Although this will probably not be of significant interest to most (unless you’re my fiancée or someone really geeky), but I’m throwing it up here as a matter of record. The paper was written for History of Prints, and includes a philosophical analysis of Jasper Johns Untitled 1972 series. The full title is “Perspectival Difference in Untitled 1972: A Parallel Evaluation of Duchampian Philosophy.” Even if you might not have read widely regarding the subject (I sure didn’t while at BJ), you may find the ramifications of the analysis to be pretty interesting.

Perspectival Difference in Untitled 1972
Image Appendix
Class Presentation Slides

I know I’m playing a bit of catchup, but my classes have been keeping me more than busy this quarter. This project required the selection of a “social cause” to design some theoretical work for, including the writing of a descriptive and informative design brief (previously posted) and the subsequent design of selected pieces.

I chose to design a campaign creating awareness about fair trade coffee, and designed a set of posters, an accompanying brochure, and web comps for potential production.

Although I was satisfied with the results of the project, apparently my professor was not. I was more than a bit frustrated with the result (you can ask about it if you want more details), but suffice it to say, the grade and explanation was a bit atypical for me. Always next time, I suppose.

Other Downloads:

Project 1 Classroom Brief
Project 1 Personal Design Brief

Additional Notes

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I am currently working on a project for my “Graphic Design in Social Awareness” course centering around fair trade coffee. I’ve attached my research and design brief for the campaign, and it includes lots of interesting things about our contemporary coffee culture, both in consumption and production. I obviously find the subject interesting due to my natural bent in the coffee direction, but crystal thought somebody else might find the subject moderately interesting. Here we go.

fair trade design brief

project 1 has been in process since last week in type studio 1, but I’ll give a brief rundown for those who care. The project is a call for entries for a typeface design competition in japan, through a company called Morisawa. The project calls for a multi-part, unified design including an enclosing envelope, cover page, two page instruction sheet, 3 page type specimen sample, and entry form. We spent the last two class periods creating a logotype (hand drawn or digital) starting with thumbnails and working up, and most recently, defining a grid system on which to base all of the materials. I’ll post all of the sample sheets and project description in a day or two (I have to scan in the pages, since the professor refuses to enter the digital age for classroom instruction, even though we meet in a computer lab).

So, the basic in class process runs like this.
logotype design (sketches) -> logotype roughs (digital) -> grid system line, greeked, actual type -> type study in place -> further production and assemblage.

I’ll post the supporting documentation and samples tonight.

this project was the long-dreaded and little understood moment that still had me slightly fearful of this quarter at scad. fortunately, that dread and fear is now mollified. the project qualifications and parameters are as follows:

1. bring whatever art stuff (or craft stuff) you happen to have, including your normal art box of paint, pencils, pens, and some other more juvenile stuff like crayons, glue stick, etc.
2. bring paper, magazines, newspapers, type specimen books, you get the drift…
3. create a project with no parameters regarding medium, format, dimensionality, or specific style in a 1 1/2 hour time period, using no technological influences outside of a copy machine and/or polaroid camera

so, on to the actual experience. I went out to michael’s to buy some paint, since I assumed my gouache had dried up by now (it hadn’t). So, I bought several colors of sort of cheap acrylic paint, rubber cement, and other weird stuff like crayons and glue stick. I showed up at 9:00 this morning with a full art box, portfolio case, and other misc supplies. others arrived complete with a portfolio case and roller luggage full of stuff. the project topic was announced–create a visual narrative describing your personal design process, using whatever traditional methods/media/style at your disposal. also, use of type as communicative via language was not allowed, type was only allowable as texture or design element. we had written a paper describing our design process for last class, so this project was visually expanding on the paper we had written. i’ll attach the process paper and some other stuff to this post.

The project really went pretty well. I’ve not really planned, designed, and executed a project in a classroom setting like this, especially in such a restrictive time limit. It turned out to be a lot of fun, and really reinforced sticking to our own design process to solve a design/creative problem. Following the design/execution session, we did a class critique of all of the projects. She apparently liked mine, but didn’t really seem to dislike anything anyone else did either. She did remark that my project communicated in a clear and linear fashion my design process (which I thought was the goal). On the other hand, most of the other projects required a large amount of explanation, dealing with visual language, symbolism, and flow to even approach the project–to me, this seems a weakness, since the projects failed to communicate on a primal or experiential level. On the other hand, I think that is something that will be addressed in the redesign over the weekend.

So, what did I learn about design through this exercise? I think I was much more conscious of my design process as I worked through my solution. I can’t remember a project in recent months or years with a more tightly controlled process of brainstorming, thumbnails, roughs, and final mechanicals. Whether that will turn out to be a creative limitation or enhancement remains to be seen. Over the weekend, our task is to turn this project around in digital form, analyzing our process up to this point, summarize its strengths and weaknesses, and then redesign the project as necessary for class on tuesday. This process of creation/analysis/redesign/presentation will repeat every week for the next 6 weeks. Oh well, there goes my weekends.

design process paper