Reflecting and Researching

3 Things I've Learned About My Field

• No matter what you learn in a classroom in college, there is going to be so much more to learn on the job.  After talking to Professor Corneal, I realized that forming relationships with clients and continuing to focus on communication with them will make the world of a difference no matter what field I go into.
• Going the extra mile will make your work remembered in the long run (or dragging 700 beds onto a beach)
• I'm still interested in it!

3 Things I've Learned About Myself as a Researcher

• I get sidetracked very easily.  This isn't always a bad thing when researching, because you discover new things you weren't intending to even look for, but it can become a problem when the information strays too far from my original intentions.  
• I've learned a lot from researching.  Through doing this Disciplinary Literacies Blog, I have been forced to go out of my way to find out information about the graphic design field, which I might have put off, or not dug as deep, if it weren't for these assignments.
• I enjoy researching.  Discovering new things and making connections to what I already know is what makes learning rewarding, and I've developed skills to help me research more efficiently and effectively.

Questions I Still Have About Graphic Design

• When can I start?

What is Branding?

Red background, golden "M" (McDonalds)
Brown panel truck, gold logo (UPS)
"Just Do It" (Nike)
White Old English D (Detroit Tigers)
Green spartan (Michigan State University)

I was recently looking up more information on how designers work to 'brand' a client.

In graphic design, most designers and design firms are going to eventually work with 'branding' a company or organization.  This means that they will need to develop a look and feel for the company so that (if it's successful branding) the company is recognizable without even seeing their actual name.  This recognizable logo, catchy slogan, creative packaging, interesting website, etc has to convey the message that the company wants through choosing a theme of pictures and words that relates to the mission of the company.
Some of the different things involved in creating a brand for a company are:
-Creating a logo design
-Creating a business card design
-Creating a letterhead design
-Developing a form of packaging related to the company's product
      -Typically involves a balance of sustainability, affordability and appeal
-Copywriting
-Writing slogans related to the company's message/mission
-Developing designs for advertising
      -Web
      -Print
-Typeface design
-Research
-Marketing

Looking into branding helped me realize the wide array of things that are involved in creating these unmistakable brands, and how interconnected marketing, advertising, packaging and graphic design are.

Remixing Knowledge

Most people will recognize at least one of these two posters.  Shepard Fairey, one of the most politically active graphic/street artists in the field right now, created both of these.  The first one sports a patriotic image of 'hopeful' Barack Obama optimistically looking towards a better America.  This was created in 2008 when Obama was running for office, at first independently, before it was approved by the official Obama campaign.  

Now for the one on the right.  There were many 'remixes' of Fairey's original poster, often mocking what they thought was Obama's 'misdirected hope', but Fairey remixed his own poster for another political cause. During the whole Occupy Movement in 2011, he designed this image.  With an anonymous figure representing the "99%", it quickly became one of the iconic images of the Movement.  

R - What is Hope to different people? How much has the 'Hope' campaign actually helped our country? The new image made me think of a different perspective of political and social "hope".  Hope is hard to define in the context of a nation's future.  Depending on who you are, there is a different attitude towards what constitutes as 'good change', and how you are effected from that change.  The Occupy poster gives a voice to the 99% and shows that they're trying to reach out to politicians to give them a voice.

A - The remixed poster arranged it's ideas in the same way as the original piece.  This was most likely intentional because the image was already very recognizable, and that recognition helped strengthen the message the design was trying to convey.  To me, the masked figure in the new design almost has a skeptical feel to it, questioning if Obama is trying to give a sense of 'Hope' to all, or just to some.

I - The image makes you think of the Occupy Movement, and a comparison to the 'Hope' promised to them two years prior.  

D - The colors make the delivery of this piece very effective.  Red, white and blue: the colors of American freedom.  The text "Mr. President, We Hope You're On Our Side" represents every American, of course we all hope he's on our side.  But in a time of protest like the Occupy Movement, the colors and text help say, "Hear our voice, we need you now more than ever."  Great design.

S - Bold and direct.  Like all of Shepard Fairey's work, he's trying to make a statement.  Whether that be a supportive, sarcastic, or degrading statement, all of it is bold and direct.  Both posters, Obama and Occupy, have a very straight-forward message that makes you think and dig below the surface to see why he's making that statement.

Practicing Your Knowledge: PS Tutorial

Tutorial Poster

I took this blog's assignment as an opportunity to learn something new about design.  I've done a few photoshop tutorials in the past, but I haven't devoted time to learning anything new recently in Photoshop.  I found a tutorial on DesignInstruct.com titled How to Make a Funky Retro Music Poster in Photoshop.  I've always liked this warm, nostalgic look to posters and handbills like these, so I figured I could sit down and try it out for myself.  I wanted to stick with the same color scheme, so I tried to find a modern event that uses these colors.  Wakarusa Music Festival uses them, so I figured I could make a poster involving their 2013 festival.

     The tutorial walked you through how to drop opaque patterns into the background, how to create a vinyl record from scratch, and then superimpose the record onto a record player.  I took some creative liberties throughout the tutorial and used my own drawings for the background pattern, and used a photo from a previous Wakarusa for the label on the record.  

      There were a lot of things that I couldn't do according to the tutorial because I don't have the same version of Photoshop, I only have Elements.  There are ways to recreate the same effects, so it just took more time to get what I wanted.  There are a few things I learned from this tutorial.  I learned how to create a vinyl record from scratch through radial blur, noise and messing around with opacity and layers to create a glossy surface.   I also realized that I need to sit down and do a lot more design tutorials because they're actually really entertaining and very helpful because you can pick and choose what effects you want to use on future projects.  

       The act of actually recreating an image I see is what I love about design.  This can either be recreating something that has already been made, with my own little twist/remix on it, or taking a pen to paper and drawing what I see in my head. They walk you through step by steps, but they expect you have some prior experience with photoshop upon beginning the tutorial.Doing this tutorial instead of just reading about how to create something was a lot more effective.  I was able to have help (to an extent, since there wasn't actually a person showing me how to do it) yet still create the original vision I had in my head, which was pretty close to what showed up below:

My Poster

Storm Thorgerson

Storm Thorgerson: Iconic Album Designer

I was looking up iconic graphic designers when I stumbled onto the work of designer Storm Thorgerson.  He was a founding member of the art collective Hipgnosis, who designed a lot of rock album covers in the 1970's and 1980's.  He did everything for real, like the cover above for A Momentary Lape of Reason by Pink Floyd.  All 700 of those beds were actually set out along the beach in England for the cover shot.  If he couldn't get the lighting just right, or had more ideas than he could fit into a photograph, he would mess around with it using photo-developing tricks, airbrushing color in, or making a sort of collage.  Before I read about Storm, I didn't even begin to think of how labor-intensive it was for him to produce these images.  Photo editing programs aren't easy to use, but they sure do take a lot less time that the way he did it.  This, personally, is very inspirational.  His techniques were photoshop before photoshop.  From the perspective of a designer, there are many benefits from technological advances.  Saving time and money are some of the biggest benefits I can think of.  But it's really impressive to me that somebody can take a concept in their head, and then put in the effort of trucking 700 beds onto a rural beach just to realize his vision.  This man is passionate about his work and has a lot of record covers and a successful career to prove it.  

Noting Cultural Assumptions

It was pretty difficult to find portrayals of graphic designers in TV shows, movies, etc.  I could only find documentaries on graffiti, street art, and then just plain articles/editorials about some graphic designers and their style.  Nothing really stood out as representing how society views graphic designers, and how that's portrayed in popular culture.
I came upon an excerpt about the poster artist Emek from the documentary American Artifact directed by Merle Becker.

The movie is about the history of American rock poster art, from its beginnings in the 1960s, but focusing primarily on the resurgence of the 'art' side of posters that has been becoming very popular in recent years.  Emek talks about how he can express his own ideas and views on events/topics in popular culture subliminally into his posters to make them even more meaningful.  He portrays himself as a very intelligent designer, seeking out an abstract way to explain a message from a song or event, and then wrapping it up in some of the most detailed, precise work in the industry.  For graphic artists like Emek, people flock to his events to get a chance to get their hands on his artwork.  

      Art Chantry talks about how graphic design is a language.  "It's a language that everybody speaks but nobody knows they speak it.  And graphic designers are masters of that language form.  We're the ones who use this language to change the way you think about something... When we pick yellow, yellow means something... a ratty line instead of a straight line, that means something... round versus square, it means something.  And we use all this stuff to convince the viewer to go to the show" (American Artifact).  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q6364ddWdI

I also found an article titled 5 Unfair Assumptions Clients Make About Graphic Artists by Millionaire Hoy that talks about how graphic designers feel like their clients don't realize that their job is harder than it looks.  

He lists five different common assumptions he has witnessed during his time as a graphic artist:

1) Designing on the computer is easy

2) Graphic designers can do anything

3) They're the only client

4) Graphic designers can read minds

5) Graphic designers assume all responsibility

5 Unfair Assumptions

He goes into more depth as to what these mean, but they're pretty self-explanatory.  There's no magic 'design' button that designers can press and just pop out the perfect logo/poster/website/whatever the person wants.  There has to be a lot of detailed communication between the artist and the client so that every little subliminal message, every color, every line, every shape, etc correlate to the message the client is trying to convey.   Designers can't automatically know what the client envisions in their head without a lot of communication.  Also, designers are (ideally) never working on just one project.  They're working on several at the same time, but they have to appear as though all their attention and focus is on that client's project.

Hopefully this post portrayed some of how people portray graphic designers.  Clients usually assume that the job will be done exactly how they want it to, which is possible, but only when there is strong communication, a realization that there are limits to what can be achieved in the specified time frame, and realizing that there are multiple projects being balanced at the same time.

Contemplating Controversy

     There are many controversies in the field of graphic design, mostly due to its artistic nature, and the wide-open mentality of creative expression.  The controversy I'm going to talk about lies within the amount of creative expression that can be displayed before a piece of work loses its beginning message.
      David Carson, one of the most influential designers of the 90's and today, whose work is described as continuing to be subjective and largely driven by intuition, with an emphasis on reading material before designing it, and experimenting with ways to communicate in a variety of mediums. Carson remains a hands on designer, keeping his studio small and mobile (DCD.com). 
      The controversial aspects of his work are based on his emphasis of readability vs legibility.  He experimented a lot with pushing the reader farther into the visual realm of the page.  He didn't speak simply to the reader, he spoke in an abstract language of scattered, layered, skewed, and at times absurdly composed text and images.  Examples of all of these aspects of his work appeared while he was art director of Ray Gun magazine.

Notice how you don't get fed the information on the cover? You have to seek it out for yourself.

Critics of David Carson's work mainly say that his design was accidental, just experimenting and not using the principles of typography and design.  They agree that it is indeed creative, and visually interesting to the reader though.

     The basic difference here has been stated well by David Carson himself in a TED Talk.  Don't mistake legibility for communication.  Just becuase something's legibly doesn't mean it communicates. More importantly, it doesn't mean it communicates the right thing.  So, what is the message sent before somebody actually gets into the material?  And i think that's sometimes an overlooked area" (David Carson TED Talk).