Final - Creative Process Video

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUbSmqnfh6g

 

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Last Day of Class (06/01/11)

The quarter has finally come to a close. Next week is Finals week. Besides the blog entry I will have to make for my Creative Process Video, this will be my final blog entry. This Wednesday’s class was a short class. Jimmy went over again on what will be due on Finals day, which are our 50 renderings of our mandarin and our video for our final to be emailed to him and uploaded onto the net via YouTube or Vimeo and posted to our blog. To get feedback on our class, Jimmy had everyone say at least one thing, either a pro or con, about our Concept Development class. He wrote each item on the board.

After that, Jimmy gave us some more advice as future designers, “Be a go getter” and “Be proactive and entrepreneurial.”

As for my video, I am almost done with it. I just need to finalize a few things and upload it to YouTube. Surprisingly, for me who has never created a video before, I didn’t find it too difficult. Only because iMovie is very user friendly and the self-help videos are amazingly detailed. I can’t wait to see everyone’s videos on Monday and can’t wait for our potluck. Since it’s so early in the morning, I’ll be bringing donuts.

Lastly, I just want to say to everyone, good luck on all your finals and have a great summer!

-Julie

Untitled (5/25/11)

During our last class session on Wednesday, the classroom was buzzing with my classmates talking to one another waiting for class to begin.  I sat in my normal seat and chatted with Jackie and Astrid until class began. Jimmy started class and went over what we are to expect during our final days in Art 220, Concept Development. There is only one class day remaining before our final on May 6th. Jimmy asked us if we had any questions for him. Because we are ahead of schedule, Jimmy gave us the option to leave early to give us a chance to work on our final project or to stick around the classroom and ask him any questions we had.  I lingered around class for about 10 minutes and spoke with Margarita and Jackie about our final. But after that, Jackie, Astrid and I decided to leave. With my next class starting at 10:50AM and it was about 8:30 at the time, I offered to drive the three of us to Target so we could shop around for materials for our mandarin renderings. We ended up finding some useful materials at Target, but I wasn't fully satisfied and decided to drive over to JoAnns Fabrics to see if there were any other materials we could find. I felt like I found a lot more useful things to use at JoAnn's. So I was happy. All in all, I spent about $20 which isn't bad at all. The morning wasn't wasted at all since we all did something that had to do with our Art 220 class. After JoAnn's it was back to school. I am sad that the quarter is coming to a close. For this being my first quarter back in school, I really enjoyed it. I thought I would really dread going back to school but that's not the case at all. I met amazing people here and now have good friends from it. 

Think differently, follow your passion (5/23/11)

Yesterday’s class was interesting and entertaining. We started class by sitting in a circle and played a listening game, “This is a What.” We had an object that we had to pass around.  The leader, Person A, starts off by passing the object to Person B saying, “This is a What.” Then Person B says in a form of a question, “a What?” to Person A. And then Person A responds with a matter of fact tone, “a What.” Then Person B gets it and says, “Oh, a What.” Then person B goes to Person C and the statements are repeated. But when Person C says, “a What?” Person B goes back to Person A and asks, “a What?” and Person A is always matter of fact and says, “a What.” Sound confusing? Getting the concept was confusing at first for me. But the point of the game was to be consistent and not mess up the translation of the meaning. In the design field, if you don’t work directly with the person who makes the decisions on the project and have to go through middle people, the translation is bound to get lost somewhere in between and misinterpreted. It is best to work with directly with the person who makes all the decisions so that there is good communication and nothing gets lost in translation for the project. This is a good rule to follow so that your project can be completed successfully. We played “This is a What” and it took us about 4 tries before we made it all the way around the circle without fumbling it. Then Jimmy added a second object He passed around one to his right side, and one to his left side. But this time the objects were “a What” and “a Who”. For this task, we could not make it around full circle. We tried about 4 or 5 times but still failed. The trickiest part was when both objects reached a single person. The message then got lost somehow in translation.

After we played our game, we watched a video of Sir Ken Robinson. Sir Ken Robinson is a creativity expert. He is a great speaker and a comedian as well. There were a lot of funny moments in his talk. Most of his talk focuses on how people should think differently. He believes that people do not work to their full capacity, but only to neutral capacity. He believes that people mainly pursue a career of what they are good at, but they don’t enjoy what they do. Just because you’re good at something, doesn’t mean that it’s the right thing to do. An example he brings up is that there was a woman who was a musician and was great at it. But when someone observed her work, he noticed that she didn’t enjoy it at all. So it made her think. She realized that she loved to read and write so she ended up changing her career path and chose to pursue writing. She never went back to being a musician. Sir Ken Robinson then goes to say that she doesn’t make as much as she used to but she is now happy and that “wealth has no guarantee of fulfillment”. He also mentions how teachers love their jobs but again that career doesn’t pay well either. It made me think of Professor Jimmy Moss. He is constantly mentioning how he loves being a teacher, that it gives him a sense of fulfillment but it doesn’t pay well. He used to make a lot more only being a designer. Jimmy still loves to design, it is his passion, but being a teacher brings a lot more to it. At the end of Sir Ken Robinson’s talk, he said, “Finding your passion changes everything.” That message really resonated with me. There are a lot of things I wanted to be when I was younger, but I think that graphic design is where I really want to be. I love being creative and I feel that I can really succeed and be happy in the design field. Hearing Robinson’s talk also made me consider buying his book, The Element, which goes into more detail on how finding your passion does change everything.

The Design Process – Stage 7: Production

The final chapter of Aspelund’s The Design Process, is the production stage. When a project goes into production, the designer needs to be a leader and a team member. This is where communication, feedback and teamwork are very important. This is also the stage where prototyping, budgeting, scheduling, materials, and sustainability take place. Within all of the previous six stages, we have learned how to budget, manage time, and also about ways to try and be eco-friendly. All of these steps are vital to ensure that the creation of the project will be functional in the end. The designer must continue to overlook the production stage to make sure that everything is going accordingly and can be there to communicate to the team if there are any last minute issues or questions. Lastly, remember to document all projects with a camera, video, scanner, etc. And also be sure to have a backup of your work stored in a different place just in case. In the end, Aspelund goes to say, “Treat the end of each project as a learning opportunity… Using the knowledge of the stages and the thoughts and approaches suggested here, you should be able to design with energy, interest, and, most important, with joyful inspiration” (Aspelund 181).

Aspelund, Karl. The Design Process. Second Edition. New York: Fairchild Books, 2010. 181. Print.

 

Boys vs. Girls (5/18/11)

 Wednesday's class started with Jimmy writing four numbers on the board: 

1 

10 

11 

100 

Jimmy first had us guess as a class which number would come next according to these numbers and wrote them on the board. We guessed 101, 111, 110, & 1000. He then had our class split up into two groups, boys vs. girls. We were given the task to decide as a group, within 15 minutes, which number comes next and why. With our answer, we had to look at the problem using logic, rationale and justification. As a designer, we need to effectively show and explain why we went a specific direction for a solution. That is how a designer sells/convinces/persuades their clients that the solution they came up with for the problem is the one the client should pay for. 

In our groups, we all had to whisper so that the other team wouldn't hear our discussion.  In our team we came up  with two possible answers. But Jimmy's instructions were to only choose one answer. So we went with 111. For our team, Astrid went up to the board to explain the reason why we chose 111 and did an excellent job in explaining our thought process and how we came up with 111. With only four numbers given, we decided to only use those numbers to define the pattern. This is how we came up with our answer: 

1 

10  + 

_____ 

11 

100  + 

_____ 

111 

1000  + 

_____ 

1111 

10000   

The boys went with a different direction. The found a different pattern which can also be referred to as the Binary System: 

00 

01 

10 

11 

100 

101 

111 

1000 

1001 

1010 

1011 

After each team had their chance to explain their answers, we went into a discussion on John Coy. Some of my classmates liked the presentation, others did not. I for one didn't dislike it, but I didn't love it either. But I did come out of it knowing a little bit more about what it is to be a designer. After the discussion, we talked about our final project which is to create a video of our creative process. I have never created a YouTube video before so this is going to get interesting. Hopefully I'll be able to do a good job and I now know some people who I can ask for help if needed. 

Dreams (5/16/11)

On Monday, we watched a movie via Netflix called Dreams, written and directed by Akira Kurosawa. It is a movie that has a series of eight short stories from Kurosawa’s personal memories and dreams. In the description part of Netflix, it said that this movie is “cerebral” and “mind-bending”. In the eight short films, I believe that most of the stories had significant meanings. The first story, “Sunshine through the Rain”, the lesson learned is to listen to your elders because they do know better, and because if you don’t you face certain consequences. The story titled “Blizzard” is the lesson to tell you to never give up. The story titled “Tunnel” is to face your guilt and learn to let go as well, to try and move on even if it seems like the most difficult thing to do. In another story called “Crows”, a painter at a museum is viewing artwork from Vincent Van Gogh. He is then teleported into the painting and searches for the famous painter himself. I believe this story is about going where you need to go in order to get your inspiration. In this story, the painter tries to dream up scenarios of how and where Vincent Van Gogh got his inspiration from. I think that’s an interesting way to look for your own inspiration, which is to try and figure out how the great artists of their time got inspired. “The Weeping Demon,” I would say is a story about how war is extremely horrific. In this case, nuclear war because of the severe consequences, like mutation caused by radiation, mutant plants, and absolutely no source of food except on other mutant humans, the “demons”.

The last story was my favorite story. It had a very wise old man who talked about how in his village, they lived very simple lives that kept them in tune with nature. They didn’t have electricity, or tractors for farming, or fuel for heat. They used natural things like candles for light, horses for the crops for farming, and wood for heat.  He went on to say that Man has gone and created so many things that are polluting the Earth and that so many people have become accustomed to man-made objects that they can no longer live without them.  Which I believe is very true. We live in a digital age where we have electronic devices for almost everything these days. And lastly, the old man says that the funerals for the locals are a happy celebration because it is a way to thank someone who lived long and worked hard. It is not a funeral where everything is solemn. Also I thought it was funny how the old man said that the woman who passed away was his first true love, but then she broke his heart and left him for another man and yet he just laughed it off. You could just tell that he was happy the way he lived his life in the village with no name, only to be called by others not from the village, “Village of the Watermills”.

GAUGE presents 2010 AIGA LA Fellow, John Coy (May 12, 2011)

On Thursday, I attended the GAUGE presents 2010 AIGA LA Fellow, John Coy event with my classmates from ART 220. This event’s attendance was mandatory per our Professor Jimmy Moss. There was a little confusion at first amongst my classmates at what time the event actually started. On all the posters inside the Fine Art Building, it read the start time as 7:00PM but on the Facebook GAUGE page, it said 7:30PM. But due to technical difficulties, the presentation didn’t start until 8:00PM. 

Due to the technical difficulties, John Coy started off hearing what kind of questions his audience asked. He then proceeded to talk about design. He mentions that a designer needs to develop their own uniqueness and to know one’s own unique program. John also mentions that each one of us is unique and if we can tune into our own uniqueness, then that alone will open up new paths for us. If you have your own unique style, stick with it and get your work out there. Once you get your work out, others will see it and people will gravitate to you. They’ll like what they see and come to you for a project. Also, if you have a great relationship with your client, your client will recommend your work to others. Be sure to care about your work and what you do, and show it. It will come back around in a good way.

When the slide-show started working correctly, John Coy was able to present to us some of his highly acclaimed work. He has had a lot of great career opportunities, like working with University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), The Getty Center in Los Angeles, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA). He’s also done a lot of work for the high end mall, South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, CA.

After the slide-show was completed, John started another question and answer session. Being a designer means using a computer as a tool. John goes to say that the computer is a wonderful tool but it can drive you crazy and separate you from the Earth. So it’s good to once in a while meditate because it will get yourself into a positive place. It’s also good to reconnect with the Earth by getting some sun or get your feet into the sand.

I learned some valuable information from John Coy. I learned that we can’t lose our sense of self. We need to show our skills and who we are as a designer. We need to incorporate our unique skills into our work and add our own personal work to our portfolio. Also, when working on a project try not to do something that you don’t want to do because John was asked the question, “Have you worked on a project that you didn’t want to do?” And his answer was, “Yes. But it doesn’t lead you to great things.” With John saying that, it really meant something to me. In pursuing your career, you want to be in a profession that you love and have a passion for. You don’t want to have a job or pursue a career that you’re going to hate doing every day. So in working on projects that you’ll enjoy, it can lead you to bigger and better things as people start to take notice of your work and uniqueness. Also, you need to love everything that you create and do. You should never dislike anything you do. Lastly, it’s important to know the right questions to ask the client. With good input and collaboration between the designer and the client, it can turn into a great experience and can potentially become an ongoing relationship with the client on future projects.

The Design Process – Stage 6: Communication

Communication is a very essential tool for a designer to have. A designer must be able to clearly and effectively communicate their idea to their audience, which is the client, corporate offices, production staff, and fellow designers. In this chapter of The Design Process, Aspelund goes into great detail of how to present your ideas to your audience. Always be sure to have a plan. When getting ready to have a meeting with your client to present your idea/work, be sure to have the correct type of preparation for whichever venue the meeting will be at, whether it’s at a restaurant, conference room, the clients office, or a hotel room. It’s up to the designer to be fully prepared and have all the correct equipment or handouts as necessary. Even if a client says their office will have the proper equipment needed for the presentation, it’s always a good idea to bring your own backup equipment just in case there is a compatibility issue with the client’s equipment. 

Language is also very important. Your presentation should show three types of modes for language, visual, written, and spoken. All three modes should be clear and consistent. A visual does not always give out all the information, so use or writing and verbal description will greatly get across your meaning. Also be very knowledgeable about your idea. Know the ins and outs of this project and if there are flaws, be sure to mention them, because you can always get feedback from the client for a solution but don’t spend too much time on the flaws and don’t hide anything either. 

A presentation should have a beginning, middle, and end. Make sure that your presentation is captivating and will really grab the audience’s attention. You want to be able to convince them about your idea and show how excited you are about the project. Don’t be too overly excited though. You want to make sure that your presentation steers your audience in the direction “where everyone is ready and willing to believe in the viability of your design” (Aspelund 164).

In the perspectives section, Mark Zeff, a designer and architect, talks briefly about his experiences as a designer and how important communication is. He mentions that at his design firm, after the first meeting, he creates a design brief, which is another name for a creative brief. He goes to say that in his brief it says something like, “’It’s my understanding in this first encounter that this is what you want, this is what you don’t want, this is how big it is, this is how much it is, and is this true?’ ‘Have we forgotten that?’ and ‘I have been reading your letter, and there were some other things you brought up,’ and so on” (Aspelund 165). I also found it interesting how he has a website where his clients can log into, to check the status of their project. Having that type of website set up is a good means for communication. Also, if there is a problem, Mark wants everyone to hear the solution from him. So he doesn’t only include the specific staff working on that specific project, but includes his entire company on every project so that they can use what they have learned in all these meetings and apply them to the projects they are currently working on and on future projects. I believe this helps the company grow and improve each time a new project arrives. Mark also mentions that drawing by hand is a very important skill as a designer because it allows the designer to put whatever idea they have in their head onto paper within 10 seconds. I also learned that it is good to be a brave designer. A designer should feel intimidated. They should feel brave and be able to speak up if they have a suggestion that they feel will really work for the client. They should just sit idly by and only listen to what the client wants, but should be able to speak up and not be afraid to try something out if they feel it will really work in the client’s best interest.

Aspelund, Karl. The Design Process. Second Edition. New York: Fairchild Books, 2010. 164, 165. Print.