Finished project

finishing up the word

the first part is almost done

Our word is coming along

Photography essay

After reading this, I think it will help with creating the photo essay. It talks about documents and photographs and how to use photographs to tell a story.  How people may perceive something other than the way we intended it to be. Photo essays are interesting, but sometimes the point doesn’t come across because everyone sees things differently. 

Parts of a Letter

I learned a lot from this that helped in creating our big word. It showed me a lot of stuff I would probably have never learned otherwise. For instance all the different part of a letter whether it be a serif, bracket, eye, cross bar, apex, arm leg, ascender, descender, just to name a few.  It helped my group figure out what font to use because we found out every font looks different capitalized.  It made us consider how each letter would like after reading this. 

new assignment

today we started our new assignment What Language Looks Like, we are taking a word and creating a large version of it out of cardboard that displays the meaning of the word.

Final prototype

Storyboards

Understanding Comics

Understand Comics was interesting to read because it talked about how when we look at things we tend to take them for granted. Take for instance the examples they used about all the symbols and how they can mean something different to everyone. Or maybe they mean something completely different than what we would think, or even have no meaning at all. 

another prototype idea we had

the initial prototype

IDEO

The IDEO video was interesting to watch, to see how professionals go about doing their job. As students we always wonder how it is done in the real world, I guess we just assume they come up with the perfect solution the first time around. It is always nice to see that even professionals have to go through multiple different steps to create a good design. Going into this project this video will help a lot.

Our mind map

Final poster

Well our final poster is due soon and I really hope mine is going to turn out ok. The only thing I am really worried about is someone saying it doesn't look good. I tried to put it together the best way I could, but I still don't feel 100% comfortable with it. I guess I'll find out what happens.


This project definitely was a challenge for me to learn a new program.

Process Book review

Today in class we reviewed three finished pages of everyone's process notebooks. Some of them actually looked really good, I was unsure with mine because I am uncomfortable still with this program. after getting the feed back on mine I think it is safe to say I need to go back and change some things. Maybe even completely redo the design, keep everything else, but just change the design and get rid of the colored background.

Process Books

Today in class we were shown how to make our process notebooks, this looks like it may be a challenge. Mainly because I am still fairly new to InDesign still so it will take me some time to really figure out what I want to do, and how to do it. still though I am hopeful it will come out ok.

Color Police

Today in class we discussed the "color police" assignment, we had to go out and find some pictures that display good and bad color use. At first I didn't know how to go about it and then it hit me, I watch a lot of sports and someone had to design all those uniforms. The Oregon Ducks uniform in my opinion is ugly, and on the field it looks terrible, it really is hard to look at in person. The FC Barcelona jersey in mu opinion works well. The low chroma's of the hues really accent the text and the club crest.

First-Drafts

Today our first-drafts of our posters were due. Everyone thought mine appeared to be to symmetrical, and they are right honestly. It is something I need to work on, I have something in mind but I am going to play around with the idea on this hand-constructed poster before I move to the InDesign one.

Today we talked more in class about color. All of these terms are still all fairly new to me. I have heard them all before but I never took the time to find out what they mean. Hopefully I will learn something new and be able to apply it to this project we're working on.

Dieter Rams: ten principles for good design

In this reading he lists his ten principles for what makes good design and they are as follows: Good design is innovative- The possibilities for innovation are not, by any means, exhausted. Technological development is always offering new opportunities for innovative design. But innovative design always develops in tandem with innovative technology, and can never be an end in itself

Good design makes a product useful-A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy certain criteria, not only functional, but also psychological and aesthetic. Good design emphasizes the usefulness of a product whilst disregarding anything that could possibly detract from it.

Good design is aesthetic- The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products we use every day affect our person and our well-being. But only well-executed objects can be beautiful.

 Good design makes a product understandable- It clarifies the product’s structure. Better still, it can make the product talk. At best, it is self-explanatory.

Good design is unobtrusive-Products fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the user’s self-expression.

 Good design is honest-It does not make a product more innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. It does not attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept.

 Good design is long-lasting- It avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated. Unlike fashionable design, it lasts many years – even in today’s throwaway society.

Good design is thorough down to the last detail-Nothing must be arbitrary or left to chance. Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the user.

Good design is environmentally-friendly-Design makes an important contribution to the preservation of the environment. It conserves resources and minimizes physical and visual pollution throughout the lifecycle of the product

Good design is as little design as possible-Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials.

Back to purity, back to simplicity.

Although I may not know what good design is quite yet, I know I will be able to use his principles to guide myself in creating good design.