Monday, January 24, 2011

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 20th 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.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Project four FINAL!

Herb Lubalin


Yulia Brodskaya


Jennifer Morla


Project description -
This project consisted of each students picking 6 artist of interest to them and doing research on each one by looking on the internet then going to the library. After we had 6 artists we then narrowed the down to 3 and did more of a complex search containing finding 5 fonts for each artist and keying the color from one of their works of art. The goal of this project is to create a drop cap or illuminated letter in the style of the artist. The final project was to have 3 3x3" boxes one with the artist work then with our rendition of the artist work in one of their initials and then the drop cap used in context in the last box.

Project overview -
Overall this project was very enjoyable. This project had many angles that you could work from with allowed the students to go in any direction they felt they wanted. I enjoyed looking into some works and artist that I had not taken the time to look at and it was interesting to incorporate my design style off of the artist style. The time we had for this project was a perfect time frame to be able to create a realistic composition and be able to do the research as well.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

1. Lester Beall (1903–1969) was a twentieth-century American graphic designer notable as a leading proponent of modernist graphic designer in the United States. I chose Lester because of his prominent style of choppiness with an abstract feel. The forms can still be seen with him however he ads his own characteristics and emotions to his work. His work uses bold color and does not really have a sense of depth. He is very strong in his design style and less is more with his design. Lester has said, “Through all my life as a designer I have spent considerable time developing myself as an artist. I am constantly drawing, with particular emphasis on the figure, which I find fascinating though difficult in terms of evolving something that is not completely abstract but certainly not literal or realistic.”


Ken Cato is a graphic Designer of today that works in large environments with many different materials and structures. He is well known for his graphics and his style is very unique to the item he is working with. He co owns Cato design and is very powerful in his graphics. The interest of his work allowed me to focus more on him and his understanding of design. He is very unique in his style of work and his style is very versatile to all materials he is designing with.







3. Julian Legendre is a designer now as well. His work was fascinating with me in her aspect of how she works well with paper cut out uses the negative space of the color background to incorporate a shape also has dimension in design and texture with the paper and the elements on the poster. This style is very unique and the texture created is fascinating to me. I love the incorporation of the bold one color palette to the white paper that is cut out and folded on to reveal the color below. This style is very unique and speaks passionately about his work and the boldness of his style and use of materials







**The Three artists I will be using**

Herb Lubalin (1918-1981) was a prominent American graphic designer. His style is very much with the time frame of the Avant Garde movement and he even designed a typeface ITC Avante Garde. Post Modernism style or rejecting what was wanted and creating a graphics incorporation of his own personality and call it design. His style is fascinating to me in how the text he uses creates a design of its own and then he incorporates photography or illustrations add even more to his compositions. It has been said that coming to terms with Herb Lubalin's work takes you quickly to the heart of a very big subject: the theory of meaning and how meaning is communicated—how an idea is moved, full and resonant, from one mind to another. Not many have been able to do that better than Lubalin.








Jennifer Morla born in 1955 and studied conceptual art at Hartford Art School. She is an American graphic designer and her style take contemporary items and twist them to be a rejection of culture but accepted as a great graphic designer. I chose her work because of the styling aspect she uses as well as the bold in your face design. Her incorporation of the page is quit fascinating in how she still cuts up the page but receives a strong cohesive feel.







Yulia Brodskaya - (born in 1983, in Moscow) is an artist and illustrator known for her handmade elegant and detailed paper illustrations. This style is intriguing to me and very interesting. Different then any style I have seen using paper and whitespace to create a visual texture and form to the page. Her style is unique and can be incorpaterated in so many ways with different words and meanings and the exploration of bold color on white paper makes an aesthetic feel and allows the paper to pop off the page.








Books checked out from the Library -

First choice : leading international designers select the best of their own work / edited by Ken Cato. Location: Art & Architecture Library folio NC998.4 .F565 1996

Snyder, Gertrude. Herb Lubalin : art director, graphic designer, and typographer / by Gertrude Snyder & Alan Peckolick. Location: Art & Architecture Library folio NC999.4.L8 S69 1985

Remington, R. Roger. Lester Beall : trailblazer of American graphic design / R. Roger Remington. Location: Art & Architecture Library folio NC999.4.B43 R46 1996


Snyder, Gertrude., Alan Peckolick: Herb Lubalin: art director, graphic designer, and typographer. Location Art & Architecture Library folio NC999.4.l8 S69 1985