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Week 15 – Final Thoughts

Despite the all to common phrase “print is dieing/dead” I believe that unique packaging and point of purchase displays are going to become increasingly important. I believe that the product section of print design will not only stay relevant but become more important due to the power of a products appeal. With the vast number of products readily available for consumption many shoppers are overwhelmed and a product’s look can influence those confused, possibly new, buyers. For example I was looking to grab some flavored water from the cooler where I work. I don’t normally drink flavored water but have been trying to quit drinking soda again. So I chose a grapefruit water who’s packaging interested me. It was a carbonated beverage with the brand name Bubbly and so the label had a bold smile and bubbly words on the cap like “oh hello”. So the designer played off of the word bubbly to mean a “bubbly personality”. I thought this was both fun and clever so I bought that brand over the many other options in the cooler.

I can also see extreme overall brand development becoming a large force within the design field. What I mean when I say “extreme brand development” is a designers eye and experience being applied to all aspects of a design. Expected aspects would be pushed further such as creative guerrilla marketing, individualizing the paperwork received by customers, crafting an ambitious digital experience and unique signage.  Less obvious aspects like what materials a company’s store front is made of or what spokespersons are waring at a public event would also be considered. Giving each and every part of  a whole company a designers attention to detail and impact will enable the crafting of a cohesive and powerful brand.

I predict that designers will start to develop campaigns that are highly individualized to small groups or even literal individuals. This individualization of design would be fueled by massive amounts of data and market research. The collected information could then be used to provide a highly intuitive and effective relations between user and company or user and product. An example could be a banking app that recognizes when and where a person logs in most often to make transfers and it could suggest that the user set up a scheduled transfer.

***I am aware that these design fields already exist is some shape or form but I believe they will become much more precise and important in the future design field.***

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Week 14

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Week 13

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Week 12 – New Media

Many fields are powerful players in the world of interactive design as interactive design is at its most successful a blend of many fields. Original graphic design sensibilities such as layout, typography, color theory. Hierarchy and more are used in interactive design. Film and animation are added to the foundational graphic design layers. Film on its own can be quite interesting and captivating for an audience when introduced as a black and white responsive video background on a background for example. Animation is also intriguing on its own in something as small as a menu which unfolds on hover or in something complex such as the Comcast moving puppets mentioned in our reading in Graphic Design New Story by Stephen Eskilson. Now when film and animation are paired together truly unique and interesting commentary, marketing or simple visual joy can be created. In terms of simple visual joy the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit comes to mind just as an out of the box combination of film and animation (granted a very preliminary implementation of the idea). Interactive design can be further impacted by 3D animation software and its various new possibilities. Similarly, virtual reality is an even newer integration of film and animation in real-time where in a way the user overlays the animation to the film. This small element of user choice/involvement is something I see and believe will continue to see becoming more and more important to effective interaction design. Another crucial addition to the interaction design is music and sound. Animation and film can be elevated with perfectly timed music or sound effects. The visual and auditory elements come together to create a more powerful design. Accurate and individual analytics can also be very useful to interactive design as these increasingly powerful knowledge gathering systems can be used for unique interactive designs for individual types of people.

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Week 11 – Graphic Design

A Citizen Designer is quite literally a designer for the general citizen. A designer whos concerns are not merely communicating corporate messages to citizens in the form of a logo or ad campaign but rather communicating to the greater good and social justice reform. The concept of a Citizen Designer is almost a small current of an existential crisis that is rippling through the graphic design community. All designers clearly see the power of graphic design as a marketing tool and many are seeing it’s potential for as a tool for social change. Graphic designers are becoming almost disillusioned with their relatively small purpose in the greater aspect of society proportionately to what they could be doing. Graphic design has the capability to influence the public perception, deliver information to wide audiences and deliver emotion and information with startling clarity. These powers can be applied to social issues and human rights on topics like immigrants, feminism, sexual orientation, poverty, racial dis-justices and much more. We as a marketing culture are a culture of exes and waste. In 2017 we consumed/used our allocated, sustainable amount of natural resources our planet can produce for a year in just 7 months. Many scientists, activists and even every day people are realizing that we cannot continue like this. Graphic designers are struggling with their part in furthering the consumerist ideology that the US and much of the global market thrive on. It is from this struggle that new products like biodegradable packaging, leaf plates, products created from re-purposed and other conscientious sustainability. Some of the more interesting re-purposed products I have seen as late are in the fashion design industry an entire accessory line is made from unique copings of billboards and signage. From this struggle also comes collaborations between graphic designers, artist, marketers, organizers and rights activists. These groups become a powerful force of change.

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Week 10

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Midterms

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Week 7 Universal Design

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Week 6 Post

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Week 5 Post

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Week 4 – Found Object

Interestingly enough as I started walking around campus and the surrounding area nothing was really keeping my attention. Sure buildings, signs or the occasional bench would catch eye but nothing was interesting or related to my life enough for me to want to spend time deeply analyzing and sketching it. After about 15 minutes of walking I started to feel the wight of my over the shoulder laptop case...but not my much heavier backpack. This realization sent me on a mental tangent where I began casually analyzing the two bags designs. A ways into the tangent I decided that this was going to be the object I analyzed. After all my bags are with me at least five days of the week for hours at a time not much is closer to me....literally. My Eastsport Cargo Top Loader Backpack is probably my favorite backpack that I’ve owned. I’ve had messenger bag style, rucksack, and classic backpacks. As I commute and have classes and homework that require art supplies I need to carry around a lot. I carry: 3 textbooks, a sketchbook, a notebook, micron pens, colored and mechanical pencils, erasers, loose paper, lunch & snacks, my laptop & charger, cell phone & charger, light table & charger, note cards, push pins, sticky notes, my phone, my wallet, keys, external hard drive, a water-bottle, a cutting mat, stencils, a ruler, Xacto knife & blades and occasionally some other things. Clearly I have at least a two bag hall of random mostly essential stuff. Normally this would be even a three bag assortment of knickknacks but because of the cleverly organized design of my backpack it fits far more than I expected. The external bag has a built in narrow case(*1)for pencils, pens, erasers and in my case paintbrushes and Xacto blades. Below that are two pouches one Velcro(*2) for easy access and one zipped(*3) for security. These are most likely intended for wallets, cellphones or calculators. I use the zipped one for my various cords(phone, light table, ear buds). The Velcro pouch has my calculator and scissors as its the perfect hight for both. The sides of the bag are utilized by placing little pouches with bungee fasteners for security. The left pouch(*4) has a Velcro strap about four inches above it cleverly designed to grip and umbrella in place and tucked out of the way. I use this one for my spray adhesive canister since I don’t carry and umbrella. The right pouch (*5)  is intended for a water bottle and so lacks the Velcro strap. As intended I use this for my water bottle  it can hold any bottle size between the a Voss bottle and a large Gatorade bottle. Perhaps my favorite feature is the top loading flap(*6) for the main compartment, this feature allows easy access and security. I have items that are too tall for most bags such as my cutting mat an metal ruler. As such I can’t always zip my bag fully. With the top loading design my items are securely within the bag even without the top zipped all the way or even at all. The inner area is separated into one big area up front (*7) and a large pouch attached to the back of the bag (*8). The pouch is handy to keep my materials separated from my books, papers and note books. I keep push-pins, colored pencils, note cards, sticky notes and mixed nuts in the pouch. Then as mentioned the main area holds the rest of my supplies and my brown paper lunch bag. Cleverly the bottom of the bag(*9) is a textured rubber. This grips any surface its placed on to prevent sliding and is easy to clean for when the bag is placed on the floor or ground. The handle (*10) is a sturdy textured rubber placed to perfectly balance the bag when picked up so nothing tips out. The shoulder straps(*11) are pleasantly padded and have adjustable straps to enable a perfect fit. The rigged ribbon(*12) on the top of the bag is perfect for locking locks on and tying shoe laces to in order to carry them around. This backpack is a easy compliment to my messenger style laptop case that holds my external hard drive, cellphone which has a minimalist silicone waller attached to the back, laptop, extra pens and pencils, glasses case and laptop charger. ***See diagrams below for visual reference.***

As for the aesthetic design qualities I find the subdued grey tweed-like pattern of the main bag coupled with black insides, zippers and ribbon is as widely appealing and utilitarian as the functional design.

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Journal Week 3  Collection of photos, sketches and notes collected post reading assignment. 

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Journal Entry Week 2

Despite my previous perception design is not mealy creating an object, campaign or website. Good design is a way of thinking and perceiving the world around oneself. To implement design one must learn to see the problems and needs of the world, discover what elements are wanted in a solution and then, likely through collaboration with others, improvise a solution. In this way design is used from the very beginning of a future product or service verses more towards the end—which was the design perception of many. One example of a product derived from design thinking is the foot activated trunk. I always have my hands full of art supplies, electronics, overnight bags and textbooks. Of course I never have my hands free enough to wiggle out(and often search for) my keys. The problem of not having enough hands is arguably world wide. Interestingly enough I never saw it as a problem but simply an inconvenient factor of life. clever automotive companies saw it as a problem and crafted a solution (for cars at least) with the foot activated trunk. I don’t have one on my little Pontiac but every time I borrow or ride in my fathers Ford Escape with the foot activated trunk door I am surprised at the convenience. I am also surprised at the convenience of a backup camera, another problem that I viewed as simply part of life. I experienced yet another innovative service at Carroll. I no longer have access to the facility but their gym had a virtual workout center.  Where you and a group of friend could chose a workout from a kiosk, enter a private room where all the equipment needed is provided and a full wall screen/projector combo plays a workout video. This inventive environment was the perfect blend of privacy and social encouragement. It solved the problems of at home workout videos such as lack of room, missing energetic/social environment and the cost of collecting videos and equipment. It also solved exercise classess issues such as discomfort with a surrounding group and availabilities of an instructor. This system was an innovative blend of the two styles of group exercise that I and many others benefited from. For me the most significant topic of todays reading was that design in not something that happens after the big problem has been solved­; that design is not merely a marketing or branding problem. As I was mostly interested in design implemented later in a product or services creation I hadn’t thought of design as Design Thinking described it. However, this article made me widen my view of design. While reading I had a moment where I asked myself, “How have I not thought about design that way before”? Design and design thinking implemented in early stages of project, app and service development can create a more fulfilling and effective invention a truth we can see across markets.

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Journal Entry Week 1

My name is Cora Reinhard, I am a DVC student with a Junior standing however, this is only my second semester attending UWM. I attended WCTC and Carroll University previously. Two interesting facts about me are that I am the eldest of five siblings the youngest of which is four. The second fact is that I have once had a pet goat eat my homework in elementary school. Let me tell you that was an interesting conversation with my teacher the next day! I hope this class with provide a strong base for which to build my design (predominantly graphic design) knowledge and ability. My interest in design began my junior year of high school when the all important question of “What do you want to study in college?” was asked. I knew roughly what I wanted. I wanted a career that fit my talents, was versatile enough to not be boring and yet stable enough for comfort. As for my talents I have always been drawn towards art, creativity, logic and academics. In high school I painted, sketched, sculpted and assembled in both art classes and extracurriculars. Simultaneously  I studied, solved, debated, tested and questioned in academic subjects and extracurriculars like Academic Decathlon. I had two interests and two skill sets academics with all its logic and organization along side the arts with its creativity and powerful expression. At the end of my  Junior year I expressed my struggle in choosing between these interests as a career route to a close teacher. To which she replied “Why must it be one or the other?” and suggested I take a Graphic Design class next year.  First semester senior year I did just that and knew this was what I wanted to do within the first week of class. Since then I have collected relevant experience in graphic design and art. I have been fortunate to receive three and a half years of secondary education in design including an Associates Degree in Graphic Design from WCTC. My education along with opportunities like a Graphic Design internship at Coqui Paperie and Gifts and a chance to work with a fellow artist on a public sculpture in Waukesha have had a strong impact on me and my abilities. I am inspired by many things the world around me, my family, fellow designers/artist, art/design movements, the drive to visually solve a communicative puzzle and a core inspiration or more aptly put a reason for me to create is that it helps me keep centered, grounded and fulfilled.  I often make purchases where design is a deciding factor over a competitor. At the risk of sounding like an alcoholic the alcohol aisle at any store is a prime example. I am fascinated with package design and its effects on consumers(including myself), to the point that walking down an alcohol aisle is almost like a mini trip to a museum for me. When trying a new drink I often choose one brand over another based on the bottle, label and over all look of the product.