Allyson White- Process Book

How an art major switched to a Psych major and became a fresh and fierce,

BABY DESIGNER

Allyson White St. Norbert College, Art 130 - Fall 2019

Introduction

Welcome to my process book, I am happy you are here. First things first, I want to tell you about what I have gone through this semester.

It was filled with many new talents and skills, a tremendous amount of stress and honestly, a little bit of frustration, but most of all I came out as a baby designer.

Here I have accomplished many projects, which are:

D-SCHOOL DOTLINE LETTERFORMS OBJECT ITERATIONS PSA POSTERS DESIGNER PRESENTATIONS

D-School

Objective: The D-School objective was our first project and the objective of this was to be able to work with someone who you didn’t really know and take their advice and keep their needs in mind to.w

I found that engaging with a real person made it easier to relate and share personal/ relatable ideas. I found that while engaging with my partner, it was easier to draw conclusions about each other’s ideas and figure out what needed to be changed in the process. I thought it was awkward and uncomfortable to share unfinished work with someone at first, but I found it to be quite helpful.

I like the idea of being able to

create something on the spot and share it with someone. I am used to a very slow paced, working on projects for hours, but this fast pace showed me that I am able to work in a fast-paced environment and be creative and open very quickly. if I were to go back and do this again, I would try to think a little bit deeper into what I was making and try and be a little bit more creative with the outcome of my creation.

This was an exercise where we had to work with a partner and come up with ideas together on how to make something

This was the final outcome of what I created for my partner, my intention of this was to help her surprise people.

Dotline

Objective: The objectives of dotline were: to build compositions with dots and lines, build a foundation using iterations in order to create a successful outcome, to establish the correct use of value, scale, line, and visual hierarchy, and to practice good craft in the final outcome.

In my opinion, gestalt is looking at something as a whole rather than looking at small details that make something whole. Our dot line project made me look at each of the artists pieces as a whole because the way we view it will be completely different than the artists intention. It isn’t necessarily difficult for me to make a “well crafted project” because it all depends on what I am making.

When it comes to painting and drawing I would rather be quick and messy but when it comes to designing things like the dot line and sculpting I prefer to spend a little extra time and focus on the details and what the final outcome will look like.

When it comes to painting and drawing I would rather be quick and messy but when it comes to designing things like the dot line and sculpting I prefer to spend a little extra time and focus on the details and what the final outcome will look like.

This project showed me that abstraction is viewed differently from everyone, all artists are capable of creating something that is abstract, but how others view it is all different.

I don’t think it was difficult to represent ideas without illustrating or using words because I knew what I was trying to convey through the shapes, but I knew that there were going to be people who didn’t see it the way I saw it and that is completely okay.

I think abstraction can be used in finding art and beauty in the outside world. If there are buildings that are beautifully set up next to each other, or maybe nature, we allow ourselves to look at it as a whole.

This was my first attempt at drawing different thumbnails of lines and dots. The words I had were stability, energetic, and rejection.

This was my second attempt at the thumbnails.

I simplified and improved some of my favorite thumbnails I used in the previous attempt.

With the thumbnails I made, I took my favorite one of each word and used those as the final. These are my favorite depictions of the words: stability, energetic, and rejection using dots and lines.

Energetic

Stability Rejection

Letterforms

Objective: The objectives of letterforms were: to be able to work using a shared space to accomplish larger goals, to think about space and type while working by hand, to think about how typography relates to the meaning of the word, and how to build a base using iterations to end up with a successful outcome.

By working this way with letterforms there was definitely a lot I learned, something that has stuck with me the whole time while doing this project is that it wasn’t supposed to be easy. This was a difficult thing to do especially if you were not familiar with it. I learned that as a perfectionist, the final result wont turn out perfect and that is also completely okay. Something

I found important while doing this and a major thing I learned is that we are all capable of interpreting words and meanings so differently from everybody else and that is also okay. If I were to continue working on this I would try to be more creative with different ways I can arrange the letters and still convey the meaning of “energy”, I really like getting feedback because it opens my eyes up to totally different ways of doing things. I would maybe change the color of the mat board behind my explosive energy letterform to see if there would be a different effect from that.

The word I was working with was the word energy. These were the four final ways that I portrayed “energy� through the word energy.

Object Iteration

Objective: There were many objectives that I had for object iteration and these were: messing with and experimenting with different kinds of media, show creativity and interest in experimentation, to honor and respect the process of making as a means of growth and understanding, challenge myself to create in ways I haven’t before, to work past and with cliche, and to rework and fix work to fit inside a specific format.

There was a lot I learned about my object, I learned that there was so much more to look at than what everybody sees in an object. Like in my flamingo, myself and probably every other person knows that a flamingo is pink, has long legs, and has a long neck. Through this process, I learned that there are so many

other ways to view an object or animal and still see it for what it is. The media that was most challenging for me was the regular collage where we had to find certain pictures to make up parts of our animal. This was very difficult for me and I don’t know if it’s because of the animal I had that made me struggle with finding things that made up the body, legs, and neck of the flamingo. It was difficult for me to choose which one was the most enjoyable for me because I enjoyed almost all of them.

If I had to pick, I would pick either the master artist iteration or geometric iteration. I really liked looking at the different ways I could make a flamingo. I also

enjoyed doing the master artist iteration because it let me think creatively about an artist’s work who knows so much about what they are doing, and then take what I learned from them and portray it in my art. I have never worked with Photoshop before so basically everything I learned Photoshop was new to me. I think a lot of people think that only art majors or business people are required to know how to use these softwares but I personally think it’s a good thing to know how to use it. If I was continuing with this object for a year, I would

be interested in doing sculpture class and I think it would be really interesting and fun to do this with a flamingo.

Final result of 6 different iterations of a flamingo.

PSA Poster

Objective: The objectives of the PSA poster was to gain knowledge and experience using type correctly, we had to think about certain components like negative space, no distortion, etc. We had to create good hierarchy that presents the information accurately and neatly with respecting the wishes of the client.

At first I did find being limited to type only a bit challenging because our lives literally revolve around pictures and seeing things visually in order to explain something, but as I continued to work on the poster I found that an important part of understanding something is to read the information we are given and learn from it that way. I feel like I focused most on the orientation and scale to

create visual hierarchy because of the amount of information I had to present on the poster.

While having a lot of information I tried to still have my title as the first thing the audience would read while also keeping it at the top. I noticed that I always read things left to right (like any other person, obviously), but I found this important because if I were to put my title elsewhere it would’ve been confusing with having all the information that I had. Each time I use InDesign, I feel like I learn something new that I can take elsewhere. I learned that when you’re given a lot of information it is important to make it clean and organized so it makes sense for everyone.

Another thing I learned from this project is that there is no possible

way you can please everyone with what it is you’re creating. I found this important because it let me trust my client and my own understanding and knowledge in order to create something.

Second and final attempt:

First attempt of my PSA Poster

Designer Presentation

Objective: The objectives of the designer presentation were to research a designer of our choice and be able to share what we found with the class, learn to assess credible sources, gain knowledge using only images to persuade and teach someone, and to gain experience with public speaking.

I was drawn to the designer Woody Pirtle by his intention to touch people through his artwork. I really respected that almost all the work he did was for a company/client/teaching that would call out to people and advertise at the same time. I really enjoyed the visual aspect of his art, I have found that I am very interested in artists who have a modern look/theme to their art and that kept me very interested in Woody’s work. I actually really enjoy presenting and I think being outgoing helps out a lot with that. Of course there is a natural tendency to get nervous when presenting to anyone but I think the fact that we all have become very familiar with each other made it a lot easier and there was a sense of comfort knowing that we were all doing the same thing and it was exciting to be able to present the things that I found interesting in hopes that my classmates would be interested too. I would be very interested in learning more about Massimo Vignelli. I found to be very interested in his style of work because of the modern look he had to his art. I also think Rich did a really good job pointing out the things that Massimo did because this kept me interested in learning more. I really liked Massimo’s work because it seemed to be a little different than everyone else’s. I liked

that he made furniture and maps that were modern and beautiful. I would’ve never considered this art but learning more about him made me realize it was.

Vocation questions and answers: What is the difference between a good life and a significant life?

I think there is a big difference between a good life and a significant life. To have a good life is genuinely enjoying your life and the want to make the best of it. This might be surrounding yourself with people who bring you happiness and a sense of warmth, doing things that you enjoy, whether that be art, or dancing, reading, literally anything that brings you happiness. Being happy will lead to a good life, if someone is happy in their career it will bring them success.

In my eyes a significant life is doing things with purpose, significance, fulfillment, and having that satisfaction in your life. I think having a good life and having a significant life somewhat tie in with each other because without a good and happy life there aren’t many things that a person will find significant enough to consider their life “good�.

Are you called to creative work? If so, how do you recognize that calling?

I think creative work is defined in many different ways because I think it is simply the way we use our creativity. Everyone is capable of being creative and creating creative things as long as you have a brain and a will to do things that will be pleasing to the eye. So for me, I would say I am called to creative work because when I know I can create something that is going to turn out beautiful and aesthetically pleasing, then I know I succeeded.

This book was made as part of Introduction to Design at St. Norbert College in the fall of 2019. The fonts used include [Cambria Math], [Franklin Gothic Medium], and [Segoe Print]. It was digitally printed and saddle stapled at the college’s print center.