CSS Zen Garden

When this project first began, I knew I wanted to create something that had to do with being uncomfortable. When you think of zen, most of the time people think of something calming and relaxing. For my “zen,” I thought of the idea of using needles as the whole idea of being uncomfortable. Needles are usually filled with some sort of medicine or vaccine, but I’m filled my needles with paint. Creating the idea that art is my zen, and can be anyone else’s zen. Sticking with that idea of uncomfortable and art as a zen, I decided to make this web page to mainly focus on vibrant colors. I tried to keep an interesting color palette using somewhat of neon colors such as pink, orange, blue, red, and purple. I wanted to make sure that the colors popped, and wanted to make this page as interesting and intriguing as possible for my target audience of teens to enjoy even more. I wanted it to be easy for the viewer to comprehend, and understand what was the point of the page. This project was very stressful and time consuming, but overall, I thoroughly enjoyed creating this web page mock up. I enjoyed the process of trying to mentally figure out how a link will look at different stages, and how to make needles become of “zen” of some sort. I feel like the idea of making people uncomfortable and thinking outside of the box about zen makes this design even stronger and it comes across with a deeper meaning.

Line Weight

When this project first began, I really had no idea of where to take the printing term of line weight. This really could have went in any direction. Line weight seems more like an open field, and I could have created something with jagged lines, or something really off the wall as far as a design goes. But I wanted it to come across as being humorous. Humor, at least for me, helps me understand and retain information better. When you can create a great joke or something funny about something that people don’t know anything about, it makes it easy to remember. The whole idea of my project came along while I was getting ready to go to sleep. I am now a firm believer in the best ideas come when you least expect them, at night time. I came up with the idea to make my printing term, line weight, into something that really only designers will find humorous. So having a scale with a line on it doesn’t seem like the obvious choice, but that’s what makes this idea even better. I don’t like going for the obvious with work unless it is absolutely necessary, and this was the case of not going obvious. I think by me making line weight humorous, it will stay in people’s heads longer than expected or intended. Either way, I wanted it to be easy for designers to comprehend, and understand what was occurring.

Type Specimen Poster

This project was to make a poster that displayed the characteristics of any given typeface. I chose Optima because it’s a classic font, but it’s not like any of the other classic fonts. Optima has a slight curve at the end of the ascenders and descenders. Which is why I love this typeface. It’s not stiff, it that helps to describe it. With my poster, I wanted to be able to portray this unique aspect of Optima. I chose to use the question mark as the main focus of my poster. It creates a nice flow and it’s unlike any other question mark. The way I’ve placed it on the page, it is almost unrecognizable as a question mark. It creates more of a beautiful shape, and then with the text wrapped around it makes it an even more unique shape to look at. I also chose to make it asymmetrical to create that emphasis of focusing more on what the shape is. I had lots of trouble trying to figure out the alpha-numeric sequence and where to place it, in the end I placed it in the same manner as the paragraphs which was around the question mark. Overall, this poster displays how unique Optima is and how different it is just by seeing the question mark and it’s unique shape.

Deer Jon Book

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When this project first began, I knew I wanted to write something that had to do with my family. Since my brother has left for Iraq, we’ve learned that family is everything to us; we’ve become closer as a family. I’m not saying our family wasn’t close before, but now we appreciate how our family has grown. Sticking with that idea of families coming together, I decided to make this book be written mainly for my brother. I’m sure that people may think that our family is unusual for taking a deer head to places with us as a representation of Jon, but we embrace our craziness. The idea of the deer telling the story seemed to be the right direction in which to take this book. I wanted this to be for me brother, but not about my brother. Yes, the deer head is basically Jon while he’s away, but I made it where this deer has a personality; I made the deer seem like he was part of the family. The pictures that my family have taken with us and the deer tell a story. I wanted viewers to be able to look at this book and either view the pictures and understand the story or actually go through and read each page. Either way, I wanted it to be easy for the viewer to comprehend, and understand what was occurring. This project was very stressful and time consuming, but overall, I thoroughly enjoyed putting this book together. It seemed like I had more pressure on me to make this book spectacular since it is so close and personal for me and my family. Even though that was the case, I feel that it made my design and idea even stronger and it came across with a deeper meaning. Love you Jon!

Fear/Safety Psychogeographical Map

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This project was about getting into the psychology of a map without it physically looking like a map. I’m from a small town, so Chattanooga is huge to me, and very scary. I’m terrified to go out and do things, but when I do, I usually explore things in my car, it’s my comfort zone and I feel safe there. So the whole idea of my map was to explore unknown places in my car, and my car become my art piece. I wrote things on my windshield, used post it notes to post what I was feeling, what was on the radio, and anything else I was thinking about at the time. So instead of making my car an installation piece, I had to try and figure out a way how to get my point across. So I made a booklet that has 14 different pictures, and on the fronts of the pages, I’ve related the time and a lyric from a song that was on at the time I was drifting.

Paper Plus

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Nothing like taking a tour of a paper distributing company. Paper Plus is a local company that provides you service with various types of paper. I learned what skid paper is, and the differences between a long grain and short grain paper. Skid paper is big sheets of paper. Local companies such as Williams Visual Solutions and Allegra use these skid sheets to basically save on costs as well as other benefits. Then there is long and short grain paper. Long grain is just as it says long. It goes with the height of the paper. Actually it all depends on the size. If you have an 8.5 by 11 sheet of paper then it’s usually going to be long grain. Short grain is dealing more with the width of the paper. If you need to make a fold in any kind of paper, you should always go along with the direction of the grain. You can go against the grain, but it leaves you with a jagged edge, whereas with the other way, you would have a smooth edge. Paper Plus keeps an in-house stock of paper, which most companies do, and this just makes things cheaper on the customer. This isn’t the best choice, but when you need something, and need it cheap usually go with the in-house brand. Paper Plus isn’t a manufacturing company, but they still have plenty of paper in stock; the paper that can’t be held in the store is held in a warehouse in Atlanta. The best thing about Paper Plus was getting paper swatches! These contain various types of paper dealing with the grain, color, etc. Thanks Alex for taking the time to speak with us today, and thank you allowing us to come visit, and for the swatches!! For more information, go to: http://www.industrynet.com/info.asp?CID=1709377

More map inspirations

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I really like these maps and get inspired by them for the simple fact that they are so different than your normal map. Maps are direct and give you precise directions where as these maps seem to be all over the place, but still seem to have some sort of purpose. I believe that’s the idea of our project is to create a map that doesn’t necessarily read as a map, but still has a map quality to it.

Map Inspirations

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Maps help us everyday get from point A to point B. They are straight forward, and most of the time are easy are to read and understand. I do enjoy looking at maps; they intrigue me because they are so dense. When looking for inspiration for this project, I wanted to look at maps that didn’t necessarily look like a map, but can still be read as a map; the not so obvious. These maps are all crammed with so much information, but are organized to be able to still be able to read them. The last map has a dadist approach to it, and from far away looks like paint smeared together, but the cloer you come to look at it, you then see each part of the map. I like that idea of macro/micro. With design, you should always consider that approach. I’m thinking for this project, I want to try that approach; it’s out of my comfort zone of clean cut and simple, but it gives me a challenge, which is always something I am willing to do.

Eye Magazine Publication

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Eye Magazine is a design magazine that is only published 4 times out of the year. Since it only comes out four times in a year, they have plenty of time to focus on being precise. Our project was to have a publication that is created to look as if it fits in Eye Magazine, which means everything being precise. We had to create a front and back cover along with a 3-5 page spread of our publication. The article that was used was by Nancy Spector “States of Wonder,” an article about Stephan Sagmeister’s “Things I Learned In My Life So Far.” I really enjoyed this project because I’m the type of person that likes to keep things consistent, and by doing this is becomes more simple. Everything ranging from the Eye logo to the margins had to be right on, just like in Eye Magazine. With my front/back cover, I meshed two images together; a man and woman, and a neon spiral. I used these two images for the front cover because it seemed to fit well with what Eye Magazine does. It seems that with their covers, they like to have fun with it while still keeping things precise. My back cover had the neon spiral bleed onto it with an image of an old Polaroid. The Polaroid had nothing to do with the magazine or the article, but it was funny what was happening in the picture. Then with my actual spread, I kept things simple, and precise, but I pushed the boundaries a little. What I mean by this, is that I had a grid system set up, but on some items, I didn’t follow it. I still kept things precise and consistent throughout. Once again, grid systems are more like guide lines, you don’t always have to follow them. Overall, this project seems like it fits well in the Eye Magazine, and I had a lot of fun with it, which helped me enjoy the process even more.

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