Process Journal F18

PR CESS J URNAL R

T

Ravnn Thornton

intro This journal is the progression I made in Fall 2018 semester for my Typography I and Intro to Graphic Design class. When I started this journey, I thought it would the struggle of the century. I didn’t really know much about typography, and I didn’t know how the Intro to Graphic Design class would be like for me. Along with that, other factors kept arising which made the semester that much harder for me to deal with. Yet, as the semester went by, even though I was overwhelmed by how much I had learned and what I needed to do for each project, these classes made me push myself to keep moving forward and not let it consume me. These reflections in this journal convey what I felt throughout the semester with each of these projects and I’m glad to show you my journey along the way.

01

table of contents typography I | 4—67 01 | examining typography....4 02 | six factorials.....................10 03 | pairing typefaces.............16 04 | visual system....................22 05 | analyzing a grid................28 06 | visual hierarchy................36 07 | design heroes...................46 08 | résumé...............................60 Intro to Graphic Design | 68—125 01 | expressive marks...............68 02 | animal marks......................76 03 | black box.............................84 04 | social media.......................92 05 | concept album...................106 06 | opposites website.............114 Creative Sprints | 126—161 01 | forced fit prompts.............126 02 | zine.......................................132 03 | food and composition.......144 04 | thanks...................................154 Colophon | 162

01

examining type For this exercise, we saw how type looked in context and whether it had a huge impact on the audience wanting to read the content or not. We had split up into seven groups of three and looked over the good and bad typography we brought for class. Each person shared what their samples were and stated what worked and what needed work. Then, as a group, we came up with a list of factors to be considered when working with body text. In the end, as a whole class, we collectively contributed to the whiteboard with what our groups came up with for what made good and bad typography. The goal was to evaluate body text and see if we could determine what characteristics made good and bad typography.

Right off the bat, I would say I didn’t know a whole lot about typography. But there were some things I remembered learning in the 205 Graphic Design Methods class that was mentioned. With listing the attributes of type, we examined with our samples stuff like widows and orphans, colors, white space, kerning, tracking, leading, etc. and it made me partially knowledgeable with typography. Leslie had mentioned that type is like something that we take for granted and we don’t really notice but appreciate a little bit when it’s a good thing. Yet, when it’s bad, we tend to notice it and call it out. To observe what makes good and bad type can also include determining the audience and context of the type. I discovered that after when

the class listed the attributes of type. The context of the type can also contribute to making it good or bad for connotation and meaning with the overall print. I saw some of the bad samples and it kind of made me realize that, yes although there are designers out there, they might not be good designers.

Though, looking at it now and reflecting upon it, it’s like that with any job; there are people that do great work, people that do average, and people that do poorly. All these types of people reminded of typography. Although they have done their job, that doesn’t mean they done it good. This exercise made me understand type just a little bit better now.

This was the overall consensus the class came up with on what makes good typography, specifically body text.

6 | Typography I

work-in-progress

work-in-progress examining type | 7

The brochure (left) was an example of bad typography.

The ImagineFX magazine page (right) was an example of good typography.

I actually had the ImagineFX magazines pdfs for a while; my father downloaded them for me and sent them to me.

8 | Typography I

final

final examining type | 9

02

six factorial This project focused more on readability and feeling (how type looked visually) and how long-form body text is affected by point size, leading, line length, letterspacing, x-height, and structure/weight/style: all that is a variable of a type. We worked with two or three of the typefaces from our choosing, and we had to create “type specimens” that explored three variables: size, leading, line length, and x—height. We printed the explorations and then chose the two typefaces that we liked best. The goal was to experience how changing type specification variables change the readability and feeling of the body text and furthermore, to develop skills at working with “long—form’ text where readability is important.

I had already figured out what two types I wanted to use already, so I spent one whole class on printing the different characteristics of the types. I tried observing what three different characteristics I could use for the exercise that looked good to me. I wasn’t really confident with this because I didn’t really know if my “designer eye” was of any use or if I even had one at all. I ended up choosing four columns, so I made my texts smaller to appeal for a four-column page. I discovered that if I chose a one or two column page, the texts could be a lot bigger since the line length would be longer. That, and reading long body text on a one column page didn’t seem pleasing to me at

the time. Having four columns made me experiment the text sizes because any more than nine, or less than seven, felt off for these columns. I learned that a slight change can affect the overall look of the page so I had to be wary of making slight changes. Though having to print out multiple of examples taught me early on that changes would look differently on print than digitally. I probably killed at least one medium-sized tree in the process. This exercise made me realize that this was the beginning of the printing madness I would have over the course of this semester.

One of the few practices of the six factorials I did. I tried out Bembo Std (top left), Helvetica Neue (top right), and Myriad Pro (bottom right). Though these are the ones that I did not go any further with for the final.

12 | Typography I

explorations

explorations six factorials | 13

aa

14 | Typography I

Cabin regular (left) for body text, Georgia regular (right) for body text

final

Six Factorial Type Specimens size, leading, x-height, line length, style/weight, letterspacing Body text: 8.5/14, 8/12, 8/13.5 Cabin Regluar 4 columns Line length = 10p3

Typographic clarity comes in two flavors: legibility and readability.

What’s the difference? Legibility is a function of typeface design. It’s an informal measure of how easy it is to distinguish one letter from another in a particular typeface.

Readability, on the other hand, is dependent upon how the typeface is used. Readability is about typography. It is a gauge of how easily words, phrases and blocks of copy can be read.

Legibility: A Trait, Not Always a Goal First, not all typefaces are–or should be–created with legibility as a primary design function.

Many faces are drawn for the purpose of creating a typographic statement, or for providing a particular spirit or feeling to graphic communication. Some typefaces are just designed to stand out from the crowd. To the degree that a typeface has personality, spirit, or distinction, however, it almost always suffers proportionally on the legibility scale.

Three Aspects of Legibility

So what makes a typeface legible?

A long-standing typographic maxim

is that the most legible typefaces are “transparent” to the reader–that is, they don’t call undue attention to themselves. Additionally, the most legible typefaces contain big features and have restrained design characteristics. While this may seem like a typographic oxymoron, it’s not. “Big features” refers to things such as large, open counters, ample lowercase x-heights, and character shapes that are obvious and easy to recognize. The most legible

and ITC Weidemann, tend to come

Ideal serifs are somewhat short and

by this trait most naturally.

slightly bracketed. They are also

Individual letter shapes can

not conspicuous. Typefaces such

example: the two-story ‘a’ such as

as Monotype Sabon and ITC Stone

the one found in Stellar or Exlibris is much more legible than the singlestory ‘a’ found in Futura or Erbar.

The lowercase ‘g’ based on Roman letter shapes is more legible then the simple ‘g’ found in Helvetica or

typefaces are also restrained. They are not excessively light or bold, weight changes within character

Glypha. In Old Style typefaces such

strokes are subtle, and serifs, if the face has them, do not call attention to themselves.

Counters, the white space within letters such as ‘o,’ ‘e,’ ‘c,’ etc., help to define a character.

Typographers believe that large

characters have more personality

counters are an aid to character recognition. A byproduct of open counters is usually a large lowercase x-height. As long as the x-height is not excessively large, this can also improve legibility in a typeface.

Because over 95% of the letters we read are lowercase, larger letter proportions usually result in a more legible typeface.

While virtually any serif typeface can benefit from large open counters, “Clarendons” like Nimrod or Scherzo and contemporary interpretations of “Old Style” designs, such as Monotype Bembo

heavy enough to be obvious yet

also affect typeface legibility. For

as Monotype Plantin, Galena and ITC Berkeley Oldstyle, individual than those in traditional “legibility” faces with virtually no loss in character legibility.

While the argument continues to rage about whether sans serifs are easier to read than serif fonts in text copy, sans serif typefaces, because their letter shapes are simpler, have been proven to be slightly more legible than their serifed cousins.

Little Serifs and Light Weights Another potential drawback of serif typefaces is that the legibility of individual letters suffers when serifs have exaggerated shapes. Long serifs, those that are exceptionally heavy and those with unusual shapes all detract from legibility.

have great serifs.

Lighter typefaces are usually more legible than heavier weights

Explorations by Your Name

Legibility in typography

of type. They allow for full, open counters and unmodified character shapes. Studies have shown that the best character stroke thickness for text typefaces is about 18% of the x-height. Typefaces with weights similar to that of Albertina Regular, ITC Officina Sans Book and Cartier Book Roman fall into this general category.

Transparent Type The metaphor of “transparent type” was coined by Beatrice Warde, Monotype Imaging’s famous marketing manager of the 1930s and 40s. She once wrote in an article that good type is like “a crystal goblet” which allows content to be more important than the container. Warde contended that the best types do not get in the way of the communication process: these faces are virtually invisible and allow words to make the statement–not the type.

While this is sage advice, if this principle were followed

Bonus Info It was designed by Imapallari Type and uploaded on March 25, 2011. Cabin font was inspired by Edward Johnston’s and Eric Gill’s typfaces, with a touch of modernism. It has a humanist quality that has some modern proportions and geomentric sans to it.

Text from It’s About Legibility | An post by Allan Haley

final six factorials | 15

03

pairing typefaces This exercise, we worked with “long—form” text and selected pair typefaces to work with. We created a visual reference of font combinations suitable for body text and subheads when working with long—form text and conclude what could match well. For the first part, we just paired any typefaces with each other, without any research, and printed them out to see whether we liked the pairing. Then towards the second half, we selected a few combinations and started exploring different options like weight change, style change, color, all/small caps, tracking, graphic elements, etc. Then we highlighted four to five of our favorite combinations as the final. To select pair typefaces, it is a common practice in many graphic design projects, so the goal was to experience how paired typefaces interact. It also introduced how to achieve visual contrast and hierarchy through differentiation beyond changing of the typeface itself. This challenged us to enhance the two typefaces to make them readable and navigate well for the audience while creating a visual system.

I learned quite a bit with pairing typefaces. I never imagined there went so much with pairing them up. There are several defined rules yet in the end, I could break them if I wanted to. I didn’t necessarily “have” to follow the rules, yet there should be some sort of reasoning when pairing typefaces up. So in a sense, I can’t break the rules of typography just because I wanted to, there needs to be a clearly defined motive behind it. Though going more into the exercise, I didn’t realize that doing research to figure out the history of the typefaces and what it was used for can be very pleasing towards someone. I guess this kind of alluded back to the first exercise, when Leslie had mentioned about good type is often taken for granted by the audience.

I can understand the intent with that; to see an artwork have

many meanings and symbolism behind their work is the same as typeface itself. They both have history and symbolism when they were both created and it’s pretty fascinating to see why people made them and what they were trying to convey. Pairing typefaces might not only be just for aesthetics, but it can really bring the whole project together if the typeface itself can help enhance it. Whether it’s through its history or what the feeling the type itself conveys, can determine whether it makes the whole project cohesive to the people that focus on typography.

It was a fun project to do; to think about different ways to set them up and make them pleasing all with just only type was an interesting task.

Experiments of paired typefaces I did during the first part of the exercise.

18 | Typography I

explorations

Subhead baskerville semibold 14/13.5/ tracking 10 Body text FreightSans Pro light 9.5/13.5

Fluid Typography | An Essay by Ellen Lupton

Fluid Typography | An Essay by Ellen Lupton

with additional subheads inserted for the exercise

with additional subheads inserted for the exercise

Interactive Typography

Distinctive Type Usage Creates Personality and Identity for a Document

Digital media enable both users and producers, readers and writers, to regulate the flow of language. As with design for print, the goal of interactive typography is to create “architectural” structures that accommodate the organic stream of text. But in the digital realm, these structures-and the content they support-have the possibility of continuous transformation. In their essay about soft copy, Negroponte and Cooper predicted the evolution of digital interfaces that would allow typography to transform its size, shape, and color.

Muriel Cooper (1925-1994) went on to develop the idea of the threedimensional “information landscape,” a model that breaks through the window frames that dominate electronic interfaces.

Subhead Calluna Sans semi bold 13/13.5

Today, designers look back at the systematic, abstracting tendencies of modern letter design and both celebrate and

Body text Georgia regular 8.5/13

challenge that rationalizing impulse.

They have exchanged the anthracite deposits of the classical letter for lines of text that quiver and bleed like living things.

The distinctive use of type, which can endow a long or complex document with a sense of unified personality or behavior, also builds the identity of brands and institutions. Bruce Mau has described identity design as a “life problem,” arguing that the visual expression of a company or product should appear like a frame taken from a system in motion.

Body Text as a Mass Viewed from a distance, a field of text is a block of gray. But when one comes in close to read, the individual characters predominate over the field. Text is a body of separate objects that move together as a mass, like cars in a flow of traffic or Subhead Georgia bold italics 13/13.5

individuals in a crowd. Text is a fluid made from the hard, dry crystals of the alphabet.

Body text arial regular 9/13.5

Typeface designs in the Renaissance reflected the curving lines of handwriting, formed by ink flowing from the rigid nib of a pen.

The cast metal types used for printing converted these organic sources into fixed, reproducible artifacts.

As the printed book became the world’s dominant information

Challenging a Flat Surface The flat opacity of the printed page has been challenged by graphic designers who use image manipulation software to embed the word within the surface of the photographic image.

A pioneer of such effects in the digital realm was P. Scott Makela (1960-1999). In the early 1990s, he began using PhotoShop, a software tool that had just been introduced, as a creative medium. In his designs for print and multimedia, type and image merge in dizzying swells and eddies as letters bulge, buckle, and morph. The techniques he helped forge have become part of the fundamental language of graphic design. The linear forms of typography have become planar surfaces, skimming across and below the pixelated skin of the image.

Subhead helvetica neue condensed black 14/13.5 Body text baskerville regular 9.5/13.5

medium, the design of typefaces grew ever more abstract and formalized, distanced from the liquid hand.

Subhead minion pro bold cond 14/13.5/ tracking 10 Body text Futura Bk BT book 9/13

Subhead proxima nova bold 13/13.5 Body text calluna sans light 9.5/13.5

Fluid Typography | An Essay by Ellen Lupton

Fluid Typography | An Essay by Ellen Lupton

with additional subheads inserted for the exercise

with additional subheads inserted for the exercise

Explorations

by Ravnn to Thornton Fluids Conform the Shape of their Container

page 4

The alphabet is an ancient form that is deeply embedded in the mental hardware of readers. Graphic designers always ground their work, to some degree, in historic precedent, tapping the familiarity of existing symbols and styles even as they invent new idioms. While some designers pay their toll to history with reluctance, others dive eagerly into the reservoirs of pop culture. Tibor Kalman (1949-1999) led the graphic design world’s reclamation of visual detritus, borrowing from the commonplace vernacular of mail-order stationery and doit-yourself signage. Designers now frankly embrace the humor and directness of everyday artifacts. In the aesthetic realm as in the economic one, pollution is a natural resource—one that is expanding rather than shrinking away.

Thirty years ago, progressive designers often described their mission as “problem-solving.” They aimed to identify the functional requirements of a project and then discover the appropriate means to satisfy the brief. Today, it is more illuminating to speak of solvents than solutions. Design is often an attack on structure, or an attempt to create edifices that can withstand and engage the corrosive assault of content.

Static Typography No Longer Rules The clean, smooth surfaces of modernism proved an unsound fortress against popular culture, which is now invited inside to fuel the creation of new work. Image and text eat away at the vessels that would seal them shut. Forms that are hard and sharp now appear only temporarily so, ready to melt, like ice, in response to small environmental changes. All systems leak, and all waters are contaminated, not only with foreign matter but with bits of structure itself. A fluid, by definition, is a substance that conforms to the outline of its container. Today, containers reconfigure in response to the matter they hold.

Fluid Typography | An Essay by Ellen Lupton with additional subheads inserted for the exercise

Explorations by Ravnn Thornton Subhead Adobe Garamond Pro bold italics 14/13.5 Body text myriad pro regular 8.5/13.5

Interactive Typography Digital media enable both users and producers, readers and writers, to regulate the flow of language. As with design for print, the goal of interactive typography is to create “architectural” structures that accommodate the organic stream of text. But in the digital realm, continuous transformation. In their essay about soft copy, Negroponte and Cooper predicted the evolution of digital interfaces that would allow typography to transform its size, shape, and color. Muriel Cooper (1925-1994) went on to develop the idea of the three-dimensional “information landscape,” a model that breaks through the window frames that dominate electronic interfaces.

Body Text as a Mass

Body text Proxima Nova light 9.5/13.5

page 5 Subhead

Futura (TT) condensed extrabold 14/13.5

The essay “Fluid Mechanics: Typographic Design Now,” was written by by Ellen Lupton, and published in Donald Albrecht, Steven Holt, and Ellen Lupton, Design Culture Now: National Design Triennial. New York: Princeton Architectural Press and Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, 2000.

Body text minion pro 9.5/13.5

Ellen Lupton is a writer, curator, and graphic designer. She is director of the Graphic Design MFA program at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore, where she also serves as director of the Center for Design Thinking. As curator of contemporary design at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum since 1992, she has produced numerous exhibitions and books, including Mechanical Brides: Women and Machines from Home to Office (1993), Mixing Messages: Graphic Design and Contemporary Culture (1996), Letters from the Avant-Garde (1996), and Skin: Surface, Substance + Design (2002).

Thinking with Type Her book Thinking with Type (2004, 2nd Edition 2010) is used by students, designers, and educators worldwide. D.I.Y.: Design It Yourself (2006), co-authored with her graduate students at MICA, explains design processes to a general audience.

Lupton is a 2007 recipient of the AIGA Gold Medal, one of the highest honors given to a graphic designer or design educator in the U.S.

Subhead Bodoni 72 Oldstyle bold 14/13.5/tracking 20 Body text FreightSans Pro light 9/13.5

Ellen Lupton is frequent lecturer around the U.S. and the world, Lupton will speak about design to anyone who will listen.

Excerpted from ellenlupton.com

Fluid Typography | An Essay by Ellen Lupton page 12

these structures-and the content they support-have the possibility of

Subhead calluna bold 13/13.5

Explorations Ravnn Thornton About EllenbyLupton

Viewed from a distance, a field of text is a block of gray. But when one comes in close to read, the individual characters predominate over the field. Text is a body of separate objects that move together as a mass, like cars in a flow of traffic or individuals in a crowd. Text is a fluid made from the hard, dry crystals of the alphabet.

Typeface designs in the Renaissance reflected the curving lines of handwriting, formed by ink flowing from the rigid nib of a pen.

The cast metal types used for printing converted these organic sources into fixed, reproducible artifacts.

As the printed book became the world’s dominant information medium, the design of typefaces grew ever more abstract and formalized, distanced from the liquid hand.

with additional subheads inserted for the exercise

Explorations by Ravnn Thornton

page 13

Distinctive Type Usage Creates Personality and Identity for a Document

Subhead Avenir Next Condensed bold 13/13.5

Today, designers look back at the systematic, abstracting tendencies of modern letter design and both celebrate and challenge that rationalizing impulse.

Body text baskerville regular 9.5/13.5

They have exchanged the anthracite deposits of the classical letter for lines of text that quiver and bleed like living things.

The distinctive use of type, which can endow a long or complex document with a sense of unified personality or behavior, also builds the identity of brands and institutions. Bruce Mau has described identity design as a “life problem,” arguing that the visual expression of a company or product should appear like a frame taken from a system in motion.

Challenging a Flat Surface The flat opacity of the printed page has been challenged by graphic designers who use image manipulation software to embed the word within the surface of the photographic image. A pioneer of such effects in the digital realm was P. Scott Makela (1960-1999). In the early 1990s, he began using PhotoShop, a software tool that had just been introduced, as a creative medium. In his designs for print and multimedia, type and image merge in dizzying swells and eddies as letters bulge, buckle, and morph.

The techniques he helped forge have become part of the fundamental language of graphic design. The linear forms of typography have become planar surfaces, skimming across and below the pixelated skin of the image.

Subhead minion pro bold italics 13/13.5 Body text Futura Bk BT regular 9.5/13.5

explorations pairing typefaces | 19 Explorations by Ravnn Thornton

page 10

Explorations by Ravnn Thornton

page 11

Aa Aa Aa Aa These were the final four paired typefaces I chose. At the time I had grown a liking towards Baskerville and Mr. Eaves for some reason and kept pairing those two typefaces with different combinations. One of the most notable combinations that were almost in all of my experiments was the serif-sans serif combination. I wanted to differentiate the x—heights and what type of feeling that had when you put these two kinds of typefaces together and these were the results. I did notice that I ended up making the notable differentiation with the weight

20 | Typography I

Helvetica Neue Bold for header and Baskerville regular for body (left), Baskerville bold for header and Mr Eaves San OT for body (middle), Bodoni 72 oldstyle for header and Helvetica Neue for body (right), and Baskerville semibold italics for header and Mr Eaves San OT for body (bottom left)

of the fonts themselves: black, bold, medium, regular, light, thin, italics, etc. It was weird to see I had a pattern when choosing a paired typeface but looking back, I can see why I chose them; it was the easiest to convey the contrast. Whether it actually fit together nicely nor the meaning and context of the typefaces didn’t cross my mind at the time; I had only cared about the appearance and aesthetic of the types. To reflect back and see this exercise, I wondered to myself why I chose a weird combination for some of them.

final

final pairing typefaces | 21

04

visual system This exercise dealt with us understanding the consistency visual systems are able to provide, as well as enhanced navigation and good user experience. The visual system as a whole can create the desired tone and feeling of any work. We either chose a book from the Art library or researched online (Pinterest, AIGA Design Archives, Issuu, etc.) to find a good visual system. Next, we had to select one to analyze and collect good quality images of the spreads and create a visual inventory using a template provided for us. Then we had to describe the tone and feeling of the visual system itself. The goal for this project was to develop awareness and appreciation of what makes a good visual system. This also helped build up considerations for visual systems for future projects.

This was pretty fun and relaxing to do for some reason. Maybe it was because I didn’t really have to consider choosing a typeface for this project and that being the main focus of it. I found many different types of magazines, books, and journals that was interesting to read through during my search on Issuu. I ultimately picked the recipe book because I liked how simplistic the overall look was despite the fact that it needed to put down all these texts in. This exercise made me realize how important and crucial designers want consistency in their works. I realized that consistency wasn’t just with photos, texts, color, or white space, but it was also with the ambiguous and creative details like placement, composition, tonality, etc. I had thought about

consistency with just the visual aspect of it. Yet as I went on, I realized depending on the way a book wants to be read and conveyed can determine the consistency also. Maybe I read too much into the exercise, but it made me realize how consistency can play a huge role in the design itself. This also made me look back at my process journal from 205 and cringe at it. Yet it made me glad that I’m improving gradually as the semester goes by.

I chose three different types of compositional shots that were consistent throughout to showcase in the final product: close up (top), the section dividers (middle), and the left overhead shot (bottom).

24 | Typography I

work-in-progress

work-in-progress visual system | 25

Aa

Avenir Next (left) for the headers, and Helvetica Neue (right) for the bullet points/ body text

Dietitians do Prevention Recipe Collection: Ottography

System elements

» Grid › 2 columns: ingredient and method » Good use of white space » Clear visual hierarchy

26 | Typography I

› Sans serif only › All caps on header and sub headers » Color Palette (white, turquoise) » Photos

› Overhead shot › Close up shots › Crisp photos

ts s

final

Publication source: https://issuu.com/ottography/docs/adsa_recipe_book_v3_ single_pages_lr_a749f820f8f744

Feel/tonality » » » »

Informative Welcoming Accessible Simple

final visual system | 27

05

grid analysis This exercise we had to understand the importance of observing someone else’s grid. To analyze someone else’s grid is a valuable method to understand the “rules” when creating and using one. We had to find a book from the Art library and scan several pages to see how they handled their layouts and whether it was consistent all throughout the book. We also needed to determine the columns used, the margins, the typefaces, and whether there were any outliers. The goal of this project was to gain the ability to discern a grid in an existing design and understand the flexibility some people used when using a grid. This project would set us up for future projects and help determine how to use our own grids and layouts.

By the end of this project, my brain felt fried even though I learned a lot. First, the app scannable had its pros and cons.

Although it made taking photos of the pages easier and more crisp and clear, because of the book bound, some of the pages were curved. So when I took a photo, it ended up not being flat. This became a struggle later with the actual exercise itself when doing the grids and finding out whether it was the right grid because the photos were off. With the human error I made, I felt like I was battling a lot with this exercise and it made it a lot harder than it needed to be. And then because of the human error, the photos and texts would look off some having confidence in my “designer’s eye” wasn’t going so well when I

was working with semi-bad reference photos. What troubled me the most was figuring out the type that was used because although I had found similarities, there was always something slightly different with one letterform so it couldn’t be the right one. Then again, I was working with semi—bad photos because of my error so it may have been right. I think finding the type took longer than anything else I did, so next time I do something like this, I need to make sure I narrow down my process with this and take better reference photos because that had tripped me up the most for this process. Everything else went alright, but overall, it was a little bit challenging.

Photos I took from the app Scannable. They weren’t excellent because of the curves from the book bindings itself, but it was good enough to get a grasp of what the grid and typography could’ve been.

30 | Typography I

work-in-progress

work-in-progress grid analysis | 31

Aaa

Cabrito regular (left) for headers, Europa regular (middle) for body text, Avenir light (right) for thte captions These may not be the exact type of fonts, but it’s one that looks similar to it.

We had to make a colored-column that was easily visible to our eyes to show what I thought how many columns the book had.

Then with the yellow boxes, I had to guess what typefaces were used and estimate the size and leading of said typefaces. The more detailed I got into it, the more accurate it seemed to me.

At the final process of this exercise, I felt more confident in the grid than the type itself. Hopefully, in the future, I can figure out what type it is since by then I would have better knowledge

about type and typography itself, but at that moment, I got overwhelmed with the exercise. I knew some of these aspects of graphic design takes years to master, and not a semester, so I shouldn’t feel too beaten up about it. But at the same time, I want to be dependable and hirable, so I try my hardest to understand each of these exercises and projects that are assigned to me.

This book is “The Language of Graphic Design; An Illustrated Handbook” by Richard Poulin from the Art Library at the University of Louisville. This is the front cover of the book.

32 | Typography I

final Title Header: similar to Cabrito, 68/82, indent on the second line, bold on “language” and “graphic design”, thin on “the” and “of”, flush right, turn 90 degrees clockwise

An Illustrated Handbook

Title Subhead: similar to Cabrito, regular, around 33/43, tracking 40, started at gutter

final grid analysis | 33

Photo: left of a margin or column; varies in size depending on photo

JOHN CLARK, Student RICHARD POULIN, Instructor

This visual identity system for an exhibition titled

Captions: bold, kind of similar to Europa SENSE TEAM Shenzhen, China

Thin captions: similar to Avenir Next, thin condensed, All caps for name, italicized for location, 7/9, tracking 10

Page setup: 10x8in Columns: 7, 0.125 inch gutter (scanning pages wasn’t totally flat so parts of pages are curved)

Section Header: Kind of similar to Europa, bold, 9/12, same size as body text

Monochromatic Colors Colors created with varying values of a single color

Typographic Color

Subheads: Kind of similar to Europa, sans serif, italicized 9/12 Body Texts: similar to Europa regular, sans serif, 8.5/12, Page number: last column, sans serif, includes both page number on right side

These were the contents inside of the book along with the grid analysis (above).

Tested two different pages to see if the grid matches up (bottom right).

34 | Typography I

This exercise requires sophmore graphic

final grid analysis | 35

06

visual hierarchy We worked with long—form text that required a visual hierarchy to help the audience differentiate between different types of typefaces, as well as help them navigate the copy of the text. This project helped explore those nuances within a limited range: the relationship of three primary text elements (body, header, and number). We had to format a four—page brochure and use three levels of visual hierarchy for the text we got, courtesy from Decker Design. We also had to determine the visual system, grid, and color, while adding a colophon. The goal was to use what we learned from previous exercises we did—six factorial, typeface pairing, visual system, grid analysis—and put it all into one project. From this, we additionally learned some important tips about being a young designer from reading the body text itself and how to use paragraph styles for speed and consistency.

I learned about so many things from Indesign today, that my brain felt like combusting. In—Line graphics were the most confusing thing to learn, yet I wanted to familiarize myself with it. My mind was blown when I saw the quick apply shortcut; that shortcut would make things go a lot faster in finding commands and options that I need on the fly. I also learned about constructive criticisms, and I do agree that writing it down anonymously is easier. Sometimes, it’s hard to be vocal about

the criticism and I experienced that sometimes when I would critique people.

Sketches I had done for the brochure, along with some notes on how to place the brochure for print. I tried to pay attention to what I wanted my typefaces to feel for this brochure, so there are some writings of that in there too.

I was intimidated by how typography was going to perform for this project, so I wanted to try my best, even if it’s not my strongest suit.

38 | Typography I

sketches

sketches visual hierarchy | 39

I had no idea what I wanted to do for this project with the numbers. I kept the colors blue and green because it was a nice color for graphic design, and I liked those colors. Yet I felt like those were go—to colors for any graphic design. I had also done quite a few projects with blue and green already, so I wanted to use different colors that I haven’t done yet. I liked the idea of having the numbers show up behind the body text rather than above it since it gives the body text and subheads a place to

shine itself. That was when I had found the idea of the light bulb.

I had thought about the evening sky because of the word after, and I thought about the light bulb’s glow during the evening. It was weird how that lead to this idea, but I thought I would give it a shot. I realized later on that it kind of fit since light bulbs could also represent ideas or thoughts.

Work in progress of the inside and cover of the brochure. I also made the light bulbs from Illustrator.

40 | Typography I

middle

work-in-progress

After School Special: Advice for Emerging Designers Building a career is not something that happens overnight. It requires patience and tenacity, and it involves more than raw talent. A career demands an overarching curiosity about the world and how things work, topped off with well-honed people skills. To rise to the top in your profession, you have to have the guts to be selfaware, to know your own strengths while trying to improve upon your weaknesses. And, come to think of it, raw talent doesn’t hurt.

The great thing about a career in design is that you can define success in a number of ways.

You can strive to be a renowned creative director at a big firm, to create a small boutique studio, or to savor both your profession and parenthood by working out of your home while raising children.

This industry isn’t just about savvy insight and fresh aesthetic perspectives; it’s also largely built from flexibility and potential.

In the beginning of a career, the transition from school to work is difficult, to put it mildly. The first thing you learn is that there is more to learn. A lot more.

1

Respect the Difference Between Theory and Practice

Don’t get me wrong, school is great, and by all means revel in your trek through academia, because nothing will ever be the same. Appreciate the time you have been given to learn about yourself, and get an education that you can apply to your whole life, not only your job.

In school, your instructors push you to express yourself, they insist on your developing the essence of your design perspective. They want you to be able to articulate why you believe in your work. Every day you try to find a unique way to express your ideas, so, in that way, school is creative nirvana. A teacher’s objective is to develop students’ skills and to nurture creativity before you set out on your own upon graduation.

Once you’re out in the real world, however, it’s a whole new game; in a professional environment everything changes, and there’s no room for being an isolationist, or demonstrating that you alone are terminally unique.

You are now expected to understand your clients and their objectives. In order to do so, you may work in a team, and the emphasis is on how you—collectively, not singularly—are going to meet the aims of the client and the client’s business. Suddenly you are one of many, and no one might even care what you think.

Design firms are businesses. They are not created to teach and nurture, although both sometimes happen along the way if you find a great mentor. A design firm’s objective is to be a successful company. You walk into a firm and acquire the processes, culture and the various stylistic methods of the firm. You are a part of a group, and you begin to realize that you thought you knew a lot six months ago, but now you only know a fraction of what everyone else seems to know. The learning curve changes.

2

Develop Really Great Habits

A great deal of success is about fostering good habits early. This is the time to start; it’s harder to break a habit than it is to practice a new one. Also, as you get older, your daily obligations are greater, and you will have less time and energy to make new actions routine. Get those mental muscles toned now and it will become easy to maintain them.

3. Be Positive

Having a can-do attitude makes people want to work with you. There’s an old adage that says, “People work with people they like to work with.”

Believe me, it’s true. Who wants to be around someone who is negative or complains about everything?

4 Learn to Write

Writing is hard. Really hard.

Personally, I struggle with constructing and perfecting sentence after sentence, even though I can write a nice headline.

Among my daily duties, I have to write proposals, letters and all sorts of text related to press and correspondence. I don’t feel particularly good at it, I simply slog through. In retrospect, I wish I had focused on honing the technical elements of my writing earlier because I think it would make things easier now.

The ability to write gives you power. A designer who can structure content can communicate visual ideas more effectively. Clients tend to be word oriented, and when designers can communicate on their level, they gain trust. That trust is what leads to getting more work approved.

5. Work Harder Than

Anyone Else

I hate to say this, but if you really want to be successful, you have to rethink the concept of the so-called work/life balance.

The most successful creative people I know do not segregate their “work” and their “play”— it’s all the same. They love what they do, and do it all the time. If you look at design as a job that you do between 9 and 5 every day, you will earn a paycheck... and that’s all.

Talent will take you far, but determination will take you further. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve heard moan about how they could have started a business, gotten the great assignment, scored a better position or whatever.

The truth is, most people aren’t willing to put the time and effort into accomplishing their goals.

It’s easier to just live their dreams inside of their heads instead of putting in the sweat equity.

I look at successful people and I see the same patterns.

I know a photographer who, when starting his career, worked

literally around the clock, and even spent his own money to make shots memorable. He never looked at an assignment as a job, but as an opportunity to do something outstanding. He is still pushing himself today and branching out into new areas.

His renowned career is nothing if not enviable.

When I started my business, I had no clients and very little money. The first year I worked until midnight most nights, almost seven days a week. Not only did I work past the point of endurance on my design, I learned how to do basic billing.

I wired my own network. I wrote copy. I steeled myself and made cold calls. All of the long nights paid off, I built a client base, and now, years later, I have a thriving practice. You can achieve great things, if you’re willing to put in the effort.

I

gnore the Naysayers

If you craft a good game plan, stay focused and work incredibly hard, you can accomplish just about anything.

As a friend of mine says, “It’s all about the follow through.” Remember that the most important person to believe in your work is you—then you’ll prove any who doubt you wrong.

7.

6.

Try to Make Every Assignment Better Than the Last When you finish a project, look at it, hard. Scrutinize. Nitpick. Be critical. Do more. Do better. Don’t become complacent.

Ever.

Complacency is death.

Get Involved

8

This is a great way to continue your education at the beginning of your career. Reach out.

Cultivate relationships with your peers and contacts in the field.

Learn from what you see and what you’re told. As you mature, you will have the opportunity to

give back to the profession. If you’re lucky enough and work hard enough to make it to the highest levels, you may even be given the ability to affect policy.

There is strength in numbers.

Every accomplished professional that you encounter has an immeasurably large volume of knowledge that you can learn from, free of tuition.

9. Be Kind

Non-designers often feel that designers are arrogant, that they don’t listen, and that they are intent on loudly bullying them on issues of taste and intellect.

A wise man once told me to observe people that I thought were really smart. He then said, “The ones who don’t feel a need to put anyone down are the ones who are most secure in their own ability. They don’t feel they have to prove anything.” It’s true.

Your clients, your colleagues and your vendors will all have their separate points of view. And, hey, that’s great, because you are so hardworking, smart and talented, you will use all of your finesse to convert them to your way of thinking. In the end, if they still disagree, you might realize a) the other guy might actually have a point or b) that you can find a happy middle ground.

11. Don’t Lie

Tell the truth if you make a mistake.

Don’t lie to clients, vendors or bosses, and, most importantly, don’t lie to yourself. Taking credit for someone else’s work—that’s called stealing. And misrepresenting your qualifications is called cheating. The funny thing about dishonesty is that people always find out, and you will lose something invaluable: trust.

If you mess up, ’fess up.

From https://www.aiga.org/general/ after-school-special/; created by Decker Design.

10. Have Passion

Have passion.

It seems like the inscription on a greeting card, but it’s true, everything is meaningless unless you love what you do, both in the sanctuary of school and out in the real world. Life is too short to spend years acquiring skills for a career you aren’t completely passionate about. So if you woke up this morning and didn’t feel excited about what you are striving towards, then change something. Change your attitude, change your environment, change your profession, or change your direction. You deserve to wake up every day with enthusiasm.

That’s it. Oh, wait. One more thing...

After School Special

work-in-progress visual hierarchy | 41

AAa

Helvetica Neue bold (left) for title and headers, Mrs Eaves Roman All Caps for the subheads (middle), Josefin Sans light (right) for body text and bold for numbers

I did not realize this project would take so long to finish. I did sketches for the cover page and experimented on the body and subheads, yet experimenting on a lot of stuff caused me to work on it longer than I should have. It felt like if I didn’t wrap it up soon, I could’ve ended up spiraling down further down with working on the project. I took breaks in between but even after the breaks, I end up adding more stuff alongside it. I wonder if it’s cause I learned so much and I wanted to apply all of what I learned into the exercise that caused this to happen. Usually,

42 | Typography I

when I get too many ideas and want to use them, I try to apply all of them in the upcoming projects. At that point, before I turned it in, I wrote a list of what I needed to do and gave myself a reasonable time frame for each point so I could just finish it off. I tend to forget that some of these projects are just small exercises and not the long ones, so spending an excessive amount of time on it would destroy me. I learned before too much time could suck the hours out of me. I did learn a lot from this exercise, which I’m glad I did.

final Respect the Difference Between Theory and Practice

01

Don’t get me wrong, school is great, and by all means revel in your trek through academia, because nothing will ever be the same. Appreciate the time you have been given to learn about yourself, and get an education that you can apply to your whole life, not only your job.

In school, your instructors push you to express yourself, they insist on your developing the essence of your design perspective. They want you to be able to articulate why you believe in your work. Every day you try to find a unique way to express your ideas, so, in that way, school is creative nirvana. A teacher’s objective is to develop students’ skills and to nurture creativity before you set out on your own upon graduation.

Once you’re out in the real world, however, it’s a whole new game; in a professional environment everything changes, and there’s no room for being an isolationist, or demonstrating that you alone are terminally unique. You are now expected to understand your clients and their objectives. In order to do so, you may work in a team, and the emphasis is on how you—collectively, not singularly—are going to meet the aims of the client and the client’s business. Suddenly you are one of many, and no one might even care what you think.

Design firms are businesses. They are not created to teach and nurture, although both sometimes happen along the way if you find a great mentor. A design firm’s objective is to be a successful company.

You walk into a firm and acquire the processes, culture and the various stylistic methods of the firm.

You are a part of a group, and you

Advice for Emerging Designers

begin to realize that you thought you knew a lot six months ago, but now you only know a fraction of what everyone else seems to know.

The learning curve changes.

Develop Really Great Habits

02

A great deal of success is about fostering good habits early. This is the time to start; it’s harder to break a habit than it is to practice a new one. Also, as you get older, your daily obligations are greater, and you will have less time and energy to make new actions routine. Get those mental muscles toned now and it will become easy to maintain them.

Be Positive

03

Having a can-do attitude makes people want to work with you.

There’s an old adage that says, “People work with people they like to work with.” Believe me, it’s true.

Who wants to be around someone who is negative or complains about everything?

Learn to Write

04

Writing is hard. Really hard. Personally, I struggle with constructing and perfecting sentence after sentence, even though I can write a nice headline. Among my daily duties, I have to write proposals, letters and all sorts of text related to press and correspondence. I don’t feel particularly good at it, I simply slog through. In retrospect, I wish I had focused on honing the technical elements of my writing earlier because I think it would make things easier now.

The ability to write gives you power. A designer who can structure content can communicate visual ideas more effectively. Clients tend to be word oriented, and when designers can communicate on their level, they gain trust. That trust is

what leads to getting more work approved.

Work Harder Than Anyone Else

05

I hate to say this, but if you really want to be successful, you have to rethink the concept of the socalled work/life balance. The most successful creative people I know do not segregate their “work” and their “play”—it’s all the same. They love what they do, and do it all the time. If you look at design as a job that you do between 9 and 5 every day, you will earn a paycheck...and that’s all.

Talent will take you far, but determination will take you further. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve heard moan about how they could have started a business, gotten the great assignment, scored a better position or whatever. The truth is, most people aren’t willing to put the time and effort into accomplishing their goals. It’s easier to just live their dreams inside of their heads instead of putting in the sweat equity.

I look at successful people and I see the same patterns. I know a photographer who, when starting his career, worked literally around the clock, and even spent his own money to make shots memorable.

He never looked at an assignment as a job, but as an opportunity to do something outstanding. He is still pushing himself today and branching out into new areas. His renowned career is nothing if not enviable.

When I started my business, I had no clients and very little money. The first year I worked until midnight most nights, almost seven days a week. Not only did I work past the point of endurance on my design, I learned how to do basic billing. I wired my own network. I wrote copy. I steeled myself and made cold calls. All of the long

nights paid off, I built a client base, and now, years later, I have a thriving practice. You can achieve great things, if you’re willing to put in the effort.

06

Ignore the Naysayers

If you craft a good game plan, stay focused and work incredibly hard, you can accomplish just about anything. As a friend of mine says, “It’s all about the follow through.” Remember that the most important person to believe in your work is you—then you’ll prove any who doubt you wrong.

Try to Make Every Assignment Better Than the Last

07

When you finish a project, look at it, hard. Scrutinize. Nitpick. Be critical. Do more. Do better. Don’t become complacent.

Ever.

Complacency is death.

08

Get Involved

This is a great way to continue your education at the beginning of your career. Reach out. Cultivate relationships with your peers and contacts in the field. Learn from what you see and what you’re told.

As you mature, you will have the opportunity to give back to the profession. If you’re lucky enough and work hard enough to make it to the highest levels, you may even be given the ability to affect policy.

There is strength in numbers. Every accomplished professional that you encounter has an immeasurably large volume of knowledge that you can learn from, free of tuition.

Be Kind

09

Don’t Lie

Non-designers often feel that designers are arrogant, that they don’t listen, and that they are intent on loudly bullying them on issues of taste and intellect. A wise man once told me to observe people that I thought were really smart. He then said, “The ones who don’t feel a need to put anyone down are the ones who are most secure in their own ability. They don’t feel they have to prove anything.” It’s true.

Your clients, your colleagues and your vendors will all have their separate points of view. And, hey, that’s great, because you are so hardworking, smart and talented, you will use all of your finesse to convert them to your way of thinking. In the end, if they still disagree, you might realize a) the other guy might actually have a point or b) that you can find a happy middle ground.

Have Passion

11

Tell the truth if you make a mistake. Don’t lie to clients, vendors or bosses, and, most importantly, don’t lie to yourself. Taking credit for someone else’s work—that’s called stealing. And misrepresenting your qualifications is called cheating. The funny thing about dishonesty is that people always find out, and you will lose something invaluable: trust.

If you mess up, ’fess up.

10

Have passion.

It seems like the inscription on a greeting card, but it’s true, everything is meaningless unless you love what you do, both in the sanctuary of school and out in the real world.

Life is too short to spend years acquiring skills for a career you aren’t completely passionate about.

So if you woke up this morning and didn’t feel excited about what you are striving towards, then change something. Change your attitude, change your environment, change your profession, or change your direction. You deserve to wake up every day with enthusiasm.

That’s it. Oh, wait. One more thing...

00

Building a career is not something that happens overnight. It requires patience and tenacity, and it involves more than raw talent.

A career demands an overarching curiosity about the world and how things work, topped off with well-honed people skills. To rise to the top in your profession, you have to have the guts to be selfaware, to know your own strengths while trying to improve upon your weaknesses. And, come to think of it, raw talent doesn’t hurt.

The great thing about a career in design is that you can define success in a number of ways. You can strive to be a renowned creative director at a big firm, to create a small boutique studio, or to savor both your profession and parenthood by working out of your home while raising children. This industry isn’t just about savvy insight and fresh aesthetic perspectives; it’s also largely built from flexibility and potential.

In the beginning of a career, the transition from school to work is difficult, to put it mildly. The first thing you learn is that there is more to learn. A lot more.

After School Special

Colophon

Header: Helvetica Neue Bold 40/70 Subhead: Mrs Eaves Roman all Caps 14/13 Body: Josefin Sans Light 10/14 optical Margins: 0.5 all around Column(s): 2 Source: Content by Decker Design from https://www.aiga.org/general/ after-school-special/ brochure created by Ravnn Thornton

final visual hierarchy | 43

AAa

Josefin Sans bold tint 40 black (left) for title and headers, Mrs Eaves Roman All Caps for the subheads (middle), Josefin Sans light (right) for body text and bold for numbers.

I decided to do a revised version of this project because I had the time to do it, and I felt like this needed the most work. I didn’t really think about revising these exercises or projects up until I heard we could turn it in again for a better grade. It was later in the semester that I thought about revising it, and it took me a while to even get started on the revisions because of other schoolwork. I felt like I was a bit too repetitive with the use of light bulbs, yet, it was a recurring graphic element that

symbolized ideas and tips, and I wanted to showcase that in the brochure. I just didn’t know if I covered all of the details that were asked to be covered but I was glad that I tried to revise one of my works.

A revised version of the brochure. I ended up using text as the bottom part of the light bulb so it would make the text and graphic elements work better together. I liked the idea that it worked somehow so I kept it.

44 | Typography I

revised

01

Respect the Difference Between Theory and Practice

Don’t get me wrong, school is great, and by all means revel in your trek through academia, because nothing will ever be the same. Appreciate the time you have been given to learn about yourself, and get an education that you can apply to your whole life, not only your job.

In school, your instructors push you to express yourself, they insist on your developing the essence of your design perspective. They want you to be able to articulate why you believe in your work. Every day you try to find a unique way to express your ideas, so, in that way, school is creative nirvana. A teacher’s objective is to develop students’ skills and to nurture creativity before you set out on your own upon graduation.

Once you’re out in the real world, however, it’s a whole new game; in a professional environment everything changes, and there’s no room for being an isolationist, or demonstrating

that you alone are terminally unique. You are now expected to understand your clients and their objectives. In order to do so, you may work in a team, and the emphasis is on how you— collectively, not singularly—are going to meet the aims of the client and the client’s business.

Suddenly you are one of many, and no one might even care what you think.

Design firms are businesses.

They are not created to teach and nurture, although both sometimes happen along the way if you find a great mentor. A design firm’s objective is to be a successful company. You walk into a firm and acquire the processes, culture and the various stylistic methods of the firm. You are a part of a group, and you begin to realize that you thought you knew a lot six months ago, but now you only know a fraction of what everyone else seems to know. The learning curve changes.

02

Develop Really Great Habits

A great deal of success is about fostering good habits early. This is the time to start; it’s harder to break a habit than it is to practice a new one. Also, as you get older, your daily obligations are greater, and you will have less time and energy to make new actions routine. Get those mental muscles toned now and it will become easy to maintain them.

Be Positive

03

Having a can-do attitude makes people want to work with you.

There’s an old adage that says, “People work with people they like to work with.” Believe me, it’s true.

Who wants to be around someone who is negative or complains about everything?

04

Learn to Write

Writing is hard. Really hard.

Personally, I struggle with constructing and perfecting sentence after sentence, even though I can write a nice headline.

Among my daily duties, I have to write proposals, letters and all sorts of text related to press and correspondence. I don’t feel particularly good at it, I simply slog through. In retrospect, I wish I had focused on honing the technical elements of my writing earlier because I think it would make things easier now.

The ability to write gives you power. A designer who can structure content can communicate visual ideas more effectively. Clients tend to be word oriented, and when designers can communicate on their level, they gain trust. That trust is what leads to getting more work approved.

05

Work Harder Than Anyone Else

I hate to say this, but if you really want to be successful, you have to rethink the concept of the so-called work/life balance. The most successful creative people I know do not segregate their “work” and their “play”—it’s all the same.

They love what they do, and do it all the time. If you look at design as a job that you do between 9 and 5 every day, you will earn a paycheck...and that’s all.

Talent will take you far, but determination will take you further.

I can’t tell you how many people I’ve heard moan about how they could have started a business, gotten the great assignment, scored a better position or whatever. The truth is, most people aren’t willing to put the time and effort into accomplishing their goals. It’s easier to just live their

dreams inside of their heads instead of putting in the sweat equity.

I look at successful people and I see the same patterns. I know a photographer who, when starting his career, worked literally around the clock, and even spent his own money to make shots memorable.

He never looked at an assignment as a job, but as an opportunity to do something outstanding. He is still pushing himself today and branching out into new areas. His renowned career is nothing if not enviable.

When I started my business, I had no clients and very little money. The first year I worked until midnight most nights, almost seven days a week. Not only did I work past the point of endurance on my design, I learned how to do basic billing. I wired my own network. I wrote copy. I steeled myself and made cold calls. All of the long nights paid off, I built a client base, and now, years later, I have a thriving practice. You can achieve great things, if you’re willing to put in the effort.

06

Ignore the Naysayers

If you craft a good game plan, stay focused and work incredibly hard, you can accomplish just about anything. As a friend of mine says, “It’s all about the follow through.” Remember that the most important person to believe in your work is you—then you’ll prove any who doubt you wrong.

07

Try to Make Every Assignment Better Than the Last

08

Get Involved

This is a great way to continue your education at the beginning of your career. Reach out. Cultivate relationships with your peers and contacts in the field. Learn from what you see and what you’re told.

As you mature, you will have the opportunity to give back to the profession. If you’re lucky enough and work hard enough to make it to the highest levels, you may even be given the ability to affect policy.

There is strength in numbers. Every accomplished professional that you encounter has an immeasurably large volume of knowledge that you can learn from, free of tuition.

Be Kind

09

Non-designers often feel that designers are arrogant, that they don’t listen, and that they are intent on loudly bullying them on issues of taste and intellect. A wise man once told me to observe people that I thought were really smart. He then said, “The ones who don’t feel a need to put anyone down are the ones who are most secure in their own ability. They don’t feel they have to prove anything.” It’s true.

Your clients, your colleagues and your vendors will all have their separate points of view. And, hey, that’s great, because you are so hardworking, smart and talented, you will use all of your finesse to convert them to your way of thinking. In the end, if they still disagree, you might realize a) the other guy might actually have a point or b) that you can find a happy middle ground.

Have Passion

10

Have passion.

It seems like the inscription on a greeting card, but it’s true, everything is meaningless unless you love what you do, both in the sanctuary of school and out in the real world. Life is too short to spend years acquiring skills for a career you aren’t completely passionate about. So if you woke up this morning and didn’t feel excited about what you are striving towards, then change something. Change your attitude, change your environment, change your profession, or change your direction. You deserve to wake up every day with enthusiasm.

That’s it. Oh, wait. One more thing...

Don’t Lie

11

Tell the truth if you make a mistake. Don’t lie to clients, vendors or bosses, and, most importantly, don’t lie to yourself.

Taking credit for someone else’s work—that’s called stealing. And misrepresenting your qualifications is called cheating. The funny thing about dishonesty is that people always find out, and you will lose something invaluable: trust.

If you mess up, ’fess up.

When you finish a project, look at it, hard. Scrutinize. Nitpick. Be critical. Do more. Do better. Don’t become complacent. Ever.

Complacency is death.

00 Advice for Emerging Designers

Building a career is not something that happens overnight. It requires patience and tenacity, and it involves more than raw talent.

A career demands an overarching curiosity about the world and how things work, topped off with well-honed people skills. To rise to the top in your profession, you have to have the guts to be self-aware, to know your own strengths while trying to improve upon your weaknesses. And, come to think of it, raw talent doesn’t hurt.

The great thing about a career in design is that you can define success in a number of ways. You can strive to be a renowned creative director at a big firm, to create a small boutique studio, or to savor both your profession and parenthood by working out of your home while raising children. This industry isn’t just about savvy insight and fresh aesthetic perspectives; it’s also largely built from flexibility and potential.

In the beginning of a career, the transition from school to work is difficult, to put it mildly.

The first thing you learn is that there is more to learn. A lot more.

After Colophon Header

Josefin Sans Bold Tint 40

Subhead

Mrs Eaves Roman All Caps 14/13

Body

Josefin Sans Light 10/14 optical

Margins

0.5 all around

Column(s)

School Special

2

Source

Content by Decker Design from https://www.aiga.org/general/afterschool-special/ brochure created by Ravnn Thornton

revised visual hierarchy | 45

07

design heroes This project was bigger than the other exercises and projects, as it took about a month. Design Heroes was an 8—page saddle—stitched publication featuring three of our design heroes, and our audience are primarily people who are interested in design, yet it should appeal to a broader audience than just designers. We were only limited to two typefaces, three if there’s a specific reason why we wanted the third, and we had to show a grid, visual system, and three designers: an AIGA medalist, a Debbie Millman’s Design Matters interviewee, and one of our favorite designers. Along with that, we needed to email one of these designers, and whether there was any result didn’t matter; as long as we sent an email to them. The goal was to put all the exercises and projects we learned beforehand and use it all for this one particular project: good body typography, visual system, grid system, a visual hierarchy, good craftsmanship, etc. We also got to learn more about our design heroes and practiced researching and finding good quality photos and editing them, if necessary. On the technical aspect, this project helped us practice using paragraph styles and object styles while working in InDesign.

The easiest thing about this project was the sketching. When I researched my Design Heroes and found their works, I learned a lot about them than I ever did, even for my personal design hero. I already sent my email out to my personal design hero, but I wanted to know more about her since there’s not much about her personal life. It was a scary thing to do, but I just did it since she seemed the nicest to email and I genuinely wanted to know more about her. I chose my heroes because they all have some sort of aspect with storytelling and relatability with them; it was nice to still see that with the Graphic Design

industry. Sometimes, I get cautious of what’s to come in the future, especially since I like to draw more than design, but seeing designers like them made me feel more at ease with what I could be doing once I graduate. It was a hard choice for my personal hero cause I liked a lot of illustrators, but I chose her as a final because of the vision they’re upholding, as well as what I envisioned too when I draw. I had hoped as this project went on, I could design this book fairly well, and then I can see what happened to my email.

Sketch layouts I did initially for the Design Heroes project.

I was really worried about this project because I had no idea how I wanted to structure this project, let alone, know what content I wanted to put in for it.

48 | typography I

sketches

sketches design heroes | 49

After the round robin review, I had still favored the circle design and the filled work on the left side, rather than the rectangular theme. Although the rectangular theme was consistent, the circle one was more interesting and unique to me. I just had to fix some details and see how everything would fit, but I wanted their works to be the main focus. I wanted to show off their works because that was what made me love the designers and had them featured in my Design Heroes project. Nevertheless,

I had gotten a lot of new ideas and inspiration after the comments I got from the critiques so I was glad we had the round robin review at that point. Though for the cover, I had no idea what I was going to do. I hoped by the time I could clean up the design for the inside page and focus on that first, I would have some sort of idea for the cover. Typography still stumped me, but I needed to find a couple that fit with the audience and the theme of this project, and then I should be fine.

Explorations I did for this project. I tried both the circle/lines theme and the rectangular theme. I explored different layouts because I was unsure of what route to go on at first.

50 | typography I

explorations

work-in-progress design heroes | 51

When I did the second layout for the three spreads to be hung up, it was stressful. I had two and a half hours to do it before the class started, yet the day seemed to be against me that day.

From the UofL email failing me, my internet on my laptop failing me, forgetting my adaptor at home, asking people if they had an adaptor, I ended up going back home and getting the adaptor.

I was not feeling well at the time, and I had to run; at the time, I felt like I wanted to skip the class since I thought this wasn’t worth the trouble. I was wrong. It was worth it because I had gotten a lot of feedback from the sticky notes and it ultimately helped me figure out my final design for my Design Heroes project. I ended up spending the whole class period critiquing people on their spreads, but it was a nice breather to have after the stressful point I had gone through. After that day, I brought my adaptor with me every day, regardless if I needed it or not.

On the cover page, I had done sketches for what I wanted the idea to be. I knew I wanted either a linear or geometric theme for the cover because I seem to have that theme with my visual system for showcasing the designers’ works. I read up online on what the cover page should entail and I read that one way is to incorporate some sort of system from the inside onto the cover.

Hence why I ended up having the 3 bars for the cover and back page. I wouldn’t say it was difficult to figure out my cover page, but I didn’t know if my cover page had that great of a presence.

These were the second layouts for the critiques (left).

Critique sticky notes, and notes from the second critique (top right).

Design Heroes cover sketches (bottom right).

Although I liked the idea of the linear rectangular images underneath the body text, I wanted to add more of their works in the book because that’s what got me to like these heroes. And the full page, lower opacity images has to go!

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work-in-progress

work-in-progress design heroes | 53

AA a

Intro condensed (left) as tthe headers inside, Simplifica (middle) for the cover page, and Lato (right) for the texts.

The cutting was a nightmare. I nailed the printing on the first try, yet it was the cutting that tripped me up and made me print it two more times. The first time I tried using the exacto knife, it turned out horribly. From the dull edges to the sharp edges, almost all of them seemed dull. I ended up using the big chopping tool in the back of the design room to cut this booklet. I practiced on the other two failed cuts I had done, and by the time I did the third one, I was able to cut it pretty well.

54 | Typography I

I actually used it from my dad’s workplace before, but it had been a while so I needed the practice. I actually finished it all on Sunday, because I didn’t want to rush it all when Tuesday came.

And I wanted to have some time to breathe after the weekend, especially since Mondays and Wednesdays were the long days.

final

final design heroes | 55

Karin Fong (above) was the AIGA medalist that I chose.

Gail Bichler (top right) was the Design Matters interviewee that I chose.

Jenny Yu (bottom right) was the personal favorite illustrator that I chose.

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final design hereoes | 57

58 | Typography I

final design heroes | 59

08

ré sumé Résumés are very important as they are the first impression of the future client/art director we hope to work for. A website full of good images of our best works is nothing if the résumé itself is lackluster. For this project, we had to read articles about résumés and determine what makes good and bad résumés and collectively share what we read from those articles onto the whiteboard. Then we had to create a résumé ourselves organizing the content by education, experience, skills, awards/honors, and activities.

The limit was to keep the résumé one page and use multiple levels of visual hierarchy for our texts. We also had to explore the structure of the résumé as a whole and see what worked well for the amount of content we had.

The goal of this project was to design a résumé to show off our design and typography skills, as well as learn how to use tables and tabs. This also gave us a start on how to create a good résumé for the future whenever we update it for future internships/jobs.

At the beginning of class, we just talked about what made a good résumé and what didn’t make a good résumé. We went over the articles we talked about, and then looked at some of the résumés that the upperclassmen had done. Although this gave me inspiration for the résumé project, I was stumped because I didn’t really have that much content to put in it. So, in the first class that was introduced with this project, I only ended up doing sketches of potential résumé layouts, and then figured

out the info for the résumé itself. I tend to start slow sometimes with the initial part of a project, doing a bunch of sketches or finding inspirations for each project. Yet once I get deeper into the project, I work at a nice pace.

Sketches on the potential logo or creative use of my initials, along with notes on how to package a file (top) Sketch layouts of résumés as well as small notes for the process journal (bottom)

62 | Typography I

sketches

sketches rĂŠsumĂŠ | 63

When we had the second class to work on our résumés, I didn’t think I would have to share my résumé with other people. Mine didn’t really look that good to me, so I was already discouraged by this. It looked really plain even if it looked very clean and simple. When we did the critiques, I ended up making a different version of the résumé and modified the one that I had currently.

Leslie tends to get to me somewhat last sometimes, so I used the time in between to modify and fix the résumé in InDesign.

I decided to add a peachy color to make the résumé have a better visual hierarchy with some of the texts. That and I love peaches: both the fruit and the color. I may end up adding a logo

or something on top of my name later if I have the time, but I just want to focus on the composition and type first before I try to do it. When Leslie had gotten to me, I pretty much had most of the project figured out, I just needed to make some minor adjustments and figure out which résumé I want to choose for my final. When she asked that she wanted a packaged file because she wants to see our styles, I was surprised because I thought everyone had used styles or even remember to use them since it made working in InDesign a lot easier. I guess the surprising part to me was that a few people still didn’t use them.

My first experimentation (right) was pretty bland to me.

There wasn’t that much color to the résumé, but it was just a layout so far.

We had a tiny group critique (top left) and a couple of my peers wrote down their thoughts on my résumé.

My progress that led towards the final product of this project (bottom left).

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work-in-progress

work-in-progress rĂŠsumĂŠ | 65

Aa

Century Gothic Pro (left) for header, Droid Serif (right) for the body text

I decided to go with the one column for the résumé simply because I didn’t have a lot of stuff to put in yet, and I wanted to wait until next year to do the two-column résumé I made.

By then, I should have more info to put in so I can use that format. The one column simply looked cleaner and direct so that was my final choice. I didn’t know where to put my interests for right now, but I didn’t really think about it until I already finished it and uploaded it on basecamp. Since it didn’t

really fit the format, I ended up just taking it out anyways and only had my involvements in the résumé. Overall, I was happy by the simplicity and cleanliness of my résumé. I noticed that quite a few of my peers tried to be clever in their own way, like making their initials as their logos, but I just decided to use visual hierarchy as the only thing noticeable in the résumé. I didn’t feel like creating one for this project right now.

Icons I did for the résumé. I made it the same color as the theme: peach. This didn’t take long to do, though it was a quick thought that I figured I would add with the résumé since I don’t have much on my résumé.

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final

final title | 67

01

expressive marks At first, we spent the first half of the class creating random marks using pencil and brushes using calligraphy ink. Then we had to choose one mark out of the many we created that had a “gestalt� feeling and edit the mark in Illustrator. The mark had to be accompanied by one word that was supposed to bring both the mark and the work into one piece and be cohesive as a whole. Whether the word meant anything to the mark itself wasn’t the priority, but rather the feeling of the mark and what it evoked out of the audience. The goal was to get more practice using the pen tool in Illustrator and understand how a symbol is distinguished from the audience while maintaining a sense of gestalt.

I enjoyed the process of this project. For the first hour, I had only done a bunch of free sketches for the project with calligraphy ink and orange color pencil. In my opinion, the marks were the easy part of the project. I had fun using calligraphy ink, and it gave a lot of potential ideas with the project assigned to us.

Yet, most of them didn’t fit the idea of gestalt, so I ended up narrowing the marks that were done from calligraphy ink. The technique part in illustrator for this project wasn’t the hardest

part, as my main problem was how to add the typography with the expressive mark together and make it cohesive.

Expressive marks I did at the beginning of class with calligraphy ink. Basically one of the many sketches we did during the one hour we had.

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sketches

sketches expressive marks | 71

GLi de

e

Suav e

Glid

e

id Gl

Suav e

Glide

e

id

Gl

Glide

Drift

Slip

I did a lot of explorations because I had no idea which one I wanted to choose.

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G L I D E

G L I D E

G L I D E

explorations

v

S U A V E

Glide

v

G L I D E

Suave

Glide

Glide

Genuine

explorations expressive marks | 73

A

Motiva Sans medium used for the word with the expressive mark

At the time, I wasn’t that well versed with typography, and I had so much to learn. I sensed that I just chose the wrong word and went the wrong direction as a whole. I didn’t hate the project; the process and figuring out how to make the mark impactful was an interesting experience considering it seemed like making a logo or a brand than anything else. I didn’t think I made the right choice for the typeface or where I placed the typeface at.

Yet I was pleased to have that experience because it got me to work more on Illustrator.

The final project with part of it being cropped out was intentional for the design.

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final

Glid

e

final expressive marks | 75

02

animal marks This project was about abstraction yet denotation. We had to choose an animal of our liking—except dolphins, whales, butterflies, zebras, penguins, or pandas—and make an abstract form of that animal, while giving it specific characteristics to make it recognizable to the audience.

We had to use a photograph as a resource and make a vector illustration of the drawing in Illustrator in black and white while making it as simple as possible. The goal was to see if we could make a recognizable object while removing detail on a subject. This project also gave us more practice on Illustrator and the use of the pen tool.

When I originally started this project, I had wanted to do a raccoon. I didn’t know why, but I thought the use of implied lines would work well for a raccoon. Yet by the time I showed my design to Skaggs, he couldn’t guess it was a raccoon at all, which I thought was surprising considering all the people I showed it to thought it was a raccoon. But when he had explained that he’d rather have a more organic and realistic pose rather than the animal looking like a logo or brand, I had to take a couple of

steps back. I didn’t really realize that’s what he was aiming for, so I went back to the drawing board.

Fox (top left), raccoon (top middle and right), hedgehog (middle left), mouse (middle middle), sheep (middle right), swan (bottom left), dog and cat (bottom middle), skunk (bottom right) While I was sketching this, my coach’s stepson was sitting next to me, trying to guess the animals I was sketching and trying to give me ideas on what animals to do. Thanks for the inputs, Eli.

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sketches

sketches animal marks | 79

Eventually, when I had made the designs for my skunk, I had wanted to a fox, not a skunk. Though, when I looked more into it, I could see potential in the animal mark becoming a skunk. I ended up refining it, yet I still felt insecure about the mark. Since we didn’t have a mid—critique like the first project, I was afraid that someone would guess wrong and it would be over for me, so I ended up doing different versions of the skunk. I asked my friends, family, and online friends what the animal looked

like whenever I got the chance to show them. When they had said a skunk, I was pretty confident, and then and towards the end, I chose the first design. Sometimes whenever I create the other designs, it may seem like a bit much, however, it ultimately helped me led to the decision that the original design was fine.

All of the designs I did at the beginning. I did different versions of the skunks, a couple of cats, and a couple of raccoons.

Whenever I didn’t feel confident in a piece, I ended up making multiple versions of them as a “backup” just in case the “one” doesn’t work out.

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work-in-progress

work-in-progress animal marks | 81

No texts, just the animal mark for this project.

When it came time to display the animal mark, I felt the weight being lifted from my shoulders when someone recognized the mark as a skunk. And not only that, but they had also liked the skunk. Skaggs had talked about the nice detail of using implied lines for the white stripe of the tail, and that was what I was going for. Someone also mentioned the nice rhythm flow from the tail to the head, which I thought was nice since I didn’t consider that part. Even if I couldn’t make the mark completely

smooth with the pen tool in Illustrator, it was a nice effort with what I did. It seemed like making flat designs and suggested details goes well for me so far since I got the idea from the Dorothy shoe design I did in my Art 205 design class.

Skaggs left some marks on the animal when he graded this project. Those were the places were the curves weren’t smooth and could use a bit more work with the pen tool in Illustrator.

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final

final animal marks | 83

03

black box This project dealt with us having to make a 4D to 2D visual instruction without any texts or numbers. We were given a scenario that we were to design instructions for aliens to humans and see if we can demonstrate communication clearly by just using visuals. There was a series of moves that must be performed chronologically (five sets) and must only be shown pictorially and diagrammatically. This gave us a real experience with dealing with an actual audience and having random people test our the instructions we created for this particular project. The goal was to challenge our ability to communicate complex information clearly involving four dimensions and compress it into two. This also tested our ability to carry a coherent system of instructions across five steps while also making a one—page instruction sheet.

The Black box. When I heard of this project, it seemed daunting.

Our grades relied on the third party so that was the scary factor of this project. Yet I can understand Skaggs’ intent behind it. Since our project was reflecting the real world, whatever the designer makes would impact the audience and everyday people. And our projects’ grades were based on how the third party reacts to our designs. I was at first intimidated with how little people were able to make the fourth and fifth direction

clear, but it’s a designer’s job to solve a problem, and this was the major problem I wanted to resolve. As I designed the black box for the instruction sheet, I wondered if my instructions were clear and direct. I ended up going from simple, to even simpler. I had to assume that my potential client that received this instruction was really dumb that they needed things that signaled that one was the first step and which part they were supposed to be on.

I had written down the instructions for the black box, and then I ended up doing some rough sketches besides the instructions to get a rough idea for this project (top).

Then I started doing some explorations in Illustrator (bottom).

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sketches

sketches black box | 87

When it came close for the project to be due, I had only one guinea pig throughout the whole project: my older brother.

When he first tried it, I had to tell him to be serious, because he thought I just brought him to do this just because; I had to tell him that this was basically my grade, and he was the main key to whether or not I failed or passed. Unfortunately, he had gotten the fourth instruction wrong, though he did get every other direction right. Instead of going immediately back to the drawing

board, I had asked him questions like “What was the most difficult direction to understand?” and “What would make it easier to understand?” as well as “what the easiest direction was to understand?”. This helped me make the final of this project.

Different variations I did for the black box instructions.

The instructions in the top left were the one I showed my brother to test try, and what I wrote in pen was the part he failed at and where I could use improvements at.

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work-in-progress

work-in-progress black box | 89

No text. Only visuals are provided in the instructions that we made.

Asking these questions helped me out a lot because by the time it was the final day, I had gotten a 5/5 on the instructions, with the exception of having to do a redo. Skaggs was most notably surprised by how in both tries, each participant of mine had done the fifth direction easily and quickly without any hesitation since that was the hardest direction to accomplish most of the time. I was genuinely surprised too because I didn’t think it was that clear to where they would do it so quick, but I was glad that

90 | Intro to Graphic Design

it was that readable. This project was honestly pretty nice and eye-opening to do. Since I’m a visual and tactical learner, this project helped challenge me into figuring out the routes to do for this project.

final

final black box | 91

04

social media This project was inspired by someone’s work from a creative sprint exercise that had a word association with “yeet�. When everyone in the class knew the meme besides Skaggs, the project was then assigned to us to go make memes, art, etc. and gain as many engagements and impressions as we could for three weeks. To know that it was for this particular project, we had to put a specific logo on each of the works we did. We worked in seven groups of three and collectively racked up the views, engagements, and impressions for this project, yet there were limitations. He asked for no controversial memes/artworks, no paid views/engagements, and they must be our own works. The goal was to branch out and figure out the trends and audience for a particular social media site. It was also to help us start posting works online as a way to get noticed by our potential art directors/clients from social media.

When this project was first introduced, I didn’t like the idea at all. Having the social media audience be based on our grades rubbed the wrong way with me. I understood Skaggs’ intent, yet when he first gave the project out, the grades went as low as a D. If we got last place would kill our grade, no matter if the works or ideas were good or not. A lot of people were against it too because it was based on popularity and not the actual skill itself. Nevertheless, the one upside to this was being able

to do personal projects for three weeks. This project made me have time to do some digital sketches and practice on my skills.

It became a relaxing three weeks in the middle of the semester and I needed it.

Rough sketches (left side) for the social media project. Then there are notes from a guest speaker we had while we had this project also (top left and right).

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sketches

sketches social media | 95

I chose to use my art account instead of making one from scratch since I was going to draw the content anyways. I ended up posting on three social media sites: Tumblr, Instagram, and Twitter. I did it so I could get the most engagement possible.

Tumblr was my main source of engagement, yet one post of my art on Twitter had made lots of impressions. Though it was because that artwork I made was trending at that moment on

Twitter. It was interesting to see what kind of impressions it made on people while the three weeks happened.

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work-in-progress

work-in-progress social media | 97

The logo we had to put on our artworks, memes, etc. to show credibility that it was for this project and that it was from someone in this class. We were able to lower the opacity or make it transparent, as long as we didn’t alter the logo itself.

Towards the end of the project, we had to do a presentation of what our group did to get the engagements and impressions, along with showing proof. My group had done artworks on their own in their own social media accounts to get the engagements.

And then we came together and created a PowerPoint around the day before the presentation was due. Our works were visual art based: digitally and traditionally. When we tallied up the total, it was over 20,000+ of impressions and engagements!

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For me, my projects alone made up a little over half of the total.

From the seven groups, we tied for third place and I was shocked that we made it far up there. I was happy we made it close to the top, yet I was sad that my free moment from that class was over.

I also crossed out my name in all the art accounts because I only wanted people following me that actually liked my content, and not follow me just because they know me. And this art account is just for fun.

final

final social media | 99

Final pieces of the works with the Hite371 logo in a transparent layer. I had done these pieces; it was a nice breather from the rapid projects and non-visual art based projects. It was able to keep my creative juices going for three weeks. These photos were all fanarts from the show, My Hero Academia. I enjoyed watching the third season, and I can’t wait for the fourth!

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final social media | 101

These were a couple of the Twitter posts of my artworks.

They didn’t gain a lot of engagements, but what they lack in engagements they made up in impressions. The Boosette post was the most popular at the time, so it garnered the most impressions since it was trending on a lot of people’s feeds on Twitter. The total engagements from Twitter were 6,784 with 168 from engagements and 6,616 from impressions.

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These were a few of the Tumblr posts of my artworks. This site garnered a lot of engagements. These three posts were around the theme of a popular anime show I was watching that was airing at the time. I love the series that I post fanart of the work often. The total engagements from Tumblr were 4,334 reblogs/likes.

final social media | 103

These were a couple of the Instagram posts of my artworks. They garnered around 50+ likes per post. I didn’t have the business account set up on this account so I didn’t know the impressions from this social media platform. The total likes I got from Instagram was 240.

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This was the beginning and end of the presentation my group presented for class. The total was the total of engagements and impressions we had gotten from all of the social media accounts, artworks, and person combined. The total was from all of our collected totals combined.

final social media | 105

05

concept albums CDs are a still a popular way of packaging music, and this project was tasked to creatively design the visuals to go with a particular musical artist.

The artists given to us were real, yet the albums’ names that were given to us were fake, and we had to make the name of the tracks ourselves. After we chose the artist, we had to design the front and back of the CD cover, as well as the CD itself, and the poster for the upcoming album. The goal was to reflect the appropriate attitude and tone of the music and musician as well as convey the image appropriately to the audience. This dealt with the concept of presence, expression, denotation, and connotation altogether.

In all honesty, I didn’t know what artist to choose for this project. I didn’t know if I wanted to do an art piece, or just use Photoshop for this project. With that being said, I kind of pushed back the project and only did sketches during the first day. At the time the project was assigned, I was still working on the Design Heroes, more specifically, around the time we needed to work on the cover page. So, I tried to split the work of research and sketching evenly. I had a concept I wanted to do for the

artist Yppah, I just needed more groundwork to do this project, so I ended up listening to his songs and looking at his other album covers and posters for inspiration. I wanted to make sure the CD cover I made had some sort of resemblance to the other CD covers that were made. I didn’t realize we didn’t have to make it similar to the artist’s cd covers that were already done, but I still tried to go for that idea anyway.

A non—commercial reuse photo I used for this project (top), and the rough sketches I did for multiple album covers (bottom). Also, a few Design Heroes Cover page sketches sprinkled at the bottom.

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sketches

sketches concept albums | 109

I decided to make this more Photoshop based. I altered an image I found from Google that was labeled for non—commercial reuse. When I brought it to Photoshop, I had wanted warm colors—specifically colors that were purple and pink—because I thought it would fit with the album cover “There Once”. When it got time to do the poster and actual CD, I thought it was difficult because I didn’t want to seem repetitive with the design I had for the front and back. I wanted to make sure at least the

composition was different. I had actually gone a different route and did Beaks’ album with the subject “Slight” and tried to see if that would lead to anywhere. Sometimes, when I doubt myself, I tend to make another idea of the project so I have multiple of options if one of them fails. The album “Slight” was one of those instances, even though Skaggs had liked the idea I was going for both of them. So it was just up to me at that point to see which one I favored.

The different front cover albums I did for “There Once” and for “Slight”. Since this was during the time of Design Heroes, at the time, I was font crazy with correct all—caps and Simplifica and Intro Cond were the two all—caps fonts I went for this project and the Design Heroes project.

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yppah

THERE ONCE

work-in-progress

YPPAH

yppah THERE ONCE

yppah

SLi GHT

THERE ONCE

SLi GHT work-in-progress concept albums | 111

AAA

Intro Cond Black free (left) for Yppah on Poster, Intro Cond Light free (middle) for headers for albums/CD/poster, and Jaapokki regular for body text on back album cover

In the end, I chose Yppah’s album, “There Once”. I felt like I had a better grasp of concept for this album than the other. The times of each song seemed absurd, but it was because Skaggs wanted to have the times of the songs be around 60-70 minutes total and each album had different amount tracks limit. Yppah’s only had five tracks so I had to make each of them at least above ten minutes. I didn’t understand why we had to name the tracks or give it the time. I didn’t think that was the designer’s job to do

so and that just confused me. Maybe it was so we had enjoyment out of making the names but that was just one more work I had to do that I didn’t want to do. I’m not good with naming stuff, and so I don’t have that confidence when I give my projects titles.

The final concepts of this project that I did. The album covers and CD concept is at the top, while the poster concept is at the bottom.

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final THERE ONCE

YPPAH

YPPAH

FRESHLY PAINTED WALLS 13:56 OBSOLETE SKIES 14:09 GHOST RIDING 12:44 BABY TEETH 13:37 OVERRUN 14:24

YPPAH there once

THERE

ONCE THERE ONCE

YPPAH

YPPAH

YPPAH

there once

FRESHLY PAINTED WALLS 13:56

Y P PA H

OBSOLETE SKIES 14:09 GHOST RIDING 12:44 BABY TEETH 13:37 OVERRUN 14:24

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06

opposites website This project was to create a concept of a website pointing out opposites within various artistic fields. From the central “splash screen”, we had to make sure the audience is able to select a category and be linked to stories that contrast two figures. We had over ten categories to work with: Painting & Sculpture, Graphic Design, Photography, Prose, Poetry, Popular Music, Classical Music, Architecture, Dance, and Theater. This simulated the idea of pitching a concept for a website by choosing the splash screen then choosing two subcategories to further show in depth of what the website would look like. The audience was directed towards well— educated people of all ages, races, etc. that are interested in the arts. The goal of this was to showcase our sense of visual system we created, as well as our understanding of ease of navigation for a website. It was also to showcase our skills of making the website look aesthetically pleasing.

I felt like I could never get surprised by the due dates for these projects. I only had ten days to work on this project. However, I can understand why we get short amounts of time to work on them. It pushes our minds to think and process quick, get started on them as soon as we get it. There’s no time for procrastination. That also means there’s no need to spend so much time on this project. On the first day, I ended up doing some research on good website layouts, I took notes and did

multiple sketches on what I wanted the home page to be. I didn’t try them all in InDesign, but given the circumstances that I only had a short amount of time to do this, I just did rough layouts and chose what may look best.

Sketches I did for the website project. Parts of it was research on how to make a good website design, the layout of the website itself, and the supposed logo for the website.

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sketches

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On the second work day, I wasn’t positive on my website, so I did more sketches on tiny things like potential logos, titles, pages, and website navigations. I wanted the theme of the diagonal line to come across not only in each page but also in the pictures and transitions themselves to enforce the opposition of two people within each subcategory. I tried to make sure most of the photos correlated and fit right for each subject I did. Consistency was a major thing I wanted to make sure

was prevalent in the website. I wanted make the website more cohesive, and I was getting there.

The splash page at the beginning was going to be slanted. Once you hover over it, it gets a black tint with it (bottom). The information pages would span all the way to the edge of the page itself (top and middle). Though once I realized I forgot about the menu, top, and search bar, I had change this up a little so it would look more like a website.

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work-in-progress

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Aa

Arimo (left) for the headers and subheads, Lora (right) for the body text

I felt happy that the project was over because it seemed a lot different from what I would expect I would do. Usually, I tend to overcomplicate stuff yet this was manageable enough. If I had more time, I thought about adding captions where the black tint was at when someone hovers over the photos. This could allow the audience to see what each photo was from, and give more insight into the people. My main issue was the typography,

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but I seem to always need work on typography. Yet, given the circumstances, I thought I did pretty alright.

final

OPPOSITION Within Art Forms

Dance

Architecture

Classical Music

Prose

Theater

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Aa Popular Music

Dance

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Fugitia velendeseque ratur?

Fuga. Ed milibusam, qui saperci liquis volut qui natio maionse a delicit atempe ratur sinis es de istempe ratiati nvenit volorempos aciet quas aut acit assit ide etum sitat andenis in et essum

Graphic Design

Photography

Poetry

Painting & Sculpture

Architecture

Classical Music

Prose

Theater

Les Twins Professionally known as Les Twins, identical twin brothers Laurent Nicolas and Larry Nicolas Bourgeois (born December 6, 1988) are French dancers, choreographers, producers, and models and designers and creative directors of their brand “Eleven Paris”. Additionally, Larry Nicolas sings and Laurent Nicolas raps, and together they have released two songs. Often referred to by their respective nicknames, “Lil Beast” and “Ca Blaze”, they are recognized internationally for their talents in new style hip-hop dancing, and various dancing styles.[1] Born and raised in Sarcelles, France, the self-taught dance duo became the darlings of the French audience in 2008 as finalists on the popular television show Incroyable Talent.[2] They quickly rose to prominence in the United States after a video of their performance on the San Diego leg of the 2010 World of Dance tour went viral on YouTube, with over 37 million views as of 5 July 2017.[3] In 2011, they won the hip-hop new style division of the prestigious international street dance competition Juste Debout. In 2017, they won the American reality competition series World of Dance, executive produced by Jennifer Lopez.[4] The series featured solo acts and larger groups, competing for a grand prize of US $1 million.

Misty Copeland In 2008, Misty was honored with the Leonore Annenberg Fellowship in the Arts, a two-year fellowship awarded to young artists who exhibit extraordinary talent providing them additional resources in order to attain their full potential. Performing a variety of classical and contemporary roles, one of Misty’s most important roles was performing the title role in Firebird, created on her in 2012 with new choreography by much sought after choreographer Alexei Ratmansky. In December 2014, Misty performed the lead role of “Clara” in American Ballet Theatre’s production of The Nutcracker, also choreographed by Alexei Ratmansky. In the fall of 2014, she made history as the first black woman to perform the lead role of “Odette/Odile” in American Ballet Theatre’s Swan Lake during the company’s inaugural tour to Australia. Misty reprised the role during ABT’s Metropolitan Opera House spring season in June 2015, as well as debuted as “Juliet” in Romeo & Juliet.

Misty has been featured in numerous publications and television programs, including CBS Sunday Morning, 60 Minutes, The Today Show, This Week with George Stephanopoulos, MSNBC’s Melissa Harris Perry, Vogue, Essence, Ebony, and People Magazine. She was honored with an induction into the Boys & Girls Club National Hall of Fame in May 2012 and received the “Breakthrough Award” from the Council of Urban Professionals in April 2012. She was named National Youth of the Year Ambassador for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America in June 2013. She received the Young, Gifted & Black honor at the 2013 Black Girls Rock! Awards.

Misty has been featured in numerous publications and television programs, including CBS Sunday Morning, 60 Minutes, The Today Show, This Week with George Stephanopoulos, MSNBC’s Melissa Harris Perry, Vogue, Essence, Ebony, and People Magazine. She was honored with an induction into the Boys & Girls Club National Hall of Fame in May 2012 and received the “Breakthrough Award” from the Council of Urban Professionals in April 2012. She was named National Youth of the Year Ambassador for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America in June 2013. She received the Young, Gifted & Black honor at the 2013 Black Girls Rock! Awards.

GO BACK

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GO BACK

BTS has been praised for “speak[ing] honestly about topics they deem important, even in a conservative society” by Jeff Benjamin in Fuse magazine. Tamar Herman of Billboard magazine noted that the band’s songs have recurring themes. Their “school trilogy”—2 Cool 4 Skool (2013), and Skool Luv Affair (2014)—explored “the troubles and anxieties of school-age youth.” “Not Today” from You Never Walk Alone is an anti-establishment anthem, with messages advocating for minority groups, while Wings (2016) touches on mental health and female empowerment. BTS’s third compilation album, titled Love Yourself 結: Answer, was the fourth and final entry in the series, and was praised for its conclusion for the overarching theme of the Love Yourself era, being called “a magnum opus from BTS that that few other artists, boy bands or otherwise, ever can hope to achieve.”

GO BACK

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GO BACK

BTS BTS (Bangtan Sonyeondan), also known as the Bangtan Boys, is a seven-member South Korean boy band formed by Big Hit Entertainment. The name subsequently became a backronym for Beyond The Scene. On June 12, 2013, they performed the song “No More Dream” from their initial album 2 Cool 4 Skool to commemorate their debut on June 13, 2013.They won several New Artist of the Year awards for the track “No More Dream”, including at the 2013 Melon Music Awards and Golden Disc Awards and the 2014 Seoul Music Awards. The band continued to gain prominence with their subsequent albums Dark & Wild (2014), The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Part 2 (2015) and The Most Beautiful Moment in Life: Young Forever (2016), with the latter two entering the U.S. Billboard 200.

The Most Beautiful Moment in Life: Young Forever went on to win the Album of the Year award at the 2016 Melon Music Awards.

Their second full album, Wings (2016),[8] peaked at #26 on the Billboard 200, which marked the highest chart ranking for a K-pop album ever.[9] In South Korea, Wings became the best-selling album in the Gaon Album Chart history at the time.[10] It sold more than 1.5 million copies, making it BTS’s first “million seller”.

Shawn Mendes Shawn Peter Raul Mendes (born August 8, 1998) is a Canadian singer and songwriter. He gained a following in 2013, posting song covers on the video-sharing application Vine. The following year, he caught the attention of artist manager Andrew Gertler and Island Records A&R Ziggy Chareton, which led to him signing a deal with the record label. He has since released three studio albums, headlined three world tours, and received several nominations and awards.

Mendes released his self-titled debut EP (2014) and his debut studio album Handwritten (2015), whose single “Stitches” reached number one in the United Kingdom and the top 10 in the United States and Canada. He then released his second studio album Illuminate (2016), whose singles “Treat You Better” and “There’s Nothing Holdin’ Me Back” reached the top 10 in several countries. His self-titled third studio album (2018) was supported by the lead single “In My Blood”. All three albums debuted atop the US Billboard 200, with the first one making Mendes one of five artists to ever debut at number one before the age of 18 and the third one making him the third-youngest artist to earn three number one albums. Mendes is also the first artist to land three number one singles on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart (2017) and four number one singles on the Adult Pop Songs chart (2018) before the age of 20.

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01

forced fit prompts This creative sprint was during the Design Heroes project. When we needed to do concept sketches for the layouts for that project, these prompts helped fuel more ideas into our minds. Each prompt had a specific theme where we had around less than a minute to sketch multiple layouts for these prompts. The goal was for us to get used to creating many sketches with any type of themes, with small amounts of times.

Whether it was good or bad sketches, the idea of seeing and getting small inspirations of many concepts is relatable to many designers.

This was an interesting yet kind of difficult concept to do. It was hard trying to rapidly come up with ideas on the spot for certain prompts because after making a few, I got stumped. I had already made quite a few sketches before I got to class for the Design Heroes project, so making more—while was nice—also made me brain dead. It did help me narrow down my choices to the circle and lines theme I had. I didn’t think this will help for every project but maybe for projects that are trying to convey

certain themes. I could use certain words and create layouts based on that theme or feeling.

Several prompts I sketched out for the exercise.

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explorations

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More explorations and themes for the forced fit prompts.

The one on the right side of the page had parts that were incorporated into my final design for the Design Heroes project. The refined sketch (above) was both the pages’ ideas (right) put together.

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02

zine This creative sprint was after the Design Heroes project, during the time before we got into the résumé project. It was not something planned in our schedule, but it was something Leslie wanted to do with us once before the semester ended. We had to choose a theme for the zine, and pick around six to seven photos that we had currently—not from the web— and put a one-word description for each photo. We had the whole class period to complete this project. The goal of this project was to do something completely new and refreshing for our minds while having fun.

It also introduced us to make a small book with only one paper.

When Leslie had announced this quick project to do, I had liked the idea of it. In the beginning, I felt really lost. I understood what we needed to do, but since I was still working on the zine itself rather than listening to her instructions, I ended up lagging behind. This made me had to catch up and some of the instructions got lost along the way. I didn’t understand why I had to rotate some of the photos, so that was what threw me off. I

felt stressed out at the beginning part of this project because we were just going with the flow.

“Visiting Second Home� refers to Kobe, Japan. My mom was born there, and every year, my family tries to go to visit her side of the family. These photos were during my stay at Summer 2016.

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work-in-progress

work-in-progress zine | 135

Not only we went to Kobe, but we also visited Kyoto, Tokyo, and Osaka during our two— week stay. Every time I would visit, I always had fun; I hope after school, I would have the opportunity to go in the Spring to see the cherry blossom trees bloom and be at the festival.

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Aa

Josefin Sans semibold italics (left), Josefin Sans light italics (right)

Yet towards the end, I was surprised that I finished this in around two hours, and the end result looked pretty good. It was nostalgic to flip through my own little zine and see all the photos I used for it. I also enjoyed looking through everyone’s zine; I found the layouts and the pictures that everyone used really compelling to look through. Maybe I’ll end up doing a totally different “zine” just for fun on my own time and see how that goes. I felt proud with the end result; although I wish I had

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more time with it, I was glad I got to experience it because Leslie seemed like she had wanted us to know how to do this sort of book—like format.

final

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Here’s the final product of the zine in book format. The left side and top right are the insides of the pages.

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final title | 141

The back side of the book (above left). The book taken apart and laid out flat (right).

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03

food & composition This creative sprint was about using food and putting it in a centered composition, as well as adding text to the composition. At first, it was finding a composition for the food itself, then adding one word with the food, and then adding body text. The goal was to explore the compositions of text and the photo itself and how it would work cohesively.

When we first started this exercise, I was kind of skeptical because I didn’t know what to expect. I chose a peach because I love eating peaches, especially the Japanese peaches. In my opinion, they’re the best peach to eat. When Skaggs told us we had to create ten different compositions of the food, it seemed pretty easy to do. Considering we had free range of what I do to the peach, except that we have to keep it centered, it didn’t take that long.

I used this reference photo for this exercise (left and above).

All of the bordered works are the explorations of the compositions I did.

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explorations

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After I did that, I had to duplicate some of the compositions to do the next part of the exercise. The instructions were to add one word and incorporated it with the food. I used the word “squish� because every time I look at a peach, I just think of squishing it. At this point, I still had to keep the word centered somewhat along with the composition. I tried playing around with the font: making them appear squished, making them huge, making them tiny, lowercase, uppercase, etc. I ended up using a

sans serif font because it looked cleaner that way. I only did up to nine because, at this point, we moved on to the last part of the assignment.

These were the explorations of the composition along with the word. I chose this word because these types of peaches are really squishy whenever I eat them. In a good way.

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SQUISH

SQU

squish

S Q U I S H

ISH SQUISH

Squish

Squish

SQUISH

Squish

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AAa

Europa bold (left) for some of the headers, Europa light (middle) for some headers, Europa regular for the body text

For the final part of the exercise, we had to incorporate body text with the one word and the photo. It was amusing considering I had to create the body text myself, and the text itself sounded like something one would hear from a commercial. I actually ended up researching what makes the Japanese peach specifically so tasty to eat and then ended up using that to create the body text. I had kept the composition centered, for the most part. Yet at this point, we didn’t need to

center the text. After this exercise was finished, it made me want to eat some Japanese peaches.

These were some of the final compositions I had done for this exercise. I didn’t think these were the best compositions, but they were interesting compositions.

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final

SQU

ISH

So lovely, delicate, and refined, the sweetness is out of this world. It’s natural aroma seeps through the skin, making is ripe and ready to eat. With just a small bite, it’s rich juices is ready to send you to heaven with how good it tastes. Who could resist this quenchable fruit?

SQUISH

S Q U I S H

So lovely, delicate, and refined, the sweetness is out of this world. It’s natural aroma seeps through the skin, making is ripe and ready to eat. With just a small bite, it’s rich juices is ready to send you to heaven with how good it tastes. Who could resist this quenchable fruit?

So lovely, delicate, and refined, the sweetness is out of this world. It’s natural aroma seeps through the skin, making is ripe and ready to eat.

With just a small bite, it’s rich juices is ready to send you to heaven with how good it tastes. Who could resist this quenchable fruit?

squish

So lovely, delicate, and refined, the sweetness is out of this world. It’s natural aroma seeps through the skin, making is ripe and ready to eat. With just a small bite, it’s rich juices is ready to send you to heaven with how good it tastes. Who could resist this quenchable fruit?

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Squish

So lovely, delicate, and refined, the sweetness is out of this world. It’s natural aroma seeps through the skin, making is ripe and ready to eat. With just a small bite, it’s rich juices is ready to send you to heaven with how good it tastes. Who could resist this quenchable fruit?

These were the two compositions that I liked the most. They looked like ads for a peach commercial for some weird reason.

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Squish

So lovely, delicate, and refined, the sweetness is out of this world. It’s natural aroma seeps through the skin, making is ripe and ready to eat. With just a small bite, it’s rich juices is ready to send you to heaven with how good it tastes. Who could resist this quenchable fruit?

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04

thanks.

This creative sprint was stemmed from the idea of a meme of the avocado and saying “thanks.” Inspired by the idea of the meme, Skaggs wanted us to choose a photo and have the same centered text in the center with “thanks.” After we finished it, we had to print it out and post it around the Hite Institute.

For this exercise, I had no idea what Skaggs was talking about at first. I was so confused because I never heard of the meme before. I didn’t know why we did another meme-themed project, even though it was a mini-project. And I didn’t think Skaggs realized that the “thanks” was sarcastic instead of genuine. He wanted the idea of spreading thanks to surround the building, and although that sounded nice, the meme itself was sarcastic.

I was going to choose green tea at first since many people tend

to thank others after being served a drink. But then I decided to do a donut since I thought this was funny. I thought it would be even funnier if someone took a bite out of the donut, and then handed it back to someone and that person said “thanks.”

These were the pictures I wanted to use for this “thanks.” project. I ended up editing the two donuts on the left side.

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explorations

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I had multiple of bitten donuts to choose from. At first, I chose the donut with the blue plate, but the blue shadows made it look weird, especially if I took the background off and left it with the white background. Then I chose a donut that was taken overhead, so the shadow looked more natural. I would say that trying to edit the donut took a lot longer than I thought it would.

Using the lasso tool with the laptop pad with my finger was tough. I was one of the few people left in the classroom that was

still working on it. I thought it was going to get graded, so I tried to make sure the edit was as good and as natural as possible.

Then I found out that it was just for fun and I facepalmed. At least there are donuts in my files now.

The bottom donut was the first choice I made before I didn’t like the blue shadow and reflection from the blue plate that it was on, so I switched to the other donut (top).

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work-in-progress

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a

Minion Pro regular for the body text

I took the donut to Lightroom CC after the Photoshop editing to make the donut more vibrant and appealing to look at and eat. I didn’t have much experience working in Lightroom, but this gave me practice with it. Skaggs wanted to make sure that we used the exact font and the exact size and kerning for the photo. I actually had fun with this process, especially the editing part, for

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some reason. I really liked how the donut turned out and when I showed it to my brother, he got a laugh out of it.

final

thanks.

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Colophon Header

Audrey bold 35/35

Subhead

Audrey medium 20/35

Body

Freightsans Pro book 8.5/12

Captions

Freightsans Pro bold ittalics 6/9

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Colophon | 163