pmackarts246-01

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ARTS 246 Course Reflection

I'll first acknowledge the obvious: this course was a challenge, but in a good way. It was clear that during the entire course, I was in an environment where considerate, innovative, well-executed design was the goal first and foremost. The processes we engaged with helped us find new avenues for exploring how to solve problems. I found that things like the brand intake form and mood boarding using public domain resources got me thinking about solutions in new ways, and making visual considerations that I would not have otherwise. Projects also were in-depth in terms of deliverables, which I feel is necessary for ensuring that we as designers stay engaged with technical considerations through the bitter end. What was most valuable to me is that I gained way more experience in Illustrator and InDesign. Due to the scope of the projects, I kept finding gaps between what I wanted to do and what I knew how to do. Engaging with online resources not only helped me reach these goals, but also find new tools and shortcuts that would drastically alter how I approach working with these two programs in the future. Overall, I'm quite satisfied with the body of work I produced in this class. I hope I was able to show that I'm capable of, and willing to, rise to the occasion!

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ARTS 246 Process Blog #13

Funnily enough, this week's reading seems to come full circle to where we started with readings at the start of the semester. It speaks a lot to experimenting with typographic process, and discusses a lot of the same things the Steal like an Artist reading did, such as keeping a sketchbook, formulating word maps, and making lots of thumbnail sketches. I found it interesting to revisit some of these processes, as they were tasks that we did for nearly every project this semester (key ones being mood boarding and word mapping). We were also tasked with keeping a sketchbook, encouraged to find letters in real life places. One thing I found interesting that was different was the emphasis on using a computer early on in the process. Rather than dismissing it and relegating computer programs to final works, the reading promoted it as a not uncommon way for designers to get into the process early. It also mentioned keeping older versions of projects available for the future. I am often guilty of simply deleting anything that doesn't work, or that has become obsolete in the face of better options, for the sake of keeping the canvas clean. However, I will adapt my process to keep these items on hand for the future.

This week, I have mostly been working on my process book. I mostly just have frameworks for spreads laid out. Attached are a few that I feel particularly fond of. I also sketched out a concept for the cover of my process book, which is also attached. I did develop a type system, however I was encouraged to look into condensing down to just one font family if I were to use only sans serif. I was also pushed to re-evaluate my process book cover, as it could give the wrong idea as to what kind of book it might be. I will be revisiting both my type system as well as my cover in the very near future.

This is the spread where my reference images and letters will live. I'm trying to optimize space for the designs to be shown, as well as be efficient with space.

The thought with this spread was to give enough space for my early spread sketches to thrive, while also explaining my thought process. The spreads will be fairly large along the bottom, while leaving room for a bit of body text and image captions.

This is my first draft for a cover. I thought it'd be apt to do an inverted manga-style car for my illustration, since manga and automotive culture inspire much of my work. However, I was encouraged to explore other avenues that are more closely aligned with design and/or type.

[pmackarts246-01]

ARTS 246 Process Blog #12

This week's reading covered a number of projects designed to help teach typographic concepts. I couldn't help but notice that a couple of the projects were extremely similar to projects I have done in typography classes in the past. Particularly close were the projects which combined letterforms, and the project which used type and grid as formal elements with contrast. A couple of the projects stood out to me as being particularly interesting when relating visual art fundamentals and type fundamentals specifically. The first was the typography posters covering the paths between homes and the university. Everyone's experience getting to college is going to be different, which will form the basis for the motion of the poster as well as what is the predominant word used on the poster. I also found the banknote project quite intriguing. It demonstrated a synthesis of national identity, readability, and functionality, all informed by research on the country in question.

This week, we finished up our letters poster design. I adjusted my AR element a little bit, primarily in the sense of time. Instead of using two separate 3-second clips per letter/car, I shortened it to just one, making the full video around a minute. The idea would be that the AR element serves as a supplementary enriching element, allowing a viewer to understand the inspiration behind each letter. The main feedback I got was that the video was too long, even at just a minute. If I were to adjust this, I would want to make the videos tiled like the boxes for the original letters. I would still want the backgrounds to be videos, as I feel like that is what justifies the AR element being augmented reality in the first place. My only worry with this is that it would be a lot of movement at the same time.

Attached is a screenshot of my Premiere Pro workspace, Artivive workspace, and scanning the poster for the AR element.

[pmackarts246-01]

ARTS 246 Process Blog #11

This week's reading was a bunch of case studies of real world design projects. The first part that interested me was seeing all of the posters and how they were arranged hierarchically and compositionally. Since we just finished our Alphabeast poster project this week and talked a lot about composition and hierarchy in the critique, it was helpful to see how other people are going about making strong posters. I also thought the Unigrid case study was wildly interesting. I find myself using similar grid setups for my projects, and they often have lots of columns and rows. This, I have found, lets me have freedom in how I lay out elements but still maintains consistency across pages. Seeing something that can be used so widely across any type of design was very interesting to me. Since I do layouts on tabloid size paper frequently, I'm curious if experimenting with some sort of "universal tabloid layout" would be helpful for my design process.

This week, we wrapped up the Alphabeast poster design process. I'm pretty satisfied with the results, and I've gotten pretty much only positive feedback. I feel like my process book could use some light revisions, but overall I think the project as a whole went pretty smoothly.

Currently, we are working on finishing up our letters poster and adding our AR elements. I did quite a bit of work on mine this week. My first step was to revise the colors I used. This involved me going back into the game to adjust which colors I actually picked for the reference cars. I tried to stick to manufacturer paint colors where possible, avoid putting two of the same color next to each other on the poster, and also avoid picking colors that would have low contrast with white. From there, I simply used the Eyedropper tool to bring these colors into InDesign. I also decided to adjust similar colors to be the same to add some repetition and unity to the design. Below is the result.

This version can also be used in Artivive as I am working on the AR element. The intent was for the poster to act as a trigger for a video that would show off the cars I used as inspiration, kind of like a love letter to the cars I studied. To do this, I captured each clip individually using Forza Horizon 5's replay feature. In its current state, the video will likely be too long to warrant using in an AR context, so I will likely make the time per letter half of what it is now, so that all of the letters can fit in the time I have currently. I may also add a full "Director's Cut" as a supplement, just to pay my respects to the process of designing all of my letters. Attached below is a still of what scanning in Artivive will do, as well as a couple still frames from editing.

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ARTS 246 Process Blog #10

This week's reading spoke about type with respect to time and sequence - basically, animated or video type. The most important part about type in motion is that two aspects can be controlled: the form of the type, and the behavior of the type. As a Media Arts minor, I am already quite familiar with a lot of the concepts as they relate to film and time-based media in general. Continuity and Depth of Field are two of the big ones.

In relation to the reading, one of my favorite examples of time and sequence in graphic design is the video "MAKE IT FUNKY NOW" by user t k on YouTube. It is a music video of sorts for the song of the same name by DOT96. It plays heavily on continuity between all sorts of different motions and animations, with a distinct visual style. I think that nearly every element discussed in the reading is on display here (dimensionality less so, but still present). With type specifically, I find myself thinking about how letters morph between different typefaces, squash and stretch to move across the screen, and change as time goes on.

I think this reading will be especially important in decision making for the AR poster element for Project #3. As I will be incorporating some light video elements into my AR element, I will have to keep in mind important things like how long the type has to stay on screen, and how it is hierarchically represented in relation to whatever elements I choose to use. I may also consider other changes in form, as my letterforms will likely remain in place for this project.

This week, my main focus was finishing up my Alphabeast project, and as of writing this, the poster design has been finished and has been sent off to printing. There were a lot of small refinements that took place even in the final stages of my project - typeface form had to be adjusted, elements were repositioned, and elements were cleaned. Attached are 2 versions of my final poster. The key differences are in how the type is laid out, both formally and positionally. The earliest version is first, and the final version is second.

I'm also working to finalize my process book. I've currently laid out my spreads, with my next steps being to fill in all of the information. I am considering adding elements like drop caps and pull quotes. I also want to add additional design elements, but I am unsure how to do that without detracting from the poster designs themselves. Attached is one of my spreads as it is now. This is probably my favorite spread, as it shows some of the experimentation I did that didn't work in an interesting way on the right side. The text is placeholder text at current moment.

[pmackarts246-01]

ARTS 246 Process Blog #9

This week's reading mainly concerned type and design with regard to web and screens. The first portion talked primarily about design considerations with respect to type on screens, and the second portion discussed some basic webpage design concepts. I thought that type design with respect to screens was particularly important. Type for screens is much different than type for print, as the use of bitmaps and pixels means that type must be treated in different ways in order to be read well. Specifically, making sure to give more letter spacing due to antialiasing, or considering display resolutions so that your type does not become unreadable. I also thought that, with respect to web design, discussions about using the grid were fairly interesting. When it comes to web design, the grid is treated differently because pages can theoretically go on forever - you are not necessarily limited by a certain size. I also find dynamic webpages to be intriguing, since you can have different layout considerations for both desktop and mobile versions of a website.

This week, we continued work on Project #4. Most of my work involved getting more of a design created for my poster. My first version involved a lot of detailed stroke making, which I ended up concluding was causing a bit of visual clutter. Some other minor revisions were needed, too - the shape and position of the mountains in the back needed to be adjusted to better allow a "text wrapped" header to fit at the top, and the type at the bottom needed more space to be larger. I also decided to pivot toward a halftone shading method, since this would allow for a wider range of values just using 4 colors, and would overall look much cleaner (avoiding visual clutter that was present before). Attached are an initial version with color, and a revised version with color. I plan to find some halftone brushes to further refine my halftone shading techniques.

For project #3, I will be working this weekend to adapt my sketches into vector shapes. I hope to have a poster somewhat close to finished by early next week.

[pmackarts246-01]

ARTS 246 Process Blog #8

This week's reading was over the history of typesetting technology. It started with hand setting, moving to the Linotype, Monotype, and Ludlow, then to Photographic typesetting with Display Phototype and Keyboard Phototype, then finally finishing with Digital Typesetting with Scanning, Laser-based systems, and screen typesetting. It was interesting to see the timeline of how these technologies were developed - there was a good chunk of time between each major innovation, allowing enough time to gain expertise. However, changing times and technologies meant that designers had to adjust to whatever was the most effective method for typesetting available. I also thought it was useful to know where typesetting terms originated, leading and slug being the two main ones. I found the oldest forms of typesetting to be most intriguing. Machines like the linotype were complex, providing benefits like automatic character return and setting lines at a time, but only to get marginally faster typesetting. Additionally, drawbacks of old forms of type meant making mistakes cost a lot more time, effort, and resources. It really puts into context the ease and convenience we have with typesetting and design today.

This week, we began working on our Alphabeast posters for Project #4. I chose to do the Hawaiian Yellow-Faced Bee, thinking that it was an interesting subject matter that I haven't experimented with yet. I've gotten through the stage of sketching and am still finalizing my color palette. I believe I am going to move forward with a color palette of black (or black adjacent), dark green, medium lavender, and light yellow. I will be doing some color mockups to see it in practice and fully settle. Attached is a photo of my sketches for my poster design. I am leaning toward the one in the upper right, in the style of a Hawaiian postcard.

Additionally, for Project #3, I have finished all of my letterforms. I may go back and adjust or refine some of them, but as it stands, the plan is to move forward with these as my finals. I will be bringing them all into Illustrator to properly vectorize them. In order to finish, I had to do 5 more letters, attached below with my photo references. My next step will be vectorizing and gathering footage.

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ARTS 246 Process Blog #7

This week's reading was mostly about creative visual communication of typography. What I found most interesting was the portion towards the middle which spoke about ways to alter type in creative communicative ways which keeps the meaning of the word. Things like image substitution (images in place of groups of letters), visual transformation (letters with visual elements of other objects), and visual correspondence (letters that look like they would be found in a certain situation or scenario) are all ways of communicating greater messages without the original word being lost. There were also more creative alterations of type, like in form combination (combining a letter with visual language to indicate something else). There were portions of the reading I felt were especially applicable to logotypes, as there was a large focus on communicating feeling, purpose, or meaning beyond what the word or letters normally convey, which is a theme prevalent with branding using logotypes. I think this line of thinking will be especially useful going into Project #4 - thinking about how to use alterations to communicate a message greater than simply the name of my endangered species.

This week marked the end of Project #2, meaning as it stands, my brand strategy and guidelines for Mt. Mule are complete. I'm unsure how I feel currently, as for a good bit, I was working toward completing the project (which is to say I had a clear line toward completion that I needed to follow, and I just kept on working). I think probably the hardest part of the brand guidelines was developing the font system. It was the part that definitely took the longest to complete, as I spent a lot of time analyzing body copy, adjusting and readjusting leading/tracking/size, and rearranging type to strike the best balance of readability and aesthetic pleasure. This is probably the portion I would return to first, as I feel like it needs a bit more work. I also feel like I could have developed my color system a tiny bit further. In general, I feel like the color language I landed on is successful in terms of brand ethos, but I could have fleshed out the use case for said colors a bit more. With a bit more time and experimentation, I feel like I could have made my brand system just a bit more cohesive. Overall though, I feel like a lot of my visions for the brand were realized pretty well, and the brand itself came together pretty cohesively - especially considering this is a brand type I am less familiar with.

Attached below are my font system, colors, physical mock ups, and digital mock ups.

For continued work on Project #3, I've continued to create more letterforms. I once again made just 3, since I was focusing on finishing Project #2 this week. My letters that I worked on were D, T, and O. As I near the end of my letter sketches, I'm excited to see how they turn out in vector form. I'm also eager to start working on some videographical elements. I remember from using Artivive in the past that there are some limitations with using video, but I think I can work using these limitations to my benefit and make something neat. I anticipate making vectors and collecting video footage will be pretty involved, which is why I'm going to try to finish letterform sketches as soon as possible.

[pmackarts246-01]

ARTS 246 Process Blog #6

"When creating a visual hierarchy in typographic space, a designer balances the need for harmony, which unifies a design, with the need for contrast, which lends to vitality and emphasis." This excerpt from the reading I feel embodies the main message. It spoke mainly regarding creating typographic compositions through hierarchy, repetition, and contrast. It's necessary to use weight and size in order to convey what is most important in a typographic composition. It is also important to utilize repetition, as the composition will feel cluttered and disorganized without repetition. However, the designer still needs to consider contrast, as this will be part of what creates hierarchy, as well as what prevents the reader from getting visually tired by the composition. On page 101 is a display of multiple ways to use repetition and contrast to create visually interesting and effective typographic compositions. I feel this will come in handy later. I found the correlation between contrast and repetition to be quite interesting as well. Toward the end of the passage, it is mentioned that due to the adaptability of text, two items in a composition can be involve both repetition and contrast (such as a repeated letter at different sizes, or two differently shaped columns using the same point size). All of these will be things to consider when making spreads and other typographic compositions.

This week, for Project #2, I did some work for finalizing my logo designs for Mt. Mule Trading Post. This involved making some tweaks to my initial logotype, adding some additional design elements (like icons and patterns), and completely reworking my alternate logo into a badge design. These elements are shown below.

Additionally, I continued to do letterform sketches for Project 3. Due to outside circumstances, I've been needing to rest a bit more, so I only got the requisite 3 letterforms done again this week. I also ended up stopping at 3 because my game ended up crashing... oops! Regardless, I hope to catch up (and maybe beyond) over the weekend. Again, I'm hoping to create some extra time for myself to make the AR poster. Attached are my reference photos and sketches, as per usual. I'm getting more and more satisfied with the say these are coming out, likely because I'm more confident straying away from what's actually in front of me and simply using the reference as information to make a letter. Based on what I've learned, I may go back and redo some of my earlier letterforms.

[pmackarts246-01]

ARTS 246 Process Blog #5

This week's reading discussed the grid and its importance to text legibility, order, and hierarchy. I found the discussion about the importance of empty space to be particularly intriguing, especially because there can be tendency to want to fill all the available space. Sometimes, it's better to just leave space and use more pages so you don't overwhelm the reader. The reading talks a bit more about using gutters and margins wisely. Of course, I've already been in the practice of both, but I think it's always important to remember that elements need enough room between each other to breathe a little bit. It was really helpful to see different types of grids in action, why they were chosen, and how they work well for what's being shown. I'm still a bit confused on how ratios work for setting up grids in type, so I may have to do a bit more research into how to set these ratios up and how best to use them.

This week for Project #2, I made an early version of my proposed logo. There's still a lot of work to do, as parts of my logotype are not quite cohesive (connected ligatures consistent on left and right) and other parts appear old-fashioned (or more accurately, low effort). The main logotype, with all the extra information, is likely to be scrapped and retooled into something more interesting. Shown below is where my logotypes sit now.

I'm currently in the process of overhauling my secondary logo. I was given the idea to make a badge- or patch-style secondary logo, and that got me extremely inspired. Shown below are a couple of drafts.

Lastly, in terms of my progress on Project #3, it's pretty much just more of the same. I only did the minimum required 3 letters for right now, since I was feeling extremely tired and uninspired, but I'll likely come back and and get a couple more done. I'm really set on my concept for my AR poster, so I want to get started on it as soon as I can. I also want enough time to experiment with vectorizing my letters. As per usual, attached are my inspiration cars alongside my letter sketches.

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ARTS 246 Process Blog #4

This week's reading covered legibility concerns about type. Where last week's reading covered type classifications and how they look, this week the primary point of discussion was designing type to be read seamlessly. As the adage goes, good design is invisible, so well thought out type will read naturally without issue. On that thought, this reading was challenging at times, because it called out subconscious things readers do, and in doing so, made the actions conscious. A couple of points that were most valuable from the reading, in my mind, was the juxtaposition of typeface cohesion through using repeated lines, and the pitfall of individual letters looking very similar, which can complexify legibility. I also found the couple pages toward the end of the chapter quite helpful, since it wraps up the info in the chapter quite neatly. I figure that, in doing type design work this semester, I could return to those three pages to use as reference (either while designing or to check my own work).

Project #2 progress is coming along somewhat smoothly. The brand intake form and mood board (the latter of which is attached below) were completed relatively easily, and I feel the concept and image for the brand are strong enough to move forward with, hopefully without too much trouble. I still need to do a bit more work in experimenting with type and mark making, but I have a pretty good idea for where I want to go. I figure I will likely end up with a block-print style serif (likely slab), but I suppose only time will tell.

Project #3 progress is the same as the last two weeks: more cars, more letters. I did run into a bit of a contest with Q, and I can't really decide which I like more. Regardless, I'm still trying to get design inspiration from as many different cars as possible. This comes with different decades, countries, categories, and even down to where on the car I pull the form from. I noticed that my best designs I had came from the elements that create the car's identity (i.e. the "N" pulled from the Lotus Elise, or the "G" from the Toyota Supra), so I tried to pull more from major body lines or iconic elements this time. I still plan on doing 4 each week (even though only 3 are required) so that I have time to revise and experiment with my created marks, and additionally collect or composite B-roll footage for my AR poster.

[pmackarts246-01]

ARTS 246 Process Blog #3

This week's reading was mostly terminology heavy, giving vocabulary to describe some important aspects of type design. I found the terminology of em and en to be quite interesting. I have read about em and en dashes before, but I was unaware they referred to actual spatial intervals in type. This helped the dash terminology make more sense, since an en is half of an em (so an en dash will be shorter than an em dash). I also found the visual parity in similar letterforms to be interesting. I hadn't considered it before, but it would make sense to repeat a shape in similar letters to make the typeface more cohesive. The part I feel will be most useful to me is the type classifications and variations. I've recently come across some material of logos that fascinate me, so having this bank of terms will be good to have to help me find typefaces that look similar.

This week, we started Project #2 by getting our words to create a brand. I got the words "Chilly" and "Donkey". So far, I've come up with which kind of company I want to make and what name I want for it. I am going to go for a Vintage Store under the name Mt. Mule, and the aesthetic will be similar to a trading outpost. I don't know yet if I will call it Mt. Mule Trading Post, but I think that's the strongest name I have so far. I'm sure the brand intake form will give me a bit more insight.

I also continued to work on Project #3 by creating more letters. This week, I focused on using cars from various decades as reference, both new and old. I think this really helped push my letterforms, as newer cars have a lot more curvature in their design. This lends itself a lot better to curved letters, and helped fill in some more gaps. Last week, a lot of my letterforms were pretty angular, and I'm glad I got more curved ones included. I'm trying to keep pace of 4 letterforms a week so that I have a bit more time to refine them digitally and collect B-roll footage in Forza to use for my AR poster (which I think will turn out really cool if done right).

[pmackarts246-01]

ARTS 246 Process Blog #2

This week's reading, The Evolution of Typography, was a largely visual history of written language as we know it today, starting at the earliest forms of handwriting and ending with the 20th century printing. It was interesting to see the path from the earliest forms of handwriting to the alphabet and type as we know it today. I was particularly fascinated by the introduction and use of initials, a trend appearing to start with the invention of movable type. This would make sense, as printed initials could be mass-printed from a single block by this time. I was also surprised by just how old some of the typefaces I know and use today are. The first one I recognized was Caslon, produced all the way back in the 18th century. Caslon typefaces are still being used today, and it was neat to see that something I see in Photoshop on my computer got its start that long ago.

This week, we finished up our mood boards and began the A to Z Sketchbook project. I was dreading the project a little bit at first, but the idea was floated to me to use my interests as an inspiration. Basically, finding letters where there really aren't any. I gave this a try by opening Forza Horizon 5 and exploring car design, looking for shapes, forms, and lines that interacted with each other to create letters. Attached are the examples of what I found this week (photos and sketches): "M" from a '92 Honda NSX-R; "N" from a '99 Lotus Elise; "H" from an '05 BMW M3; and "A" from an '86 Ford Mustang.

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ARTS 246 Process Blog #1

This week's assigned reading was Steal like an Artist. The reading was framed as advice, and much of it seemed to give the impression of letting go of overthinking the creative process and just doing. The advice to steal and remix rather than focus on making something original; stop waiting to know who you are to create. To me it feels like the author wants you to understand that creating isn't about knowing, it's about doing until you've made something great. Other pieces of advice, like keeping your hobbies, surrounding yourself with people, and have a day job are more advice that influence how you interact with the creative process. I really thought the creative process would dictate my life, but it's interesting to think about how rather, your life should dictate the creative process. It's almost reminding what we can forget in focusing so hard on becoming a great artist (use your hands, set small goals, keep making progress, make what you want to see, etc.)

This week, we got started in the process of self-branding. We have mostly worked on a questionnaire, finding what makes ourselves unique and what we like. I found that, interestingly, I've invested so much time into how I brand myself outwardly that I forgot a couple of the things that are extremely important to me. Things like the games I play or the music I listen to fell wayside to other things, even though rhythm games and hardcore EDM are extremely important to me and how I live my life. Going back to letting how I live my life dictate my creative process, I'll have to go back and really examine the things I enjoy on a daily basis to make sure I'm not missing any crucial parts when I create my brand.

Attached is a photo of the last step of my brainstorming process -- a couple of the things I like, and diving into why I like them.