The semester is finally over!

I can’t believe it, but it’s true. Fall 2010 has come to an end. Many thanks to our professor, Nicole, for her help and feedback this semester, and to my classmates for their kind comments. I feel like I learned a lot in this class, although I think I may have gotten a bit more out of it had we met in person each week. It was, at times, challenging to go beyond the tutorials and learn more than what was expected when it came to the design software programs. All the same, I’m much better off than I was in September : )

Before signing off for good, I thought I’d leave everyone with one final design-related link. While this class may have been painful for some, check this link out and consider how much worse it could have been and thank your lucky stars for computers, the Internet, and Adobe, God of Graphic Design.

That’s all, folks. The show is over…

Happy holidays!!!

Chateau Grimaldi

While studying abroad in the South of France, I was fortunate enough to visit—on several occasions—an old chateau in a small coastal town called Cagnes-sur-Mer. This castle on a hill, known as Chateau Grimaldi, was one of my favorite finds on the coast.

 

In one room are about 40 paintings of a Parisian cabaret singer, Suzy Solidor, popular in France in the 1930s. The paintings, all done by different artists, are such a captivating sight together. Each painting is so unique, yet so obviously illustrating the same subject. At the time and, again, now, it really makes me think about different viewpoints and how perspective differs from person to person and place to place. It’s amazing that one subject can be seen in so many different ways—change the light, change the angle, change the outfit. In a way, it reminds me of our latest project. By zooming in or out, what is seen of 3D object can change dramatically, and may or may not even be recognizable. 

Anyway, just something to consider. Thoughts?  : )

Artists That I Heart

Pablo Picasso – A eccentric Spanish painter. Founder of the Cubist movement. An inspiration to artists today all across the globe. Why I love Picasso? The puzzle-like shapes, the distinctive lines, the bold colors, the bizarre caricatures. 















Pierre-Auguste Renoir – A beautiful French painter. Style changed from Impressionism to classicism during his era. Celebrated beauty and the feminine sensuality. Famous for his focus on people in intimate situations and his paintings of female nudes. Why I love Renoir? The soft touches of color, the unique brush strokes, the picturesque scenery, the close-up view into his subject’s soul.

 



















Auguste Rodin – An inspired French sculptor. Criticized during him time as his most original work departed from traditional themes of mythology and allegory, modeled the human body with realism, and celebrated individual character and physicality. Why I love Rodin? The detailed curves, the textured surfaces, the size and scale, the character and emotion.

Edgar Degas – A celebrated French artists, famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing. One of the founders of Impressionism. Portraits are notable for their psychological complexity and depiction of human isolation. In many paintings dancers were shown backstage or in rehearsal, emphasizing their status as professionals doing a job. Why I love Degas? The beautiful dancers and stage scenes, the delicate use of color, the bold brush strokes.

 

Paul Signac – A fabulous French painter. Helped to develop the pointillist style. Many of his paintings are of the French coast. He loved to paint the water. Why I love Signac? The pastel colors, the beautiful scenery, the interesting textures. See my first blog post on Paul Signac.

Project 5: Google SketchUp

This was a fun project for me, but it was not without its challenges. The tutorials were easy to follow and the program interface was logical and, for the most part, user-friendly; it just took some getting used to : )

Unfortunately, I'm not able to upload images of my project for some reason (technical difficulties) BUT my design is my dream bedroom - a tiki hut with an over-sized bed taking up the entire space, perfectly positioned on my favorite plot of beach in the world in beautiful Antibes, France. I swear, I could be happy forever with just a bed and roof over my head if I could live in Antibes permanently. It is the most amazing place on Earth!

I tried to play with different shapes, colors, and textures, without getting in too far over my head. On the roof and support poles, I used brown wood textures. On the screens and headboard, I used lattice-like fence materials. I designed a comforter for the bed and placed a few pillows on the bed to make it more realistic. Without rendering these pieces, they still look a little boxy and don’t have the proper light applied, so I’m hoping to have someone at work teach me to render this in Podium soon.

I’m so happy we got to do this project. For work, we are having a company in India model our designer-created furniture pieces in 3D using SketchUp for the software program being built, so it’s nice to now have a better understand of the process.

Anyway, I hope you like my creation : )

Websites That I Heart

www.facebook.com – Obviously : ) This is my favorite and, perhaps, most frequently visited site. It keeps me connected and thoroughly entertained. As a marketer, Facebook is a great way to get the word out about our company and to get feedback.

www.anthropologie.com – This is the website for my favorite store. Not only is it a great store to shop, it’s a great website to shop. The navigation is easy to follow and they have a lot of fun features that make the site more interactive and interesting to visit.

www.opentable.com – If you’re not familiar with Open Table, it’s a great site to use to check restaurant availability and make reservations. It’s also a good place to start if you don’t know where you want to eat as it provides restaurant listings for different cuisine types by location and price point.

www.kayak.com – Kayak is a fantastic travel search site that will help you get the best deals on flights, hotels, car rentals, and other vacation packages. It’s super easy to use, and allows you filter your search to get exactly the results you’re looking for.

www.dcist.com – This blog is where to start to find anything you need to know about DC. From crime to culture, food to festivals, they cover it all. Like it, tweet it, tag it. It’s the talk of the town!

ilovetypography.com

The other day I came across this blog on typography that I thought was definitely worth sharing.

http://ilovetypography.com/

The blogger, John Boardley, posts interesting mini-articles related to typography—on everything from typeface histories and analyses to the announcement of new typefaces on the market. Overall, his blog layout is visually appealing and very appropriate for the subject. Interesting graphics are incorporated throughout and illustrate the article concepts well. While some of the articles may seem a little dry, the blog is purposeful, educational, and surely worth reading.

Enjoy : )

The Washington Design Center

This week I was fortunate enough to visit the Washington Design Center with a few colleagues. We attended two lectures on marketing for interior design and a chair build demonstration. The lectures and demonstration were pretty interesting and informative, but really, my absolute favorite thing was walking through the showrooms. They are A-MAZING!

Each showroom is like entering an art gallery for textiles. Perfectly staged rooms, set with beautiful furniture and accessories. Walls draped in rich, colorful fabrics. Glamorous designers, impeccably dressed and playing their roles flawlessly.

My favorite showrooms were Duralee and Kravet. The fabrics these companies carry are out of this world. There are too many to classify with a few adjectives, but the combination of them all draped along the walls and showcased on elegant furniture pieces is certainly a fabulous sight. I was a kid in a candy store : )

Unfortunately the Design Center is not open to the public—you need to be accompanied by an interior designer to get in, but if you ever have the opportunity to go, I highly recommend it!

Here’s the link to the Design Center website if you care to learn more!

Project 4: Video Remix

Project 4 started and ended in confusion for me. Luckily, the middle wasn’t so bad : )

To start, I spent about two hours downloading Adobe Premiere Pro onto my Mac only to be told that the system was not compatible. Fortunately, I spend one night each week at my mom’s house and was able to download the program on her PC. Getting to the lab at AACC is quite out of the way for me since I work in Towson and live in downtown DC.

In the meantime, I spent some time looking at clips on archive.org and creativecommons.org to see if they had what I was looking for, and I actually found a lot more than I expected. I developed a storyboard with the idea of compiling video clips of people dancing various styles of dance, and pairing them with music that was totally uncharacteristic of the style being danced. I had the idea to call it “Dance to a Different Beat.” Here’s my storyboard, if you’re interested to see where my concept started.

When it came time to put the video together, I did another quick search for dance clips and came across some that were more offbeat and comic, and it occurred to me that this would be an even more perfect fit for a video titled, “Dance to a Different Beat.” So that’s the direction I ended up going in. Between the Michael Jackson wanna-be, the ballet dancers and construction workers dancing in the streets of DC, and the groovy rollerskaters, I think it’s more entertaining than it might have been if I had gone with more serious dancers. I’ve also always love watching people just have fun dancing and letting loose, so watching these clips over and over again was quite entertaining for me.

When I finally got to using Premiere Pro, I was so happy to see that there were video tutorials—and that they were good and helpful! It didn’t take long to do the editing and I was actually enjoying myself by the time I got to the titles, transitions, and effects. It will be really helpful in my job for me to have an understanding of video editing software, like Premiere Pro, so I’m glad it was a part of this class.

I was, however, thrown for a loop at the end when I had to select the right formats and file sizes, and when I was trying to get resize all of the clips to be the same size. I ended up enlarging them all to fit the frame because I couldn’t locate instructions on how to resize each clip, so it resulted in pixilated clips. I wish I could have fixed it, but I was totally out of time and now my mom’s computer is crashed! Hopefully in the future I’ll have the chance to figure it out : )

Anyway, here is my video. Hope you enjoy it!

Graphic Designers That I Heart

Here are a few graphic designers that I really like. Hope you enjoy, too : ) Feel free to add your own favorites to the list!

Milton Glaser
www.miltonglaser.com
2010 National Medal of Arts award recipient, Milton Glaser is a widely known graphic designer, most famous for his I <3 NY logo. His logos, posters, and book and album covers are fantastic!

Larissa Meek
http://larissameek.com
This designer does it all – illustrations, paintings, sculptures, graphic design, typography, website design, and blogging. Check out two of my favorite things in her portfolio – her Sweets + Candy design and her Earth Day typography.

Leighton Hubbel
http://leightonhubbell.com/
This award-winning designer has a knack for interesting logo design. There’s something about his use of bright colors and simple shapes that makes his work stand out.

Amy Stewart 
http://stewartdesign.com/
Web and interactive design, illustrations, and logos are Amy Stewart’s specialty—and I think they’re truly special. Check out her design for the Cindi’s NY Delicatessen.

Stephanie Malone 
www.smalonedesign.com
This designer has a cute, girly style that I really enjoy : ) Probably not for everyone, but I am a fan!

Project 3: Art Deco

For Project 3, I choose to research the Art Deco movement. My mom has a few pieces of Art Deco artwork in her home that I’ve always thought were interesting, so I decided to select the movement for my topic with the hope of learning more!

The research part was fairly easy for me, but by no means fun – I’m not exactly an art history buff. I did, however, really enjoy selecting images and designing the presentation in InDesign. I haven’t used InDesign for a few years now, but with a little trial-and-error, I got back on my feet with it.

I choose to use diamonds as a motif in my design, pared with vibrant colors and classic Art Deco fonts. I’m not completely happy with how the font I used in the body text turned out, but I searched for quite some time and this was the best one I could find. I do like the header font I selected, and tried to use the thick and thin dark line combo as a design element throughout the presentation, using it to underline each slide’s title and to frame each photo. I tried to show a variety of images, illustrating the people, the patterns, the posters, and the furniture of the movement.

Normally I would never use this much text on PowerPoint slides, but looking at the student example projects and considering that we’re not all actually in a class together where a verbal presentation can be given, I didn’t think the point of the project was to limit the text; instead, I tried to design around it and present the text in a way where it was neat, easy to read, and pared with a complementary photo. Hopefully I was mildly successful : )

Here are some slides from my presentation. Let me know what you think!

MYOB Photo Shoot

Two weeks ago, my company – a start-up, custom bedding and furniture store called "Make Your Own Bedroom" or "MYOB" – had its first photo shoot. We needed photos of our products for a commercial that ABC2 News was to put together for us as a part of a sponsorship for the season premiere episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. During the shoot days, I worked closely with our photographer, Whitney, to ensure that we got all the right shots and angles, and used the best lighting possible. Once we moved on to editing, I gave Whitney suggestions on various photos that I thought could be improved with a little “PhotoShopping”. Here are some of the touched up images.

The people at ABC took these images and created our commercial. As marketing director, I got to help with font and music selections, and messaging/content development. Since we were under a tight deadline, there wasn’t a ton of time for multiple rounds of editing, but all in all, I think I’m happy with the final product. Take a look and let me know what you think!

For more information on my company and to see more photos from our shoot, visit our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/makeyourownbedroom

Graffiti Art in Christiania

When I visited Copenhagen, Denmark a few years ago, my friend and I stumbled upon a neighborhood called Christiania. We were freezing cold and our trip had, up to that point, been uneventful, so we were thrilled to find something interesting to lift our spirits.

Christiania, also known as Freetown, is a self-proclaimed autonomous neighborhood of about 850 residents. It was founded in 1971 when a group of citizens knocked down the fence to an abandoned military area and set up a new hippie community, completely independent of the Danish government. Since it’s inception, Christiania has been famous for its open cannabis trade (until 2004 when it was outlawed), but today, what really stands out to visitors is the interesting graffiti art that covers nearly every square inch of commune.

Before visiting, I can’t say that I saw much beauty in graffiti, but now I understand. The talented people who do graffiti are truly artists. In Christiania, the graffiti artwork is elaborate, expressive, and fully of imagination. The images, the lettering, and the colors come together and POP! Sometimes it’s humorous, sometimes it’s serious; always it’s art. It brings life to this community, and it absolutely made my day that afternoon in November : ) 

Project 2

Wow! I had no idea how tricky this project would be. I’m not much of an artist, but I am a bit of a perfectionist – so it was definitely a challenge. For Part A, once I got the hang of drawing my object, I tried to play with the positive and negative space, and with the concept of “zooming in and out” to change the perspective. I also tried to change the angle at which I viewed the object. How do you think I did?

During my visit to the CADE lab to scan my drawings, I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone and attempt to do the Illustrator work for Part B that night as well. Four hours later and still all I had were scanned images. Something wasn’t clicking for me, so I decided to sleep on it and take the next few days to play around in my older version of Illustrator that my college roommate gave to me.

And it clicked! Finally, after hours of frustration during my first attempt, I had it. I don’t know what changed, but somehow I managed to design something that looked like my drawings.

I tried to choose three images that would balance each other out and that showed different parts and angles of my object. I also did my best to position the three images within the set in a sequence that leads your eye through the images, from left to right. I think my favorite is the center image. If you haven’t already guessed, my object is a hanger, and the center image shows the back of the hanger clip.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you like my work : )

Paul Signac

So, for my first post I thought I would share some paintings from a favorite artist of mine, Paul Signac. Signac was a famous French painter whose work I came to love while studying abroad in the south of France during my junior year of college. His style, which is known as pointillist, is amazing to me. Take a look at a few examples of his work and see what I mean!

The small dots of color are said to come together in the viewer’s eye rather than on the canvas. The result is a slightly distorted, pixilated look—similar to what we might see today on a computer screen when a graphic’s resolution is not high enough—although his paintings are much more pleasant to look at than pixilated images. For me, there is something absolutely magical about these paintings—the vibrant colors, the dreamy scenery, and the whimsical motion.

I believe he uses stylization in his work. There is more realism than in Diebekorn’s painting, but also slight abstraction. There is definite shape and shadow, as well as an incredible use of implied lines, which I very much appreciate as a person that generally has a difficult time of drawing lines.

I hope you enjoy Signac as much as I do!
For more information, click here.