January 2009
1 post
Card Observer (business card gallery) →
December 2008
9 posts
Winter Break Fun →
Blood, Sweat and Tiers: Building Optimal Brand... →
Web Tips—Galleries and Blogs
A few weeks ago, Sarah Lockweird and Slacey® presented us with some helpful information on how to add an image gallery and feed your blog onto a website.
It was a great tutorial.
1) Create a Flickr account, and upload some photos
2) Click, “create a new set” to define your gallery
3) Go to pictobrowser.com, and click, “PictoBuilder”
4) Enter your Flickr screenname...
Chris Pullman: What I've Learned →
Chris Pullman is the only person who can be said to have won not one but two of the highest possible honors from AIGA. The first was the Corporate Leadership Award, which the company he shaped, Boston public broadcasting network WGBH, won in 1985. The second was the AIGA Medal, which Pullman himself won in 2002.
A Design-Oriented National Endowment for the Arts →
“The National Endowment for the Arts should embrace design and innovation as a means to fulfill the larger agendas and programs of the Obama Administration. The choice of the NEA Chairman is an important opportunity to shape the contribution of the NEA in coming years. ” - William Drenttel
AIGA Design Archives: Two
The AIGA Design Archives are chock-full of award-winning design. Searching through the archives is an interactive way to discover successful and respected firms and designers. Here are just a few examples of great design that caught my eye.
Dennis Garcia - Miriello Grafico
Lorraine Wild - Green Dragon Office (Los Angeles, CA)
Bob Aufuldish - Aufuldish & Warinner (San Anselmo, CA)
...
AIGA Design Archives →
AIGA Design Archives: One
The AIGA Design Archives are chock-full of award-winning design. Searching through the archives is an interactive way to discover successful and respected firms and designers. And, of course, it is always there when you need a little inspiration.
Creative Director Timothy Bahash created some amazing packaging for 4mula (Philadelphia, PA). The products are beautiful visually, and they dictate a...
Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Acrobat has become so widely used that it is important to keep up with all that PDFs have to offer. Over the past few years, I have become pretty familiar with the different PDF saving presets (high quality print, press quality, smallest file size, and illustrator default).
I am not as familiar with the different kinds of commenting and mark-up tools that Acrobat has to offer. Jamie...
Adobe Bridge
Adobe Bridge essentially stores and organizes files. Honestly, even after a great presentation by two of my classmates, Bridge is still somewhat of a mystery to me. Bridge is a tool for organizing files on your computer. It’s a great feature to have open when you’re working on websites or projects that use many images, because it allows you to be able to look through all your images...
Photo RAW
Most digital SLR cameras have a mode called camera raw. This mode takes photographs without compressing the data at all. RAW files hold more usable data than jpgs and tiffs, and therefore are much larger files as well.
Camera RAW files serve as a negative, and the computer is inherently the darkroom. RAW files will give you more control of the exposure of the image. When opening RAW files in...
November 2008
20 posts
Grand Rapids Art Museum →
GRAM + Green = LEED Gold
Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) is a rating system that provides a standard of measurement that defines what a “green” building is.
The Grand Rapids Art Museum (GRAM) is the first LEED Gold Certified art museum in the world! Walking into the museum, you would never guess that there is something different about the building, but there are several things that...
Richard Avedon: Larger than Life
Last week I visited the Grand Rapids Art Museum (GRAM) with a few of my favorite classmates. The Richard Avedon: Larger than Life exhibit is on display there from 10/03/08 – 01/04/09.
Avedon (1923 – 2004) has been described as one of the most influential American photographers in the last century, as well as one of the greatest portraitists of our time. He got his start by doing freelance...
Linda Powell's Return to Herman Miller
Last fall, Linda Powell went on sabbatical—back to her former employer, Herman Miller. While she was there, her main purpose was to “invest in the mark” (-Bruce Mau) that Herman Miller has used for decades.
“Investing in the mark” basically means that the mark is the most recognizable visual element in a brand’s identity system. Prior to Linda exploring future...
“Invest in the mark.”
– Bruce Mau
Pushing Dots Through Holes Onto Holes
There are several things to keep in mind when designing for t-shirts. You want to get the best result possible for your client.
Direct printing: This means the image is printed directly onto the shirt. If you are printing on a dark shirt, you may need to indicate to under-paint with white, just keep in mind that white will be an extra color. You can also print on a sleeve. Avoid halftones and...
Exhibit Design Consultants Tour
Today, our class was lucky enough to score a tour of Exhibit Design Consultants with Mike Morris. He talked briefly about designing for large formats and exhibits.
Several of the students in our class will be working on creating some large format pieces for a fundraising event this coming spring. Mike stressed the importance of keeping large format pieces simple. A billboard is not an...
Polling Place Photo Project →
AIGA partnered with The New York Times to produce the Polling Places Photo Project.
“The Polling Place Photo Project is a nationwide experiment in citizen journalism that encourages voters to capture, post and share photographs of this year’s primaries, caucuses and general election. By documenting local voting experiences, participants can contribute to an archive of photographs that...
Graphic Design & the United States Postal Service
Yesterday, Rachel Schepers and Stacey Dashner presented some great information on United States Postal Service regulations.
Obviously, following the USPS regulations is pretty important to designers. If something doesn’t make it through the mail, then the intended audience will never receive your message.
Check out: usps.com for specific information and regulations.
Make new friends, but keep the old
David Kehrer and Ryan Ganss showed our class some new graphic design related tools and technologies, including a color palette generator and an interactive project management sharing site.
http://kuler.adobe.com is one of the better color site I’ve visited.
http://conceptshare.com is a site where you can upload files and share them with others who give you feedback. You can mark-up the...
Duotones—Duets in Color
Duotones are a great way to utilize spot colors in photography. They can be an economical way of using two spot colors. Duotones also can give photography a different feel from four color process, black/white, and monotone images.
Making a successful duotone is dependent on several things:
1) starting with a high quality image
2) choosing colors from the Pantone Duotone book
3) communicating...
October 2008
14 posts
Sustainable Architecture
A few weeks ago, Diane Nagelkirk, chair and associate professor of the Architectural Technology and Facility Management department at Ferris State University, came to speak to our Design Seminar class. Her presentation was basically to give us a quick background on sustainable architecture for an upcoming brand identity project.
I learned that 48% of energy consumption comes from building...
Creative SMACKDOWN.
Last night, several Ferris State University Graphic Design students attended the Creative Smackdown http://www.creativesmackdownusa.com/ in Grand Rapids.
Two juniors, Troy Rojewski and Trevor Dobias, presented their work for judging, and won second and third in the design category, respectively. Allison Platt, Jessie Schwartz, and Stacey Dashner presented the newly launched FSU Graphic Design...
Pivot Design →
-A really cool example of a word mark that works at multiple angles.
Responsible Social Networking
Today, one in five employers are searching social networks to screen candidates. One-third of the employers check candidates’ social networking profiles find some sort of information that causes them to reject the candidate.
In 2006, 11% of managers were screening candidates, in two years, it’s doubled to 22%.
According to the survey, the most widespread areas of concern are:
•...
“Let’s give them something to talk about.”
– Bonnie Raitt
Designing Brand Identity - Perception
Part one of the book, Designing Brand Identity by Alina Wheeler discusses the relationship between brand and brand identity. So far, I think this is a fantastic book. The information is interesting and easy to read, and the best part is all the pictures! I definitely see myself referring to this book in the near and distant future.
There were several things that I found interesting and...
GET OUT (the vote)
A few weeks ago, the the graphic design program was lucky enough to book a spot in the world-famous Rankin Center Art Gallery.
Most of the senior class presented the website that they worked on last year in the back corner of the gallery. Since I did not participate in the website design, I helped hang the freshman, sophomore, and junior work, which consisted of political based design...
File Maker PRO
File Maker Pro is a database used organize and analyze information such as an inventory, grade sheet and datebook. In our Design Project Center we use a database to keep track of projects, clients and that students that work on a project. FileMaker Pro is a computer program that allows you to create and design databases.
I think this will be a very useful, helpful program to have. I like that...
Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park →
Frederik Meijer Gardens Excursion
I have always wanted to visit the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, and today I finally did! Yay!
I was especially lucky because they just opened a new Jaume Plensa exhibit. He uses text, human figure, letters, found objects, light, and sound in his sculptural works.
The F.M. Gardens’ website described that Plensa’s work,
“…explores the role...
September 2008
8 posts
“If at first the idea
is not absurd, then there
is no hope for it.”
– Albert Einstein
AIGA 365/28
AIGA’s Annual Design Competition 365/28 was on display at the Richmond Center for Visual Arts at Western Michigan University from September 4 – September 27, 2008.
After driving to Kalamazoo in torrential rain, we arrived at the gallery.
I was very interested in the package design on display. I’ve noticed a trend in package design, especially with innovations in plastics. Some of the...
Professional Correspondence
Communication is so important in all aspects of life.
In the professional world, it is especially important to correspond with others effectively, efficiently, tactfully, and thoughtfully. Following simple rules to make sure you are communicating exactly what you want is important in the professional world.
Dating memos and letters is especially important. This allows the reader to relate the...
Meyer May + Frank Lloyd Wright + Historic...
Last week, I was lucky enough to be able to visit the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Meyer May House in Grand Rapids, MI. Wright was indeed a man ahead of his own time, and thus, he created a futuristic home for the May family in 1908. Surrounded by old Victorian houses, the Meyer May house is a stunning example of Wright’s work made possible only by accurate and detailed historic preservation...