Paul Rand and Stefan Bucher

Paul Rand is a legendary graphic designer, and I'm inclined to listen to just about anything he has to say.  In the video its interesting because he seems to hold something I already strive for in great esteem: Balance. The content of the work must be maintained to present something informative and relevant, however the graphic elements must also be present or the work is quite simply boring.  This happy medium is something that is needed in Graphic Design.

Stefan Bucher was an interesting person to put as a companion to Rand, almost a "foil" if you will.  Seemingly at first glance, Bucher is a very impulsive person, creating work seemingly at random and with little planing.  Further analysis however shows a man with a very distinct and complete vision of what his work must do, and he does an excellent job of executing a plan so quickly that it seems spur of the moment He takes the random, and the uncontrolled and makes something coherent and relevant out of it

Poster Ideas

 

This poster was clearly meant to be a bit depressing.  I thought of the blanket my sister carries around and the things she gets caught in it.  A book would slow her down a bit...as would illiteracy.  I decided to illustrate it and color it digitally with low opacity to create a water color effect.  Its very much a cool color grouped poster

 

I also chose to illustrate this one, but I modified it much more heavily using filters in Photoshop. The book is the training wheel...pretty self explanitory, which is what I was going for.  I tried to go a little clser to childrens illustration for this one, but gave it a very digital almost painterly touch

 

 The "true" digital poster, I decided to do a word search such as the ones I did in kindergarten.  I thought about circling the words, but my concern was that the looped ends would make the main phrase "TEACHMETOREAD" harder to read as a whole, disrupting the baseline, so I colored the text instead

Final Marks

Taxonomy Proposal

Type: Helvetica

Categories: Object - Chapter/Picture
-method (light to dark in layout)

Book: Accordion fold

Material:White Illustration Board, white photo-tape

Title: The MarkBook

Tool Choices:
candle
flashlight
match/matchbox

Web and Type Layouts

This project was different for me in the sense that it was a project with many huge but easy to do changes.  We had to make many different compositions to start with and work down, which sounds like something that takes a lot of time and effort, when done entirely on the computer, it becomes almost too easy to make things.  I easily could of made ten times as many compositions with the time I had,  but our concern was quick refinement.

Peer review became critical in the process, with the constant critiques and evaluations giving me knowledge of how to improve legibility and appeal.  Our critique group in latter sessions went as far as to create a collaborative template sheet with me based on one of my already existing ideas.  Its other people who will read this...their opinions really mattered. 

After that it became easy to change, critiques are the only major drain on my time that I had.  The digital side of this project was blindingly fast. 

Overall I tried to convey feelings I had about the element Rhodium, mainly the idea of it being a jewelers metal and the class and refinement I felt from it.  Open space and breathing compositions became my major goal, maintaining that while Rhodium (information on the elements on the layouts if you need to know)  is a metal, its also capable of displaying very light characteristics. A balance of solidity and lightness had to be conveyed. I believe I have done this

Watcha think?

Lovely locks of Gray
Perfect in form, wonderous
Spun grain from the earth

Do I get bonus points?

DO I?!?!

Leo Lionni - Visual Communication

As a noted childrens book writer and illustrator, Leo Lionni has a definite grasp of the playful and whimsical.  In the reading given, Leo reinforces the immersion of the artist/designer in the methods and art he or she is creating.  Its a game of pretend.  One  needs to become one with your work, creatin yourself within it.  It breeds style, and that stylistic approach is the one I need to seek for this project

Type Web-Spreads