C. S. Lewis Typefaces Booklet

There’s something about choosing content and designing layouts while using nothing but type. When all the elements are taken away (colour, graphics, images, rules) I feel like I have more freedom to be creative. The more restrictions that are put on me, the more I feel I can flourish. It is for this exact reason that I chose to be a designer, and not a fine artist. I need rules, I crave restrictions, and I thrive on limitations. When there are too many options, I feel like I can’t think. There’s an infinite number of possibilities! But when I am only designing using type, I feel like I can push the boundaries and explore.

So I obviously loved this assignment. The only thing that was left to us was deciding on a topic and content, and the idea of doing a book about C. S. Lewis came to me pretty early. I chose content by ensuring I had pieces of varying lengths to work with (a couple one sentence quotes and a couple ten stanza poems), and then by just choosing my favourite works or quotes of Lewis’s. The only really challenging thing about this project was choosing typefaces, because I honestly just wanted to use one! Which I suppose is actually a good thing. While the purpose of this assignment was to practice using different kinds of typefaces, in the “real world” we should realistically be only using one or two typefaces for an entire piece. So I guess it’s good that it felt really forced to use 8 different typefaces? But for this assignment, I pretty much only wanted to use Centaur, and had to force myself to use other typefaces for the other pages. Centaur is just so perfectly C. S. Lewis-y that nothing else seemed to work. But in the end, I obviously made it work. Because that’s my job (or at least it will be, once I graduate). I’m pretty happy with the end result, and I’m actually planning on giving this little book to a few of my family members who are fans of Lewis’s work. Here’s an example of the cover and the first page.

I hope Jack would be proud.

The September Issue

I loved this movie. A documentary that follows editor-in-chief Anna Wintour and the rest of the Vogue staff as they prepare to launch the 2007 September issue of American Vogue, there could not be a movie more up my alley. While I may be studying graphic design, I have always loved fashion. So much so that my dream would be to one day work as a graphic designer for a fashion magazine – specifically Vogue, hopefully!

I found this movie so incredibly fascinating. First off, the clothes – the CLOTHES!! – were just so incredibly stunning, they kept me intrigued regardless of what was happening in the publication of the magazine. And that was intriguing as well! To get to learn even a little bit about the inner workings of the magazine was incredible. I was shocked by how unglamorous everyone’s offices seemed to be (I imagined Vogue with executives sipping mimosas over their gold foiled furniture), and even more so by how unglamorous everyone’s outfits were! Even Anna herself dressed very conservatively, and her look didn’t change much from day to day. I suppose if you are so immersed in a culture that you’ve seen it all and not much surprises you anymore, you just do and wear what you know you love and know works for you.

The thing that I found most fascinating of all was that Anna is painted as a heartless ice queen, but after watching her creative process I found myself admiring her. She is so astonishingly, emotionally unattached from the work that she is doing, and I think that is a huge asset for her job. Grace is a fashion editor, and so incredibly creative in her clothing styling and shoot creations, but I think she is much more of an artist, and therefore much more inclined to be upset when someone discards work that she has done. Anna is able to see the magazine as a whole, and not worry about hurting anyone’s feelings, and she can cut images, looks, models, and entire shoots if she feels that they aren’t benefiting the magazine. I really think that there are very few people who could do her job and do it as well as she does.

While Anna definitely has the last say about everything that goes in the magazine, the other contributors are definitely able to manipulate what happens. One of the photographers simply “didn’t like” a dress that was going to be used for the cover shot, so he just didn’t send Vogue any pictures of it! And just like that, they had to choose a different cover look. Ultimately, I feel that this probably helps the overall look of the magazine. Everyone there is a master in their craft, and while they don’t do it often, when any one member puts their foot down (or passive aggressively behind Anna’s back puts their foot down) I think that they are probably making a good call based on their knowledge and experience.

Seeing this movie makes me so much more excited to pursue a career in graphic design and fashion, and watching everyone’s interactions helped me consider things I can work on. Grace’s passion for her work and creative styling, paired with Anna’s cutthroat ability to analyze a story as a whole and not get attached to specific images, PLUS some kick ass skills as a designer, and BAM. Best Vogue employee ever. (One day.)

Self Directed Class

This one’s for you, Judy.

Cause Campaign Outcome

When I last posted about our Cause Campaign project, I was feeling completely blind about knowing what our final outcome would look like. Now that we’ve presented, I’m obviously in a better place (and not just because it’s over and done with). With Judy’s help, I narrowed down my three final concepts to one. I went with the idea of developing informational kits to be sent to high schools to educate and excite students about MPA Networks. This idea was birthed out of the realization that all it took to convince our entire class that we wanted to work with CPAWS (after our entire class had preemptively signed up with HUB Cycling), was the passionate CPAWS speaker who came to our class to explain MPA Networks to us. While MPA Networks are complicated, they weren’t too complicated for us to understand. And not only did we understand, but we all wanted to join in the fight to help protect Canada’s oceans. So giving informational kits to high schools gives an opportunity to explain MPA Networks to a large number of people in a setting where they are attentive. But the best part of this idea is that it could be distributed entirely digitally. PDFs and .mov files can all be sent online, and any hard copy collateral can be printed by the individual teacher or school. This puts the cost for CPAWS (which is a not-for-profit) at literally $0.

As far as the presentation went… well, presentations NEVER go how we planned, do they. But aside from a few slip-ups between notes and slide, it went pretty well. I mean, I think? I hope? I have no idea. Maybe we bombed. I’m not sure if our group has a shot at one of our concepts being chosen by CPAWS, but I guess we’ll find out soon.

My concept was entirely conceptual, so I don’t have any image to share with this post, but blog posts without visuals suck, so here’s a picture of some whales.

Cause Campaign Progress

While we are finished with all of our “mandatory” blog posts, the reason for that was a bit of an inconsistency between brief and course outline, and the perfectionist OCD in me can’t let go of the fact that I was “supposed” to do this blog post. I wrote it down in my agenda. So that’s pretty much set in stone. So if I don’t do this I might have a mild heart attack…

So! Here it is. Our progress on our cause campaign project so far.

Beginning this project was interesting. The majority of the class had preemptively signed up to work with HUB cycling, but after hearing both speakers, switched to work with CPAWs. Our group (myself, Kai, and Matia) was no different. Just goes to show the power of a good presentation.

After choosing CPAWs we moved forward with brainstorming. Our group found initial brainstorming hard because CPAWs’ problem is very multi-faceted. They need to explain to the general public what an MPA network is (something that took a speaker 20 minutes of passionate presenting to explain to our class), get people to care about the fact that we need MPA networks in Canada, and have people care enough that they are motivated to do something about it – hopefully by contacting an MP.

Our group created some competitive analyses (analyseses? analysises?) as well as a summarized brief, a description of CPAWs current situation, and mind maps. My personal mind map is above. After this stage our group moved forward with trying to hammer out concrete ideas. We had to generate 60 roughs and decide on our 9 best ideas from these. Below are my 60 roughs and the 3 ideas of mine that we decided to go forward with fleshed out more.

Overall, our group is finding it hard to strike a balance between finding a solution that answers all of the problems in the brief, but is still a reasonable project to execute, especially considering a not-for-profit’s budget. In fact, finding that sweet spot for this problem almost seems impossible. Matia and Kai both had solutions that were more practical (for example, print ad ideas) but maybe didn’t solve all of the problems laid out in the brief, and I had solutions that were the opposite (giant campaigns): they answered all the problems in the brief, but they were probably too lofty to execute. Normally at this stage in a project you have a visual in your mind of what the finished product will be. That isn’t the case at all here… which is both exciting and terrifying.

Mostly terrifying.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi

I loved this movie.

I feel so inspired it’s a little bit weird.

Jiro dreams of Sushi is a documentary that follows Jiro and his methods as one of the world’s masters in sushi making. Judy left us with a list of questions to answer while we watched the movie, to help us draw parallels between his work and our work as designers, but I found myself just flipping the page over and writing things down on the back that inspired me. Sometimes I forgot I was watching a movie about sushi and not just an inspirational movie about pushing yourself harder and harder to become a master at your craft.

There were many things that I found particularly inspiring, or that resonated with me personally. It’s encouraging to know as a student just starting out that it takes years and years of hard work and practice to become a master, no matter what your field. In the beginning of the movie they said that some people are born with inherent talent or skill, but these people still need to work really hard for years until they become masters. I also loved Jiro’s attention to detail. There were shots of him fidgeting with the place settings at his restaurant, which I myself was doing the night before as I prepared for friends to come over for dinner. My husband teased me, but I notice these little things! I felt like I related to Jiro. He also talked about the importance of cleanliness and organization (if you glance at my desk at school, it’s always immaculate). Some artists and designers flourish in chaos but I flourish in orderly environments, and I felt that Jiro was the same.

Another thing that struck me was the importance of immersing yourself in and surrounding yourself with excellence in your field in every aspect. For example, Jiro only gets his food from masters in each of their respective fields. He gets his rice from the master, he gets his tuna from the master, etc. He also says that he only eats good food himself, to accustom his palate, because if you yourself aren’t experiencing excellence, how will you produce it for other people?

Something that struck me because I found that I was confused by it was the fact that Jiro hasn’t changed at all, in at least 5o years. How does he get inspired? How does he get ideas to try new things? Perhaps this is where the metaphor between sushi and design falls apart, but I know for me that I need to invest in other areas of my life to get inspired in my designs. The fact that Jiro says he will continue to improve, and there is always room for improvement I also found interesting. I wonder about this in all areas of craft. Is there ever an end? Where is the top, as the movie asked? If you compare it to Olympic running, there is a top. We don’t yet know where it is, because every year people continue to break records, but we can’t go faster than zero seconds. At some point, there will be no way to go any faster. Where is that point? This idea fascinates me. And I feel that it’s the same in any field, though maybe harder to count or quantify in something like sushi making or design.

Where is the top? Will there be a point in areas of design where we say, “Nothing better can be done?”

I have no idea, and I probably won’t find out for myself unless I start working harder. So I better wrap this up and go do some brainstorming.

 

 

Social Cause Poster

For this assignment, we were to choose a social cause that we felt for personally. We were then to find an organization affiliated with the cause, and design a poster for them with a call to action. My first thought was to choose anti-tail docking as my social cause. I immediately doubted myself because it didn’t feel “normal,” or like something other people would resonate with. I do this often with projects. I try to figure out the “right” answer or solution instead of going with my gut or desires. And yet this time, I told myself to go with my instinct. Tail docking is something I am extremely passionate about, and I couldn’t imagine putting my heart sincerely into a different cause, knowing that this was my first passion.

My decision payed off. Researching and thumb-nailing was not only easy, it was fun. I found myself wanting to get back to this project. Every step of the way, from my initial mind map, to my brief, to my research, to my moodboards, I was invested and inspired. When it came time to do thumbnails I found it easy to surpass the minimum requirement for number of sketches (I could have gone on for days but, alas, other classes’ homework beckoned). Here is just a snippet of my preliminary work.

And here are my final 3 ideas. It’s hard to saywhich one I think is strongest. I know for certain that the one in the middle is not the strongest. The first poster (with the dolphin) I think is the strongest conceptually, and it also has the most bold imagery and type. However I find the last poster (with the 500 dogs) to be most interesting visually overall, and most like the kind of poster I would hang on a wall. However, ultimately the first poster is one that would catch my eye if I were walking down the street, which is what you want a poster to do. And for this reason, I think it is the strongest of the three.

Poster Research Field Trip

This morning for the first half of our Applied Design class we were given the task of going on a self directed field trip. The purpose was to analyze posters in their natural setting, and photograph ones that we found to be particularly interesting. It was such a refreshing break to take “class time” walking around downtown. About half our class met up early for breakfast at Save on Meats, which set the tone for the morning (delightful). From there we broke off into smaller groups and sought out subjects to be captured (at this point imagine us all in safari hats).

One of the things that struck me most from this exercise was the vast amount of absolutely terrible posters out there. It was a challenge to find a good poster. Most posters were busy, confusing, uninteresting, and lacked hierarchy. However, I was able to find a few gems amidst the chaos. My favourites include:

 

 

Primarily, I found all of these posters aesthetically pleasing. That was what initially drew me to them. Either through their simplicity, bold use of colour, interesting illustration, or clean organization of typography, I wanted to continue looking at every one of these posters. Which means they’re doing an effective job, does it not?

If you look carefully at the posters surrounding the “nice” posters you might be able to catch a glimpse of what I meant when I said that most of the posters out there are terrible.

Hopefully our class can rectify this epidemic with our next project (designing our own posters).

 

 

The Book of Double Meanings, or D-Zine’s Zine

For the past few weeks, we’ve been working on a zine. It was a group project, and one that seemed really fun when it was assigned.

Our group started out great. Our brainstorming was light and fun, and we were laughing a lot (which is generally a really good sign when you’re brainstorming, unless it’s layout ideas for a funeral program). After we decided on our theme (words with hilarious double meanings), however, our group hit a plateau. Or maybe a valley. Or maybe we fell into a dark, dank cave with no light or way to get out. Hard to tell which.

What I’m saying is, we totally lost our stride. At group meetings discussing potential ideas for pages we all seemed… bummed. For some reason none of us were excited anymore. It actually got so bad that our team leader called a meeting just to discuss group morale (or lack thereof). Should we start again? Pick a new theme? Cry into the collected works of Sylvia Plath? After some deliberation we decided to just keep plugging through with the theme we had, and brainstorm new ideas for page content.

And somehow, after working through that hard place, we found our way out of that dark, dank cave. And I think we’re all really happy with the finished product.

That’s the cover. We were going for a very official, dictionary look, to juxtapose the ridiculous definitions we had inside. Here are the two spreads that I contributed.

The first definitions are how you would expect the word to be described. And then the second definitions, obviously, are where we got creative. My personal favourite is “beat” being defined by “Christ Brown” (what an ass). We thought that extremely clean and simple layouts would be a hilarious contrast to the “intentionally poorly drawn” quality of the illustrations.

Also extremely important to note, though included nowhere in the zine, is that our group name was “D-Zine.”

BAM.

Grids Spread Practice

This was really hard.

I actually started crying.

But that might be more due to the fact that I didn’t sleep enough last night, and I didn’t eat a big enough lunch.

Anyway. I didn’t use the InDesign link Judy sent us properly, and I couldn’t view all of the guidelines, so the master pages only had about half a dozen lines on the whole spread. I got extremely confused trying to figure out what the parameters were regarding how much our content needed to fit inside the grid, especially considering that I could hardly see any grid. My layouts were bland and unoriginal.

I also really struggled with this exercise because I spent a long time trying to figure out interesting concepts, but then I felt like I had no way to execute them, because I didn’t know how creative we were supposed to get with the layout.

Here were the two layouts I came up with:

 

The theme behind the first layout was supposed to be about “Fate” or “Destiny” because the character felt that he could control his future with the scrabble words he played, however his evil intentions were eventually his own downfall.

Obviously, the concept isn’t apparent at all.

Fail.

The layout is pretty nice, though, and for that reason I feel like it is the stronger of the two spreads.

But that’s because Judy helped me.

Ok, she pretty much just told me exactly what to do.

The second layout’s theme was “Til Death Do Us Part,” which I actually feel like you can tell. However, I think the layout is weak, so it doesn’t matter. I found this whole assignment really hard for some reason. Part of it could be that I actually really enjoy using grids (hurray for rules, math, and order!!), but I usually make them myself, as I go. Once I was handed a grid to start with, I felt lost, and I felt like I couldn’t be creative.

WHAT IS GRID. WHAT IS DESIGN. WHO IS DOGE.

This is definitely going to take some practice.