F+S Futuristic Building Design

I read an article that was talking about futuristic architecture design.  The location is to be in Taichung, Republic of China.  The building is set to be earthquake proof, and sustainable.  It will incorporate "an island full of plant life" on the top of the building, as well as have more plants and around the building.  Based on the way that they are designing, natural light will be able to brighten up the building during the day.  Thus, requiring only lights at night; their plan is to use as much renewable energy resources as possible in the construction of the building including solar panels, and rainwater harvesting systems.

I always had an interest for architecture, and find it amazing what other countries are doing to get on the track for sustainability and the future.  This is an important aspect that we as a world populous are not doing enough to try to understand, embrace, and help save.

On top of that, the design firm is hoping that the building will be referred to as the Eiffel Tower of the 21st Century.  They are hoping to be a future icon to 21st Century Architecture.

the article is found here

the design firm is found here 

F+S The Inner Workings of Type

I found this and was intrigued.  I am thinking that it's not fully because of my dark humor, but the actual compositions too.  The pieces visually and physically illustrated what we talked about in Typography this semester.  Each letter was created by hand and produced to have a certain meaning, just like our Typographic Intervention project.


The compositions show how type lives and breathes, just like us.  I think going with that statement, we are just another form of typography.  This would mean that basically each letter is a person; each word is a group people.  Then kerning, leading, and all else makes sense in relation to the interaction between letters.  Just as each of us bring our own personality and quirks to the mix, letters bring their personality and shape that causes us to alter the spacing between letters and words.


The designer is Andreas Scheiger.  He lives in Vienna, Austria and specializes in typography, illustration and graphic design.  His main website is here.  His Behance account is here.

F+S Professional Artist

I was looking around on Behance and came across this exhibit.  What really struck me was the contrast between layout of the posters and the style of the artists represented at this show.  Each of the 50 artists in this show was represented through a collage of images that represented them.  It really has an old freak circus look with the cut-out and surreal look to the images.

Other than the advertisement designs, what I really liked was how every piece that was used for this was close, but not exactly the same.  The designer effectively repeated the same ideas, images, and text but in a new way for each piece of propaganda.  There are quiet a few images below, but more are available via the Behance account of Ken-tsei-lee.  He is from Taiwan and was creative director for this project.  Zhan, Yu-Shu created the illustrations for the pieces.

poster.

invitation.

the exhibit entrance.

inside exhibit.

F+S Type in Environment

So I'm on this current kick of looking for art that motivates/inspires.  I thought this was a good example of type in the environment too.  So here I am sharing, this video is less than two minutes, but pretty awesome.  It's interesting to me how simple an idea can seem, but how but using different materials we can alter the meaning and the range of audience that we attract.


click 

Visual Interview: the final result

The object of this assignment was to interview one of our classmates and design a spread that explains that person.  Through the use of text and photographs we were to create both a visual and physical experience to get to know our person. 

I struggled with this assignment, which is something I did not see when beginning this project.  I actually went into this assignment thinking that I would do something based heavily on a gridded system, and that did not end up happening.  The one thing that I used that was part of my first idea was the poem.  After my interview with Quinn I realized that poetry, the written word was something that she really enjoyed.  I then wrote a poem about her based on the style of the two poets that she gave me.  

One of the best things about the incorporation of poetry into design is that you have the ability to add more meaning to the words.  I don't think I fully gave the words all the impact that they could have, but I think I ended closer to the final concept.  I chose Archer for the typeface because it is Quinn's favorite and thought that it spoke a lot about her.  I think that it explained more about her that I did not discuss within the poem or in the visuals.

Prior to this assignment I had never thought about fully illustrating a person through mainly images and a bit of text.  It was difficult because I was trying to be less abstract. Abstraction is the style that I gravitated towards during this class.  I wanted to try to move away from that style towards a more cleanly, and professionally laid out composition.  This was hard to create because I struggled with how to lay text and images that it made sense and was not confusing.

But it ended up being a fairly well done design.  I think the composition on the outside really worked together.  I question if there was a better way to incorporate the text into the image.  I still need to work on the composition on the inside of the fold.  I had tried using different images or more overlapping to keep the same color scheme as the front, but couldn't find something to work.  All this means is I need to take more time later on down the road to make more of a connection of the outside to the inside.

front cover/fully folded.

back cover/fully folded.

first open full spread/opened like a book.

up-close detail of front composition.

open folded out side/fully opened outside.

inside of the poster/fully opened inside.

reflection: describe a scene that doesn't exist

I was constantly plagued by struggles in this class. It's as if my eyes, hands, and mind were afraid to create and explore. The class started out difficult - although I'd seen the color wheel before and done projects related to it, I wasn't used to being quizzed on it repeatedly. I came face-to-face with my fear of the camera tripod. It was a only half-admitted fear, but one that I seemed to stray from. I wasn't used to being confined to one specific setting, unless I wanted to spend more time resetting it. I'm impatient, despite all that I've struggled through in different situations, I like the feeling of instant satisfaction. With a tripod, it's the long run that's the real prize, coincidentally it's the only one that matters.

With this course I also learned how difficult it can be to photograph some materials. In this specific instance I am referencing mirrors, but not only a couple mirrors, but pieces, all aiming different directions. I was faced with the struggle in this project of not only preventing myself and my surroundings from being in the reflections but the ability to create a successful message within one confined photo shoot. I was not used to using various objects within a scene to create a statement that may or may not be understood by the user.

In my most favorite, but most difficult to start project I learned more than I thought I would. This may sound like a negative statement, but I mean it in the most sincere way. I used digital manipulation skills that some may call "my style," but I did each with reason. Within each composition I was trying to portray a certain idea through manipulation of images and later the incorporation of text. I was challenged by taking and combining images in the best way to portray the message. I was then challenged again in the adding of text to the book cover compositions. I was more in my element of designing with layout, but also struggled with incorporating text that went along with the image. My main struggle was trying to make the typography speak at a matching level to the image on the covers.

I definitely became more comfortable with recognizing colors in a scene and how they can add to a meaning. The ability to describe and illustrate a story through photographs is the main lesson that I take from this class. I know that I am still struggling with the successful conquer of this concept, but I am getting closer to an acceptable level for this point in my career.

F+S Video On Being Wrong

Recently, I was sent this video.  After having watched it, I felt that the best thing to do would be to continue to share the video.  The video is a TED Talk by Kathryn Schulz.  At a convention she spoke about being wrong, why we don't like being wrong, what being wrong really means, and why it is not really a "problem."  It's a bit of an inspirational piece.  If you have a little under 20 minutes, I definitely suggest giving it a watch.  I know you may not WANT to give it 20 minutes, but you SHOULD.


Ted Talk: On Being Wrong

Visual Interview: the second layout

This is my second attempt at manipulating the images that I was using.  I wanted to try to bring more cohesion between both sides.

outside front 1(optional).

outside front 2(optional).

outside spread.

inside.

It's Quantity Working to Quality : my reflection

I really had no idea what this class was all about, prior to the first day.  Coming in as a transfer student with graphic design and writing as my background, I figured visual communication might be some kind of wrapping of the two.  This is kind of what the class was like.  I definitely learned more about time management than I already knew.  I was used to a workload, but I was not use to a high quality workload. 

One of the largest concepts that I started to learn and am still trying to push myself to use it to its fullest is starting at quantity and working to quality.  My mind is set up at focusing on quality right away, not really allowing a large number of tests to be done on any project.  I have a fear of being wrong, which is what I often equate with design concepts that don’t work.  But I am slowly starting to accept quantity working to quality.

I also learned more about connotation and how everything has more connotations that we may realize.  To go along with this, one of the largest things that I realized was how complex one word can be.  I mean the whole semester’s assignments were based on one word that we were given.  All of the projects that we did were in no way exactly the same; instead it was different ways of viewing and portraying an object.  Although during the semester it was most likely more difficult for me to look at the word lawn and pull different aspects from it; but I am now happy that we did this.  It forced me to realize how complex even a most “basic word” is and how often we forget that and simply take a word at face value.

Animated POV: the final flash movie

In today’s age of technology, communication is more than just vocal words.  We are no longer constrained to only gaining and keeping attention merely by our own voice, but we are able to use visuals such as videos and images, as well as other sounds.  This project’s focus was on effectively using these other visual communication methods together to create one dynamic message.  Through all of the hybrid typography and visual communication assignments in relation to the word that was assigned at the beginning of the semester, we were able to get into more depth about our object.  Not only were we able to find a deeper meaning for that word, but also we focused all semester on developing a few different definition directions from our word.  And through this animation we were able to see all of those definitions in action.

I struggled with this assignment in technical aspects.  One of the things that I love about graphic design is that you can portray a message not only through images, but also through words.  What I struggled with this assignment was using moving words and images.  Normally the main roadblocks that I may hit when creating a design is what the image or text is emitting by itself, in different colors, or in relation to the distance between other objects.  With this animation, not only did I have to keep in mind colors, distance, and other objects, but I also needed to look at how fast or slow an object came on the screen and how it specifically interacted with the scene as a whole.

One of the main things that I learned in relation to this project was how to not only incorporate interesting scene transitions, but also use transitions that allowed the message to continue even if the main animation object wasn’t in motion.  I also had to keep in mind for this project, I was basically choosing what I wanted the viewer to see and when.  Where as with other graphic design that I normally do, we often are unable to guide the viewer’s eyes in the exact path that we’re hoping for.  It can be possible to guide the viewer normally through design, but often that is by overloading the viewer with what we want them to look at in a specific order.

In my piece I used motion to show a lawnmower cutting the grass to reveal garden tools.  I mainly used two transitions in my animation; those transitions were swap and zoom.   Zoom was incorporated in my animation to allow the garden tools and dandelion to increase and/or decrease in size.   I used swap when I let the black of the garden tools line up with the black of the dandelion to make the dandelion appear as if emerging from the garden tools.  Sequence was used in my animation in deciding what order all of the objects should be presented in.  I struggled with trying to figure out the best time to show the word “alternative” so that it completed the sentence and did not just reinforce a meaning that was already being portrayed by an image.  Time was very important in my animation.  I attempted to use timing to my advantage through the use of the music within the animation.  My hope was to make transition of the quieter guitar to when the singer started singing to be the turning point or climax in my statement.

(the music didn't quite sync all the way up with the animation when it saved as a .mov file, but it did with the swf)

*The music used in the animation is the song "Thomas" from A Perfect Circle's cd Mer de Noms.

Visual Interview : the mock up

The mock up of our Visual Interview poster is due.  This is what the two images are below.  The top one is the image that is the outside of the poster that will only be seen as a whole image if the viewer chooses to unfold it all, otherwise it will just be in the split sections.  The main thing that I am questioning is whether the viewer will be able to understand all the poem text going together, and if all of that text is legible.

Opening - fold 1.

Spread - fold 2.

Closing - fold 3.

Full open image.

Inside image spread.