alexweberulhiteadmp-blog

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AD/M+P Final Post

This post is dedicated to the countless hours I have spent up working on projects for this class. But without this class I don't think I would've been able to produce and come up with the idea of Gemba, which I believe to be one of my strongest pieces in my portfolio.

AD/M+P has taught me so much. It has taught me a lot about not procrastinating, which I am doing now because I am writing this post at 4 in the morning. But what it really has taught me is getting out of my comfort zone. Before this class I don't think I would've ever really looked into animation at all, but it is something I have forced myself to learn and now it’s a tool I can use and improve upon later in my career. Another thing I have learned is process. Before coming into the class I figured I would learn some new tricks to creating, but I would’ve never thought it would push me back into illustration.

I didn't start getting back into illustration until the last 7 weeks, while creating the Gemba expansion. I doodled some skateboards and made them into posters and really liked how it looked, but then I was told to juxtapose them onto images and I got this style that I really fell in love with for my visual language for Gemba. (This style can be seen above in the image.)

I would definitely say this class has helped me improve my creativity and design processes. Without this class I wouldn’t have made my Zine (Inquiry 3), which is now being made into a larger book for another class. This class has given me 5 great projects to work on and add to my portfolio and 2 greater ideas that will be put into my portfolio soon.

To view these projects and much more. Visit alexdweber.com

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Inquiry 7 - Music x Illustration

This weeks project I wanted to get back into illustrating and back into drawing as a whole. I haven't done anything illustration in quite some time. With that being said I wanted to create a tour poster of some sort really showing the creativity of one of my favorite Rap/Hip-hop artists, Logic.

Logic’s beats and lyrics all have meaning and every bit of detail in his music has purpose. I wanted to show this by having his head illustrated by split into pieces showing the anatomy. This was also supposed to be metaphorical by showing the insides of his anatomy being colorful, showing his creativity just busting out of everything.

This piece I would say is like 60% finished and definitely not where I want it to be. I wanted to incorporate a lot more detail into the facial features and shading and skin tone. Also add more texture to the details as well. As for the text I wanted to have that hand lettered and then scanned in, but for now its just a mimic of a hand lettered font. As for the title of the tour I really think thats pretty close to how I wanted it. For the title I used “Thalia”, which if you're a Logic fan you know who this is, but for those of you who don't know it is Logic’s made up AI who reveals information and fun facts in his album “Under Pressure”. She is also seen in a later album called “The Incredible True Story” where she acts as a mediator or comic relief between songs describing the journey we are going on.

I just felt that she was such a huge part of Logic’s brand that I felt it was appropriate to name a hypothetical tour after her.

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Inquiry 4 - Character Animation

This past week I focused on fictional character and animation. I thought about my favorite speech, Charlie Chaplin in the great dictator, when Charlie at the end of the movie talks about humanity. With recent election of the new United States President I felt like it was fitting to recreate a speech that describes what everyone should strive for. Unfortunately I can't upload a video to Tumblr, but here I show the process of creating it.

I started out using Adobe Illustrator to create the Charlie Chaplin puppet. I followed a guide for creating and naming layers in the file so that it would seamlessly flow over into Adobe Character Animator. Once there I started recording the speech of Charlie. I imported Audio and moved my face to his to get the same look and feel he had during the speech. 

After that I exported that recording into Adobe After Effects where I added the title screens that you see above. I then exported all the video into Adobe Premiere Pro to construct the video and to make color corrections that I seemed fit for the time period.

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Inquiry 3 - Zine

For this past week I created a Zine. What is a zine you ask? A zine is created by an individual (usually self published) and the topics for these zines can be anything under the sun... well hell even over the sun and past the sun. Basically a Zine can be about whatever you want.

My Zine was about how annoying it is to be a Graphic Designer. As Graphic Designers we get asked a lot of annoying questions that anyone with the least bit of common sense would know the answer to. This zine portrays these questions and things that show our frustration. The above images show my presentation, part of my process, and a few of my final results.

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This is Project Gamut Project gamut is about trying to comprehend what it would be like to see color as sound waves, which we cannot physically see. Every visible color we see has a distinct sound wave associated to it, which is what inspired this project from the start. I believed that if we were able to see these colors like this, we would all see a screen or fog of colors all around us.

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Gemba - Inquiry 1

A self created company that creates and sells outdoor recreational equipment such as snowboards, skis, bikes, surfboards, hiking gear, etc. Gemba is the company that ends your search for the best gear.

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Layout Essentials 99% Invisible “Coin Check” - Journal Entry 12

This week I wanted to switch up the order of responding to the podcasts. Instead of doing Design Matters-7, I wanted to talk about the 99% invisible podcast on Coin Check. The reason being is today is Veterans Day and Coin Check talks about how people in the armed services have these coins. It’s not a coin of currency, but a coin of many purposes. This coin can really be a symbol of anything, but to most it’s a sign of gratitude or a job well done. These coins aren’t all the same either. To every branch and squadron of the military everyone has their own type of coin, and since these coins aren’t regulated by the military these squadrons of military have to get together to collect the money to produce them. These coins, like I said before, mean many different things and as well as showing gratitude to others they also serve as a purpose of games within the service. Other service men can ask someone else for a “coin check” to see if they have their coin on them, if they don’t then it usually leads to something they have to do. In some scenarios, like at a bar, its buying everyone drinks.

I thought that this podcast was really cool in how people have created and designed something to meet a need that in an occupation is hard to show how thankful you are for someone. I think that is really what designers are. We are the people who create and design stuff that gives purpose and form to objects, screens, paper… anything. Whether these objects are coins or not I think that it’s very humbling for someone to pick up something you created look at it and have a moment with that piece making them feel emotion. I have been blessed with a moment like this before when I designed a poster/camp information piece for Louisville Football. When they were finally printed and passed out to all the recruits at a game and to other families I just found it super cool to see how excited little kids were to have a poster of a Louisville football player I designed.

I think this also relates to the last project we just created, The Dutchfolio. The piece is a book, but at the same time it’s an experience, with pull out pictures and flip-up, overlapping, pages that make the viewer experience the designer in a new light. I would have to say that to date I think that this project has been the most helpful to me as a designer by getting me outside my normal process habits and to push me further by looking in places for design I wouldn’t have.

Lastly I wanted to thank all the men and women who have served our nation and those who are currently serving. You all are the reason why we all can live our lives without worries so thank you!

-AW

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Layout Essentials (74 – 82) - Journal Entry 11

This week the readings talked about a planned grid. And that even though you have a planned grid allow for interruptions. This really hits home with my designing this week because I have incorporated into my Dutchfolio typography that breaks everything about my grid layout. It is experimental type and it goes across two pages of information. Where when I originally planned the spreads out I didn’t expect there to be anything like this, but as the readings said “plan for interruptions”.

It also talked about cropping photos. Which is another speaking point in my Dutchfolio. The images I use are cropped out by boxes and you only see certain parts of the photograph until you interact with the slide out or flip a translucent page to reveal the full image. I think this does add drama to the piece and creates more interest in wanting to know what is behind the boxes and what can be learned from the reveal.

Lastly I read about using your instinct. I think this is great advice when designing anything, not just this Dutchfolio. If you don’t let yourself have judgement in your own design process than is the work even yours? I feel like when you do add your own judgement and creative instincts it adds to the piece and those additions to the piece will most likely be more memorable and stick out to you more than just designing something without it. Now correlating it to my current project, the Dutchfolio, I think I had one of those instinctive moments com to me at 3am when I was trying to figure out what kind of typeface I needed to represent a Van Herpens collection ‘Hacking Infinity’. I came across this glitch font that I fell in love with and it fit perfectly into the piece. I wouldn’t have been able to do this without my creative instinct.

-AW

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Layout Essentials (65-73) - Journal Entry 10

The first half of the readings this week was probably the only thing that related to me and my work. The readings talked about how you need a balanced viewpoint in your work. It also talked about Guiding your reader. This section really talked to me for my book. I haven’t figured out all the typography forms yet for headings and subheadings yet and in this section it talks about how making bold and large typography with banners and just large imagery this can help bring the reader through the piece with eye movement. I remember during my feedback the other day that someone said my piece has movement but it’s a safe design. All my typography is safe and nothing is really giving enough attention to make the reader continue reading (besides the interactive elements). I think I am going to start implementing these large headlines and banners and see how far I can push my design away from being safe while still being functional and keeping the integrity of the design.

After reading about guiding the reader, I came to the next chapter which talked about pacing yourself through multiple pages. It talked about devising layouts for multiple pages as opposed to just one layout for one page and so on. I think this really correlates to the Dutchfolio project because we have to design a book with 6 pages and 3 spreads. So we have to think critically about how we make our spreads and our inserted page work. For me I think that I have executed this use of spreads well in my book by incorporating a vellum (semi translucent page) into my book that covers one of the images. By doing so I’m introducing the image but not giving it away entirely to the reader. I think this type of spread is something you don’t see all the time and it makes for an interesting interaction with the book form as a whole.

-AW

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Layout Essentials (55-64) - Journal Entry 9

This week’s chapters talked about the layout of text in various ways. The way that really intrigued me the most was chapter 57. This chapter talked about how the words of the poster formed the grid. This type of grid layout really involved the viewer by creating interest in the rotation of the text and interlacing more text through the kerned lettering. Another project I found interesting in the readings was “Ads and promos” in chapter 59. They talk about how a grid can be fun and playful in a tight and well thought-out grid system. They play with the grid by rotating the typography and creating space with the text. They also do fun things with the grid by taking the imagery they have and pushing images back into the space as well. Something else they did was take text and place them on color blocks of different widths and heights. We saw this same kind of play with typography in chapter 26 and 41. By using the color blocks with text it catches the attention of the reader. Used with a closely cropped image this look really invites the audience to get a closer look.

I would say the Jazz promo in chapter 59 is really relating to my current project, Dutchfolio. The design I am going with is a modular design with rectangles spanning the width of my pages and creating intrigue with the reader by creating an interactive element of slide out pictures and with a flip-down page that will be translucent with white blocks that cover the underneath image. When the page is flipped down it will reveal the underlying image. The white text boxes though will contain a timeline of information. I think with my grid layout of using text boxes of colored blocks will help bring the rhythm of my other pages across my entire book. The trick to making this work though is to make the page when flipped down have readable content as well.

To be Continued.

-AW

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Layout Essentials (46-54) - Journal Entry 8

Reflecting on this past week and thinking about how I was designing my Dutch folio I wasn’t really sure how I was to convey the idea and presence of Iris Van Herpen. Let alone convey a timeline showing her achievements. After reading the chapters in Layout Essentials this week I realized that there are ways to go about and give information without compromising the design. How this will happen is with color and horizontal movement.

What I mean by this is that I can display my information inside of boxes with color, but the color has to be in the same palette as the rest of the spread. These color boxes of information will be muted and show typographic hierarchy. If that doesn’t work though the chapters talked about using a little bit of color in the typographic hierarchy to help move the eye through the piece as well as showing the reader what they are looking at before they read it. I think this is probably going to be my most effective way of getting the information I need about Iris onto the spread.

Now when it comes to getting the timeline onto the spread I think it will be a little more difficult. The book talked about using horizontal movement and illustrating a timeline to create interest and make something, which is normally just a lot of information, easier to read and look at. I think the way I am going to have to use the timeline information though is by using the color boxes I talked about before. By using a horizontal system with a color palette and muted color tones, combined with hierarchy in typography treatment, I don’t think I can mess up! But we will have to see where the negative space takes me. First things first though. I have to figure out my page layout!

-AW

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Layout Essentials (36-45) - Journal Entry 7

Color is powerful. We correlate color with emotions and how it represents something. We identify brands with their colors and don’t expect that they will change. With a well thought out and established brand those colors will be recognizable to anyone.

This can also be said about a well-organized magazine or handout or anything with a grid. Color is so important in color-print designs and online websites. Color is used to highlight key information that you wanted people to notice. It also helps with creating visual hierarchy. Even with color though you can have too much of it.

As with all design elements (text, pictures, layouts, grids, etc.) you can have too much color. A lot of color in a design piece can work for certain things, because you can always make an exception to the rule, but in most cases a lot of color can cause a lot of chaos in a piece. The audience won’t know what to look at first and it can take away from the text you really find important for them to know.

Most of my work I create now, and have created in the past, has all worked within a specific color scheme. Not because I have already known this knowledge of how color works, but because I have had to work within a color scheme. For my most recent project when I was first creating the idea and coming up with what colors I would use I actually went to the hardware store and collected paint swatches. I kept the swatches and played around with them until I found what colors I wanted to use. When it came to finally start putting color into the design I narrowed it down to 3 colors. Within these three colors I was able to create a cohesive piece that helped with visuals and typography hierarchy.

As I mentioned in the past I have created work within an already set color scheme and I think that it is incredibly important to know how that color scheme is supposed to be used. At the same time though I think it can really help grab attention to the audience when you break that color scheme and introduce another color to showcase important text/image you want to show.

-AW

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99 Percent Invisible - Journal Entry 6

They talked about how AIDS back in the 1980’s was a huge deal that was killing millions of male and females and how even though it was one of the number one causes of death in America at the time no one wanted to talk about it. That is until a small group of artist from Manhattan came together to do something about it. O’Connel and his team started making art in response to AIDS. They started their movement in 1988 and called it “Visual AIDS” 

They came up with the idea of making small, pin-able, ribbons that would go on the lapel of a jacket. They didn’t believe that anything major would come of it, until they got the crazy idea to put this artwork on stage for the Tony Awards. After that the small red ribbons were everywhere and people started going crazy trying to figure out what they stood for and where they could get one and how they could help the cause.

Reflecting on this podcast I really think this tells a story of how one simple idea can change the world over night. I think as a designer it is hard to have those ideas and hell it may never happen to most designers, but those select few who do have the opportunity to change the world. Go for it. Lay it all out on the line and don’t be afraid to fail, because if you do succeed then you’ll change the world. And that’s something worth sharing.

O’Connel shared his idea and by doing so he created awareness to the entire public about AIDS. He also created something else. He created a movement with that small ribbon. Since the ribbons were created so many other organizations have taken up the idea and chosen their own color ribbon to support their cause. He created a movement that will last centuries.

- AW

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Spread Layouts

The design layout I chose is one that doesn’t have words at all, but just images and illustrations. I chose this design as one of my favorites because it has this presence with it. It takes the image you see on the right and an image we see, maybe not on a regular basis, but a lot and it gives it this illustration on the left with something you’d never really think about. This layout is also so clean and simple that it has room for so much possibilities with text if it were added. When I design a layout I go for spreads much like my $5 toy project booklet I designed. Something that’s clean and has sophistication and follows a grid. With that being said though there are layouts that I find especially appealing that breaks the normal grids and just makes you keep wanting to read and see more.

I also attached a second image (bottom spreads) that I feel like has this sophistication and clean lines feel while also having this organic touch to it with the typography used throughout the spreads. I also feel like the typography is also getting close to what I think of as “breaking the Grid” and would like to explore that more in my design work.

-AW

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$5 toy project reflection

This project really challenged me and pushed me physically and mentally. From the start of this project I wasn’t really sure how I was even supposed to spend $5 on materials to make a toy. I walked into Home Depot without a clue in the world. When I finally realized what I wanted to make and once I had the toy made the design process really took off for me. I started with the logo; I have always wanted to design a word type logo in cursive so that’s what I set out to do.

When I created the logo I went through and wrote down the word “Cubed” at least 60 times until I had the perfect base to start with. I then took it into illustrator and worked with it until I had the design down perfect.

We then moved onto the packaging of the project and at this point I knew what I wanted to do but knew I couldn’t get my hands on the real idea so I steered towards an all clear solution with printed images on it. I was happy with how it came out but in the end I’m glad I didn’t use it. It didn’t go with my layout and imagery that I came up with for my booklet.

This project really made me break away from the “eye-ball it” layout I’m used to. It made me think about how my booklet was put together for each page. It also made me realize how hard it was to make paragraphs look good in certain layouts.

I think at the end of it all I’m super happy with how my project turned out. I’m pleased with the color choices and imagery I used, which was super modern and clean and just had a nice flat finish. If I was to go back and revisit this, I would definitely look at incorporating more hand lettered subheading into the pages as opposed to using the same font at a different weight.

Im really glad that we were given the opportunity to do this assignment as well. I think this is the first real project that has gotten us more involved in the process. It pushed us all to really think about our project and who it is for and why people want it. And for that reason that is why I feel like this project has been the most beneficial to me as a design. 

-AW

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Design Matters - Journal Entry 5

Really enjoyed this week’s podcasts. The 99 Percent invisible talked about guerrilla public service, which was really interesting! They talked about how a sign was miss labeled and someone took it into their own hands to change it. They took every step necessary to changing it the correct way. Even though the podcast was very entertaining it didn’t capture my insight to graphic design as much as the Design Matters podcast with Marian Bantjes.

Bantjes talks about her book she created that is a true “textile experience”. The book is covered in gold leafing. It has so much of it that after thumbing through the pages leaves you covered in glistening gold flakes all over your hands and clothes. Bantjes says that this wasn’t intentional when she was creating the book, but in my opinion I find it to be a metaphor to graphic design. This being that when we create something, as graphic designers, we want to have our audience be submerged into the design. We want them walking away covered in gold flakes. I think in general this is what every designer wants to do; leave an imprint. 

Bantjes does talk about how when she designs she plans on leaving an impression on someone out of the hundreds of people who see it. She talks about how she wants to create work that people want to rip out of magazines to put on a wall and that gets put into museums. She says something towards the end of the podcast that really stuck with me this week. She said that now at this time in history people aren’t creating anything meaningful that is put out in the world, and that when there finally is something meaningful that she hopes people will stop to think about it and for it to make people be creative in their own way hoping that will influence the next person. That’s all this world really does though isn’t it? Building ideas off one another. 

- AW

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99% Invisible - Journal Entry 4

This story talked about how revolving doors were more energy efficient and how someone did their research on this topic and was able to change the percentage of users from like 10% to about 60%. This is huge because all he did was change 1 variable in the problem by making a small 8.5”x11” sign saying please use the revolving door. They ended up making more variations of this sign by turning it into an arrow and making it bigger and changing the color pallet to something that correlates to the school they performed this test at. This ended up increasing the usage of the revolving door by 70% from the original data that was taken.

 I believe that this story has a really huge story behind it for graphic designers. That story being that no matter how big a scale we make something we will always be making a difference and someone is always watching what we are doing. I think this correlates to my design work because even though I’m a very young designer right now, not even out of college, there is someone who is watching my work and that’s huge. When I finally start getting a following or make it off to some design firm or company that will make my work much more impactful knowing that these people care about what I have to say and if in the end my work really has a message that people want to share it could spread like a wildfire and change peoples perception on a subject or idea very quickly. So when people say that they are designing something and that it “doesn’t matter” what it looks like. Think again. Every bit of design work matters. No matter what the scale. 

- AW