ART 470 blog - Portland State University - Fall Term '09
A Grandparent Story (My 470 Term long project) is complete! You can also see larger-size versions of the images below (and all of the hard-work/process of the entire 470 project) at my Flickr page set.
AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION
LOGO
PHOTO POSTCARDS
DVD COVER
DVD SLEEVE
FAMILY TREE
Here is it. The moment everyone’s been waiting for. The entire “A Grandparent Story” project (nearly complete).
LOGO
DVD COVER (and alternative DVD sleeve)
PHOTO POSTCARDS
FAMILY TREE POSTER
WEBSITE
Every designer in some form or another self promotes himself or herself everyday. Whether it’s through the traditional portfolio and/or business cards or any other method, designers do play a role as a salesperson with only themselves to market. Even with self promotion comes the tempting thought of being fully recognized all over for one’s talents. With Shaughnessy, she dives into this particular subject with a voice that was almost as if she was a personal advisor, just like as is she is trying to explain to the audience that “being a celebrity isn’t what it’s made out to be.”
From SXC user omernos
Instead, Shaughnessy almost encourages designers that if he or she wants to gain some form of exposure is to not think like a movie star celebrity but as a informed designer. In other words, Shaughnessy is clearly telling designers that the design world is the place to get exposure. To some designers this may be a turn-off because as some would probably say “But if I’m well known by other designers they’ll just criticize my work instead of providing accolates.” But not in the case of Shaughnessy. For example. when Shaughnessy points out that being a helpful resource to other designers is a good way to boost your design image, that in itself summed up a good point: “If you’re a well known designer, shouldn’t you be thinking about helping other designers achieve your same success?”
Aside from the glories of being well known, Shaughnessy doesn’t fail to address a technique that designers practice every single day, week and in every project: taking part in the creative process—in this case creating the all-important design brief. The design brief is what building plans are to architects and engineers: it’s a brief statement (or in this case, outline) of what problems the project addresses and, in a way, allows the client to get a taste of what the designer (or design team) is planning on doing in terms of a solution. Without a design brief, there would be chaos between designer and client: back-and-forth disagreements of what each person perceives the ideas, etc. Designers may groan at design briefs but, as it’s clearly portrayed by Shaughnessy in the book, design briefs are every designer’s lifesaver.
Photo by Scott Bryant
“Don’t become a one-man or woman show/design studio”
The quote above is the overall sense one would get from Chapters 5, 6 and 7 in Shaughnessy’s How to be a graphic designer without losing your soul. In the beginning, Shaughnessy dives into running an actual design studio. To many designers owning and running one’s own studio is a personal freedom: free from working under a boss and amid stark white walls and grey cubicles. But even with this personal freedom, some designers develop a “fast, easy” mindset that his or her design studio will top every other design studio, and therefore making themselves handsomely wealthy with clients and a flood of income. However, as Shaughnessy seems to address: having a staff of employees helps keep the flow of daily studio business in line—but the staff shouldn’t be made out to be a designer’s work slaves.
Even as Shaughnessy describes hiring a variety of designer and non-designer employees and why receptionists are vital to the office environment, it’s clear that Shaughnessy is stressing the idea of a “studio philosophy.” It’s no question a studio philosophy is important; it’s a studio’s way to describe to the masses why this particular studio stands out from other studios. Some studios go professional but add a bit of playfulness (i.e. Carsonified => http://carsonified.com/mission/ ) and others rely on being witty (i.e. Pop Art, Inc from Portland, OR => http://www.popart.com/company/mission.aspx ). In a way, the philosophy not only is a “rally call” that designers and employees can stand by, but it’s the juicy bait that helps in bringing in clients.
And lastly, Shaughnessy comes to the topic that designers have a love/hate relationship; and that is clients. Without clients, designers would have no job (though designers could make a living doing personal projects but then they’d have to live with the “starving artist” stereotypical title). And it’s clear Shaughnessy isn’t taking a side in the area of client and designers. What Shaughnessy seems to do is not only calm the mistrust with clients but to make designers see their clients in a different way. As Shaughnessy shows, it all comes down to making your clients into your friends (but not to get too “friendly friend” with him or her—as if developing a “I’ve added you on Facebook so let’s chat” type of friendship). Some designers may brush that idea becoming a friend to his or her clients (some would say “My clients don’t know design, they can’t speak and talk design so why should I become like a best friend to them?” ) But having a strong relationship with a client is the best and efficient way to build trust. After all, a client seeks a designer because he or she trusts that a designer can produce the best work for him or her. Why can’t designers establish that same friendly trust with his or her clients as well?
Photo of Burger King bag by Scott Bryant
Continuing into How to be a graphic designer without losing your soul, Adrian Shaughnessy dives into the all-important aspect for any graduating design student: finding a job. There are many options designers (and recently graduated design students) can pursue when it comes to job searching. Of the many aspects Shaughnessy covers is working for working for an independent design studio or a in-house design studio.
Some designers have different preferences but it’s clear from Shaughnessy that the important part of working in a design environment is learning. Everyday people are learning new things whether it’s building a birdhouse or a foreign language. However, sometimes designers get out into the real world and think “I just went through four years of school. I know what I’m doing.” But many professors—and even professionals—would say with that attitude you won’t succeed because having a real job is learning about communicating with people, making mistakes, etc. But before all the learning begins, a designer has to be professional in their job search, interviews, and with their portfolios. Having that professionalism right out of school is crucial for the idea is for one to stand out from the crowd: to be the one designer that isn’t “like the others” with their cookie-cutter type projects and bland personality. Clearly Shaughnessy is speaking to the readers: “Be yourself at all times!”
As the chapters continue, Shaughnessy discusses a subject that is often popular among student designers and that is: freelancing. As Shaughnessy explains, freelancing is not for everyone even though many designers prefer the idea of independence and free from a corporate environment. Even with that independence, as Shaughnessy discusses, setting up a reasonable design studio is a giant task of its own. There’s developing a business plan, a name, finding an office; everything that could be overwhelming to many designers (especially those just fresh out of college or art school). As a student graphic/web designer myself, the atmosphere of a tight-knit and fun web design agency (like eROI in Portland) is my personal preference. And it’s clear Shaughnessy is advocating that new designers start out at a design firm and learning from the best of the best.
NEW & IMPROVED LOGO
MORE DVD COVER IDEAS
PHOTO POSTCARDS
FAMILY TREE
WEBSITE UPDATES + ALTERNATIVE DESIGN
ALTERNATIVE WEBSITE DESIGN
Photo (above) taken by Scott Bryant
It’s clear, from the beginning introduction of Adrian Shaughnessy’s How to be a graphic designer without losing your soul, that the reader isn’t reading just another ordinary graphic design book. What Shaughnessy does (especially in the Intro/Forward) for the reader is instead of just emphasizing the mundane “this book is about…” etc, etc, Shaughnessy goes for a bold approach and gives meaningful insight into the world of a graphic designer. Often times students would read graphic design books that either fall between being too cold/corporate to almost “self-indulgent” (a designer writes a book where their writing comes off almost as “I made this brilliant design years ago and everyone should do that same.” One can tell Shaugnessy is enthusiastic about sharing her love of graphic design which, as a reader, is nothing short of exciting. Especially when Shaughnessy explains about her experiences teaching in Berlin and how she opened her own business instead of going and working at her second favorite design studio Colors Magazine. It’s as though Shaughnessy is trying to create a personal connection to her readers like a professor and his or her students.
Throughout the Introduction and forward Shaughnessy dives into topics such as how designers should have an on-going awareness of their surroundings/culture and being able to accomplish the highly-critical skill of communication. Being a graphic design student in Portland has a wide range of advantages (not just in the amount of networking with other Portland designers but in the on-going—and ever growing—culture of Portland). In Portland; on every street and every city block there’s always some form of inspiration whether it’s a vintage store sign to a park monument to even the actions of people interacting in the city. That is why, as a design student, one’s own environment can provide some of the best inspiration for design.
As far as being a good communicator, there’s no question that communication is important. This last summer, in professor Margaret Richardson’s Contemporary Design Case Studies class at Portland State University, one of the best pieces of advice Richardson gave to the class was that if one thinks being a designer means he or she doesn’t have to get up in front of clients (or a company) to talk about their design; they are wrong. Richardson discussed that every designer has to at some point (in every design project they are involved with) exercise their public speaking skills. On many levels one can agree with Richardson: designers seem to be consumed with getting their personal message out in a design project that he or she soon suddenly becomes wrapped in the idea that “everyone will understand what I’m designing. I shouldn’t have to educate them.”
One particular part in the Introduction that stood out was in the beginning of the last paragraph on page 16 when Shaughnessy states “You can ignore every piece of advice contained in these pages and still become a successful and fulfilled designer.” To some readers, he or she may interpret that line as a sort of a sarcastic “if you don’t like this book or what I have to say, then more power to you to do what you want to do.” But it’s clear Shaughnessy is merely trying to reach out to readers in a supportive way as if saying “I’m not here to point my finger and lecture on how you should design. You become the designer you want to be and you’ll be successful.”
The type arragement (and wording) needs a lot of TLC but this is a rough idea of a direction/idea for the DVD cover deliverable of my term-long project.
I chose this imagery of the farm to symbolize the idea of grandparents starting "from humble beginnings"
My inspiration for the DVD cover comes from the always gorgeous Criterion Collection DVD covers!
Since the beginning of the term-long project, things have been progressing at a good rate for the “Grandparent Story” project. The logo is finalized (with some minor tweaks to do. From the image above, I’ve decided to go with the lower dark grey/light grey variation for the final logo) but now things seem to fall into place with the upcoming deliverables, including the website. Stay tuned for more updates!
WEBSITE PAGES VARIATIONS
Website login idea => This would be the first page my family would see when they go to the website (where they could type in their username and password). The plan is for the website to be a Wikipedia-type site where only family members could go into the website and add stories, photos (just like an online scrapbook/photo album/time capsule). NOTE: At this point much work will be needed for the following website layouts but this posting is to show what work is occurring with the upcoming deliverables.
Grandma Leola Bryant webpage
Grandma Dolores Nogowski webpage
Grandpa Robert Bryant webpage
On Tuesday, October 27th, the Art Annex was the place to be for the official Meet My Fridge social practice event (produced by Minji Pak, Scott Bryant and Michelle Vargas). The turnout was far beyond what we initially expected—plus everyone loved the muffins! We had a total of 19 participants (22 when including Minji Pak, Michelle Vargas and Scott Bryant) at the event.
The tasty and popular muffins made by Minji Pak
Here are some photos from the event! Be sure to check out the official Meet My Fridge blog to read insight into all 22 participants’ eating habits and refrigerator (some did submit fridge photos but not all)! Not to mention, the Meet My Fridge Flickr group had a great turnout as well (21 members and 13 submitted fridge photos).
Fridge photo courtesy of Michelle Vargas
Fridge photo courtesy of Andrea Brock
Meet My Fridge designs created by Minji Pak
