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.