Website

Finally, I completed my course portfolio website! I combined two classes into the same website, both Graphic Design I and Computer Applications II. This semester I found myself creating many designs relating to nature, so I incorporated a picture I took on Leech Lake of a sunset for the background image. I still plan on adding work from my other classes to the website, so check back soon for more updates!

Letter Press

The letter press was just as fun as the vandercook press, although reinking the type for every print got annoying real quick! I am very, very pleased with the prints made with the wooden type and letter press. I made a design to represent where I come from in the northern part of the state. There just so happened to be many pictures of fishing and lake scenes, which worked perfect for the design. I incorporated the name of my family's fishing resort, the lake, the bay, the state, and my name into the composition. After printing a few, I took out some blocks that didn't seem necessary. The last prints I did were on a heavier paper that was textured and gave the prints a nice antique feel that works well with the images. Once I started printing, I was on a roll and just keep cranking out the prints!

Final Polymer Plate Prints

Here are the prints made with the vandercook press and polymer plates! A little experimenting with paper and ink had to be done before the final prints were made. I found that the white paper was smoother than the tan paper that was available, so the quality of the print turned out better on the white paper. The first layer was printed in brown, and the second was supposed to be fuchsia. The first attempt at fuchsia turned out a blueberry blue, because there was already blue ink on the roller, and I didn't add enough purple. So we cleaned off the rollers and started with pure purple, but it was too transparent and electric, so I added some brown ink. That did the trick! The final prints turned out very well, although I wasn't expecting the purple to stand out so much in the eyes and mouth. If the brown was darker, almost black, maybe that would have looked better. But it was a very exciting experience; not everyone gets to print with the vandercook press!!

Polymer Plate Printing Project

For the last project we are exploring the polymer plate printing process and really embracing the medium. The theme for the project is "-made" and each of us has been given a different prefix. My prefix is "re," so the first thought that popped into my mind for remade was models on the cover of magazines who have been "remade" in Photoshop. I then cut out different pieces of models' faces in beauty magazines and put together a new face from the smaller pieces to remake a face. I even cut out letters to form the word remade, which is one of the limitations for the project as well, combining text and image. The other limitations for the plate design was that it has the dimensions of 4x6  and use two colors. Each color will be on its own plate, so we also had to separate the colors and keep in mind if we wanted only one color to show, or a combination of the two colors overlapping.

Series Finals

Farmer's Market Display Stand

Campaign T-Shirt

Informational Postcard

Farmer's Market Sign

The Informative Series assignment was a continuation from the Persuasive Poster. I developed my tomato characters and added color to the designs. The 3 final pieces were designed for a farmer's market stand, a postcard, and a t-shirt. "Buy local, eat fresh" became the slogan for the campaign, and "locally grown, naturally ripened" took on the same effect, but wasn't used in the series logo.

Midtown Greenway

Midtown Greenway Final Poster/Postcard

Greenway Poster First Draft

For the Midtown Greenway project, we worked in groups to create a promotional piece to advertise the Greenway. Liz, Tessa, and I worked together and came up with the idea of designing a poster to hang up in coffee shops and other local venues, as well as a postcard that can be mailed out or passed with information regarding the Greenway. In the first version the idea was to have a pocket on the poster as a place to put the postcards with more information on upcoming events or involvement, but assembling the pocket on multiple posters did not seem feasible. We embraced the design and layout of the Greenway's newly redesigned website and used parts of the design in our poster/postcard, as well as the colors and fonts. We wanted to show the various ways of becoming involved in the Greenway, from donating your time and or money, the levels of becoming a member, or simply new ways of changing your lifestyle the make the world greener.

In Progress Series Work

For my series, I am doing a support local food campaign, and have three pieces consisting of a banner that would be displayed at a farmers market, a postcard to be handed out listing reasons to buy locally, and a T-shirt with my campaign's logo that I designed. The logo was inspired by fruit stickers and started out as a sticker itself and turned into a logo.

More Inspiration

For my series of promoting locally grown food, I found these images that fit with the idea I had in mind, especially the Time magazine one because I had worked with that idea before. I found these images by simply Googling the phrase "local food" and two of them are from my inspirational websites.

Informative Series Inspiration

For the informative series I want to promote the benefits of buying local food. The website foodroutes.org gives many reasons to buy locally grown food. Here's a couple reasons why:

• You'll get exceptional taste and freshness - Local food is fresher and tastes better than food shipped long distances from other states or countries.
• You'll strengthen your local economy - Buying local food keeps your dollars circulating in your community. Getting to know the farmers who grow your food builds relationships based on understanding and trust.

 

Another informative poster I found is localharvest.org, which also promotes local food and why local is better. So why buy local? Most produce in the US is picked 4-7 days before being placed on supermarket shelves, and is shipped for an average of 1500 miles before being sold. And this is when taken into account only US products! Those distances are substantially longer when we take into consideration produce imported from Mexico, Asia, Canada, South America, and other places.  

Check out the rest of these websites for more reasons and information!

Revised Persuasive Poster

I spent a lot of time working on the tomatoes to make the ones on the vine look happy and 3D, while also making the one with the gas mask fit the same style. In the first draft the two groups of tomatoes were not working together, and the supporting text did not explain what the gas was. I edited the paragraph and played with the positioning of the headline text. I feel that the poster is now easily readable and draws the viewer in, but the bottom block of text still feels unresolved.

Persuasive Poster

For the persuasive poster assignment, we were to choose a topic from the WIRED article "Why Things Suck" and design a black and white poster that promotes the problem. I chose the topic of tomatoes because I did a similar assignment last semester, so I am familiar with the issue. The article was about how tomatoes are imported when not in season, which in turn causes them to be tasteless. Locally grown food always tastes better. My poster features tomatoes grown on the vine, and tomatoes ripened in a warehouse. The phrase "on the vine its fine... on the gas just pass!" gets the viewers attention, then at the bottom of the poster an explanation of what the phrase really means is given. The website www.thecitycook.com was informative and gave me background information about my topic.

Graphic Design That Works

Here are the slides for my PowerPoint presentation on Graphic Design That Works:

Ideas, Inspiration, Brainstorm

After flipping through Graphic Design That Works, I wanted to include some of the pieces in the book that I found interesting, such as the classic CBS eye logo and the history of Levi's 501 Jeans. For the design template, I originally was going to have each slide the same, but had trouble organizing the slide with the text and image. Also, the book did not have a consistent layout throughout the book so I decided my presentation would also have different layouts. The color palette is mostly pastels in the book, so the background colors of my slides is based on the colors used in the book.

Personal Critique

I feel that my presentation not only contains all the necessary information required for the assignment, but also reflects the style of the book. For instance, the book uses all sans serifs but has a variety of layouts, has a pastel color palette, and effectively uses white space. I paid close attention to make sure these were reflected in my presentation as well. I tried to keep my slides simple and not overwhelming. Overall, I am happy with the outcome of my presentation, considering I designed everything in PowerPoint and had never designed anything in that application for a design class before.

Book Review

The first assignment we were given was an informational book review. We each chose a book to use as a reference and inspiration for class. We then had to create a PowerPoint Presentation about the book and its contents. The presentation should also reflect the book visually. I chose the book Graphic Design That Works: Secrets for Successful Logo, Magazine, Brochure, Promotion, and Identity Design, by the Rockport Publishers. This book has a lot of process work and tells what works about a given design. Each section tells who the client is, the designer, the process, and what works. Also tips from the expert are given in the Promotion Design section, classic logos are displayed in the Logo Design section, and other various featured sections.