Introduction
My name is Olivia Henjum, and I’ve always been interested in any creative field that I could try. When I was younger, about middle school into high school, I would always say how I wanted to be a graphic designer when I was older. Despite having no experience in graphic design then, I knew it was one of the most practical art degrees for a future career. Throughout my life, I have tried many different mediums of art, from painting, to drawing, to sculpture, to even sewing and fashion. In high school, I also took a class on Photoshop and Illustrator, and I really enjoyed the freedom of being able to create anything digitally, but struggled with using the programs and all of their capabilities. In this class, Introduction to Design A+B, I wanted to push my designing capabilities, which I found myself struggling with. I didn’t want to design anything bare minimum, I wanted to challenge myself and create designs that I actually enjoyed and had fun doing. Any critiques in class were heard and improved upon, and encouraged me to create more, and I found myself really enjoying making illustrations and doing studio art.
This book serves as a showcase for all of my work for this semester in my Intro to Design A+B class. Here I will display work that I created whether I am proud of it or not, simply because I created it. Its important to make art and to design things not for the outcome but for the process of creating it, because no matter what you will learn something. If you never begin to create, you never learn how to.
Dot/Line
The Dot/Line project encouraged us to create complex emotions using only dots and lines, with very tight requirements on how many dots and lines we can use. It was especially difficult to create and express these emotions using such limited combinations of dots and lines, and we had to pick 3 of the words for us to express. The main purpose of this project was to begin to use designer tools such as visual hierarchy, scale, and line. These skills are extremely important to designing anything, and an introduction to them through dots and lines to express complex emotions is crucial and easier to understand.
Gestalt is the idea that the whole of something can be greater than its parts or details. This relates to this project because of our limited rules to work with to create a larger idea and concept.
Letterforms
Our Letterforms project got us working with typography and iterations of the same word and typeface. For this project, as a class we each carved out letters from the same typeface, and then used those letters to ink and print a word of our choosing. We then had to find different ways to express that word through only modifying and playing around with the print and type. In the end, we were required to have 4 different versions, one straight print, one typographic variation, one modification relating to the content, and one more of our choosing. The main focus of this project was to get us familiar with negative space, principles of typography, and interpretation; all things that are key in design.
Typography Practice
Modification
Choice Variation
Iterative Illustrations
For the Iterative Illustrations project, we were able to pick an animal or object of our choice to create multiple different mediums of art around. The purpose of this project, as you can guess, is to work iteratively with a single subject. This involves different poses, actions, styles, and depictions of the subject. It is very important in design to have different versions of a single subject, especially working with a client, to ensure that the product will be exactly to their liking. For this project, 6 iterations were required, including one continuous line drawing, one geometric iteration, one collage iteration, one typographic collage iteration, and 2 artist-inspired iterations of our choosing. This project helped us learn Photoshop and InDesign skills, as well as skills such as contrast and layout.
Final Layout
Who Designs
The Who Designs post gave us a chance to find inspiration through other graphic designers. We were required to find and research a design artist and present our findings, specifically the type of work they’ve done and projects they’ve been a part of. This project gave us a chance to see the work of accomplished graphic artists, and future projects that, after graduating, we could accomplish. It also allowed us to see the variety of design that can be done, as well as what qualifies as design, and then share our findings with our peers. Viewing our peers’ chosen designers, we can expand what we find interesting and exciting, as well as find types of design that we don’t like, to help find our personal styles.
For my designer, I picked Aries Moross. I picked them mainly because of them and their teams work on advertisement for one of my favorite shows, Arcane. Upon further research, I’ve discovered the many other projects that they have worked on, as well as seen their unique design style. They also have their own studio, called Studio Moross, where they lead a team of people for creative projects.
Finally, I wanted to show their work on advertisement for Arcane, a show on Netflix. For this project, they were the creative director, designer, and motion designer. The logo design and layout for these posters and icons were done really well, and captures the show really well. For each arc of the show, they and their team designed a monogram, logo treatment, backgrounds, border kits, image and typography treatments and motion kits for animation in logos.
Vocation Questions
Are you called to creative work? If so, how do you recognize that calling?
I feel very called to creative work. Ever since I was a kid I thoroughly enjoyed creating art and being creative. Especially illustrations and drawing, I looked forward to every class project or homework assignment that required creativity and drawing. In middle school, I was involved in an after school art club. In high school, I took as many art classes as I could every year until I graduated. In college, while I am somewhat undecided, I know whatever I do I will want it to be creative.
What is the greatest failure you’ve experienced in your life (that you feel comfortable sharing with our class)?
The greatest failure I’ve experienced in my life is being afraid to put myself out there. I was always so afraid to execute creative ideas I have had due to my fear of failure, which in turn created this failure instead. There are many opportunities I may have missed simply due to my fear of putting myself out there and doing things. If I could do it over again, I would push myself to create and never stop without fear of failure.
