Design Book

art 130 .[intro to design] noun.

A college course that requires latenight trips to the art center due to procrastination. Take at your own risk, bring coffee.

This book is dedicated to my coffee addiction. I wouldn’t be where I am today without you.

Crash Course .[project 1] noun.

Assignment where partners come together and reflect on their past experiences on campus. Through deep communication and reflection, partners come to find each others struggles on campus. They brainstorm ideas and make a final product that makes their SNC experience better overall

Engaging with a real person was helpful because it allows you to hear ideas and think about things from a whole new perspective. You are able to listen to the opinions of your partners, give your own insights, and then work together to create a larger idea. Fortunately, I was able to go into the studio for the project and got to work with my partner in person. I think doing this project online would have been harder for me because there would be a lack of connection.

It was more comfortable being in person and being able to work next to my partner rather than over a screen. It is always helpful to hear others’ opinions on my work because it gives me new ideas on how to fix and expand on my work. I would never submit a project without multiple opinions because then I wouldn’t be as confident and sure about it. As for the D-School project itself, The pace was definitely quick for me. When working on art projects, I tend to work very slow in order to make sure everything is going the way I want it to.

If I am rushed, I don’t feel like I am putting my best work into the project and that stresses me out. Overall, This project was really fun and interesting, but my partner and I did get slightly confused. We accidentally ended up taking a different approach to the project and ended up with a product that was slightly different from the rest of the class. We weren’t exactly sure how the project took a turn for us, but it happened. Therefore, I would definitely do it over again because I know what I did wrong and how to fix it.

Dot Line .[project 2] noun.

Choose a word and use visual heiarchy to portray the emotion of that word to the fullest. The catch is, you must only use dots, lines, blacks. and greys. Use an abstract mind and ephasize the value, shape, and orientation of the pieces to bring emotion into the piece.

This semester, we tackled the idea of Gestalt. Gestalt is how our brains piece together images to grasp a better understanding of what we truly see them as. We can make our own ideas up in our head of how we perceive an image in order to understand it. In this project, we looked at images that were simply dots and lines put on a piece of paper. However, using the gestalt approach, we had to piece together the dots and lines in order to understand an emotion we were feeling towards the relationship of the dots and lines. Abstraction has always been so interesting to me because everyone thinks so differently. This project opened my eyes even more to the fact that people perceive art in many different ways. It was cool to hear the ideas and perspectives of my classmatebecause I was able to look at art from their point of view. I think that is what abstraction is about, looking at it from different points of view in order to get a better understanding of it. This project was definitely

a challenge because it was difficult to represent ideas without illustrating them because you had to get on a new level of creativity. You had to think outside of the box and find a way to make dots and lines portray an emotion that makes sense.

Gestalt will help me with all of my future projects in art and design because it helps me recognize patterns and make associations. Knowing the principles of gestalt can help me piece together projects in order to make them pleasing, thought-provoking, clear, or interesting.

Chaotic

[kā-ädik] In a state of complete confusion and disorder

Rejection

[rə-jekSH(ə)n/] The spurning of a person’s affections

Exhaustion

[i-zôsCH(ə)n] A state of extreme physical or mental fatigue

Letterforms .[project 3] noun.

Cut, carve, and stamp letters out into a four-letter word of your choice. Create multiple, unique iterations for that word. Each iteration must illustrate the meaning of that word. Use scale, imaging, and negative space to help create meaning behind the word.

During this project, I realized that one word can mean so many different things.

During our critique, I loved looking at what my peers could come up with and how they interpreted their own words. Also, I learned that a small change can do so much to a picture. For example, moving my word, “Life” to the bottom corner and adding a period at the end added so much more emotion than if I just left the

word in the middle of the paper. If I continued to work with these letters I would experiment a lot more and take the creation to the next level. I would try to use color or maybe different fonts in order to portray the word better and get more emotion out of it.

Life . [ly-fe] noun.

A word of many meanings. Life is captured through a lens, life is chaotic and messy, life is learning to grow and adapt, life is life.

Iterative Illustration .[project 4] noun.

Pick an animal of your choice and study its features, behaviors, environment, and ways of life. Use this information to create multple portraits of the animal using different illustration styles.

Think divergently and creatively in order to portray multiple angles, behaviors, and depictions of your chosen animal.

Throughout this project, I learned a lot about using digital editing programs like Photoshop. I dabbled in photoshop for my photography class but with this project I got to explore deeper into the platform. I also played around with new mediums that I have never used before. For example, I used ink and water to paint one of the elks to recreate a Georgia O’keefe painting. It reminded me of painting with watercolor. Also, I have never used magazines and text to create an image before. This was a fun and creative challenge for me. The most challenging media for me was the collage iterations using magazines and text. This was challenging because it was hard to visualize the final product and how to use the colors, font, text of the magazine to portray what you want. I thought that my artist iteration of Malika Favre was most enjoyable because her style is very simple and minimalistic. Therefore, using acrylic paint and painting simple shapes was calming to me. Like previously stated,

I was familiar with Photoshop for my photography class. However, this project helped me deepen my understanding of the website a little more.

I especially enjoyed learning about the “curves” feature because it made a lot of the editing easier and faster. Without curves, it would have taken me a lot longer to brighten the whites, darken the blacks, and erase the mistakes and smudges. If I had another year to continue this project, I would definitely play around with different mediums and techniques. I thought the artist iterations were exciting, so I would potentially research more artists and make new iterations inspired by their styles. I would also try to fix up some of my iterations and make them more detailed. I would try to incorporate the environment that elk reside in more into my work. This could help give more information on the elk and give a deeper understanding of how they behave and live.

PSA Posters .[project 5] noun.

Also known as Public Service Announcements. These posters have a mission to educate and bring attention to certain topics. Using scale, color arangment, visual hierarchy, and font decisions, make a poster that efficiently illustrates the vision and message your client creates.

For the PSA posters, it was challenging being limited to type only because I didn’t have as much creative freedom. I had to think outside of the box in order to portray the theme and point of the poster correctly. However, it was fun to play around with font type and size to see how text could really change the meaning of the poster. I knew I wanted to draw a lot of attention to the title in order for the viewer to know the subject of the poster right away. I made the main focus word, “Food Insecurity” in bold, white letters in a black box. Underneath the titles, I put the informational paragraphs in lighter gray boxes. This allows the viewer to look at the title first and then move down to read the information, which is lighter on the eyes. At the

bottom, I include the URL as my call to action. I put this in white text in a black box. This makes the call to action stand out, which is important because it is crucial information. Using this layout helped create visual hierarchy, a design method that I experimented with throughout this project. Visual hierarchy is important in the design world because you want to attract and portray the information to viewers in an efficient way. I learned that when using multiple fonts, there are fonts that complement each other and there are some that don’t. You have to play around with text, make mistakes, and experiment in order to produce something you like.

D I D Y O U K N O W T H AT

FOOD INSECURIT Y

EXISTS AT ST. NORBERT COLLEGE? According to the most recent Hope Survey from fall 2020, “38 percent of students in two-year colleges and 29 percent of students at four-year colleges reported experiencing food insecurity in the previous 30 days.”

St. Norbert College students who are experiencing the lack of sufficient quantities of affordable, nutritious food, are invited to access the College Food Insecurity Program.

To find out how you can help, check out: www.snc.edu/wellnessbydesign/foodinsecurity.html

Who Designs .[Aaron Draplin] graphic designer.

Aaron Draplin was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. Growing up, he was always seeking adventure and was a devoted snowboarder. When he was 19 years old, he followed his passion and moved out to Oregon to snowboard and live recklessly with his close buddies. However, drawing and creating was always a hobby of his. He ended up landing his first design gig with Solid Snowboards. This hobby eventually started to turn into a profession. Therefore, after a few years of working odd jobs and washing dishes, he moved back to the midwest to earn his Design degree at the Minnesota College of Art and Design.

Draplin continued to impress as he accepted high-ranking design positions at multiple companies. However, after many years of working for others, he decided to expand and create his own design company. Draplin Design Co was created in 2004 and has been growing ever since.

He has done work for hundreds of brand named companies such as Nike, Patagonia, Target, Ford Motor Company, Burton Snowboards, and even the Obama Administration. However, his design work isn’t the only talent that stands out for Draplin. His witty and wild personality has him public speaking across the country. He shares his unique background story with design, gives advice to the young and upcoming designers, and stresses the importance of making a living doing something you love.

Vocational Questions . .

What is something you’ve made in the past two years that you are proud of?

About a year ago, I made a portrait of a man named Lefty Kreh. Left wyas a professional fly fisherman and one of my grandma’s dearest friend. He meaned everything to her and they had made signifcant memories with each other. He sadly passed away a few years ago. For a project, I had to create a portrait of someone memorable. I decided to draw him and give the final product to my grandma as a surprise. I only used colored pencil and it was my first detailed portrait I had ever done. My grandma has it framed in her house.

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I am also proud of some of the work I did in a photography class I took this year.

I had never experimented with a professional camera before so it was exciting learning new techniques. This photography class also allowed me to expand and practice my photoshop skills, which helped with this design course as well.

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If you were garunteed it would support you financially, what would you want to design or make for a living?

After talking with my roommate Nikki, we have decided we want to paint a mural togther. It is our goal by the end of our four years to have painted a mural on this campus. Hopefully, if someone is reading this book in four years, that goal will have been completed so go look at our cool mural. If I could travel the world to all sorts of places and paint murals, houses, building walls, etc, I would be so happy. I also have a dream of being a photographer for National Geographic. I would have the opportunity to travel to amazing places and capture animal behavior upclose. Not everyone just gets to go and see that in person. I have realized that my theme here is travel. Therefore, I know it is my calling to see as much of the world as possible.

If I can accomplish that while also incorporating my art, my life would be complete.

This book was made as part of Introduction to Design at St. Norbert College in the spring of 2022. The fonts used include American Typewriter and my personal handwriting. It was digitally printed and saddle stapled at the college’s print center