Journal 1

Journal Entry 1 - Writer’s toolbox

Writing can help you engage in your project and think out how your project looks in visually descriptive words. Leonardo da Vinci had diagrams and maps that later created more visual forms on the computer later. Art and science are infused together to create compositions.

Mind maps - give visual forms and structure to ideas and concepts in an organized manor. It allows for you to understand the concepts and see the connections between the designs. Can be used with words, color, and images, any like forms of design. Start basic and get more specific as lines grow out from objects and items.

A concept map is similar to mind maps however concept maps have more thorough analysis of what goes with what and makes sure there is a relationship between items. The information is arranged in hierarchy order from least to most specific. The data is analyzed to see how the specific things can be used to create the broader topic.

Free writing - To collect your thoughts on paper and be able to look back to reference the ideas later on. Free writing is a casual sit down process that allows for the ideas to flow without organization and the after the free writing process you can take away the needed in formation to organize and create your final design.

Brain writing - Is equivalent to brain storming by allowing yourself to look at the problem and to create the best solution for the problem in design terms. Allowing for one self to create multiple solutions will broaden the solution and form later for the best possible solution to be created.

Word lists - is basically stretching but in language putting all words and adjectives that come to mind about our topic. This allows for the designer to envision the different possibilities the design could go and relates language to designing yet again.

Outlines - outlines allow for problem and solutions to be created in an orderly fashion to make sure all is being incorporated into the solution. It allows for more structure to be put into your brainstorming and your ideas to start coming together, and be framework for the design.

Writing and critiques - Allow for other peoples input to be taken in to consideration on your design and by displaying your work next to others you can see where you fall on the lines of the project as well as get some feedback to better enhance your composition. Methods are critiques are all useful in trying to get information to the designer about their work from silent notes to out loud discussion allowing more opinions can best result in a job well done.

Reflective writing- can help you gather your thoughts about the project as a whole. It will help your from later projects to see how your work and what helped you best and allows for you to relax from the design mind and go to the summarizing mind set.

Journals and sketches - allow you to be more visual in you’re brainstorming process and allow for creative ideas to be put on paper and document what is happening throughout the project. These pieces allow for you to always be able to document ideas and then have a strong process book in the end.

Free write -- Great Gatsby

G.G. is full of adventure and mystery in how the characters interact with each other the way the book was written it almost seemed like what was happening is in the love of the characters also told what was happening with the scenery around them. The book is told from nick’s point of view after he moves to New York and lives on the west egg island across form the east egg island where his cousin daisy lives and her husband tom. Nick is a young man who just landed a wealthy job in the stock market. This was written around the time that the young were landing jobs and accessing a lot of money. The book gives a feel of snobbishness fro the young men and women at the beginning and over confidence in money, which eventually leads to total destruction of the characters. The feel of this book to me is murky and evolved into a type of evil that rest insides the bodies of the young and wealthy. Love tries to peek through in many ways however also breaking up many relationships and in the end the evil wins out many die and nothing has become of the world today. This book also gives a feeling on clueless ness involved with the characters and their actions of money and relationships with one another and spouses. Almost as if they wanted everything of theirs to be invisible to the eye and be able to be inspected by all who can look. Many times the book takes a rollercoaster feel with one day doing great in relationships and the other someone comes along and it is broken up. Their seemed like their could have been resentment in the way that F Scot Fitzgerald wrote his book in how he though money of the young generations is getting exploited and taken for granted and when money devours your life there is nothing else to look forward too. In the end life goes on and the feel of starting over is released from the book. If I were to create a novel cover for this book my colors would be green and black and brown and gray and I would want to make it seem like romance but something is off about it. I would want their to be a since of feeling that there is good in the hearts of the young and wealthy but the evil extol their little bit of good. The cover would have a feeling of awkwardness and out of place and nothing can be too perfect on the outside everything looks great but deep down there is a whole lot of hurt going on.

Word List - Great Gatsby

Awkward

Bright Bold

Out there

Advertise

Brand

Display

Flash

Unmask

Leak

Feature

Abundance

Property

Biggest

Best

Security

Revenue

Plenty

Goods

Estate

Want

Crave

Demand

Require

Appreciate

Emotions

Exciting

Suspenseful

Deceitful

Money

Greed

Love

Hate

Wealth

Young

New

Over indulgence

Green

Black

Gray

Friends

Novel

Respectful

Working

Exposure

Cheating

Trading

Spending

Close

Shabby

StingyPassion

Involvement

Fondness

Craving

Longing

Not right

Designers for inspiration

Steven Heller

Maira Kalman
The Eames
Alex Steinweiss

Alan Fletcher
Alvin Lustig
Alexanger Girard
Paul Rand
Saul Bass

This means that

Signs are how we interpret things and different signs can be interpretation of different meanings to different people. Using the right signs in the right context helps best get the point across to the viewer. All humans feel the need to show signs and tell stories. How we show our signs and how other interprets them is a major factor in getting the meaning of the sign across.

Apple – fruit, sin, deceit (known widely and common)

Dots – possibly numbers or a pattern (brail meaning blind)

Woodcarving – (map)

· Degree of resemblance between the signifier and the signified

Woman in photograph – murdered (real events have been faked)

Swastika – control, power, evil, death of Jews –

“I shop therefore I am” – meaning your somebody for shopping – French philosopher

Mona Lisa – famous painting (presentation, representational, mechanical

“I didn’t eat grandmother’s chocolate cake” – secretive, possibly joking with the girl – how we interpret it and how we make sense of the message

-- Ways of meaning—

The way me mean might be real or it might refer to something else such as sarcasm or a vague response

Non-literal has to decipher what it means

Which three are more alike – circles (answer depends on you)

Perfume is to girl or pretty or expensive

China

Elvis Presley -- symbols of hair

Most goes back to whom your audience is and how well you are trying to get the point across to that audience. Many signs can have different interpretations and its up to the designer to create simple recognizable symbols to help get the message across

chip kidd: Q and A

creating the whole of the composition was his favorite

sense from the manuscript how to write a good book results in good design

avoid literal and expand – go broad and make the viewer think

took a chance on new translation of the new testament with dead man face – failed

make an interesting design that also has mass appeal

cover the genre in a way that is unique to the story of that book

ideas come from everywhere

cd covers – dying, magazine cover chaotic, book cover – sensible

book covers are smarter and useful

step mag

books are now a multipersonal experience on creating

good books are going to convey the essence of the book in a structure that is easy yet takes a moment o figure out – allow the book to make a good first impression

make the cover appear larger and more attractive

music open to interpretation and the book is not

easy to clutter a page

build a reputation that people start to trust and give more freedom to

personas and scenarios

have a goal of your audience and place it more specific the better

brief profile that helps you outline who you are targeting and how you will be able to target them. Identify main audience ask questions and relate the information back to how your can interest them he most, create lists and attributes to your clients

useful in being specific to choosing certain design standards and colors and typefaces to allow specific people to be targeted

couldn’t locate chip kidd :series, covers article

what makes a successful book jacket?

Visually appealing, different from others, attracts the eye, reach the target audience, get the information on their cohesively, text and visual imagery combine and not combat, create overall mood of the book without given away the story too much, unique unseen material.

visual appealing, very interesting, unique and keeps you guess on what the story is about, as a creep feel about it, color palette suggesting about a girl, title works with imagery-little placed on
uses layering and texture to create, allows viewer to want to touch the texture, cohesive with text and imagery even though its split up, different, doesn't tell the whole story
great imagery to stop and look at as well as leaves the viewer wanting to know more about the characters covered up. Type is a little week and in coherent with the image.

Type 2 - three book choices

1) Red Badge of Courage

a. Stephen crane

b. American novelist and a short story writer, poet and journalist

· Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893)

· The Red Badge of Courage (1895)

· The Black Riders and Other Lines (1895)

· George's Mother (1896)

· The Open Boat and Other Tales of Adventure (1898)

· War is Kind (1899)

· Active Service (1899)

· The Monster and Other Stories (1899)

· Wounds in the Rain (1900)

· The O'Ruddy (1903)

c. Henry and Jim go to war where they want to be brave and earn the honor that war can give you but Henry once in the presence of war fears war and runs away. In his journey away we feel ashamed and then meets up with injured soldiers who make him feel bad so he runs away and finds Jim about to die and feels guilty for not staying then as Henry runs out to see why they are retreating he gets knocked on the head and wakes up at camp where he is treated and thought to be shot in the head. Henry now has a change of heart and runs fearlessly out to fight and helps his troops win.

d. Courage, fear, mistakes, heart ache, scared, brave, shocking

e. To never give into fear and know the real glory in from with in not the braving that is seen

f. Battles in war and has a difficult task of deciding life or bravery

g. Tugs at fear and tries to break down the hero

h. “He felt that in this crisis his laws of life were useless”

i. “He suddenly lost concern for himself, and forgot to look at a menacing fate.”

ii. “His self-pride was now entirely restored.”

i. The cover to me felt to clique to war and needed to be more about the inside battle of the main characters heart

2) Great Expectations

a. Charles Dickens

b. Most popular English novelist

· A Christmas Carol

· A Message from the Sea

· A Tale of Two Cities

· All The Year Round

· American Notes

· Barnaby Rudge

· Bleak House

· David Copperfield

· Dombey and Son

· Great Expectations

· Hard Times

· Holiday Romance

· Hunted Down

· Little Dorrit

· Martin Chuzzlewit

· Master Humphrey's Clock

· Mudfog and Other Sketches

· Nicholas Nickleby

· Oliver Twist

· Our Mutual Friend

· Reprinted Pieces

· Sketches by Boz

· Stories About Children Every Child Can Read

· The Battle of Life

· The Chimes

· The Cricket on the Hearth

· The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain

· The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices

· The Mystery of Edwin Drood

· The Old Curiosity Shop

· The Pickwick Papers

· The Uncommercial Traveller

c. Pip a young boy has an encountering life as he first runs into a man escaping from jail who has him steel things. He then visit’s Miss Havashams’ house where meets a young girl names Estella and falls in love with her even though she is cruel to him. Pip then comes over quit frequently to try to impress Estella then moves away. On his return he goes back to the house and talks to ms havasham who was killed in a fire soon after. Pip then leaves and runs into the convict yet again and tries to let him escape and learns that he is the dad of Estella. Years later pip returns to find Estella divorced and her heart changes and they fall in love again.

d. To never judge a person and treat them badly

e. Tries to be nice to all and become a wealthy man able to take care of his lover

f. Is greed and money that pulls away at his heart and tears him down

g. “My convict looked round him for the first time, and saw me . . . I looked at him eagerly when he looked at me, and slightly moved my hands and shook my head.”

i. “if you had done this, and then, for a purpose, had wanted her to take naturally to the daylight and she could not do it, you would have been disappointed and angry?”

ii. “She lived and found powerful friends. She is living now. She is a lady and very beautiful. And I love her!”

h. many different angles that the cover could be designed from and I thought typography would be a fun addition to this book

3) The Great Gatsby

a. F. Scott Fitzgerald – greatest American novels of the 20^th c. also wrote many short stories and films

b. Other books

· This Side of Paradise (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1920)

· The Beautiful and Damned (New York: Scribner, 1922)

· The Great Gatsby (New York: Scribner, 1925)

· Tender Is the Night (New York: Scribner, 1934)

· The Last Tycoon – originally The Love of the Last Tycoon – (New York: Scribners, published posthumously, 1941)

· Flappers and Philosophers (Short Story Collection, 1920)

· Tales of the Jazz Age (Short Story Collection, 1922)

· All the Sad Young Men (Short Story Collection, 1926)

· Taps at Reveille (Short Story Collection, 1935)

· Babylon Revisited and Other Stories (Short Story Collection, 1960)

· The Pat Hobby Stories (Short Story Collection, 1962)

· The Basil and Josephine Stories (Short Story Collection, 1973)

· The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald (Short Story Collection, 1989)

c. Nick is the main character of the novel is a young man who acquired wealth at an early age and lives on one of the two islands near New York. He lives next to Jay Gatsby who always puts on parties every Saturday and over indulges in his money. Nick is a cousin to daisy who is married to tom and lives on the other side of the second island. Nick visits daisy and her friend is over named Jordan that nick falls in love with but she cannot be trusted. Tom soon reveals that he has a lover in New York that he goes to see and Gatsby reveals that he has always been in love with daisy and throws parities to get her attention. Soon Gatsby and daisy meet and rekindle their love and tom, daisies husband gets mad and takes himself Gatsby nick and daisy into new York where toms lover gets killed by a car that daisy is driving. Tom tells George who is toms lovers husband that Gatsby killed his wife and George goes to kill Gatsby and himself afterward. Nick breaks up with Jordan and moves away and daisy and tom move away to live together again.

d. To trust no one and money can not buy happiness

e. Protagonist, Gatsby, tries to attract his long lost love by money but ends up protecting her till he passes away and his money couldn’t by him happiness

f. Antagonist tom cheats many out of his way and tries to get around all of his secrets and in the end he ends winning over both women who love him and destroying the men who loves his wife.

g. Quotes

i. “After Gatsby’s death the East was haunted for me like that, distorted beyond my eyes’ power of correction”

ii. “Only wind in the trees, which blew the wires and made the lights go off and on again as if the house has winked into the darkness”

iii. “I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”

This book has many different themes and representation that could have the chance to be very interesting and visually appealing. The book cover now is very in cohesive and not inviting to the reader. However there are many possibilities and different paths that could possibly make the cover as exciting as the drama on the inside.