More Journals

Journal 11
Debbie Millman is the President of the design division at Sterling Brands, an international design consultancy. She has been there for fourteen years and in that time she has worked on the redesign of global brands for Pepsi, Procter & Gamble, Campbell’s, Colgate, Hershey and Hasbro. Debbie is President of the AIGA, the professional association for design. She is a contributing editor at Print Magazine and the chair of the new Masters in Branding program at the School of Visual Arts. In 2005, she began hosting “Design Matters with Debbie Millman,” the first weekly radio talk show about design on the Internet.
(this info about Millman was copied from HERE).

I listened to the interview of Maira Kalman who is a designer, illustrator, educator, author and National Treasure. Millman referenced Greys Anatomy (one of my favorite shows) and talked about how she wanted to be happy and 'fit in.' In the beginning she was uncomfortable with her lifestyle but now she said she is comfortable with it. Millman goes in to details about changing herself to fit in by doing things such as changing her hair and wearing a shirt her mother made with letters too widly spaced. Millman fell in love with a sign "her story is strange," that Mira gave her. When asked by Millian, Maira said her first creative moment was looking at the wall and looking at the sky and being able to day dream. One of the points she made about her photography that I liked was "better to ask forgiveness then to ask permission." Sometimes if you ask permission you can not get that perfect photograph you may need and will regret it later on.

Journal 10
I really like GOOD because it has a lot to do with the projects we have been working with all year long. The a couple of the info graphs I found to be interesting were these:
This one was interesting because the viewer hardly has to do any work at all. It is about NASA's budget over time and just glancing at the beginning year and the ending year plus the image you already have a really good idea of what is going on. Then the viewer also has the chance to dig deeper to read more info above each date.
This was another I liked because it is talking about currency in a way that can relate to most people. I know in school I would hate looking at boring graphs in business classes. With something like this I just feel more open and excited to look at it because it is something I can actually understand without trying hard.

The videos from this site were interesting as well, containing some effects I have seen on other sites and youtube. It's always interesting to see type in motion and how it is used to convey messages. The videos I watched are not necessarily what I am shooting for in this project, but they do give me inspiration and are good things to keep in mind for later on.


Journal 9
I like HERE how they used type as the imagery in this poem.

I also like THIS ONE. It does well with the speech. Telling the story with visuals and also learning to space the words out well.

I did not like THIS ONE. It made me very anxious. and was annoying to watch. I believe it was mostly the sound doing this.

THIS ONE was good in parts, but in the screaming areas, they could have done more with the words. changing the size, or type face, etc.

There are many things you can accomplish with just visuals and paper that you can not accomplish with a motion. And there are many things you can accomplish with a motion that you can not with visuals. For example, with motion you are able to lead the viewer at the exact pace you want them to go. You decide how fast you want them to see one section of type and how slow the next. In motion you are also able to add sound. With paper visuals you are able to let them enjoy the piece at the rate in which they please. You can show time in different ways. instead of long pauses you can leave multiple blank pages. With paper visuals it is easier for the audience to have their own interpretation of how things are said, work, and flow.

Journal 8
I read 13 Ways of Looking at a Typeface. The part I thought was really funny was that he talked about how used 37 different fonts on 6 pages and his wifes comment was "You've become a real slut, haven't you?" This made me laugh because I could never imagine someone going this over the top on 16 pages. I can't even begin to imagine how horrible this must have looked. After his short story, Michael Bierut, talks about how he narrows down fonts and what works well for him as well as thinking about why you are using a font and having a reason. A couple of the ones that stood out to me were:
Because of who designed it: its good to know background on the fonts you are using. Bierut said he was working on a project for a group of architects. He picked Cheltenham, not only because it worked well, but because it was designed by an architect. This not only made him seem intelligent, but also fit for his work, and gave him a link from design to the architects he was working for.
Because it's boring: you need to make sure your type is not always dominant, especially when selling an idea and not a type.
Because it's specail : sometimes you have to get typefaces tailored to fit what you need and also to set what you make apart from others.

Another font I could see myself using over Futura would be Frutiger just because it contains many similar qualities.

Journal 7
For these pictures, I had the chance to take them while being home over spring break. All of them were taken in downtown Salina and Abilene. Abilene was one of my favorites for this because There were so many different types and executions of it in shop windows.









Journal 6

Ric Grefe - says that everyday he sees design that blows him away. He says that he sees design that inspires him and something that he does not look at with the thought that he could have done it, but the thought that this design is so good that he could have never created something like this. He thinks that designers should design their place in the world, and they should design a place for designers. I really like his way of thinking and also agree with his logic on many points.

Eric Ryan - said the single thing that inspires him is the camera. And not just the camera, but what it is able to do and allows you to do as the photographer. Photography can be taken to save and give you inspiration for future work. While I agree that the camera has made life easier for designers to save inspiration, I feel that if you dig deeper there is something even greater. Pushing it farther then the camera you could say a computer because it holds all of these pictures in data bases you can just find millions of pictures in a single click.

Debbie Millman - most inspiring design to her is pencils. This was interesting because I would have never thought to say something so simple. But in reality we use it for everything from communication to keeping ideas. She didn't explain enough about why she picked pencils which made her seem a little tacky.

Paula Scher - I found Paula boring! She didn't have much to say at all, and didn't seem to be inspired about design at all. She wasn't even willing to give one example. To every question she summed up the obvious and left me wanting more from her. She said that design is interesting in its time relating to something else but that there are no single examples and that design doesnt go around designing problems, problems emerge and people try to do things better.

Ellen Lupton - perfect design is a book. It is full of everything you would ever need. She also said something design could fix is a book. The book is perfect and imperfect. Things change and books are changed. We find new ways to spread information, ways to read, the book is changing. I really like that Ellen took one object and explained how it was perfect and yet imperfect because things change over time. Things perfect for one time will be improved for another.

Journal 5

One of the points that Stefan Sagmeister made at the beginning of the video was you have to be happy while you experience design as well as create it, which is a really great point. He went about explaining this in more of a humorous way but what i took from it was this: As designers we sometimes I feel like we are creating something we would like, but others its a rushed type project where we are just giving the client what they want even if it is not logical.

Another person I watched was Philippe Starck. He made jokes about design. About how he doesn't know why he is here and he feels as if his job is useless at times. During his talk, at times he was hard to understand because of his accent, but basically I got the general points. He emphasized on making products appropriate for human beings that will be useful and that they will want to buy. Not necessarily things of beauty, but things of use (such as the tooth brush). You have to keep in mind the individual and their background

Reading:

How Good is Good is a great article about Graphic Design and what it really means. Many of these thoughts I have had myself which made this short read very interesting for me. This piece throws out thoughts in comparing 'good' design to 'bad' design. Saying good design with a bad purpose will equal a bad outcome and bad design with a good purpose probably wont do that well either. But it also gets the reader to think about exactly what it is that they are designing for; should they rather be called a 'commercial designer' that sells an idea, or a 'Graphic Designer' that makes people aware. A lot can be said through that last sentence. Graphic Design has a major impact on people and used in the right way can be a very moving and strong pull on society. I think it enlightens designers to do work hard making a good design that means something to them and can make a difference rather than creating some useless or destructive piece of design. It was enlightening and made me think about my life after college. Some times designers get caught up thinking that they can not make a difference and they are "selling" people useless things. When in reality you can "sell" any idea and if you believe in as long as its a good designing and meaningful, it will have an impact.