15, 2017 — Practice Faculty Review

Today in class we conducted a run through of our faculty review presentations. These were a few comments given to me by my colleagues on how to improve the presentation.

Personal Thoughts: 

Got a lot of positive feedback as well as a few things on how to improve, though I didn’t change much for my presentation.