bujalskithesis-blog

[bujalskithesis-blog]

The end is so near and I sadly do not feel like I am close...

There is a week and a day until I present for distinction and there is so much to be done in that time. The gallery book came in and it looks fiiiiiiiiiineee.... if I had unlimited money and time I would definitely reprint it but the edits are minor so it is good for now.

To do list: 

Send edits of booklets to print: last week I printed each booklet but needed to make edits to grief (typo), tension (saturation on the cover picture looked sickly), and ecstasy (legibility on the first spread of letters going over the photo)

Finish process book: I’d say I’m about 50% done...

Send process book to print

Paint rod for Ecstasy letters: black

Get matte board and matte record scratch (white matte board) 

Create timelapse

Create presentation

Meet with Erich to talk about timelapse and presentation 

Practice presentation

Doesn’t seem like too much except when I have another distinction project to complete it seems nearly impossible. I know I’ll get it done and it will be great in the end, just right now it seems as if there aren’t enough hours in the day.... 

Yikes

[bujalskithesis-blog]

Gallery book... ordered.

The gallery book has been ordered, I just dropped $83 and I have to wait til wednesday to see if it turned out right! 

My decision on the cover came after I took some pictures of skin and tested them out. As much as I enjoyed the black and white color block and how it mirrored the similar titling I had elsewhere in my project, I feel as the skin texture is much more applicable to the project. The whole idea of my project is to take you through these emotions and to have you feel them and remind you that you feel all of these things because you are indeed human and these things are what make us inherently human. I didn’t have any point to that human idea in this project yet and this was the chance. I also haven’t used myself in the project at all so this is a photograph of my skin. I didn’t edit out any of the blemishes or anything which I’m worried may make it look at little gross but I hope it is more challenging and intriguing to pick up than repulsive. I want the cover to challenge the viewer just as the rest of the entire project hopes to! 

Full cover (front on the right half, back on the left half)

Close up of the title, this is my own handwriting and it says “introspection”. That’s the goal of the project and what I’ve had to do without the process so why not call it that. I didn’t want it to be extremely legible and I wanted to again nod to human aspect of it, that’s why I did it in my own handwriting. 

I’m nervous to get it in the mail but I will get it by next Wednesday which is very exciting. I’d love to get it before class in case I need to talk about it to get reprints. 

I’m getting very nervous because at this point many of the developments are out of my control (i.e. printing). If I knew how to make a hardcover book, trust me I would print and bind this all myself. But alas, sometimes i need to put it in someone else’s hands. 

Hopefully the next post isn’t a screaming disaster of how the book came out and that it comes out well (or it doesn’t come out well but they don’t charge me for reprints that’d be a dream). 

[bujalskithesis-blog]

4/4 Updaaaattteeeeee

Doing preeeetty well I think... 

I’m pretty much dOne with the 5 emotion booklets, I just need to shoot pictures for two more covers. I’m hoping to start sending them to staples to print by Monday because I’m pretty sure staples will cause me some trouble and I’ll need to do reprints. Here is an example of one spread from each of my booklets! 

Rage The cover of rage will be either a flame texture or the photo of soph lighting a match, that I will be decided this weekend. 

Comfort The cover of comfort is a full bleed wrap close up texture picture of the purple sweater exhibited in this spread. I did a test print of a few spreads and had that cover be on the test print and it came out really well, just as I had invisioned!

Ecstasy The cover of ecstasy is a black wrap around environment with a single lit light bulb on the cover without a letter. The glow from the light bulb wraps around to the back cover slightly. I’m interested to see how the light will print.

Tension The cover for tension will be close of photographs of a bunch of knots, showing the texture of the rope as well as the tension created when you make the knot. 

Grief The cover of grief is a full close up wrap around picture of slush. 

I’ve also finished my gallery book completely and am not just working on the cover. Here is an example of a few of my spreads. I’m really happy with my utilization of white space and how it showcases the pieces with the respect and elegance they deserve!! 

The gallery book is going to be a 10x8 (landscape) hardcover 85 page photo book printed through blurb on pearl photo paper. I also forgot that when you make actual books you can’t print on the entirety of the first spread, only on the right page which disrupts my spreads so this will be the first right page (a white page with my signature on the bottom right). 

I’m also not really sure what I’m going to print on the cover. I’m thinking of playing with the white page black color block that I use to title things and write introspection in the similar cursive as my signature as shown below: 

But I also wanted to include some portion of human quality to the cover because the concepts I’m exploring and claims I am making are that these emotions ties us all together as humans and they’re what make as human. I want to take some pictures today of my chest/back and maybe instead of a black background have one of those pictures be the background and then have a black rectangle and have introspection be in white. I’ve created the deadline that I need to figure out the cover by tomorrow morning so that I can order the gallery by Thursday night or friday. I just want to ensure I have enough time for reprints! 

Yesterday I met with marisa ayanah eliza and cora to talk about thesis and it made me feel better to start talking about all of my finished products and see that everything was just about almost done. It’s haAppEeNninGggggg..... 3 weeks from tomorrow ahahhhahha I’m doing great ! hahahasdfjalsdkjfrrfaekjdfaolkwdsjflkadj;c

[bujalskithesis-blog]

3/28 Week Update

About 5 weeks out from distinction day and here’s an update...

All of the experimental type pieces are done which is exciting! The booklets are really hurting my brain and I think I’ve hit a wall with them this week but they are almost complete and ready to go through the first round of prints through staples. I did a test print at staples and adjusted the opacity accordingly (the 5% opacity that looked so obvious on screen is not even visible when printed so I kind of had to bump everything up). 

I’ve also completed the first draft of my gallery book. I really enjoyed making this, the spreads are very simple and showcase my worth with the experimental type pieces. I feel as though this gives the pieces the attention they deserve (I kind of like the gallery book better than the booklets, but the booklets are necessary to illustrate the narrative and also show my journey through digital type as well)... 

My brain kind of hurts, I’m worried it is not going to come together and justify all of the time I’ve spent on it. I’m worried I’ll spend too much money printing and reprinting. Overall, just a little worried. But, there is an end in sight. Hopefully I will be satisfied with the end product. I think getting everything printed will really put it into place for me.

I hope to start my process book next week, the layout/organization of the content of my process book(s) is still up in the air.. I’m unsure if I want to do small booklets of like an introduction, each piece, and then the final conclusion booklet or what. But I’m going to focus on getting my gallery book out to print through blurb first because I plan on doing my process book through staples. 

Agh.....

[bujalskithesis-blog]

3/20 meeting with Sofie

I haven’t met with Sofie all semester so I thought it would be beneficial to talk to her about how my projects progressed and see what her input is. 

The main take aways from the meeting were to work on integrating the text and the photos more. Yes I want to read it as a full sentence but right now there is still a divide between the visual imagery text and the digital text. Some ways that Sofie offered to achieve this integration were by blending modes! I hadn’t even thought of that, I didn’t know I could do that! So that will be interesting to play with. 

Also, thinking about the font as heavy or light. As you push scale on georgia it gets pretty heavy and there aren’t any lighter styles in that font family. So I’ve been looking at other fonts and right now I’ve settled on Cormorant Garamond. It’s a nice serif similar to georgia but there is Light, Regular, Medium, Semibold, Bold and italics of all of those fonts! It just gives me a little more freedom. So with this change, I want to be aware of how the black of the font and the white of the page are contrasting. With georgia, it got super contrasty super fast. So I am going to work with this lighter font to try and not become to heavy and try to create more of a cohesive balance between the tones. 

Overall, I just need to get more comfortable with playing and exploration and really pushing myself which has been very difficult for me. It makes very anxious to kind of make things like this because I’m not too sure if it looks good or if I think it looks good others might not think it is successful but I need to remember that in the end, this is my project and as long as I’m happy with it, it’s complete. (word vomit gahh). 

Let’s hope this gets completed ...!!! 

[bujalskithesis-blog]

Pieces update

I’ve completed “fearless and reckless” and lit it on fire! Today I’m going to complete the last piece... kinda scary 

rage “fearless and reckless” This might have been the most fun to complete. The pictures taken on the camera are BEAUTIFUL, fire is so dynamic and outstanding. However, the video did not reach my expectations. Some of the letters didn’t light one after another so it is a little broken up. But, in retrospect, it’s probably good they didn’t light all at once because the flames were already about 2.5 feet high. Overall, pretty happy with this. It’ll be interesting finding a shot that is legible for the booklet. 

Tonight I will shoot “pressure” and then all of the pieces are completed, eeeeek!

[bujalskithesis-blog]

Typography Experimentation within the prOceSs BooOokkk!!!????

The process book seems pretty daunting because my process has been a rOcky ride. 

So I started just messing around with the type of the process book and how I can push that to embody the david carson esque style I’ve been trying to explore within my booklets and here are some spreads I’ve come up with.

I like how this one experiments slightly with the title and Sagmeister’s name but allows for the body text to be 100% legible.

This spread was encompasses a BIG epiphany I had during my process, I felt it should be emphasized with the same importance! 

This shows the break between my brain thinking and my actual project hence the physical break in the page. 

Do this work? Are they cool? Are they uncomfortable? Do they look cliche? Do they look like I was trying to fuck around? I don’t want it to look forced. I want it to look like I’m pushing through the conventional bounds of type and seeing if I can make legible letter forms also be beautiful contradictions of form and space. 

Welp, now it’s just time to continue experimenting. 

[bujalskithesis-blog]

Meeting with Erich Reflection

The conceptual developments of my project are making me really uncomfortable which is good. 

Art isn’t supposed to be comfortable it’s supposed to make you feel something. 

The few questions I had for erich revolved around how the text and the photos were interacting and about using a constant font throughout all booklets. Regarding the constant font, at first it seemed a little hypocritical. I’m using the same font (georgia) within all of these booklets showcasing different emotions while I’m trying to express these emotions using type but I’m using the same type...? But in the end, I’m showing the differens in emotions through the experimental type pieces and then showing that they come from a single voice by using Georgia for all of the books. Georgia is the underlying thread between all the booklets, symbolizing the reader. I am a person and I feel comfort, I am a person and I feel rage, I am a person and I feel ecstasy. Aesthetically, the same font ties all the booklets together but conceptually, it ties all the emotions together to show that they are not completely separate because they occur within our single beings. (Still kind of working out how to explain this idea but it is a very important part of the conceptual development of this project). 

I’ve also been very insecure with my layouts and didn’t think they seemed successful. I’ve looked towards Vogue as inspiration with how they use text and photo to work together. I kept the font at size 14pt and the photos taking up the most of the page. I’ve spend so much time on these pieces that it is uncomfortable to me for the text to be on the same hierarchy as the experimental pieces. I thought I wanted the viewer to focus on the experimental type but that isn’t it! I want the viewer to absorb the narrative and read it as a full sentence. An example of these spreads are:

Something like this puts too much emphasis on the image and you don’t read it as a full sentence, the texture shot interrupts the sentence and albeit interesting and beautiful it does not positively contribute to the readers experience. 

This feels like rage. This feels like a full sentence. This feels uncomfortable in a good way. I’m looking towards David Carson when pushing all of the type in my spreads to work equally with the images. 

I will also be creating a look book/gallery book to showcase the photograph within this project and that will allow me to feel more comfortable overpowering the photography within the narrative booklets. 

Gah so much as been done and there’s still so much left to do.

[bujalskithesis-blog]

Current Production Update

I needed to make 6 pieces in a week and a half and spoiler alert, I couldn’t do it. 

As of right now, I have 2 pieces I need to create. I’m hoping to have them done in the next week so I can put all of my focus into the booklet creation. Here are the pieces I’ve created since the last post:

Ecstasy “Crazy Fucking Good”

Differently than last year, I used fishing line to hold the letters together so that the weight was not on the letter’s themselves! Hopefully they will hold. 

Rage “Rage”  In the editing of these photos, I’m really pushing the contrast and the red tones to activate the viewer even more. 

Grief “Grief”  Dead flowers... super depressing and cold to make... fitting!

Ecstasy “Ecstasy”  I haven’t shot successful photos of this and the phone camera really doesn’t capture this one at all! They are little red boxes. I had a lot of trouble coming up with this idea. The things I was really stuck on with ecstasy was heat  and a sort of happy emptiness. So I created these boxes to capture moments of that happy void and also I plan on shining lights through the letters and hang them using fishing line so they are floating within the void and you can see the different planes of the letters interacting. I’m really excited to shoot this one. 

[bujalskithesis-blog]

!Overview!

Here is my thesis to this point...

Pieces completed: comfort1 (I’ve been through it), comfort2 (comfort), comfort3 (you’re not alone), tension1 (knot in my throat), tension2 (tension), grief1 (losing a part of yourself), grief2 (numbness), ecstasy1 (euphoric), rage1 (record scratch)

Pieces left to complete: tension3 (muscles and emotions - body imprint), ecstasy2 (crazy fucking good - christmas lights laser cut), ecstasy3 (ecstasy-glow in the dark paint), rage2 (fearless and reckless-matches), rage3 (rage-nails), grief3 (grief-dead flowers) 

6 more to complete in a week and a half... can I do it? 

Hopefully

[bujalskithesis-blog]

mOOooOoore project updates

I’ve been working really hard to get all the projects done before spring break so I have time to really devote attention to the booklets. Here are the newest updates:

rage1: “record scratch” super fun, came out just how I had expected, how can I push the photograph of this piece? (unedited picture)

rage2: “fearless and reckless” part1 took about 3 hours but I drilled all the holes for the matches! On Monday, I’ll be filling the holes with matches and lighting it aflame, I’m excited. 

[bujalskithesis-blog]

(this is sideways and unedited) I’m super excited about my videos of projects too !!!

[bujalskithesis-blog]

Project updates~!

Here are the ones I’ve made since I’ve last posted... 

ecstasy1 “euphoric”  This one came out just I had hoped!!! Very happy with how it came out. Opposed to other ones where I tried to push the background and the environment where I shoot, this one is more about the light and how it takes over the letters and the bulbs. 

tension1: “knot in my throat”  having some trouble with the legibility of the words... this might be interesting though to make the viewer work to read the words. I think that is the ultimate goal, to have the reader immerse themselves into the words. This one will be interesting to edit. 

comfort3 “you’re not alone” I glued and reshot the cookies! You can’t even tell they’re cracked! Really happy with how these came out, definitely going to push the purple and the warm hues when editing. I also am really happy with my idea of bringing the sweater in as a backdrop, I think it accomplishes what I was hoping with soft and bright colors. 

tension2: “tension” This one went a lot quicker than expected and came out pretty successful!! The lighting in the design and comp room was amazing that day, I have many pictures to sort through and am excited to do it!! 

[bujalskithesis-blog]

another time lapse example! 

[bujalskithesis-blog]

Here is an example of the time lapse aspect of my deliverables! I hope to put together all of them 10-20 second time lapses to create a sort of process video... hm 

[bujalskithesis-blog]

Erich, if you’re reading this I have questions ! (are you surprised)

So I started working on a grid system for indesign (as mentioned in my last post this week in review) and I’m kind of struggling. I’m doing a lot of triptychs and as of right now, I have 10 boxes vertically which is *not* divisible by 3... not sure if this is something that can be fixed but yeah... here is a screenshot of my current grid system and an example of the triptych issue I’m encountering. 

I think it looks balanced just not quite ~even~... This might be something to discuss in person but it’s an issue I’ve been noticing as I’m throwing in the pictures! 

[bujalskithesis-blog]

This week in revieeeewwwwww

It’s have been a little bit since I posted on here and not because I haven’t made any progress but because I’ve been making projects up the wazzoo. Last, I had finished comfort1 “I’ve been through it” and comfort2 “comfort”. As of right now, I’ve done comfort3 “you’re not alone” (unsuccessfully, still in progress), grief1 “losing a part of yourself” and grief2 “numbness”. 

comfort3 “you’re not alone”  This was to be created in serif cookies! Many interviewees said that grandmothers/cookies/baking reminded them of comfort so I tried to explore that. Cutting the cookies was a focused process but I think they came out pretty good. I used a recipe that was said to hold their shape and not spread out too much. Cooked, they look pretty good too! However, when I tried to take them off the tray the majority of them broke :( I think I will try to glue them but as of right now, I haven’t had the time to address that short coming. 

grief1 “losing a part of yourself”  This one went really well! It took a while to get the ice to freeze into the alphabet letter molds but once it did, I positioned it on a blue plate and wooden table (I’m trying to push the environment I’m photographing in and utilize color in an interesting way as per Erich’s suggestion), and then set up my video camera on a makeshift tripod and watched it melt! I am in the process of piecing together the many 20 minute videos into a time lapse of the ice melting. (The edited pictures really push the contrast and the coloring these are the unedited pictures).

grief2 “numbness”  This one, I didn’t have an idea for it until I did. It just came to me to do shadow letters, the kind of lurking shadow overwhelming your psyche whenever you really experience grief. This one took a lot long than expected (as they all kind of do) and make me realize I really need to chill out. 3 pieces a week is the optimal goal but if I can’t do it, that is okay. This is all an exploration! I’m enjoying everything I do, I just realized I can’t rush it and make it look good that just won’t work. After taking the time and measuring out the letters and really immersing into the piece, I created the letter stand and once again tried to push the idea of what the environment the piece is in. I really enjoy the excecution on top of the jean jacket but I don’t think it really embodies grief. Still cool! As for the one on top of the body, I’m in the process of editing out the tattoos, I think they would distract from the legibility of the words. 

Overall, I’m very happy with how everything is turning out. I’ve also created a grid system so I’m starting to throw things into the booklet templates. There is a 1/4′ gutter and 3/4′ squares. I’ve also decided to stick to Georgia for the body copy (for now) it’s a pretty standard serif font and I feel is versatile and super legible compared to the experimental typography integrated throughout. 

So far so good, let’s hope it continues this way!