Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover

 

 

Book Design from AIGA

 

 

What I love about the books that made it into the AIGA 365 is that they are designed from cover to cover. Not only is the outside of the book created in just the right way as to convey the message of the book, but the pages INSIDE the book also reinforce this purpose as well. It is so fascinating to see how the designers chose to arrange “ordinary” things like the table of contents, page layout, and photo placement within the book.

Another aspect about the 365 books that I think is amazing, is the variety of styles used for the different books. Each book has its own, unique, “look and feel.” I am glad for this because it will be a great resource for me as I design a series of three book covers for my portfolio this year. My new goal is to show how I would handle parts of the inside of the book as well, such as the table of contents and text layout.

I Just “May” Go Back

 

On Tuesday I visited the Meyer May house in Grand Rapids. It was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1908 and then renovated by Steelcase in 1987. Ironically, this means that that not only was the renovation completed on the year I was born, but also, the house is 100 years old as of this year.

Prior to touring the house, I watched a video about the restoration. It was incredible viewing the amount of work that Steelcase put into the house. They paid far more attention to getting each detail right than I ever would have. For example, the Steelcase restoration team recreated each rug, stitch by stitch, so that it would have the same exact color, string thickness, and design as the original. On the outside of the house, they used two different colors of mortar for the bricks so that the house would have more of a horizontal feel—exactly how Wright had designed it.

After watching the video, I was slightly apprehensive about whether I would actually like the way house looked. From the video, it seamed like the house was kind of ugly, with many odd geometric shapes protruding from it. The film showed shots of the interior which appeared gloomy. Boy was I wrong. The house was amazing. When looking at the house in person, the shapes on the outside balanced out, and were perfectly in-tune with the landscaping. The interior was even more amazing. Not only did I notice an amazing attention to detail, but the rooms were filled with light and space. I felt right at home because my family’s house is similar in the fact that is lots of light from the windows, and plenty of space to move (dance) around in.

Overall, I was more than impressed and plan to tour the house again someday, hopefully with my camera, which I forgot this time.

Attention to Details

Two weeks ago I got cast as an extra for Drew Barrymore’s new film “Whip It.” It was really neat to be on set and see how major feature film is made. What was just as cool, was to look at the set design. Even though this project is not as big budget as many Hollywood films, the set designers still made an effort to make the set look realistic. The movie —which is about derby girls— was filmed in an old warehouse. The set designers created a life-sized roller derby rink, stands, and bar/merchandise area for the movie. The stands all had these large posts going through them and the designers let their creative energies flow onto these posts. They could have left the posts blank and it probably wouldn’t have mattered in the movie. However, they decided to make the set as realistic as possible. So, the designers made sure the posts were covered in all sorts of derby advertisements and graffiti. They really thought about what real derby crowd members would place on these posts. Because of this, it helped set the mood for the extras playing the crowd members. Even though the graffiti and other designs probably won’t make it into the movie, I was impressed by the attention to detail that the set designers strove for. Next time I watch a movie, I know I will pay more attention to what is going on in the background, and what minute details are found there.

Ann Arbor Art Fair

I went to the Ann Arbor Art Fair last weekend. It was really neat to see so many different types of art all within a few blocks. I think my favorite piece that I saw was at a photographer’s booth. The woman would take a scene, such as a street corner, and then zoom in and take about 600 photos. She would then develop these 600, 4X6 pictures and piece them together, recreating the entire scene. It was really interesting, because the total image was similar to a collage, yet, the total image still represented an actual scene. Also, she would often arrange the collage to have a fish-eye looks, which helped to make the collage more interesting.

Overall, I saw quite a few inspiring pieces, and I hope to experiment with some of the techniques I learned about while walking around the art fair. I recommend that if you have the chance, you visit the Ann Arbor art fair next year.

London

I apologize for the lack of new posts, but finals at college required some attention. Then, I went on a study abroad trip to London, England. It was an exciting trip, full of new experiences, learning, and inspiring locations. I found that there is always something to do and see. Some of my favorite adventures were to visit the various museums, be “backstage” for a show at BBC (I actually had the opportunity to control one of the cameras for the last few seconds of a show), and to meet some of the actors in The Mousetrap. Also, I found that simply wandering through the city, with no agenda, led to many amazing photographic locations.

Below is a sampling of some of the photos I took while wandering the city.

     

Andy Warhol

Recently I visited the Grand Rapids Art Museum. Currently, they have an exhibit on Andy Warhol. I enjoyed looking at this exhibit because I didn’t realize the wide variety of work he did. I knew about his famous pieces, like the soup cans and Marylyn Monroe, but I had never seen much of his other work. I particularly enjoyed his Venus pieces. Naturally, I also enjoyed the “shoes” exhibit, especially the images with diamond dust in them.

 

 Until I saw the artwork in real life, I did not realize Warhol used a lot of metallic in his images. The metallic aspect added a whole new dimension to me.

For those of you who live in Michigan, I encourage you to visit the GRAM to see Warhol’s work in person. It truly will help you to see the artists work in a new light.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fuel Design Conference

  I just got back from a 1 day student conference at Eastern Michigan University. It was hosted by the Detroit chapter of AIGA. It was absolutely amazing. The key speaker, Armin Vit, was very entertaining and showed a lot of his work throughout his presentation. He talked about 7 things that students should keep in mind as they begin to enter the workforce.
1. I am not that good
Armin Vit pointed out that no matter how good you think you are now, a few years (or a few months) from now, you will realize that you really weren’t all that great.
2. Two asses are better than oneWhat he meant by this is, 1. Don’t be an ass because people won’t want to work with you. and 2. Work your ass off.
3. 75% of your files are trash
The client is only going to pick one design, which means the 100 other options are just clutter.
4. Do the evolution
I think this means that you should show where your designs came from in terms of development. How did you get from one idea to the next?
5. Leave no trace 
I neglected to write notes on this part of the lecture, so I’m not entirely sure what “Leave no Trace” means
6. When in doubt, repeat
If an idea doesn’t work with one project, maybe it’ll work later on with a different one.
7. Happy is as happy does
Make sure you are proud of what you create.

 Other than Armin Vit, the other speakers were Lora Parlove from Colorforms, Phil Dokus from Organic, and Timothy Dugdale from Atomic Quill Design. Also, students were able to have their portfolios reviewed by a number of professionals.

Overall, I found the conference extremely helpful and inspiring. I especially enjoyed listening to Lora Parlove. She was very informative on how to get a job and how to prepare for an interview. Also, she mentioned that students could sit in on chapter AIGA meetings. I didn’t realize this was an option, way to go AIGA!

Creative Blitz

Over Easter weekend I entered a poster into the first design competition I have ever competed in. The competition was sponsored by U-Printing and iStockPhoto and was hosted by You the Designer (http://www.youthedesigner.com/contest/). The contest consists of thee rounds (vector, photography, and typography) and each round contains prizes. The three first-place winners will go head to head to try to win the opportunity to design a full page ad in Print magazine! Not only that, but they will also win an Apple iPhone. Tell me, what could be cooler than that?  Anyway, with the stock photography provided by iStockPhoto, and my own person photography, I created a vector poster that I hope to win fame and glory with. There are some other unique ideas, so if you are looking for some inspiration check out  http://www.flickr.com/groups/uprinting_international_poster_design_competition/pool/

Oh the wonderful things you can do with CSS!

Lately, I have been working on prototypes for a website for one of my classes. Thus far, I have steered clear of gradients and fancy web 2.0-like features in my designs. But no more! While researching various web technologies, I realized that CSS could be used to make gradients and drop shadows and curvy corners. I didn’t realize that CSS could be this amazing. I am now free to explore these new design possibilities, without  the fear of having to bog down the site with images once it is coded.I discovered this useful bit of information at http://www.designvitality.com/blog/2007/09/css-rounded-corners-gradients-shadows-without-images/

Creative Typography

I hadn’t explored Veer’s site in quite awhile, so I decided to look at it again last night. I discovered that they have a neat magazine called “Candy.” The magazine (which is downloadable from Veer’s website) is full of idea-stimulating images. They had a series of pages with images of creative typography. This reminded me of the creative typography assignment that I completed sophomore year of college. Here are some of the images taken from Veer’s magazine:       I think these images are fantastic. They really show that creative typography has a practice and artistic purpose. I hope that these images remind me to always push for more innovative ways to use typography in my designs.