Ansley Design

Chair Studio - Final Chair

2011-06-03T17:29:00.000-04:00

Yay! It's done! Crit went really well, the critiquers were all really excited to see a new and innovative idea (their words!) It held them all and they were pretty rough with it, plopping down into it and bouncing a bit even. Tony had to eat his words, telling me all quarter that it wouldn't work. It totally did. A few of them said it needed more webbing, and some said it was just fine, it think it had to do with where the crossing knots hit them on their backs and bottom.

DesComm - DIY Headphones

2011-06-01T14:03:00.001-04:00

This is my second attempt at the DIY style, they are earbuds connected with a lovely peacock headband. I think I got closer this time.

DesComm - Sketches

2011-05-25T17:01:00.002-04:00

DesComm - Minimal

2011-05-23T17:55:00.000-04:00

So my last two boards didn't really match up so I'm making new boards to match with it. My bottle cap earrings fit with minimal so here's an image board for that one.

DesComm - DIY/Minimal Accessories

2011-05-18T18:31:00.003-04:00

While I actually did "do it myself", I think these earrings don't really fit with the artsy eclectic style of DIY. They are much more up the minimal route. I'll try again next week.

DesComm - Sketches

2011-05-16T18:30:00.003-04:00

More sketches, this time of various DIY projects

DesComm - DIY Styling

2011-05-11T03:12:00.000-04:00

This week the design styling I've chosen is DIY.

Chair Studio - Works Like Model

2011-05-09T12:49:00.001-04:00

Then a working model that you could sit in was required.

DesComm - Fruit Ring

2011-05-09T03:09:00.001-04:00

Quick! You've got three hours to design a ring based on your .... favorite fruit!

DesComm - Sunglasses

2011-05-04T15:21:00.001-04:00

My first attempt at ever doing sunglasses. It's not quite automotive styling, but I think it looks cool.

DesComm - Sketches

2011-05-02T18:28:00.001-04:00

Sunglasses Sketches

Chair Studio - Looks Like Model

2011-05-02T12:47:00.001-04:00

Next up was a looks like model to show what we are thinking.

DesComm - Automotive Styling

2011-04-27T15:19:00.001-04:00

Create an image board with Automotive styling in mind.

DesComm - Kitchenware Accessories

2011-04-25T15:15:00.001-04:00

I chose to do glass pitchers.

DesComm - Sketches

2011-04-20T12:47:00.002-04:00

9 sketch pages are required of each DesComm project.

DesComm - Expressive/Organic

2011-04-18T15:11:00.001-04:00

Put together an image board for expressive and organic design.

Chair Studio - B's and Sketch Models

2011-04-18T12:44:00.003-04:00

Direction was focused a bit more and small sketch models were created.

DesComm - Design Charette

2011-04-13T14:58:00.003-04:00

We were given a situation and 3 hours to research, solve, and design for.

Chelsea hates alarm clocks, but she needs something to help her wake up. She believes the best way to wake up is also the healthiest, so she times her sleep cycles and sets her alarm to get her up at the end of a cycle. Her problem is her irregular; she wakes up anywhere between 5:30 and 8:30 each morning. Create Chelsea a product that matches her calculated approach to sleep.

Chair Studio - A's

2011-04-11T12:43:00.002-04:00

200 ideation and 30 A's were the start of this project

DesComm - Visual Resume

2011-04-11T04:27:00.000-04:00

So, I'm not really sure how much of a resume this is for me; its more of a personal advertisement. I toyed around with putting things from my co-ops in the image, but it just didn't feel right. I am happy with what I have and I feel like it describes me well.

DesComm - Course Evaluation

2010-12-02T16:13:00.002-05:00

Assignment: Evaluate the Design Comm course. Talk about its successes and ways to improve the course.

This was probably my favorite DesComm course I've had yet. It wasn't just about drawing and sketching and rendering. This time it was about presenting as well. That's an area I've struggled at for a long time, and I really believe I've gotten better at it thanks to my teacher and his curriculum. The only thing I would have liked would have been more feedback from my teacher on how I did at my assignments. I got a lot of great feedback from my classmates, but they don't have the same experience he does.

DesComm - Housewares Design

2010-11-30T21:56:00.002-05:00

Assignment: Design an innovative product or experience that brings a popular food trend into the home kitchen. It could be a professional technique, a cultural food trend, or an environmental improvement. The design can refine an existing product or be something completely new to the kitchen environment. It should be portable and consider both functionality and aesthetics in its execution. Read the complete rules at the IHA website.

DesComm - Blogging

2010-11-30T16:11:00.002-05:00

Assignment: Evaluate the use of a blog as a communication tool about design.

I've enjoyed using a blog as a way of communicating with my peers. Its interesting to read their opinions on things and see where they are coming from on stuff. I like that we all post our projects online for each other to see. As for changing the world with our ideas, I don't think we are there yet, but you have to start somewhere. This format gives us practice at getting our thoughts across. I also really like that with a blog I have the ability to do the assignment when I have the time. Sometimes my class schedule just gets packed down and I would have a hard time squeezing in a free writing assignment. This format allows me to do them when I've got a few minutes waiting for something or carve out a larger time to do them all. I feel like I'm able to put more thought into them because they aren't due on a certain day at a time. I hope my classes in the future continue to use blogs as a presentation or recording format.

Typography - Poster Project

2010-11-29T22:41:00.001-05:00

Assignment: Create a 16 × 20 inch poster for the MidPoint Music Festival 20XX in Cincinnati. The text and the MPMF graphic identity assets are provided on the class workspace. Carefully consider the typographic hierarchy of the information presented. A viewer should be able to easily understand the calendar of events and to quickly learn who the featured performing acts are. The poster must also convey the excitement of contemporary indie and art rock to an audience of designers and students. The information itself must constitute the “imagery” of the poster. Your poster must be purely typographic. You may use colors, shapes, and lines as well as text, but no illustrations or photography.

Our class didn't get to this project this quarter, but I wanted to keep the assignment included so I might come back to it at some point. The examples were all really cool.

DesComm - Personal Evaluation

2010-11-23T16:10:00.003-05:00

Assignment: Evaluate your work this quarter and list your goals for the next quarter.

I believe I've improved my skill set and my work has been good. It's definitely not the best in the class, but I hold my own. I've got plenty of room to grow and peers to look up to.

Next quarter is winter quarter and I'll be on co-op with Swimways. My goals for then are to learn all I can about chairs. Spring quarter's project is the famous Chair Project so I want to hit the ground running. Swimways is looking to expand their camping line, so hopefully I'll get some useful knowledge about chairs and other foldable, portable furniture. I also want to update my website and portfolio to include this quarter's projects. I'm quite proud of both my Baby Food Processor and my main studio project. As a general goal, I want to get even better at Photoshop and Illustrator, and page layouts, and of course, sketching.

Typography - Specimen Sheet

2010-11-22T11:41:00.009-05:00

Assignment: Typeface designers have a long-standing tradition of creating “specimen sheets” of their new fonts so printers and designers can see them in action. A good specimen sheet shows the flexibility and expressive range of the typeface family while capturing its distinct spirit and tone of voice. A good specimen sheet also highlights the most unique functional aspects of the face and displays its full range of weights, styles, characters, and special glyphs in a wide range of sizes.

Create two 11 × 17 specimen sheets for one of the following typeface families: Gill Sans Std, Sabon LT Std, Helvetica Neue LT Std, Baskerville Ten OT, Futura Std, Clarendon LT Std, or Bodoni Std (all provided). The first specimen sheet must include: (1) the “style block” with many styles and weights represented and labeled. Keep in mind that the “style block” should utilize some kind of related text, like a quotation or poem, or a set of words that surround a topic relevant to the typeface’s character or purpose. It is a chance for the specimen designer to show off personal style, topical knowledge, or aesthetic taste. The second specimen sheet must include: (2) the full character set including ligatures, lining & oldstyle figures, small capitals, and (3) a sample text set at several sizes, weights, and line spacings (see examples below).

This assignment shows what can be done with just a single font. I decided to use Times New Roman because I absolutely hate the way it looks. This exercise show all the different way the font can look and I like most all there options I came up with. I used bold, italics, small caps, all caps, and narrow width in various combination. I considered using wide as well but I already had enough variables to do the entire poem without repeating anything. I found I really like how the all caps and the small caps lines look, they are very formal. The italics look almost fun and a tad playful in this font. I still really don't care for the normal plain version of the font, but it was an interesting exercise. I'll remember that changing these attributes really changes the font next time I'm looking for that perfect font for a project.

DesComm - Open Post

2010-11-18T16:13:00.006-05:00

Assignment: Write about whatever you want relating to home, school, work experiences, or something else that could be applied to design.

Recently, Barnes and Nobels has come out with a new Nook. It features a full color touch screen. About six months ago, I bought a Nook. I weighed all the pros and cons between it and the Kindle. I found I liked the touch screen at the bottom far more than the full keyboard the Kindle has. Full keyboards should be on devices used for typing, e-readers are for reading. The touch screen has more options available for it, and I liked that it was in color and could show me the book covers.

Since then I bought a new phone, an HTC Incredible, a touch screen droid smart phone. Now when I use my Nook I find myself touching the screen expecting it to react like my phone. It doesn't. It has buttons. Now with the new Nook out, I'm kinda jealous and almost resenting the fact that I didn't wait just a little longer. I really don't want two Nooks, but the new fancy version is so pretty.

One of the reasons I liked the Nook was because I could load my portfolio on to it and could show it to anyone I randomly bumped into that wanted to see what I do. My Nook is in 16 shades of black and white. I work in color. My Nook cost me $200, I can't justify buying the new one unless there is something wrong with this one. Though, maybe I can give it to my mom for Christmas?

DesComm - Interview

2010-11-16T16:50:00.003-05:00

Assignment: Ask a professional designer for advice. Post a short, 3 question email interview with a professional designer.

I've emailed one of my co-workers from Hasbro Games, Michelle Duval, and am waiting on her responses to these questions:

1. How has your industry changed over the years?

2. What advice would you give to someone just starting out?

3. Tell me about 'your lucky break' or when you finally made it.

Typography - Grid Text

2010-11-15T11:11:00.005-05:00

Assignment: A typographic grid organizes text and images across the pages of a document. A grid can consist of a single column framed by margins, or it may have multiple columns. When you design a grid, you typically begin with vertical divisions (columns), and then add horizontal divisions called flow lines that arrange elements at consistent heights throughout a document.

Your page size is 8 × 8 inches. Create a grid with 1/4 inch margins all around and four vertical columns, 1/4 inch gutters. Arrange the provided text on the grid. Create three different designs on three different pages, all using the same underlying grid. You must use only Helvetica Neue 55 Roman. Do two layouts using 8-pt type only, and one layout that introduces one additional size of type.

For this assignment, I created the grid and then just used the spaces in it for the text. The first one I just put everything in the center. The headings got a bit more spacing so you could read them at a glance. The second one I toyed around with using the gutters in between the columns instead. The amount of space was just enough for one line of text so I duplicated that down the page with the rest of the paragraphs. The lines are too long to comfortably read, but it was an interesting idea. For the third one I realized I had used one column for the first and three for the second, so I made a two column text box for the last one. The lines might still be a tad too long, but it works better than the second. I don't like how close the text is to the top and bottom of the page, but that couldn't be helped while staying within the grid system.

DesComm - Review Goals

2010-11-09T16:49:00.003-05:00

Assignment: Review your goals from the beginning of the quarter and evaluate your progress before the final assignment.

Goal 1: Get a Job
Mission accomplished. I'm going to Swimways. They are in Virginia Beach and they make pool tools and camping gear.

Goal 2: Get better at sketching
'Better' is a relative term, but I think I actually did it this time. I switched over to using a mechanical colored pencil instead of a Verathin, and my line work has improved. My teacher always got on my case about not keeping my pencil sharper. Instead of trying to fix my bad habit (which I tried for the last year without success) I changed tools and the mechanical pencil keeps my lines sharp. Having lines and drawings that aren't all fuzzy and awful looking has given me the motivation to put more effort into the care of my drawings. It's not a giant improvement, but its a step in the right direction.

Goal 3: Learn more about Graphic Design
Done. The Graphics Design Basics 101 class that also required a blog and it's entries are interspersed throughout this one has taught me more about how graphic designers approach things and I've gotten a peak at their window of the world. I'd love to keep learning about it, only because I know everything I present will be better if I know about type and layout.

Goal 4: Good looking resume/portfolio/final presentation
Also done. I like my resume now. Its easy to scan quickly and its pretty. My portfolio has also taken a large step forward. I feel like it has aged up from underclassman to upperclassman. There are fewer projects included but they are all explained more in depth. This helps make it look less like the picture book version I had before. As for my final presentation, I'm still hopeful!

Typography - Word Layouts

2010-11-08T11:45:00.003-05:00

Assignment: Choose two words from the list below. In two different compositions, arrange each word to express its meaning (one word per composition). The composition is 6 × 6 inches square. You may vary the size, spacing, placement, and orientation of the letters. You may execute your project by tracing letters, cutting and pasting photocopied letters, using a computer, or any combination of these methods. Use only the typeface Futura Bold (provided on class website). You may repeat, omit, slice, block, or overlap words or letters. Do not use drop shadows or horizontal / vertical scaling (distortion). Do not use anything but black and white letter forms: no color, extraneous shapes, lines, or imagery. Consider the entire space of the square.

Of the words provided, I decided to work with the few that really jumped out at me as actionable words. I liked addition and the T in the word quickly looked like a plus sign to me so that was easy. At first I wasn't sure if I wanted to make it a + or just leave it a t, but in the end I figured it read better that way. Also, I added symbols to the word to get its meaning across. For elimination, I immediately noticed that there were a lot of I's in that word. The dots were an interesting aspect so I worked with taking them out, leaving them half in until I got something I thought looked neat.

Assignment: Within a 6 × 6 inch square, compose the text provided below in a manner that expresses its meaning. Use only the roman, italic, and small caps of Sabon (provided on website). Vary only alignment, leading, line length, orientation, and spacing. Use no variations in weight or size. You may break the paragraph into smaller elements and distribute them within the square.

This was a harder assignment, I wasn't really sure what I was going to do with it for a while. Eventually, I just broke the paragraph up into bits and then divided the parts about handwriting from printing. Hand writing stuff I italicized and the printed stuff I left regular. Then I worked with the alignments to visually describe what the words were saying.

DesComm - Post Project

2010-11-04T16:12:00.004-04:00

Assignment: Create sketch renderings that utilize 2D & 3D tools for impact and efficiency. Choose a final direction for your flash drive project and create rough models in Alias or Solidworks. Using screenshots as an underlay, use 2D tools to sketch over the models, add details, and simulate materials. Carefully choose which details are best modeled in 3D and which should be left to add later in Photoshop. Excellent concepts will evenly and appropriately utilize 2D and 3D tools to maximize the impact of the rendering in terms of accuracy, contrast, and composition. Share your mixed media renderings and discuss the challenges and successes in your work.

I had a real challenge with trying to make my sketch render look sketchy and early without making it look crappy. I'm not so sure how well I did that. I'm not real happy with how the sketchy one turned out but I'm darn pleased of the Photoshop one. I need to work on making it more dramatic though. There isn't much technically space to improve, but I can definitely do better with the style. Irena says gradient greyscale backgrounds and irrelevant swoopy lines. I don't know, but maybe. I've included the image I started from for reference.

DesComm - Strengths

2010-11-02T16:48:00.003-04:00

Assignment: Write about your individual strengths as a designer and how you stay focused on them.

I believe my strengths as a designer is my ability to look objectively at a problem and figure out what needs to be addressed in the final solution. I'm a strong problem solver and its one of my interests to read up about new materials and processes. This extra knowledge comes in handy when looking at problems in new ways.

I keep this skill of mine sharp by always looking around for things that have longstanding problems that people just seem to accept. One of my favorite commercial tag lines is from Dyson Vacuum Cleaners. "We fix the obvious problems others seem to ignore." That really resonates with me. If there is a problem, there has to be a better way of doing it. Then I start thinking about what would be better. Its a game I play in the back of my head constantly. The downside of this makes me come off as being overly critical and negative. I'm really not negative, but I do agree with being critical.

Typography - 9 Square Letters

2010-11-01T11:13:00.005-04:00

Assignment: Using 9-Square grids, explore the use of image and letter forms to convey mood, spatial ambiguity, dynamic composition, and pattern. The grid template is used to organize cuts made from magazine prints into orderly arrangements that display an intentional use of the frame to subtract unnecessary detail and focus the viewer on elements in a considered way.

Arrange magazine letterform cuts in the grid such that positive-negative spatial relationships between the letterforms and the frames themselves become ambiguous. Work in black and white. Try to make it unclear whether it is a white letterform on a black field or a black letter form in a white field. Determine how much of the letter can be cut away and still have just enough left for recognition.

For this assignment, I focused less on making the letters look ambiguous and more on making the letters flow into each other and relate. I really like the thin and thick lines used in the A and the H. The angle of the A was mirrored in the B. The letters in the lower right were all arranged to seamlessly connect to each other so that its a bit hard to tell where the J becomes the K becomes the Q becomes the S and ends at the B. I feel that there is a bit of disconnect between the first 5 and the last 4, but I liked both halves to much to change either. I probably should have broken them apart and done two separate ones based on those bits. Maybe next time.

DesComm - Good Design

2010-10-28T16:39:00.005-04:00

Assignment: What is your definition of good design? Give some examples.

My definition of good design is a design that is functional, aesthetically pleasing, and solves a problem. There are enough 'designs' out there that are pretty, but some of them can be pretty useless. I don't think the world needs more junk. That's where art comes in. Pretty stuff without a purpose (aside from getting people to talk about it) is art, not design. Design needs to solve a problem. It has to make something better. The best example I can think of right now is the three teapots that Donald A. Norman uses in his introduction in his book 'Emotional Design'. He owns the three teapots in the picture below.

The first was created by the French artist Jacques Carelman. This is not design, this is art. The second was designed by Michael Graves, called Nanna. The third is the tilting pot made by the German firm Ronnefeldt. The Carelman pot is, by intent, impossible to use. The Nanna teapot looks clumsy, but actually works rather well. The tilting pot is made with deep consideration of the stages of tea brewing: place the tea leaves on the interior shelf and lay the pot on its back while the leaves steep. Then, as the brew approaches the desired strength, tip the pot up to a tilt, partially covering the tea leaves. When the tea is ready, stand the pot upright, so that the leaves are out of the liquid, preventing the tea from becoming bitter. And finally, when the teapot is empty, remove the cover, signaling the waiter that more hot water would be welcome. -Donald A. Norman, 'Emotional Design'

The first teapot is not design, it's art. It was created by an artist and proclaimed as such. The second was made by a designer and while it works, it's not, in my opinion, good design. Its not hard to make something functional, you also have to make something pretty or clever somehow to make it on to my list. The third is good design. The teapot functions in a neat way and is pretty. It takes into consideration all the steps in the process of making tea and simplifies it for the user. It is a good solution and good design.

DesComm - Mixed Media

2010-10-26T16:34:00.002-04:00

Assignment: Find and share examples of illustrations or sketches that use mixed media (or sketches that you can't tell what techniques were used.)

I found this tutorial over at psdTuts+ the other day and thought it was amusing that as soon as we were assigned to do a mixed media project a tutorial pops up on one. They have some other tutorials using stock photography to create new images. One shows a woman's face being turned into a greek bust statue. As an extra trick they added bleeding tears dripping down the side.

DesComm - Post Project

2010-10-21T16:38:00.006-04:00

Assignment: Develop concepts for a small object in 3 sizes. The products should be created as a family of form with a specific brand in mind. Concepts must fit within the overall dimensions and design details based on an product dimensions. To gain insight and inspiration on how to design your product, conduct an online survey with a combination of qualitative and quantitative techniques. Visualize the data through charts and infographics as a part of your presentation. Excellent concepts will have a family look while following the recommendations set forth by the research. Create a series of sketches to quickly and effectively capture your ideas. Work in Illustrator to render and present two final concepts in orthographic views.Share images of your information design, sketches, and illustrator renderings. Discuss the specific challenges of our project direction and how you solved them.

This was my first real attempt at using Illustrator in a long time. I'd had a basic CS training course five years ago, but the only thing I remember being taught was Live Paint and I couldn't tell you what that is for anymore. After spending some time relearning the basics, I really focused on trying to make each object its own distinct texture. I wanted to try out a variation of different techniques for accomplishing that as well. I took this project as sort of a mastery of skills test project. I finally learned what a clipping mask is. Yay me.

DesComm - Open Post

2010-10-19T16:33:00.006-04:00

Assignment: Write about whatever you want relating to home, school, work experiences, or something else that could be applied to design.

A couple of quarters ago, our professor asked us to name a few of our favorite things. One of mine is my chair. It's this sweet old chair that used to be in my favorite high school teacher's classroom. By the end of ninth grade I was completely in love with the chair and told the teacher I'd be taking it with me when I graduated. He thought that would a great idea as he was retiring the same year and had no idea where the chair came from and didn't use it himself. I loved it because it was a great shape for sitting crosslegged in and it tilted farther back than anyone expects it to. Surprise factor. Because of this, my entire family and everyone I've ever met hates sitting in it. It's my chair. When I started at DAAP I was introduced to design history and instantly fell for Charles and Rae Eames' designs. OMG, that's my chair!! I was stoked that I had what looked like their chairs, not even daring to dream that it was a real one and not a knock-off. About a week ago I took a picture of it to show to my professor, who is a self-professed fanatic about these chairs, and was able to tell me with a good deal of certainty that my chair was in fact a real one. So, freaking, cool.

Typography - Resumes

2010-10-18T11:11:00.002-04:00

Assignment: Give your resume a make-over.

One of the more practical projects that is being assigned is to do a resume. I've got the before and after shots of my resumes here. Before my alignment was all over the place. I had rules for them, but there were so many different lines they snap to that none of them had much gravity to it. I also removed and combined my high school extra-curricular activities. It's really hard to part with them, I was really active and involved in HS, but my teachers are right, your resume is a rolling 4 year list, I'll ditch them soon. :( I feel like my new version is much more readable and clean. The images also help because my employers barely even glance at our resumes, they move straight to the portfolios. If the portfolios suck, the resume never gets read. The logos can get across more information in the .5 seconds I have.

Before:

After:

DesComm - Inspiration

2010-10-14T16:37:00.002-04:00

Assignment: Find an inspiring designer with strong visualization skills and write about their work.

As sad as it sounds, I don't really know too many designers off the top of my head and I honestly couldn't say I really follow any of them. I've never been good with current events, so it makes sense that that lack translates across the board. I'm much more interested with older design. I really like the interesting shapes, colors, and designs of decades past. Considering just about everything repeats itself I'll likely fall into being current if I lag behind long enough. Bauhaus and mid-century modern design is my absolute favorite.

The few designery websites I do follow are Abduzeedo and ID Sketching / Sketch-A-Day. Mostly I frequent them to learn how to do stuff rather than follow a current trend. psdTuts+ is another of my favorite sites.

DesComm - Info Design

2010-10-12T15:08:00.005-04:00

Assignment: Scour the web for the best example of information design and share them with your audience. Talk about the common techniques used in these great infographics.

The website Infographics Showcase takes submissions and gives them grades on design and content. The good ones are super interesting to look at and they are explained why the good ones are good and why the bad ones are bad. One thing I noticed that was common to most of them was that everything was outlined, most used either black or white, only a few outlined in colors. This helps gives a more illustrated feeling to the image. An interesting thing that might just have been a coincidence was that all the good ones used Sans Serif fonts and the two that used Serif fonts were really terrible. Sans Serif fonts seem to be better for posters and graphical things, while Serif fonts are better for text things like books and magazines. The good ones also managed to keep their images in the same style, bad ones mixed MS Office charts with web photos and badly drawn vector art.

DesComm - Portfolio

2010-10-07T17:35:00.007-04:00

Assignment: Post your portfolio to your blog, both as a PDF and as screen shots that viewers can easily see. Talk about some of the key challenges and how you resolved them in this newest version of your portfolio.

My portfolio is available on UC's Professional Practice site. I also try to keep my UC website up to date as well. As this quarter is just starting up, I haven't had the chance yet to make a new style sheet for it reflecting my current portfolio's layout and design. Or add in my projects from last quarter....

The challenge I had this time was I really wanted to make my portfolio look like the senior's portfolios. I needed to make it look sleek and in depth and show off all the work and thought process that goes into my projects. The portfolio I had to start from looked like a barely stepped up picture book. Each project needed to be longer and go into more detail. This was difficult because there have really only been three projects that we have spent any significant time on, and one of them for me kinda sucked. You don't put work you aren't proud of into a portfolio. That left me with only two projects and I knew I needed at least four. I had done some extra work for a few of my sophomore projects so I kept them in and included more of the back work for them.

The other problem I faced was all graphical problems. My layout was meh, my grid was non-existent, and my fonts made my Graphics friends cringe. This was solved by listening to my teacher explain grids, we all were over thinking it, and by enlisting my Graphics friend to poke at my text layout. I didn't let her touch my fonts, but I did try to pick better ones. I was relatively pleased that she didn't have to do much to it, apparently I'm learning stuff in my Graphic Design Basics class.

DesComm - Film

2010-10-05T18:29:00.008-04:00

Assignment: Movie trailers are the appetizers of the film world. Find a great movie trailer and write about why it makes such a great piece of communication.

Memento is one of my favorite thinker movies. The trailer does a good job of describing the hows and the whys but doesn't go into what happens, so watching the movie is still worth your while. It really bugs me when movie trailers practically show you the whole movie, or they've been edited to make it look like an entirely different movie. Or even worse, they keep the mechanism secret until you get to the movie theater so you are disappointed that it was all just a dream or they are really just ghosts instead of being a really neat movie.

This movie uses a neat way of keeping the viewers in the dark about what will happen next because the main character has memory issues and he doesn't know what just happened. The movie plays backwards. The question then turns into 'how did this all start' instead of 'how does it end'. Really cool.

Typography - 9 Square Magazine Cut Out

2010-10-04T10:55:00.003-04:00

DesComm - Inspiration

2010-09-30T18:28:00.006-04:00

Assignments: Choose an inspirational brand that communicates their values clearly. Highlight the specific details that make them successful. How can you apply their strengths to your work?

I like Google as a brand. It is trustworthy; I'd not use yahoo search, bing, or Ask Jeeves if I was actually looking for something and its been that way for a long time now. Google knows what they are doing. I also really like how they try to inform people about important dates by drawing their logo differently. Its a neat way of being education, smart, and still artsy. They've also had children's drawings up in further efforts to promote education and art. Their style is simple, clean, and it just works. They also don't make huge changes to things, everything is slow. Facebook takes a lot of flack for their new features while Google just sneaks them in. The picture search has been probably the largest visible change and that still went over rather well. Another recent addition is the predictive search. They start searching before you've finished typing. Simple and a good idea. I think I can try to included simple and good ideas into my designs. I want to create things that just work and you couldn't think of any other way they should work because 'that's just how it should be'.

DesComm - Present Yourself

2010-09-28T18:27:00.008-04:00

Assignment: Write an article with advice on designing a portfolio. Cite and link to three interesting blog posts on portfolio design.

From looking at senior's portfolios, they all seem to share a few things in common. Most of them only have between 3 and 6 projects in their portfolio and each project is at least 4 pages long. This shows that they go more in depth to show off their work. The hours of research and ideation and drawing and rendering and modeling really comes across when you have more pages to show off all the aspects. The underclassman's portfolios differ widely here as all of their projects are shorter lessons. They didn't spend as much time on each (because of how the curriculum is put together, not by any fault of their own.) so they just don't have the same amount of work behind each project to back them up. This forces them to instead make picture books of their portfolios, showing off the best bits of a lot of different projects in hopes that their talents show through that way. It usually works, but it's not nearly as impressive.

Some other articles from Coroflot and Core77 about portfolios I found helpful. Here's a neat article on Coroflot worth taking a read. This article explains about cover letters. I never really understood why they are needed or used. This last article is basically someone asking simple questions about survey specs.

Also, best thing ever.

Typography - Graphical Adventures Continue

2010-09-27T10:48:00.000-04:00

This quarter I've taken another Graphics elective class, this one is about typography, its Graphic Design Basics 101. I'll be posting my projects up for you to see.

DesComm - Introduction to a New Class

2010-09-23T18:25:00.005-04:00

Assignment: Introduce yourself, talk about your design experiences and interests. List your goals for this quarter.

Hi! This is my 4th year studying Industrial Design at University of Cincinnati's College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning. I had the order of the A's in DAAP drilled into me during my first 2 years here at DAAP when I was in Architecture. They are rather touchy about it.

I've had 2 co-ops at Hasbro Games working on game concepting. I enjoy the 'figuring out the puzzle' side of designing more than the 'make it look sweet'. I had a pretty good time there and I'm looking forward to my next co-op, hopefully at a place that has lots of things that need problem solving.

My goals for this quarter include getting a job. That's definitely at the top of my list. My usual 'New Year's Resolution' is to get better at sketching. Somehow that just doesn't ever seem to happen. We shall see... I also want to learn more about graphic design. I want my resume and portfolio to look freaking sweet and I want my final project presentation to really rock. I'm taking a graphic designs basics class to help with all that. I'm excited for school.

Photography Photos - Best Work

2010-06-04T16:26:00.000-04:00

I really enjoyed the images that played heavily with light, so those were the ones I chose to include in this set. I seriously need to get me a camera that works awesome in low-light settings.

Photography Site - Shutterbug

2010-06-03T22:31:00.000-04:00

Wow, Shutterbug is a fantastic tome of resources about everything you'd need to know to amp up your photo-taking skills. Reviews on cameras, information on new lens, tripods, and other tech. Plus there is a section on tips and refresher to help improve your image quality. I think I could get lost in this site for days learning lots of things, and I'll find that new camera I need thanks to them I'll bet.

This article is reviewing the Canon’s PowerShot SX200 IS. Its small size and kick-butt mini power look like they might do the trick for me. I'll need to read into it a bit more to make sure that it does low-light photos well, that is a high-priority for me.

Photography Photos - Diary

2010-06-02T16:21:00.000-04:00

I'm not the type of person to keep a diary, but I have over the years recorded my changing hair color. I tend to change my hair color periodically whenever I get bored or super-stressed over something or when I need a defining change in my life. The images in between the self-portraits so some of my color inspiration in my life.

Photography Artist - Nick Knight, Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin, David LaChapelle

2010-05-28T22:27:00.000-04:00

Nick Knight is a British photographer and director of SHOWstudio.com. He is known for his personal, experimental vision, resulting in work that exists outside the conventions of fashion photography. - wikipedia

His images are stunning fashion shots. The models are gorgeous, the outfits are intricate, everything is eye-candy. He plays with black a lot. Many images have absolute black to the point that details are removed. Everything about his images just screams, look at me more.

Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin are a Dutch fashion photographer duo, well known for their work for fashion magazines, advertising campaigns, and for their independent art work. - wikipedia

I am seeing a lot of pretty faces. They are obviously models posing to take a picture. Some are even famous people I recognize. No way I cold ever take these types of shots, but there isn't anything technically inspiring here either.

David LaChapelle is a photographer and video/commercial/film director who works in the fields of fashion, advertising, and fine art photography, and is noted for his surreal, unique and often humorous style. LaChapelle's work has been described as surrealist, grotesque, shocking and ironic. Ingrid Sischy, long-time editor of Interview magazine, has said there are three main aspects to his "strong and individualistic" photography: a sense of humour, political awareness and social awareness. His use of celebrities exaggerates aspects of their personalities and their personal lives. - wikipedia

His work is more interesting than the last artist, but I guess the humor is lost on me. Most of what I see is just plain weird. Some is even a little disturbing.

Photography Site - Shorpy

2010-05-27T22:30:00.000-04:00

Shorpy is a vintage photography blog featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1950s. The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.

Looking at these images is really neat. I love how crisp the black and white images are and how they capture so much interesting details. This site is a cool window into the past to see old cars, hair styles, clothing, and their general way of life. The image I'm including is from 1927 and is interesting because it shows that while some things do change over time, many do not.

Photography Photos - Fashion Story

2010-05-26T16:11:00.000-04:00

I was looking forward to doing this set. I wanted to have fun playing pretend "America's Next Top Model" with someone. I actually found a classmate who has modeled before and his hobby is photography so it was an interesting viewpoint to work with him. We focused a little too much time trying to get the image to say something and not enough on the actual clothing, but it was fun none the less.

Photography Artist - Sophie Calle, Nan Goldin

2010-05-21T22:27:00.000-04:00

Sophie Calle is a French writer, photographer, installation artist, and conceptual artist. Calle's work is distinguished by its use of arbitrary sets of constraints, and evokes the French literary movement of the 1960s known as Oulipo. Her work frequently depicts human vulnerability, and examines identity and intimacy. She is recognized for her detective-like ability to follow strangers and investigate their private lives. Her photographic work often includes panels of text of her own writing. - wikipedia

Her work has an interesting concept to it, but not many of them are something I'd want to hang on my wall or even use as my desktop background image. I don't really see the art in following someone around recording their life. I think that's actually kind of boring.

Nan Goldin is an American photographer. The main themes of her early pictures are love, gender, domesticity, and sexuality; these frames are usually shot with available light. She has affectionately documented women looking in mirrors, girls in bathrooms and barrooms, drag queens, sexual acts, and the culture of obsession and dependency. The images are viewed like a private journal made public. - wikipedia

Her work seems to be less about the image and more about the action. The pictures aren't pleasant to look at, but she is more focused on documenting what is there. Many of the images are dark or just weird. She did a good job showing us how things are, but not in any way that makes me want to see them.

Photography Site - Photo Eye

2010-05-20T22:30:00.000-04:00

Photo Eye has a magazine and in it I found an interesting article reviewing Edward Burtynsky's Oil. I found the images to be pretty interesting. Its an environmental piece, showing all the bad things in the world, but the images of them are really pretty.

Edward Burtynsky’s impressive book Oil is exquisite with an environmentally difficult narrative portrayed with mesmerizing details in sublimely beautiful photographs. The pages almost glow with the deeply saturated colors. Burtynsky’s Oil trilogy is composed of the industrial production, subsequent consumption and eventually the haunting debris that remains.

Photography Photos - Constructed Reality

2010-05-19T11:36:00.000-04:00

This was the week I was the most looking forward too, but due to a series of unfortunate events, I was not able to take the images I wanted. Its actually super hard to figure out what to shoot. After a long time of brain-wracking, I stumbled upon a book I had about Lily Tomlin's monologue play with lots of great black and white pictures of her. I found a picture frame and then by accident caught the reflection of my hand in the image. I thought that was a cool effect and tried to make my hand emphasize the emotion Lily is portraying in her picture. It was fun.

Photography Artist - Thomas Demand, Gregory Crewdson

2010-05-14T22:26:00.000-04:00

Thomas Demand is a German photographer. Thomas Demand is known for making photographs of three-dimensional models that look like real images of rooms and other spaces. The subjects represented in Demand’s photographs often relate to scenes of cultural or political relevance. Because he is working from models, the absence of people in his photographs is conspicuous and thematic. - wikipedia

I think images look lonely and I like them. They look like staged sets and are carefully contrived to portray exactly what is in the image. I like how clean the models look, they look real but still somehow fake. Its fun to look at.

Gregory Crewdson is a leading practitioner in the use of constructed models and staged events in photographic art, which blurs the distinction between reality and fiction. Focusing frequently on the American suburban landscape, his carefully composed and dramatically lit photographs present strangely disquieting views of everyday life that one critic has described as being like a “demented Norman Rockwell.” Crewdson describes himself as an American realist and has said: “I’ve always been interested in the uncanny, in looking into ordinary situations and finding something fantastical or mysterious. I’ve always been interested in domesticity; I’ve always been interested in photographic beauty; and I’ve always been interested in a kind of realism.” - Albright-Knox

Oh my gosh! His images are SUPER cool. They all require a ton of set up, but the image in the end is amazing. They all have a slight creepy edge to them, they feel like time has stopped. Something is always just not quite right in the images, but the people in them don't seem to notice or care. I LOVE IT.

Photography Site - PDN: Photo District News

2010-05-13T22:29:00.000-04:00

PDN: Photo District News has a section dedicated to contests. In my studio class we were recently told to enter design contests because you never know what can happen. Many good people don't win because they simply don't enter. I know my photo work is just in the very early stages but many contests provide feedback. Plus, contests are fun. Their current contest is about fashion. My fashion essay wasn't very strong, but some of my images weren't all that bad, so maybe I'll give it a go. This image is their contest ad image. I think its really pretty with the color palette and how she looks dead. I had tried for a similar theme in my fashion essay, but this is MUCH better.

Packaging Studio - Storyboarding of Product Life Stages

2010-05-13T00:09:00.003-04:00

Photography Photos - On The Road

2010-05-12T00:38:00.000-04:00

This week happened to fall exactly on the weekend I had planned a trip to Toledo. Also happily, I was not driving so I was able to take lots of good snaps while on the road and over the weekend during my camping trip. I tried to include only the images that really said 'road trip' to me, so the camping has been left out. Most of that weekend was cold and windy, so it make for interesting cloud and sky pictures.

Photography Artist - Stephen Shore, Lee Friedlander, Rudy Dijkstra

2010-05-07T22:25:00.000-04:00

Stephen Shore is an American photographer known for his deadpan images of banal scenes and objects in the United States, and for his pioneering use of color in art photography. Shore embarked on a series of cross-country trips, making "on the road" photographs of American and Canadian landscapes. In 1972, he made the journey from Manhattan to Amarillo, Texas, that provoked his interest in color photography. Viewing the streets and towns he passed through, he conceived the idea to photograph them in color. - wikipedia

His images are interesting, but nothing inspiring for me personally. They portray dusty, worn down old America. The colors are interesting because that's half of what is giving that feeling.

Lee Friedlander is an American photographer and artist. Friedlander's style focused on the "social landscape". His art used detached images of urban life, store-front reflections, structures framed by fences, and posters and signs all combining to capture the look of modern life. - wikipedia

These image are much more interesting to me. The black and white is dramatic, but its the unique points of view for each image that I find so interesting. He captures mirrors and shadows and tv screens when they are the most interesting. I particularly like his work Florida (with sexy eyes), 1963.

Rudy Vanderlans is a Dutch type and graphic designer and the co-founder of Emigre, an independent type foundry. In 1984, VanderLans, with his wife Zuzana Licko, founded Emigre and began to publish Emigregraphic magazine, a journal for experimental design. - wikipedia

The images that Google pulls up from a 'Rudy Vanderlans' search are mostly bright colors and text layouts. I respect graphic designers, but I don't have much interesting in becoming one. I couldn't seem to find much of his pure photographic work, so I don't think I've got a good feel for him.

Photography Site - Outdoor Photographer

2010-05-06T22:29:00.000-04:00

Outdoor Photographer has an interesting article about macro shots by Mike Moats. The article is short and sweet and gives actual numbers for f-stops if you'd like to duplicate his techniques. I'd really like to get a better camera and try some of these things. Really small details are fascinating. I really liked his super in focus image of a leaf.

The colors are really pretty and the stem detail is neat to look at. Lots of little things when blown up larger are neat to look at. I'll definitely be coming back to this article when I get a better camera.

Photography Photos - Portrait

2010-05-05T12:35:00.000-04:00

This week was portraits. I had trouble actually finding people I could photograph. This week I experimented with black and white photography. Only two of my images didn't drastically improve with removing the color. To keep things consistent I left them black and white as well. Most of my images show one of my friend's faces between 6" and 2" away. The balance has been pushed to create extra drama. The subjects were not asked to smile and they just arranged their faces as they wanted, adding extra character to the pictures.

Photography Artist - Hellen van Meene, Cindy Sherman, Rineke Dijkstra

2010-04-30T17:56:00.000-04:00

Hellen van Meene is an artist who makes photos, mostly portraits, mostly of young people, and mostly of girls. These young people are in carefully planned poses, with muted light seem to be hovering between melancholy and an atmosphere of departure.

Hellen van Meene's work is really interesting to me. She plays with light a lot and her subjects all seem sad or emotionally contained. I particularly like the images with a young girl as its subject and she looks sad or other worldly. You'd expect little girls to be happy, but in her photos they are just the opposite. I like the juxtaposition.

Through a number of different series of works, Cindy Sherman has raised challenging and important questions about the role and representation of women in society, the media and the nature of the creation of art. Many of her photo-series, like the 1981 "Centerfolds," call attention to the stereotyping of women in films, television and magazines. When talking about one of her centerfold pictures Cindy stated, "In content I wanted a man opening up the magazine suddenly look at it with an expectation of something lascivious and then feel like the violator that they would be. - wiki

Cindy Sherman's work makes me feel rather uncomfortable. Her models are women posing in strange ways and with an excessive amount of makeup on. She really seems to be objectifying women and shows them nude and in compromising positions. I don't care for it at all.

Rineke Dijkstra is a Dutch photographer who concentrates on single portraits, and usually works in series, looking at groups such as adolescents, clubbers, and soldiers. Her subjects are often shown standing, facing the camera, against a minimal background. This compositional style is perhaps most notable in her well-known beach portraits, which generally feature one or more adolescents against a seascape. This style is again seen in her work on pregnant women. - wiki

Rineke Dijkstra's work doesn't seem nearly as interesting to me as Hellen van Meene's. She also takes images of young people, but most of her subjects just appear bored. They look like they know they are on a photo shoot and are just uncomfortable. It's just not visually exciting for me.

Photography Site - Nature Photographer

2010-04-29T17:55:00.000-04:00

Nature Photographer Magazine is a magazine for nature photography. Most of their content is sold only through their magazine and there wasn't much to look at or read on the site. They do have a section of articles that are free to read and one is entitled "Maine’s Intertidal World". I was drawn to this article after skimming through the others because of the images included with the text. These images remind me of the photos I took last week of the riverbank. The article itself isn't very earth shattering, it just talks about the algae and fungus and seaweed and how the creatures living on the edge of the sea have adapted to the hard life of extremes. Linda DeStefano Brown is the author/photographer.

For those who take the time to look, this land of amazement offers an innate beauty in every aspect of its being. As you walk through this World, look down and respect the life you see at your feet.

I think the point of this whole article was that you can find beauty and tiny little worlds in places you would rarely look or expect. Seaweed isn't usually what comes to mind when you think about pretty things. These pictures however, proof that they can be just that.

Photography Photos - Landscapes

2010-04-28T21:09:00.000-04:00

This week we were to photograph landscapes but were warned to be careful that we weren't shooting cityscapes by accident. Being in a good sized city and not wanting to drive out into the middle of a cornfield, this presented a problem. I decided to do all of my images down by the river. My landscapes are more like waterscapes, but I like that I have a theme 'flowing' through them all. I took these images on an overcast day and I really like the coloration that I got out of them. They are all quiet and somber, cold and lonely, almost forgotten. I think they are kind of pretty that way. Almost all of the images have a deep field of vision. I played around with the location of the horizon lines in my photos, trying out the 1/3 - 2/3s rule. Many of these images I feel would also look very nice in a very dramatic black and white, but I couldn't bring myself to get rid of the somber color scheme I achieved with the overcast day.

Packaging Studio - Final Direction and Problem Statement

2010-04-27T23:32:00.011-04:00

Small IKEA table lamp

Problem Statement: Design an IKEA lamp that appeals to people who are constantly packing up and moving such as college kids and recent grads. The lamp should be compact and sturdy enough to withstand moves without needing additional packaging.

Packaging Studio - Initial Exploration

2010-04-26T23:27:00.015-04:00

Packaging Studio - Directed Ideation

2010-04-26T23:27:00.014-04:00

These three lamp concepts were the believably IKEA products according to my target user. She shops IKEA often and owns many IKEA pieces.

The first lamp is a small side table lamp. It telescopes up to be used as a task lamp and folds down to be a small mood lamp, night reading lamp, and also for storage and packaging. The half-circle lamp is a small desk lamp. The shade is made of a hard plastic and the neck is made from a rounded chrome tube. The neck rotates from the base and slides into the shade allowing the lamp to compact down and protect itself. The spiral lamp would be a small side table lamp. The shade is made either of a rigid canvas or of lightweight plastic. The neck is chrome. The shade spirals down the neck when not in use and while on the store shelf. This lamp is a little further from the IKEA brand but could still fit into their teen and college life lines.

These lamps were more ideation, but their concepts were either not as strong, have been done before, or were not 'IKEA-like'.

Packaging Studio - Point of Purchase / Target Market

2010-04-26T23:26:00.004-04:00

Photography Artist - Joel Sternfeld, Richard Misrach

2010-04-23T15:20:00.000-04:00

Joel Sternfeld is a fine-art color photographer noted for his large-format documentary pictures of the United States and helping establish color photography as a respected artistic medium. He has influenced a generation of color photographers, including Andreas Gursky who borrows many of Sternfeld's techniques and approaches. Color is an important element of his photographs. - wiki

Doing a google image search on Joel Sternfeld brings up a lot of green and brown images, all with earthy colors. Many of them feel rustic or worn in. He doesn't do pretty set up scenes, instead he photographs whats there and shows it as it is. He has a lot of really nice looking landscape shots. They aren't just straight up pretty pictures of grass and sky, there is always something nitty-gritty too look at somewhere. The images are really interesting.

Richard Misrach helped pioneer the renaissance of color photography and large-scale presentation that are widespread practice today. Misrach is best known for his ongoing series, Desert Cantos, a body of work he has worked on for over 35 years in which he studies the landscape and man’s complex relationship to it. His current project marks a radical break with his work to date, in that they are his first images made without film. Working with a state-of-the-art digital camera yielding astonishing detail, Misrach has deftly switched positive and negative along the color spectrum. - wiki

The vast majority of his photographs show a sand or desert scene. The light yellow/orange contrasting with the blues of the sky are very pretty. The stark landscapes seem to go on forever. I particularly like "Cypress Swamp, Alligator Bayou (1998)". It shows dead trees in water that is the same color of the sky. It's eerie and reminds me of a scene in a movie I liked when I was little, "Milo and Otis". The main difference between them though is the temperature. In the movie the scene was unbearably hot, while Misrach's image looks almost cold, if not just room temperature. I also really like "Hazardous Waste Containment Site, Dow Chemical Corporation (1998)" It is very washed out and eerie feeling. Both of the images I picked out look like they were taken after all the life has left the scene. I like that genre I guess.

Photography Site - Digital Photographer

2010-04-22T15:18:00.000-04:00

Digital Photographer has some interesting How-To articles on its site. I read up on long exposure photos with blurred motion. That technique provides for really interesting night time city highway shots, and pretty waterfalls.

In contrast to using fast shutter speeds to freeze action, using long exposures is a very creative means to convey motion in a photograph. A blurred image can be a very impressionistic rendition of movement, giving the viewer a sense of sensation.

By using a long exposure at night, your camera can record patterns of moving lights that can’t be seen by the human eye. Cars, trains, busses and other motor vehicles are excellent subjects for this technique. The vehicles often move too fast to be recorded on your camera’s sensor during a long exposure, yet their lights leave ribbons of bright colors across the scene. Busy roadways can become rivers of red and white.

It’s best to set up your tripod at locations where the ambient light (from streetlights and buildings) isn’t too strong, and where you can get a good view of fast-moving traffic. I like to shoot from a city sidewalk or on a bridge over a freeway at dusk. Your time exposures will probably be very long— from several seconds up to a minute— so a tripod is important. Use an ISO setting of 100 to 400, and although you’ll be using your camera on shutter priority, try to use very small apertures like f/16 or f/22 to prevent overexposure.

I'm really drawn to nighttime photography, so I think I'll be looking into a camera that does better at nightime shots. My current camera doesn't do so well. I can't count the number of times I've tried to photograph the moon or night clouds and my picture just turns up completely black.

The How-To about shooting in existing light helped me work with shooting inside. My camera's flash sucks up the battery life like none other, so I prefer working without my flash when I can. It was interesting to see that they suggested using the flash outside to help even a strong light source and to not use the flash inside, even though you might need the extra lighting, as it changes the colors and the dramatic lighting you already had.

There were also articles about how to retouch photos, or how to shoot macro photos, or how to make money as a photographer, but they either didn't have anything new to me in them, or nothing pertinent. I don't plan on being a professional photographer, I just want to learn how to take decent photos for myself and my work.

Photography Photos - City

2010-04-21T14:38:00.000-04:00

My idea for these photo is that cities have their own language. For the most part they do not communicate with us with words; instead they use colors, symbols, and lights. Most of my photos in this essay show the city saying something. This first image, of course, is telling us to stop when we get here, look around, and proceed with caution. My images are all capturing a single object, turning it into a character. The colors are for the most part bright and the lighting is for most images rather even. The subject is centered in the image. Each image is taken from a normal distance from the object.

Photography Artist - Ray Metzker, Harry Callahan

2010-04-16T15:16:00.000-04:00

Ray Metzker’s images question the nature of the photograph and photographic “reality.” Through cropping, multiple imagery, and other formal inventions, his work explores options for transforming the vocabulary of the photograph. Metzker has dedicated his career to exploring the formal potentials of black-and-white photography, but they are not his exclusive concern. “When you look at the multiples, you are aware of patterning and so forth,” he says, “but there is still identifiable subject matter; frequently there are people there; there is a rhythm to those people.” - Museum of Contemporary Photography

Much of Ray's Metzker's work is a predominantly black image with the small important details called out by being the only bit visible in the photograph. He plays with shadows and light a lot. The images are very dramatic. I particularly like his image Chicago, 1981. It portrays two men standing at the top of a subway entrance. The camera angle is from the bottom of the stairs looking up at them from the bottom left. The light from the day silhouettes the men and plays down on the subway wall.

Harry Callahan photographed his wife, Eleanor, and daughter, Barbara, and the streets, scenes and buildings of cities where he lived, showing a strong sense of line and form, and light and darkness. He also worked with multiple exposures. Callahan's work was a deeply personal response to his own life. He was well known to encourage his students to turn their cameras on their lives, and he led by example. He tried several technical experiments - double and triple exposure, blurs, large and small format film. - wikipedia

His work is similar in style to Ray Metzker. They both have very dark images, with hardly any gray tones in the middle. Harry Callahan's photographs feature more predominantly people and faces. His wife is often the subject. Between the two artists, I believe I enjoy Metzker's work more. Callahan did some odd nude shots that I don't really understand, and the mood behind most of the shots just isn't as appealing to me.

Photography Site - Camera Arts

2010-04-15T15:05:00.000-04:00

Camera Arts has an article about Digital Silver Imaging. Their website and the article explain what it is and why its better than regular printing. Traditional print making uses silver gelatin in the process and its visible when prints are turned sideways and the light catches it. Galleries prefer this type of black and white print over regular inkjet or laser printers photo prints.

We employ a true photographic chemical process in the development of each print - not a color or inkjet process. Inkjet printers build black & white tones by laying drops of ink on a paper’s surface, leading to unrefined results. DSI uses a light source, exposing a silver gelatin layer within the paper to produce a true continuous tone from shadows to highlight. Color RA4 printers rely on color dyes to replicate black & white tones, so blacks and grays often have a hint of other colors (magenta or cyan). DSI’s print process is founded on light, silver, and chemistry. Blacks are 100% black, grays are fully gray, color shifts are non-existent. Ink pigments reflect light, resulting in unwanted glare or metamerism across your print. With DSI, your image emerges from the paper itself, not from a compilation of ink on paper, so there are no unexpected bursts of light.In order to address the challenges of photo printing, inkjet paper manufacturers have begun producing a special photo inkjet papers with a matte finish. However, these papers come with an issue all their own - unwelcome texture. Fiber-based black & white prints are proven to last over a hundred years. The inkjet process has existed for a fraction of that time. Why take a chance that your once-in-a-lifetime image may end up short-lived?

I've often struggled with getting prints to come out the way I want them too. I have a lot of trouble getting my grays to look like grays. Sometimes they come out redish or greenish or brownish instead. I don't know anything about this silver gelatin, but it sounds special. Being able to print high-quality photos is important. I've tried printing out some of my photos on my Canon printer and I've never really been happy enough with them to frame. Its interesting to find out how professionals do it.

Photography Photos - Technical Project

2010-04-14T14:36:00.000-04:00

This assignment is to help us learn all the different available settings on our cameras. We were to experiment with the same shot using different lighting, iso, and white balance settings. Not the most exciting photos, but I learned what all the fancy buttons do!

Packaging Studio - Brand Value - IKEA

2010-04-13T00:59:00.010-04:00

Photography Artist - Ansel Adams

2010-04-09T15:03:00.000-04:00

Ansel Easton Adams (February 20, 1902 – April 22, 1984) was an American photographer and environmentalist, best known for his black-and-white photographs of the American West, especially in Yosemite National Park. One of his most famous photographs was Moon and Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, California. With Fred Archer, Adams developed the Zone System as a way to determine proper exposure and adjust the contrast of the final print. The resulting clarity and depth characterized his photographs and the work of those he taught the system. -wikipedia

I had not heard of the Zone System before. Then again, I've not done much with photography before so I'm not surprised. When my teacher talked about it in class I found it very simple, interesting, and useful. My drawing teachers are always talking about contrast, and this is an actual measurable way of creating contrast in an image. The stark contrast in his images creates a lot of drama, likely what made his photography famous. Looking through the Ansel Adams Gallery website I've found I like a few of his images: Clearing Storm, Sonoma County Hills, Moonrise from Glacier Point, and Golden Gate Headlands. I've never really looked at any of his work before, some is quite pretty, and all of it is dramatic. I really enjoy the high contrast of his images and it's something I'll try for in some of my own work if I have the opportunity.

Photography Site - Aperture

2010-04-08T15:01:00.000-04:00

Aperture is a photography magazine based out of New York. They also have an gallery. One of their current shows is "Sawdust Mountain Photographs by Eirik Johnson". The website is showing only a few of the images, likely they'd rather have you come to the show and look at them there after paying for admittance, but I'm not in New York, so I'm limited to what they have posted.

"Eirik Johnson: Sawdust Mountain" focuses on the tenuous relationship between industries reliant upon natural resources and the communities they support. Timber and salmon are the bedrock of a regional Northwest identity, but the environmental impact of these industries is increasingly at odds with the contemporary ideal of sustainability. In this exhibition Eirik Johnson reveals a landscape imbued with an uncertain future—no longer the region of boomtowns built upon the riches of massive old growth forests. "Eirik Johnson: Sawdust Mountain" records a region affected by historic economic complexities and, by extension, aspects of our fraught relationship with the environment in the twenty-first century.

Most of the images I can see are sad and quiet. They tell the tale of a town that used to be full of life, all hustle and bustle. Now most of the people have moved on and the ones that remain are quietly just barely keeping things running until the certain end. The images are eerie in that way.

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Photography Photos - Theme Sequence

2010-04-07T14:28:00.000-04:00

As our first assignment we were given a list of things to capture. Light, Shadow, Color, Lines, Sky, Horizon, Water, Face or Hand, Motion, Closeup, Reflection, and Decay. Each photo essay will be comprised of 12 images. Clicking the image will take you to my Flickr page for that week's set. The entire class is uploading to Flickr and adding their images to the group, Digital Imaging Essentials.

Packaging Studio - Brand Deconstruct - Crayola

2010-04-06T08:09:00.001-04:00

Crayons are exciting...

Photography Site - American Photo

2010-04-03T14:59:00.000-04:00

American Photo had an interesting article about Chris Kridler. She is a Storm Chaser photographer. I've always loved photographs of lightning. She has some really pretty ones. According to the article she takes two weeks off from work in May/June to chase and photograph storms. Krinler has a lot of tornado shots as well as lightning photos. Her website, Sky Diary has all her photos on it. She works in Florida, but has pictures from New York's snowstorm and Tornadoes from Texas and Kansas among them.

When asked where her work has appeared, this was her answer, "In several documentaries, including National Geographic Explorer, and programs on the Weather Channel, The Learning Channel, the BBC, and History Channel. My photos have appeared in weather guides, books, magazines, the International Journal of Meteorology, and art shows. I get just as excited communicating work through my website. I get a lot of e-mail, especially from kids." She said she got started from taking a storm-chasing tour and photography was only a hobby of hers at that point. I think it's really neat that even if you aren't a professional highly-trained photographer its still possible to take amazing shots.

Photography Reading - "How Do We Read a Photograph?"

2010-04-02T16:22:00.000-04:00

Whenever we look at a photographic image we engage in a series of complex readings which relate as much to the expectations and assumptions that we bring to the image as to the photographic subject itself. Indeed, rather than the notion of looking, which suggests a passive act of recognition, we need to insist tat we read a photograph, not as an image, but as a text.

This text contains an image "Identical Twins" by Diane Arbus, and it picks apart how we are supposed to 'read' the image. I quite like the image itself; there are two little girls around the age of 7, they are dressed the same and their hair is done the same, but one isn't smiling while her twin sister is. We then start to notice all the other small details and find that while they are identical twins, they are very different.

The text includes a few more images and talks about how to read them, but I found the first example to be the one that speaks the most to me.

Packaging Studio - New Class, New Purpose

2010-04-02T13:17:00.001-04:00

For Spring Quarter we are asked to keep a blog to use as a presentation space. Our focus is "Package = Product".

Photography Reading - "What is a Photograph?"

2010-04-01T16:21:00.000-04:00

Graham Clark's article "What is a Photograph" starts off by talking about the history of the photograph. While good to know, as I'm not a history buff, its not particularly interesting to me. It did get more interesting a couple of pages in.

What then is a photograph? It is, at its most basic level, 'a picture, likeness, or facsimile obtained by photography.' The meaning of a photograph, its efficacy as an image, and its value as an object, are always dependent on the contexts within which we 'read' it. On a functional level, then, the photograph is dependent on its context.

The text also makes an interesting note about the direction of a photograph, landscape and portrait being the two main views. The different aspect ration provides the image with different importance inherently. Other sizes, like a square image suggest voyeurism and immediacy; whether this is because of the shape itself or because that's how Polaroids were and we remember, it's unclear.

We can never enter a photograph's depth." Roland Barthes rightly complained about the frustration involved in the misplaced assumption that the closer we look at a photograph, the more we see.

That's an interesting point, photographs are flat thin pieces of paper, nothing more, but they contain the illusion of depth. They try to portray reality as accurately as possible, but in the end they are still completely fake.

Photography - Welcome to Photo Class

2010-03-31T14:09:00.000-04:00

As part of my 'Digital Imaging Essentials' class, we are required to keep a journal. Since we are writing responses to things on the internet, I figured a blog would be a convenient format. Each week we are to look at a 'photo media outlet' and write something about something that was mentioned or linked to from there. Additionally we are to look at a famous photographer and do the same. The third part is to actually take pictures. Each week has a theme and we go out into the world and see.

DesComm - Furniture Renders

2009-06-04T14:08:00.002-04:00

DesComm - Furniture Sketches

2009-06-02T16:08:00.002-04:00

DesComm - Cell Phone Renders

2009-05-25T23:21:00.001-04:00

DesComm - Cell Phone Sketches

2009-05-19T15:29:00.001-04:00

DesComm - Inspirational Images

2009-05-14T02:04:00.002-04:00

DesComm - Netbook Renders

2009-05-12T12:54:00.002-04:00

DesComm - Netbook Sketches

2009-05-07T16:23:00.002-04:00

DesComm - Backpack Renders

2009-05-05T01:07:00.002-04:00

DesComm - Backpack Sketches

2009-05-03T19:18:00.001-04:00

DesComm - Watch Renders

2009-04-28T00:40:00.002-04:00

DesComm - Watch Sketches

2009-04-24T10:16:00.002-04:00

DesComm - Baby Monitor Renders

2009-04-21T14:58:00.001-04:00

DesComm - Baby Monitor Sketches

2009-04-16T14:50:00.001-04:00