Graphic Design

I would just like to say, I feel like I knew nothing about the meaning of graphic design before this class. I remember the one class we had when Rebecca was presenting her poster and she was telling us a story about how she was explaining to her mom what graphic design was, and her mom really didn't understand.

I feel like this is is when people have to put themselves in the shoes of a graphic designer. I knew that graphic design meant to create a visual piece of texts and/or images to tell a message. Well, since I have been in the shoes of a graphic designer for the past 10 weeks, I think graphic design means a lot more. I think it means to create an element of visual appeal to anything that you want to catch the interest of someone or a group of people. To create this visual appeal you must play with colors, hues, tones, tints, fonts, leading, kearning, layout, text justification, images, and make sure that it all represents a certain emotion or message for the viewer.

Graphic Design is an art. You must be creative, flexible, fearless to try new things, and you must step out of the box and create something that will appeal to others. You have to learn different techniques from different programs. It is a lot of learning and it takes a lot of effort to make one little poster, or one brochure. No one really knows how much work goes into the font, colors, and images on anything, and I think that this class did a great job teaching me that I shouldn't over look design, because people spent a long time making sure I don't overlook it. Trust me, since I started this class I have to make sure I notice everything reguarding fonts, leading and kearning!

Brochure. BRIDES BRIDES BRIDES!

I have said many times this semester how I have wanted to be an event planner, so all semester long I have been working on a portfolio in my Public Relations writing class, that is extremely focused on planning an event called "Brides for the Cure." Unfortunately, I do not ant to post on the internet any of my creative ideas for this event, but you will all see in class a sneak peak of what I have been working on this semester. I am presenting this brochure, with the rest of my portfolio in New York City, when I will be at my intership next year, in hopes to be able to actually plan this event and help out a great cause.

My brochure is extremely PINK! I love it. Obviously, pink relates to breast cancer awareness, because the breat cancer awareness ribbon is pink. The event will be donating to Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and their logo is pink, and honestly, I just really like pink.

I made sure I paid extreme attention to leading, kearning, orphans, widows, spacing, fonts, colors, images, and sizes of everything. I think it turned out great!

Critiques!

I really like when we do critiques in class. I feel like I learn a lot from everyone in class! I also feel like it is a great way to get to know eachother. Just like how our blog layouts fit who we are, I think our projects definately are a reflection of our personalities. Some people are bright and loud, and their projects are too. Some people, are dark and mysterious just like their posters. Others are super funny, and their instabooks were halarious. Some people are very loving and passionate and their posters reflect love or passion for an important cause.

I feel like that I learned that design is a reection of the designer. Everyone has their own opion, and everyone likes things in all different ways. I love when things are centered and girly, some people are more black and white with a solid strong type. I think that is what is great about our critiques, we can all be ourselves and know that others think our designs are interesting.

I also like the critiques because then we can vent about our struggles with the Adobe programs and that others are fighting the same struggles. I think all of us had issues understanding the difference between Illustrator and InDesign, we are confused when to save things as TIFF, JPEG, or PDF. We all had issues getting images the right size and resoultion without straching it or making it pixelated. I know I had a hell of a time with Photoshop. The only thing I really know how to do in photoshop is the magnetice lasso tool, and I have definately mastered it! hahah

FedEx.Kinkos.Headache Headache Headache!

Wow, I really did not think that printing a few projects this semester was going to be such a hassle. For the first project, I asked them to print my magazine layout and mount it. They printed it, and sold me poster board to paste it on myself. It started to look sloppy, so I had to get creative and spend an hour hot gluing popscicle sticks around the edge to make it go along with the theme of my pumpkin magazine. It was so time consuming, and I think that a properly mounded display would have looked more proffessional.

For the instabook project I learned to use the copier in the library. I feel like I was a lot more succesfful that on this project with printing.

The next project that I took to FedEx was the poster. As you can see from my previous blog posts, I printed 2 different posters. I went to a different FedEx this time. Unfortunately, they couldn't mount it there for me. The guy was super nice! His name was Justin. Justin pulled up my posters for me on dropbox and emailed the another fedex for me to pick up when I get there. They said that it would be done when I drove there. Mind you, I was already running late to get to my P.R. Writing class, so I was expecting them to be ready for me. NOPE! It took them about 15 minutes after I got there to print them, and mounth them. Then they had to cut the edges, and the guy cut off my white boarder on my one poster. I was so annoyed that it took so long, but all of the workers were extremely pleasent, so I thought maybe thats where I would get my brochure printed out.

So I go back to that Fedex for the most recent project, our brochure. I was again running late, because work kept me late again. All I need was my brochure printed, 2 copies, front and back. I gave them my flashdrive and they told me my files were corrupt so I couldnt print them there. So I emailed the files to them. After the guy spent 10 minutes trying to figure out how to download the dropbox file, he printed it out WRONG! So I showed him what to do, and then his computer said those files wouldnt print either. I was like no way! I would have been able to print them at home but I had no INK! So I was already there for like 45 minutes, and one genius finally said that they have drop box on their do it yourself printers. I was like omg are you serious, so I printed the inside of the flyer and the outside of the flyer.....but it wouldnt print double sided. So after I spend 50 minutes and $2.08 I asked them to make it double sided for me. So he did and he put it on glossy paper and it looked terrible. I didnt have any time to have him fix it because I was already 30 minutes late for class. Since I had spent over a hour there, I was expecting him to make it double-sided for me for free. No he charged me for it AND THE GLOSSY PAPER I DIDN'T ASK FOR!

I am now ANTI-KINKOS! I just couldn't believe how idiotic these people were!

My Résumé

As you see, I did not want to settle with a boring, bland resume. Since I plan to go into a career in event planning, I figured it would be creative if I made my resume look like an invite. I have all of my text centered and I added a little color and a little formal design element to make it stand out from the stacks that companies recieve. One thing I was pround to add onto my resume was the fact that I have adobe creative suite under computer skills. I feel like I have learned enough about the programs like photoshop, InDesign, and Illusrator that I would be able to use these programs in the workplace.

Personally I really love how my resume turned out, and I am proud of how good my hard work looks on paper.

Christmas Cards!

'Tis the season for Christmas cards to be popping through our mail slot.
My dad hangs all of the cards we get on the wall in our dinning room.
Which looks pretty cool, but this post is not about other cards, its about the ones my family sends out!

We have an old Victorian style house, with big pillars on our front porch and dark oak wood in the interior. My dad is obsessed with our house, he is so obsessed, our Christmas cards that we send to our friends and family have an illustration of our house in the winter time! Yep, we aren't like any normal family that sends out cards with pictures of us on them, nope it has a picture of our house.

The only difference in our cards every year is the layout and colors that surround the illustration of our house. Usually its blue or green with a little saying like "Seasons Greetings from Brian and Family."

Well this year, I want to design the cards! Seeing as I have had a whole semester on design and all, I figured it would be fun. So recently, I have been hinting to my dad to let me do it so they aren't boring like they are every year! 

I will let you all know if he lets me do it, if he doesn't here is our card from last year!

 

Poster that I likeeeeee....

TREES.TREES.TREES

GO GREEN!GREEN!GREEN!

I have not really seen that many posters lately, and none that I really like. I have however found a great image that sends a message without words. This image relates to my poster. I found it when I first began my poster project, but it was not big enough to add it into my poster. I think that it is a creative and effective way of letting people know everything that is effected possitively by being eco-friendly, and what you can do do be eco-friendly.

Here we have a green tree with a mix of small images that make it "green". Obivously, having more trees, and planting trees keeps our environment clean and full of oxygen,

There is an image of a lightbulb. If we use more energy effecient lights and learn to turn them off when we leave the room, we will save tons of money.

There are a bunch of little green cars. Personally, I love my eco firendly car. I get 32-48 mpg. It not only saves me money, but I am burning less gasoline that pollutes the environment.

Next, you will see little liquid drops. I think these represent fuel. If we use biodeisel, or cut back on oil, we will stop polluting the air, and we will be reusing materials so we are not wasting everything.

There is a little nuclear energy sign too, Most people think that nuclear means bad, but it really means lots of energy!

People who are not familiar with nuclear energy may think the symbol is for wind energy. I think wind energy is great! Western New York has started building wind tourbines to harness wind energy. We have some righ in Lackawanna, and if you go out toward Warsaw. It not only allows you to get a tax break if you have it on your property, it is harnessing free energy for people to use.

Another image you can see, is the recycle arrows. Please everyone, learn to reduce, reuse, and recycle. It will help save our environment, our bodies, and the money in our pockets in the long run!

or Poster Two? YOU CHOOSE!

This here is poster number 2. After all of the struggle I had with poster one, I started this design. I feel like I have two different types of design perspective. I like somethings super bright, fun and girly, and I like somethings nice, neat, and formal. I think poster number one was my bright and fun , this is more neat and organized. 

I like that I did two different projects because they really show my versatility.

Personally I like this deign the most, but right now the verdict is 50/50! Tell me Which one you like!

Poster One.....

So  this is the first poster that I did. I actually started to do it in illustrator because I drawing lines and trying to bring so life and creativity to Planet Earth. I was pretty much finished and I was going to save it as a TIFF and place it into InDesign, Ms.Greenan told me I should and could do this same design in InDesign. So I stayed after class and every time I tried to replicate this design in InDesign, it was not coming out right. After an hour of aggravation  I just s.tarted an entire new poster (which you will see in my other post)

I didn't like the way it looked really so I went back to this design and just placed the illustrator > TIFF file into InDesign, and it was all pix-elated. I could not figure out why. I did it 300 resolution and it was 11x17 like the size of the InDesign document. I didn't stretch or alter anything. So I printed it out, and it was fine. Not pix-elated or anything.

Then I took it to FedEx/Kinkos to get it printed and dry mounted, and when the guy was trimming the ends, he cut off my white boarders! So it looked really long and skinny when I presented it in class.

E.L.

InstaaaaaaaaBook!

I like a lot of things that start with "In": 

Insistant, Informative, In-stores, Instagram, and INSTABOOK! 

(what I call it, instead of Instant Book)

My INSTABOOK was called Pirate Boots! It was about a ship Captain's daughter, and how she wanted to marry a pirate but her dad wanted her to marry royalty. 

I thought I would get a little bit more creative than the story of my boyfriend and me.

Here is my Instabook! I hope you enjoy! 

Maybe one day, you will read it to your kids as a bedtime story. JUST KIDDING!

But really, if it is actually that good, pleaseeee call me so I can publish it and make money! 

Cracking down on BLOGGING

I usually think about random things either in the shower, or while I am driving alone.

Well this morning I thought about BLOGGING. I obviously need to jump onto this ban wagon. I have a Tumblr but I really don't ever use it, and people who do love it. Also, I hear about other classes assigning blogs. PLUS this is graded, so it is pretty important to get into the swing of bloggingggg. 

I think everyones blogs are so nice! Everyone seems to have customized their layout to fit their personality. Its really cool to see how everyones personalities shine through their work and their blogs. It is pretty cool that design brings out the character of the designer. 

I feel like my blog fits me pretty well. I LOVE CURLY FUN FONTS! EVEN IF THEY ARE HARD TO READ :) I love pink. I love everything centered. I love pictures. I love being funny. AND I love being loud. I think the blog I designed screams ERIN!!

Obviously the class blog, com-322.blogspot.com is designed by the one and only Ms. Greenan. It is completely opposite from mine. It is a very straight forward and clean design. I like the blog posts because they are educational, a they add a little color to the blog. I love color and I loveeeeee learning :) Who doesn't, right??

Some things I have learned so far.....

Guidelines to Communications Graphics at Buff State:

 

DO NOT COME LATE TO CLASS!

All projects are in InDesign, all exercises are in Illustrator

PACKAGE YOUR WORK

Magnetic lasso tool is a life saver, and project saver

PAY ATTENTION TO THE FIRST DEMONSTRATION FOR ALL PROJECTS

Save everything. Use Dropbox. Don't forget your flashdrive

BLOG.BLOG.BLOG.BLOG.BLOG.

Do not eat in class

NO ORPHANS OR WIDOWS, PLEASE!

Walk away from your work if you start to make mistakes

DELETE AND START OVER IF YOU NEED TO

 

EL

 

Fall in to the GAP!

Every season we have a new campaign at Gap. All year we have seen brights across the runway, and this is not changing for this season or winter. NEON'S! BRIGHTS! LOUD! COLORS! Those are all the word that come to mind when I see our GAP style book. These are some images from our 2012 style campaigns. 

 In this ad, I like that the bodies are at a slight diagonal to draw the eye to the word "BRIGHT"

These are images from our summer campaign, as you can see brights and neon's were definitely in. As for design purposes, you can see that the text and the texture of the text is the same for both ads. Now I will show you a picture of the latest campaign, RED, BRIGHT AND NEW. I think this is the name because the elections are right around the corner this fall, but also because fashion is bringing our dark fall wardrobe to the light. 

As you can see, the same text and the same texture for this ad too. I think this is something some people would say "If you have a great idea, RUN WITH IT!" I think that the text works for the company. It is a good mix of bold and subtle. One criticism I have is that maybe they could have had another color for the textured text. I understand why they have it, it is because everything in our store right now has that color or pairs well with that color, but I don't think other people get that. I am not sure what color should go there, I would have to play with it, but I think it may be a little too much red. Other than that, I love this. I also love how the image balances out the text and the color are repeated across the entire add. I think GAP does a fantastic design and concept for all their campaigns

EL

You're so SQUARE

Who knew all of these took so much thought. I never knew squares could be so difficult. I has no problem with choosing colors for the first row. I actually really like the colors I chose. They remind me of summer.

For this part of the exercise, I thought that it was something completely different than what it was. I thought that as soon as they overlap the center color will happen, but instead we had to fill that ourselves.

The next set of square was super easy. It kind of reminds me of yin and yang. I think it is interesting how the difference in colors in these two designs (above and below) shows how our eyes perceive colors in a weird way. 

I just love colors. I chose the purple in the center of the square because it is my favorite color. The complimentary color on the color wheel would be the green and the analogous color would be this blueish purple color. I think it is kind of neat how you can use the eyedropper to make shapes the same colors because it is hard to find that exact color again if you don't. 

Overall, I liked this project. SOOOOOO MANY SQUARES!!!

EL

Project One

I am actually really excited to show my project to the class later tonight. I really put a lot of time and effort into this project. I spent about a total of 8 hours on this project. I fought with the computer a few times, deleted everything a few times, and started from scratch a few times, but I think my final result looks fabulous! I made it very much about the pumpkins.

I chose to do the pumpkin article, because it is the perfect season for pumpkins. I love fall, so there was no doubt in my mind that I was picking this article. The first thing that popped into my head was color. I went for a color palette that would match most of my fall clothes: brown, burgundy, mustard yellow, dark green, and orange. I played around with the colors over and over. I went from mostly orange to the burgundy brown I chose to stay with as my background color. I chose white for my font so it will stand out from the dark palette behind it.

The next thing I started to think about was design. What images was I going to incorporate? How many should I put there? How can I make the reader look from top to bottom? So I took some ideas from my white board at work. Every week I decorate a white board at work to fit in holidays, seasons, and fun events in the area. Last week I made this board.......

I love the idea of falling leaves. So I went onto morgue file and found leaves with blank white backgrounds. I also found pictures of pumpkins with plain white backgrounds. Professor Greenan showed me how to use the magnetic lasso tool in Photoshop to select only the object and copy and paste it onto a transparent background so I can add the images to my magazine article. I made the leaves look like they are falling. I also did the same thing with the pumpkins as I did here in my white board drawing; I have all different sizes placed in front of and behind each other.

The last thing I took care of was the typography. I wanted a big title, a bold subtitle, and a round text for the rest of the article. I feel like I executed this goal flawlessly. I can't remember the font faces I used exactly but You will be able to see what I did in class. I feel like it looks really good! I had to make sure I had no widows or orphans, because we all know that those are a BIG NO NO! With this, I just changed the kearning slightly in the last few lines of the paragraphs. The last thing I did with the typography was that I put large letters at the beginning of one paragraph a column in the background at a 55% transparency. This is to draw the readers eyes from left to right.

Overall, I really liked this project! I feel like I learned a lot by playing around with the programs and I am very proud of the piece I created :)

Grid LINES

This exercise was really cool! I learned how to make and follow grid lines. I do, however, think it is weird that to make verticle gridline you have to click on the horizonal axis, and to make a horizontal gridline you have to click on the verticle axis. Either way, it is going to be a very useful thing to use from here on out. I also think it is cool how you can alter font like we did to the "d" in "Grid Systems". I worked with Anthony on this project since we came into class when the professor was sick, and we learned how to do this together. We went through a lot of trial and error to get this right! ALSO LOREM IPSUM!!! OMG! SO WEIRD! WHAT LANGUAGE IS THAT?!?!!? If anyone knows, please tell me!!

EL

Symmetry

S     Y     M      M     E     T     R    Y

I really like when things are balanced and even. This exercise showed me how I can use symmetrical shapes and asymmetrical space to show balance. This project seemed pretty easy. It mostly just improved my skills on illustrator, like how to make a perfect circle! I don't know what else to say about it, it was pretty plain and simple.

EL

The Abstract: Crooked Man

That is what I would like to call this piece. This guy really creeped me out,; he seemed crooked, and sexual, and scary, BUT the assignment was to recreate the painting in a more abstract way in Illustrator, so I did. I felt like I kept making him bigger and bigger and I still could not fill the box he is in. So I decided to add some parallel borders on the corner to box him in more. As you can see, I changed the colors too. I wanted this abstract piece to pop more than the colors that we were directed to use. I like purple, its a nice color close enough to blue; I pictured this as a royal robe. I did the pink color to represent his skin. He is showing a lot of skin in the painting, so I showed a lot of pink in the midsection, which I perceived to be his torso, body area. The pale yelloe block under his head is a pillow. White was too drastic, so I chose this soft pale yellow to make it seem like a soft pillow (even though it had hard, straight lines). I put a lot of thought into this piece, outside of what we instructed to do.

E.L.

Erin Lackie, Who??

I really liked this project because I was able to get creative and express myself and who I really am. I am very girly. I like to be neat and organized. I am loud. I am bubbly. I am very open. Everything in this piece is totally me! I like pink and purple and white. I like straight lines and circles. I like making things stand out. I really like talking, so I put a lot in the center at once.

I also liked this project because it helped me get into the swing of things with InDesign. I am not super familiar to Adobe, so this is definitely something new, and I am always open to new things! I really liked the class critique because now I feel more open with the people in the class and I respect their constructive criticism. The best part is that this was not only an introduction to the course, but also an introduction of ourselves at the same time. Wish it was graded, WE ALL DID GREAT!! 

E.L.

I think it is important for Communications Majors to learn design because some of us will be involved in marketing and advertising in our near future. I think it will give us another perspective to bring to the table in our professional life. It also doesn't hurt to get a little creative with other aspects of life either! Not only will knowing how to produce good design help our portfolios, it will help get us noticed in the blue collar world. As for me, I want to stick to event planning and wedding planning which I will be using design all the time in my planning and executing ideas of others.

Good design matters because it will catch someone's eye. It will help create business for the client or company you work for and it will get you noticed by others too! I think it is really important to create something eye popping. It could be for a campaign, an advertisement, a meeting, an event or even the for the header of a media advisory. DESIGN WILL GET YOU NOTICED!

I don't know if I exactly have a favorite piece of design, but the most recent I really liked was my piper lime.com package. The logo is a half of a lime in lime green, which seems pretty bland, BUT the in tire package was lined in little half green limes. It really popped. Also, the shoe box was wrapped in brown tissue paper, sealed with a sticker of a half green lime. Then I couldn't find my invoice, and it was in a cute little green (same color lime green) envelope with a card. The card had the half green lime logo and a nice little note about my product and how to return it if its not everything I wanted (typed in the same green font). I really liked this design because it was very cohesive.

I am excited to get started with this class and learn more about design and creativity!!!!


E.L.