å September 2015

MAJORING IN GRAPHIC DESIGN

Austin Drouin

I grew up in a small town in Maine, its population just barely over seven hundred people. The towns only recreational area was the local Walmart, so as you could imagine, I spent a large majority of my time home. My father had always been an incredible artist, whether it be drawing with pencils and pen or designing websites for all the local companies. One of my most dearest memories was him drawing little portraits of me with weird faces; as an attempt to make me laugh or line drawings that I could color in on my own. While I didn’t realize it then, it is now clear to me that the purpose of those little drawings and art in general was to inspire not only me, but a society as a whole.

Now that I’m older and have a greater appreciation and respect for the arts around me, I realized that, I too could be the source of inspiration for millions of people around me. As I begin to research the broadness of this major, I’m realizing even now how relatively easy it is to have my art and my passion out in the public, or on screens, alike. If one day this career allows me to inspire many people to act and think in the right way, I will know that I have changed the world, even in the slightest, and my greatest dreams will have come true.

One day I hope to be using the skills and techniques that I have obtained here at Keene State College, at the large scale animation and film company, Pixar. There I hope to inspire the large mass of youth through the screen to become an inspiration, just as my father had done for me.

AREAS I WISH TO PURSUE

#1. Motion Design

Why Graphic Design?
I was never really subconsciously interested in graphic design until I started to look more and more at advertisements. Then I started to look at logos, and cartoons, and then one day it just clicked. I have always had a passion for business and marketing and anything in that field. All through out high school I loved every aspect of business but then when I came to Keene State and experienced the management program all of freshman year I realized that this was not the right career choice. I decided I wanted something very specific. I realized I wanted to create advertisements and put my ideas out into the world. Never would have I thought of becoming a Graphic Design major but here I am loving every single minute of it. I finally found something that I love that will also help me in the right direction of the career path I have chosen. Two areas of graphic design that interests me are the advertisement design aspect and also publication design.

Advertisement Agency
I want to work in an advertisement agency in which their ads really make consumers stop and really thinking about the ad. My favorite advertisement that I constantly think about is the one with about handicapped people and Mt.Everest. It is such a simple concept put into a place that would not usually be found there (ads tend to be on walls, billboards, etc.) and it truly makes you think. Every day we see hundreds of advertisements and we don’t even know it. We also believe that we don’t fall for them but we do every single day. Advertisements fulfill our lives and control our way of living whether we know it or not and I just think it’s so incredibly fascinating. Another advertisement that I find very clever is the one for Schick razors. The creators of the advertisement really take an everyday/ordinary feature or concept and really think outside the box with it. It’s truly amazing to look at all the different advertisements in the world and really see how other people think.

Publication Design
Publication design is such a sensitive topic to talk about. Like advertisements, we fall into publication design and subconsciously change our way of living. That being said, I believe publication design is such a delicate issue in where it can be used in a odd way. For an example, photoshopping can be such a sensitive topic in where the designer is unappreciative of the bodies that are given to them. Why hire these people to model for your magazine and put them on the front cover if you’re just going to photoshop their bodies? Publication design I believe is being more and more questioned and aware in which I have yet to decide if it’s a good thing or a bad thing.

Graphic Design has also been a huge part of my life since I was in middle school. I always looked at the world differently knowing the extenuating process people go through to make what seemed like the simplest things. Two particular types of design that I enjoy are printing/packaging design and advertising.

In high school I took a graphic design & printing class that really got me into wanting to know more about the different types of printing such as, screen printing, offset printing, digital printing, letterpress printing, and many more. We printed almost everything in that class and it was a great experience and also a really fun time. Our teacher would also bring in examples of packaging or prints that helped show the different printing styles in action. The example below is a picture a butterfly that is broken down into 4 color processes or cmyk, cyan, magenta, yellow, and black that are used when running an offset printing press.

Offset Printing Example Of CMYK

Advertising on the other hand is a huge interest to me because an advertisement helps show the creative ability of a company while also promoting themselves inside that design. Advertisements take a lot of brain storming and different creative minds in order to create something original that appeals to target audiences. A lot of hard work and thought has to go into each advertisement to help keep it relevant to the company or product while also helping it pop or stand out. The example below is an awesome advertisement that I believe stands out very well and helps get the message out.

Billboard

Why I’m Here
I have always been one to sketch and create many ideas and visions that came into mind. I love creating stories and designs for characters, places, machinery and entities alike. This only grew with my rapidly accelerating interest in table-top gaming. Whenever I learn a new game, or watch a new playtest, I feel compelled to add my own rules and characters; I feel an urge to start drawing out ideas and how these rules may look on the table. I have come to Graphic Design to gain the skills which will grant me the ability to work and rework my overflowing bucket of ideas.

Kev Walker M.T.G. Card Design 

Table-Top Game Design 

Going Further in Design
As far as a second interest, I find myself enthralled with album art and have been guilty of choosing albums based on the design of the cover. As much as many “beauty idealists” may want to argue, humans are an aesthetically driven, impulsive, species. You almost don’t have a choice to judge a book by its cover, it is instinctual to have a prepared decision on a person or product purely by what you see in the first 10 seconds. I find it important for this reason for album art to capture its viewer in a trance of musically assisted aesthetic pleasure. The album should embody the perceptual concepts of the music. There are some legendary album designs out there and they certainly pushed the viewer to listen.

Phil Hartman Legendary Album Cover Design

Introduction:
Going into this class knowing absolutely nothing about graphic design; thinking that it only entailed drawing shapes. Once I finished reading this article I feel that I have a much better understanding for what the field of graphic design truly demands!

Publication Graphic Design:
After reading through a few other graphic design categories, publication design captured my attention.  In this category you seem to be constantly having the challenge of coming up with new ideas that require you to meet the standards of books, newspapers, and magazines. Within this particular category you will defiantly not be bored at work, which would be ideal for someone who can get bored easily! This category will have you constantly doing something to meet the needs of your ideas. The whole idea of publication is to draw the consumer in, The Cosmopolitan Magazine does just that, by attracting females. Being exposed to new forms of communications through publications would be something that interests me!

Advertising Graphic Design:
Continuing through the article I fell upon advertising design, and how advertising designers have to market to consumers. Theses, adverting designers have a different perspective that they need to incorporate into their design to meet demands of their customers. I never even thought about how the designers are trying to make their product appeal to us. This category caught my attention because the customers wants are constantly changing, requiring the designer to continue to improve and change their designs based on their customers. As I try and think of an advertisting design that interests me would have to be Essie Nail Polish, it is the second link at the bottom of the page. This appealed to me because looking to major in management and could possibly have a job that would require me to have a mindset of a graphic designer!

Cosmopolitan Magazine: The colors on the page are bright however they seem to really compliment each other and drag the eyes all over the page.

Essie Advertisement: I find that all Essie designs are complex, the transparency of the white background and the white objects are interesting to look at.

As a little kid wanting to be a skateboarder when I grew up, I was exposed to lots of interesting logos and brand designs. I remember picking out skateboards and every time it was always about how sweet the design on the back of the board was. As I grew up I started to take interest in street art which stemmed from skateboarding. Promoting a name or idea by writing it a million times in cities was fascinating and led me to want to be a graphic designer.

Street “Branding”

Typography
I’m interested in type. The way a certain font can effect how a message is conveyed is incredible. In street art all artists have their own style and its incredible how almost no one writes their name in the same style. Its exciting to see all of the variations on an alphabet and figure out how they impact the feeling of what is being said. You can tell if someone had written something while they were angry or happy.

Hand Drawn Fonts

Branding
Similar to typography, a branding is a way for something to be identified and the options are endless. I love how a design can effect the way a company is perceived by the public. Its also incredible how we are almost brainwashed into recognizing logos instantly and I’d like to be a part of that brainwashing. To be a designer behind one of the biggest brands in the world would be a dream come true and in my mind come with some sort of anonymous fame to the public.

Evolution of a Brand

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.