å Tuesday, September 1st, 2015

Me
I am interested in graphic design because I love art and can’t draw, or do anything like that. I am also a big fan of computers so this just seems to fit. I have always been interested in design and aesthetics like why the Mona Lisa is such a big deal but my paper-Mache pig head that I made in 4th grade gets no attention. Graphic design is also the art form that is the easiest to come by. You walk anywhere and you will see graphic design. Just look at the guy who designed those Minions. You know the gross yellow people that seem to be everywhere. That was probably not a graphic designer but it was designed and now they are on posters and tee shirts and that very well could have been a graphic designer. This field is all about an art form that is a crazy attention to detail. A painting can have a lot of attention to detail but it is not always requited while a poster really needs to have a specific focus and a clear concept. It is the most prevalent art form of the current generation.

Publication Degin
I have always been a big fan of publication design. Two years ago I was on my lunch break and wanted to get a magazine to read during my lunch so I was looking at all of my options in the Hannaford’s I was getting my lunch in and I saw Vogue. There is a level of sophistication with Vogue that I really like. It is a magazine of clothes that no one can afford but for whatever reason I was into that. I have bought every issue since that first one. My favorite design vogue has done is there first covers. They used their covers to grab the attention of the public and before it was celebrities, it was the fashionable women of that day. I love the idea of a start up magazine because they need people to buy their magazines to keep working but I think that people can see though desperation. I personally find my skills to be with layout and organization and that is definitely something that is required of a publication designer.

Type Design
Following off of this trend I am very interested in type design. Typography is a difficult art form because there is only so much you can do with fonts that has not already been done. But what interests me about typography is taking something that has been used and changing it. I have a very simplistic aesthetic and type often plays well to that. I also have an obsession with the renaissance and what that meant culturally. That is how I would take my type aesthetic. Taking the popular types and making them define our new needs.

This is an example of a type that I like. It is bold but also simple. It grabs my eye without beating my eye up.

How I Got Started
I started getting into Graphic Design reading Japanese comic books as a kid. The creative illustrations on the front representing what the book would be about had young Nick going “whoa”. The way the layout was had me feeling like the publishers were breaking book limits. Instead of reading the book right to left you would read it the opposite way, left to right. Music is a big part of my life so album artwork is a factor on if I should buy a certain album or not. The way a good song can fit with a great design complements each other teasing both senses of hearing and seeing. It makes me feel good inside. This is all Graphic Design and I started in College when signing up for a random design class. The best part of Graphic Design is the way it’s all computer based. I was always on the computer as a kid, so I can learn how to work programs easy and have used media programs such as: Sony Vegas, Cubase, and Logic pro.

Publication Design
Magazines with flashy covers excite me. The cover page needs to have a big logo displaying what the name of the magazine is and what it represents as a company. Mini titles below are like little snippets of what is going to be showcased in magazines. I like how some magazine covers tell you what page the story starts on. The issue number I feel is also wicked important and makes me happy. The issue number will kindly help guide you to which month you need or already have, you never want to have the same magazine twice. Some issue numbers will stop at 12 and restart the order for the next year, or will keep going to see how many magazines have been made in total. Last they need to have the coolest picture in the entire magazine. If AP magazine didn’t an awesome photo of Fall Out Boy recreating the album art from their first album then I wouldn’t of read the story. The cover is definitely a great way to drag me into reading discovering a magazine.

Advertisement Design
Advertisements are awesome because the meaning can relate to recent events happening in our nation. One Advertisement online I looked into for an example was about the gun safety situation going on in America. It shows two children, one holding a banned piece of candy, the other a gun. Now what has my attention is that this organization is comparing banned chocolate eggs to guns in our children’s hands. This is smart advertising because it makes you realize what’s wrong or right in our country. I also find this picture of a little girl with a gun to be crazy, you don’t find a lot of kids with guns in magazines. Another advertisement that I like are the funny ones. Humor is always something that excites and gets me to want a certain product. Old Spice does the job and they create the weirdest designs for their models. In this example, the man smells so fresh, he is a snowy mountain of success all because of Old Spice. This just makes me laugh and want to buy their product. I want to smell as fresh as mountain man!

Why Graphic Design?

I’ve been interested in all aspects of art and design ever since I could remember. I’m an intended Graphic Design Major and I’m hoping to use this class to build a strong portfolio in order to apply to the program. I have a passion for creativity that people seem to notice which encourages me even more. I’ve always excelled in art classes although I’m not the strongest drawer or painter, I was still able to design well and make appealing pieces. Once I entered High School I was able to take classes such as Graphic Design and Product Design and Photography as electives and that’s when I knew what I wanted to further my education in. I loved that I could make something out of nothing or make something into something entirely different and that there could be no boundaries.

Focus

Whenever people discuss career paths I always say I could never imagine having a boring desk job and why not make a living off of something I love to do? I wasn’t entirely sure at first of where I wanted to go with Graphic Design as a career but after my studies last year and just paying more attention to the media and what I saw in my every day life, I think I’d really enjoy Advertising Design and Package Design. I believe the two go hand in hand in some ways. The packaging of a product is essentially advertising for itself. Recently I was walking through a cosmetic store and noticed this bottle of sunscreen sitting at eye level. The bottle looked as if it were made from bamboo and had neon yellow writing that really caught my eye and I couldn’t help but to think that that was good marketing and design and that I would be good at a job like that. Advertisement design could be one of the most important fields because it’s what catches people’s eye and makes them want to go somewhere, do something, or purchase into something; they’re buying into the design and idea that they’re seeing. I worked at Nike for one summer and I always admired how they sold their brand. The designers of their ads that hung within the store or around the mall really used Nike’s visual identity and combined it with their own marketing strategies in order to make the company a success. They use larger than life visuals of dominant and powerful athletes wearing Nike products in order to say “Wear these clothes and you can be like these people”. Not to mention Nike’s simple but infamous Swoosh logo that can be identified by anyone, anywhere. I believe my experience working retail and helping with product placement and store visuals would really help me be successful in this area of design; I have an extremely good eye for placement. I think that’s also a good quality to have when working with package design. I really enjoy working with color schemes and fonts and placing things together in a way that would catch a buyers eye.

The Future

It’s exciting to think that the field of Graphic Design is always growing, changing, and excelling. New trends are always coming about and people are constantly changing what they like to see. Designers need to constantly be on their toes and staying tuned in to current events to better themselves and their work for their clients.

Apparel 

Typography

My Start
When I was in high school I concentrated on studio art and photography. Since I started college I wanted to find a career that would combine all my interest such as photography, illustration, and design. As I talked to people about Graphic Design the more I became intrigued. I have always been creative and people kept telling me to pursue my passion.  Two areas of Graphic Design that interest me is Publication Design and Advertising Design.

Publication Design
Publication design has interested me more than other ares in the past and the present. I love looking at magazines (fashion, travel, home improvement, and other), newspapers and see how pictures and text come together to form a unified layout. It also makes me wonder how they choose what photographs go together or what color combinations they use to make the pages stand out to readers. I admire the designers abilities to present the periodicals in a way that’s unique and pleasing to the eye.

Advertising Design
Advertising Design has been around me as long as I can remember. No matter where I look it is there and it makes me wonder how do all these ads make themselves stand out from others. What makes them a good add and what story are they trying to tell? I like to see how photos and text were manipulated to represent that product. Some advertising I look at over and over and they can inspire a new ideas such as a character for my next project.

Design in my life
I am very interested in graphic design because ever since I was a child I have been interested in art, but did not know how I was going to make a living off of it. It wasn’t until my sophomore year of high school that I found out about graphic design and started taking a tech school class on it. It sucked me in right away and I became very passionate about my art pieces. Though I did not know anything about Photoshop or how to use it, I learned from others and my teacher and was able to get the hang of not only Photoshop, but other programs as well. I know how to use Photoshop, Illustrator and I somewhat know  how to use InDesign, Muse, After Effects, Premier Pro,  and 3DS Max. I plan on majoring in Graphic Design.

Advertising  Design
An area in graphic design I am very interested in is Advertising Design. I am interested in this field because  I think advertising is a very demanding job and that’s how companies promote themselves. Advertisement is also everywhere whether people realize it or not and it is also very competitive. I am genuinely a shy, quiet person, but I believe in graphic design I am a hardworking person, especially if  I am competing against another brand that the competitor/ creator in me will come out. I also love how advertisement is also meant to draw people in, but you have to know and research the people you are trying to promote to to appeal to them.

Book Jacket Design
Another area in graphic design I am interested in is Book Jacket Design. I am interested in this field because even though there’s the saying “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover” people generally do. I believe that being able to create a cover for a book gives the designer the opportunity to be very creative, but also help the author express what the book is going to be about. I want to make book covers that people are intrigued by and would want as a poster.

Why I’m Interested in Graphic Design
I have loved art and design ever since I was a little girl. My dad is a self employed residential architect that works from an office on our property. When I was young, I would be in the office all the time watching his crazy designs go from a messy sketch, to a blue print, then eventually become an insanely beautiful home. Being in his office watching him not only love what he was doing so much, but also seeing the thrilling process of a creative thought becoming reality was a thrill I wanted to experience.  Although Residential Architecture and Graphic Design are very different, my dad’s love for design was engraved in my DNA. Throughout my adolescence I was always paying attention to the art around me. I was especially interested in advertisements and the decisions the designers behind them made. I find it so intriguing that a color, font, or single design choice can determine the way someone views a business/company. Thats when I started to realize I wanted to be a Graphic Designer. I want to design logo’s and advertisements for big name companies.

Advertising Design
The area of Graphic design that interests me the most is Advertising Design. The idea of creating a visual identity while using marketing strategies excites me because not only does it allow you to be creative, but it is also fast pace and always changing. I feel that advertising design would be an exciting field to work in because not only do you get to create visual artwork used in advertisements, but it is also used to promote every product and service sold, which makes the possibilities endless.

Publication Design
Another area of Graphic Design that interests me is Publication Design.  Although the mixing of typography and photography is interesting to me, the part of publication design I find fascinating is the design of Magazines, because not only is it more open to creative interpretation, but every magazine has it’s own personality that a designer needs to communicate on every page.

Advertising Design

Publication Design

How Design Sparked My Interest
Since I was about twelve years old I’ve had a love for graphic design, even though I hadn’t truly realized it at that point. I had always taken an interest in the process behind my favorite album covers and movie posters and wondered what it’d be like to do something like that myself. As I started to grow up, I became active in blogs and forums online and noticed that some people used those places as their outlets for their own fan-made designs for their favorite singers and bands. It was cool to see a fan’s vision of an album cover I had known and loved, as well as the feedback other people would give them, so I figured I would try. I started out on Microsoft paint (which was obviously a tragedy), eventually grew up to a program called GIMP, and then discovered Photoshop. During a talk with my guidance counselor my freshman year of high school, I mentioned my passion for design when she asked about what I was thinking about doing after getting out of high school (I know, a weird question to ask so early). From there, she recommended that I join a vocational program where I would take design classes for 3 hours a day, and my regular academics the other half of the day. I partook in that program from sophomore to senior year and it was probably the best decision I’ve made in my life so far. The class expose me to so many new things and techniques. It was an eye-opener for me at first, because the whole first year was all the basics (drawing, painting, etc.) and no computer whatsoever which I wasn’t used to. Through the class, I entered and won various state-wide competitions and designed the yearbook cover for my school my senior year. All of these things really helped me grow not only as a designer, but as a person as well. I was taught to not take things to heart because not everybody is going to love everything you do, and that criticism is only there to help you, not to bring you down. On the other side of that, though, It truly does feel fantastic to get recognition for doing something that you love. Overall, the class really reinforced my passion for the field, and also helped me confirm that it was definitely what I wanted to pursue in college.

Advertising Design
The field of design that I’m most interested in is advertising design, mostly because that’s what I’ve had the most experience in. Advertising Design is the integration of type and image to strengthen a concept and portray a message. We see examples of this everywhere we look, whether it’s in stores, on a billboard, on a poster in the student center, etc. I like this field because I think it’s cool to see the various ways artists portray their messages to the public, and I would love to get some of my own out there one day.

Package Design
Another field I’ve taken an interest in is package design. I was able to touch upon this field in my high school design class, where I was given a random item that I had to design a package for. My item was a bulldog clip, and I decided I wanted it to look like the roughest, toughest bulldog clip around (because of the name), so my packaging portrayed a cage with danger signs around it promoting it’s “toughness”. I thought it was pretty nifty at the time. That’s the thing about package design that I like – if you want to sell a product, the design surrounding it needs to be “nifty” or have a sort of “wow factor” to grab the consumer’s attention. That in itself comes as a fun challenge to me.

Why graphic design?

I grew up loving art; my grandpa was a painter so he was a big influence on me when i was younger and is probably the reason i really got into drawing and painting. I never really knew graphic design was an option for me until i took a class my sophomore year in high school. I loved everything about it. I love working on the computer and being able to be creative with the things that i make. Both of my brothers are in the design field as well, so I’ve learned a lot from them. I don’t really know what part of graphic design i want to go into but I think i’m leaning towards advertising because that is what i have the most experience in. I’m hoping to be able to figure it out soon!

One area of graphic design that i’m interested in would have to be package design. Products need presentation. I have to admit that when I’m shopping, I want to purchase some things because of the cool package design. I feel like if the way the product is packaged is boring, it’ll be less popular, even if it’s a good product. When something is a product for kids, you can really tell because of the color scheme and designs compared to if something is more for adults. I love looking at the boxes some products come in and the detail that’s put into it. I feel like designing that would be fun because you can take a bit of the product but also put some of your own ideas into it.

The next area of design that I’m interested in is definitely have to be advertising design. I’ve had the most experience in this part of the field and i really love doing it. No matter where you go, you see advertisements. There are so many creative and fun ways to get the message out to the public that can really catch their attention. There’s so much you can do with it as well. Some ads have many colors and pictures, which can really help sell a product or an idea to people. Others can be very simple, which can be just as effective. With this coke ad is really cute and i like how straight forward it is. You can clearly see that it’s an ad for coke but it also kind of makes you smile. There aren’t anythings popping out at you but sometimes less is more in advertising. This ad for glasses i think is very cleaver because you can clearly see what they’re trying to get at. I also think it’s kind of funny because the painting looks blurry because of the painting style and now it look “clear” because of the glasses. I just really love that there are so many things you can do with this area of design.

Why Graphic Design
In High School, I was clueless to what I wanted to do. I decided to take a few courses that could help me decide what direction I wanted to take in college. Going into junior year, I was convinced that I was going to become an architect. I took a Production Graphics course just because my mom suggested it as a possible career in my future. It turned out that I hated architecture and loved the Production Graphics course. In the class I made logos for made up companies, stationary, and posters for clubs. Although I loved this course, I was still unsure if it was right for me. I took an independent study class in Graphic Design my senior year, where I focused making logos that were actually used, pamphlets for organizations that were printed, and posters that would advertise for real events. It was a step up from my class the year before and, if anything, I loved it even more. I also took a computer art course. This class focused on Photoshop. I made a Slothaphant (a sloth and elephant hybrid), a steam punk scene, and basic portraits. It was my first exposure to Photoshop and I was able to learn quickly and produce work I was proud of. I also did side projects. I made the winning logo for E.O. Smith Reads, the cover for the Senior Awards Night pamphlet, and a pamphlet for CLCC (a nonprofit organization).

Types of Graphic Design that Interest Me
It’s hard to narrow my interests in Graphic Design down to two types. My top two favorite types of design are Advertising Design and Motion Design.

Advertising
My favorite part of magazines is looking at the ads within them. I love looking at vintage advertising as well. Advertising lets the designer combine text with an image to portray an idea or emotion. I have some experience with advertising. I made a poster for my high school’s science club. I really enjoyed working with the client to make the best poster to suite their needs.

Motion Graphics
I also love Motion Graphics. I thought at one time that I would become an animator. I now realize that the jobs available in this area are few and competitive. Motion Graphics can help bridge the gap between animating and the less interactive form of Graphic Design. I made an animated commercial of sorts for my Anatomy class. It was far from finished since I had no real animation programs and I had only a few weeks to work on it. Although it was tedious at times, I always looked forward on working on the project.