Wednesday November 24th 2010

Today in class we went over the homework which took up majority of the class time. Most of us came up with pretty interesting ideas to promote the Graphic Design/ Visual Communication design option. Eric came up with the idea of displaying student work during the first week of school at a table in the main walk way. We thought his idea was good because the main walkway gets a lot of traffic the first week of school so we would be able to reach a lot of students. But we had to come up with a way to make the students interested. I had a similar idea with promoting on the main walkway but I really wanted to touch on the career options a graphic designer would have post graduation. From my experience it seems that a lot of people are scared to choose an Art Major because they don't think there is a lot of opportunity to make  money or find work. I think if we make it a point to show all the things a designer can do and work it would encourage more people to become interested. Overall, I feel there were a lot of creative ideas but many of them already exists but are not successful. After going over the homework we did the teacher surveys and ended class.

Monday November 22nd, 2010

Today in class we partnered up and were told by Jimmy to find a few objects we had and create an interesting story out of the ideas we chose. My partner and I came up with a story rather quickly but didn't really put much though into our story we just came up with something fast and realistic. We never really considered making our story more interesting and when going back and thinking of another story we couldn't come up with anything better. It was easy to create a b.s story but it was very challenging trying to make it interesting. Or objects we made a story out of was a Starbucks double shot espresso, a girlie art supplies case, sunglasses, and cold medicine. Our story wasn't well thought out but after hearing what the rest of the class came up with it was obvious that we all had a hard time creating interesting stories. There were a couple of interesting stories but overall Jimmy was not impressed. After this exercise Jimmy assigned us a pretty challenging homework assignment. He instructed us to go home and come up with three really good ways to get potential graphic design students at Cal State LA and students not interested in design to choose Graphic Design/ Visual Communication for their majors. He wanted us to come up with realistic ideas and think hard about how we would approach this homework. At the end of class he gave us time to begin coming up with some ideas.

November 17th, 2010

Today in class we watched a movie. We had a choice to either watch a movie on dreams, origami, or the Mayan civilization. We voted and ended up watching the movie on dreams entitled, "What Are Dreams", by Nova. This documentary showed us scientifically what dreams are and also gave distinctions between two particular dream states, rem dreams and non rem dreams. Rem dreams are when you are in a very deep sleep, the dreams seem a little more complex, and unreal oppose to non rem dreams that can occur during light sleep which are usually affected and re plays of what you experienced that day. When awaken out of a rem sleep one is more likely to feel negative feelings and respond angrily oppose to being woken up out of a rem sleep. There have been many studies with both animals and people to further increase our knowledge of what dreams are, why we have them, and how they relate to conditions such as depression. I found the film very interesting and informing. However, I wish they would have discussed the meaning of dreams and went over the spiritual aspects of dreams.

Stage 7: Production

There are many steps once you enter into the production phase of design. It is important to meet your marker/ deadlines by successfully interacting with the production team, and working well with your design team. You must communicate your ideas so that they are able to replicate them. You also must be open to feedback and listen to criticism because it is an opportunity to improve. Once you are sure about your ideas for your project and are ready to attempt creation it is important to create prototypes. There is a throwaway prototype and a evolutionary prototype. Prototypes should be full scale. When creating your prototypes one should play around with materials, color and textures. When making decisions about your design, consider constraints, materials budget, and aesthetics. More often than not your design will be dictated by a budget.

Stage 6: Communication

In this chapter we reviewed the communication stage. There are three important stages during communication. The first is the encoding phase, which means that the message is created using professional related conventions of language and image use. The second stage is the message itself. Last, there is decoding which is when the audience makes sense of the message and then places it in a context that is relevant to them. One of the most important things in design is making sure the audience gets your message. If no one gets it then it will be an unsuccessful design. The audience consists of the client, corporations, manufacturing, and associates. Communication is after all what design is all about so a designer must master this technique.

November 15th, 2010

Today in class we played a game which took up majority of the class time. This was a game which required patience, listening, understanding, a little memorization, and concentration. In the game Jimmy had two objects, a  yellow paint tube and a chalk eraser. He passed them around a circle in opposite directions. He would first turn to the person on either side and say this is a who, they would say a who? he would say a who again, and they would say oh a who! Then they would turn to the person on the side of them and repeat the process but instead of them answering a who? they would turn to the person on the other side and say a who? and they would say a who? to the person on their other side until it got back to the original person who would say a who and we would pass it down to the person asking a who? We would repeat the process on the other side but say this is a what and repeat the same process. Eventually they would cross and for us this is what got confusing. After tries and tries we got very close to going all they around but gave up out of frustration.

After this game Jimmy instructed us to close our eyes and open our minds, and visualize everything he was saying. He read us a descriptive story that ended with us opening a door. We were to draw what we imagined was behind the door. I chose to draw the room of a princess with dresses and jewels. My class for the most part had different visions but most had a bedroom. Once again there is no homework!

November 10th, 2010

Today when we came into class Jimmy had a series zeros and ones written on the board in a weird pattern. Jimmy explained that this was binary numbers and judging from the pattern he had already written we were to try and figure out the next three binary numbers for 7, 8 , and 9 already knowing what 1-6 was. The class was pretty stumped at first. But after staring at the variations of 0's and 1's we began seeing a pattern and all had agreed on a combination for the next 3 binary codes. Jimmy asked if we all felt okay with this and Audria didn't so she explained her idea for the next three numbers and convinced a little over half the class to change the original idea to hers. Myself and a few other class mates weren't convinced that her idea worked and after going back and forth we still had no clear class decision. So, we looked at Jimmy to see what the actual binary codes are for 7, 8,9 only to find out he wouldn't tell us. This exercise took up majority of he class time. We did this exercise because in design we will have to convince our clients that our ideas work by communicating our ideas in a language in which they understand. We have to be excellent communicators in the field of design. The class was unsuccessful in choosing one clear idea for the binary codes and in our career paths this does happen.

(Taken From Google)

After this exercise we went over the remainder of the 10 images with one headline homework assignments. And like Monday a lot of them were unsuccessful.

November 8th 2010

Today in class we went further into the idea of a creative brief. Over the weekend we were assigned to create a creative brief for the film we viewed in class entitled, "The Power of Ten". We were to try an guess what the creative brief was for creating that movie. People turned in 4 different styles of briefs, one hand written, one full sentence outline, outline, and paragraphs. As a class we decided that the full sentence outline was the one that was more professional and appropriate. After reading a couple excerpts from our briefs Jimmy read some professional creative briefs from actual design projects. This gave us a clearer understanding of how a creative brief should look like and sound. After this we went over a homework assignment from a while back, where you choose ten images that completely change the meaning of a headline or word.

A few people didn't have their because the assignment was from so long ago, but we were able to go over a few. Majority of the people in the class images didn't change the headline ten different times. There would be about 3 different changes and then repeats of what we had already seen. Today for homework there was none! =)

Gauge Presentation: Ismael Obregon

Today was my first time attending a Gauge, I really enjoyed the guest speaker, Ismael Obregon.  Ismael is a Graphic Designer who owns the company design Oishii which means delicious in Japanese. Ismael started out freelance working for a company that designed for many clientsThe company decided to out source on a particular project which dissapointed Ismael. He approached his superiors and assured them that he could under take any project they felt they needed to outsource yet the company went through with their decision. Ismael quit and chose to go his own way. He was funded, and after a short period created his very own design firm, Oishii. Isamel had a lot of input and guidance. He's had many experiences and works with a wide range of clients. He doesn't consider his company to have a particular preference and will work with any sort of client. He works internationally as well as in the United States. Ismael made it clear that language is an important aspect of design he explained that visual language can be considered a second language and that words are a important part of design. Ismael is very successful, and I took a lot from what he had to say. He has a lot of experience and is looking to help upcoming designers.

Reading Response 117-139

In this chapter we covered the next step in the design process which is creating models. When deciding on an idea one must create a model, introducing the idea into the physical world. Creating models allows an artist to consider design constraints and problems along the way. However, when creating a model don't get completely wrapped up in your example that you forget to consider the actual project.

Often times models are scaled down so when creating your model it may seem that it works however when you create the actual design it doesn't work at the size it is now taking on. Artists must consider all aspects of design when creating their models and remember that just because it works on the model doesn't mean it will work on the real design. Always remember that yes the model is real, but its not the real thing!

Day 9: November 1st, 2010

In class we discussed in great detail the definition of methodology. None of us knew the Webster definition but we all had a general idea of what the term means. Jimmy however, broke the word down so we could have a clearer understanding of what the term means and how it relates to design. We discovered that methodology relates to methods, principles, rules, process, procedure, objective and relationship. We also looked up the word procedure which means a specified series of actions which have to be executed in the same manner in order to always obtain the same results. Jimmy made a valid point that this relates to design because we will always have a way of approaching our work, and will examine different methods that help create successful, beautiful, relevant and appropriate work. After this discussion we watched a short film called, "Why Man Creates" by Saul Bass (his first film).

This film had hilarious animations. In the intro of the film it had animated characters showing in a very comical way how some very famous designs came about and evolved into modern technology. The video explained that fooling around is how most ideas start. It also explained design as looking at one thing and seeing another. This film covered many areas of design including the judgement of ones work, digression, and the search- work in progress for a new idea. After the film we presented our 10 games that we created.

(Image from the film)
As a class we all chose each others best ideas and then presented them to Jimmy. Because I wasn't at class the previous Wednesday I didn't fully understand what the assignment was. I designed the logo for my game but now that I see what's expected I will go back and add instructions and a clearer concept.