#9

For senior production, our group is responsible for making diplomas, invites, and programs. We have finished all the designs including the stuff needed for graduation. 

These past few weeks, my roll on the team has changed from creating designs to finalizing\editing designs made by Ashley. There really was no challenge other than figuring out how to use size and line thickness to make text more interesting to read and playing with color to make text easier to read. My roll has also progressed in double checking spelling errors for names made on the diploma. While I may have not created the designs myself, I feel they look stronger with my editing. There was trouble, however, with adjusting the size of the text sop it doesn't look cramped; but we wouldn't minimize it too much or it will make the invite unreadable (it's already on small enough paper!!). Before this point, we did not have any invites or programs to work with. We weren't working as diligently because of AP exams and classwork outside of senior production. Working with the team has been rougher than most weeks; we've had teammates not pull their weight and waste time playing games rather than improving and creating better designs. Most of the critiques were given from Buhner since we had to go to him to get designs\information improved. We had issues with unnecessary information, spacing, and conflicting words such as "graduating" on he invite. Apparently, this conflicts with actual graduation and creates confusion with parents as to thinking that the academy graduation is the official graduation. Most of my alterations to the design, I ran by Ashley, Alisha, and Claire. I just needed some second eyes to make sure the invite is readable and not boring to read. Are the designs easy to read? Does the word "graduating" on an invitation bother you? Does it create confusion?

INSPIRATION:

69Pixelz is a digital pixel artist who uses bright colors and pixel media to convey the retro video game style seen in game companies such as Nintendo and Namco. They have a very technical style and create psychedelic illustrations. x

HelloMarine is a Brighton based illustrator and printmaker that uses designs appealing to adults and children.The work utilizes technical drawing whilst emphasizing elementary color to create a simplistic and modern look to her visuals. x

End of Senior Production #10

My roll on the graphics team is pretty significant as I have contributed in 4(5??) designs: Tickets, Lanyards, Invitations, and Programs (Academy and Senior Production). I have been pretty versatile about what I did in the graphics team, I took on a more creative roll in designing the tickets and lanyards. In designing these, I had to think about making the designs look cohesive yet original on its own.

 For example, I made the tickets look like remotes so the printed graphics don't look like the posters and t-shirt designs slapped on different sized papers. I am proud of it conceptually and of the design.  The lanyard design was just me opting out of taking the easy route and just slapping a TV on the lanyard. With the tickets, I struggled most with fitting the text onto the ticket because there was so much information. I also kept getting the size of the ticket wrong so I had to keep altering and redesigning areas of the ticket; which wasted a lot of my time. Typography problems also arised with the lanyard designs when the static in the bathroom made the text hard to read.  Throughout this era of the graphics team, I had to learn to let go of designs I liked in sacrifice of a better composition.

Program

Invite

 In the graduation designs, I took on a less creative roll and dealt mainly with the color schemes, formatting, and the typography of the back of the program and invites. This particular part was challenging as I am not at all familiar with text so I am very pleased with how dynamic the text ended up looking. I basically emphasized key words using different fonts, line thicknesses, and sizes so invite holders can recognize the purpose and important details of the Academy Graduation. The color scheme and formatting was what I dealt most with in the program. Pulling colors from the front of the program did not work well with the text so we had to tweak colors and gradients so the names could be readable. The program looks dark and elegant and I am very proud of the "VPAA" text at the top because I had to vectorize the letters and manipulate the lines to make the text more fluid as opposed to the stoic yet cursive preset font.

This semester, I feel that I have developed more as a designer. I have found myself designing around efficiency; I have pulled ideas from my old work, and used copy+paste more times than I have ever plagiarizing an essay (kidding). I also feel comfortable now working in groups for these types of projects; I have had to rely on my teammates to do things on illustrator that I had no idea how to do. In retrospect, I am proud of my designs; but do you think they could have been better? How could have these designs been improved? Also, what graphic designers should I check out? It's hard to find graphic designers that AREN'T illustrator based. 

On Wednesday, I went to the Dance Strand performance and I was pleased with what I saw. I loved their use of visuals and audio to make their conceptions clear to the audience. While some performances were underwhelming,  was amazed by the different themes the dancers have brought in to their performances. My favorite was the dance with "Desparado" as the song (simply because I love Rihanna).

INSPIRATION:

69Pixelz is a digital pixel artist who uses bright colors and pixel media to convey the retro video game style seen in game companies such as Nintendo and Namco. They have a very technical style and create psychedelic illustrations. x

HelloMarine is a Brighton based illustrator and printmaker that uses designs appealing to adults and children.The work utilizes technical drawing whilst emphasizing elementary color to create a simplistic and modern look to her visuals. x