Another Revisit

Hello Reader,

This post is about another project revisit that I’m doing for school. This time the revisit is for a typography project instead of illustration. In just writing that previous line, an idea has sparked on the direction I would like to go with this project. My previous version of the typography project featured a large abstract image and the focus was put into that instead of the actual typography.

Take a look at a part of what I’ll be reworking:

The direction I want to go with this is to create a purely typographic poster, using elements from the typefaces to make it interesting.

I don’t have much else to say in this blog post but I’ll reiterate what I mentioned last time. Create a plan for what you need to do! It makes work so much easier when you have a path to follow as opposed to walking blindly to the solution.

Well, ’til next time!

– John

Illustration Revisit

Hello reader, in this post I am going to share with you a bit of process on a revisit I’m working on. For one of my classes, I am required to take one of my previous illustration projects and make it better. I’ve only done a little bit of work so far as I haven’t had much time, but I’m geared into the right direction and have a plan which I am following.

On that note, when doing projects of any sort MAKE A PLAN. It will make the project so much easier as you have already set out what needs to be done. What I need to do for my revisit has to deal with typography, layout, a hierarchy, and illustration itself. My goal is to turn a good portfolio piece into a great portfolio piece.

When I first started working on the revisit I was going in circles. I would take one of my illustrated elements and move it, resize it, move it back, and ultimately go nowhere. It was quite frustrating really. I then clued in to what I was doing and worked on my plan instead.

Here are a few pieces of process work I have so far:

The scenic pictures of what’s supposed to be a road look kinda rough ‘eh? Well they’re just outlines of what the final is going to be. I’m going to bring them into Photoshop and simulate a watercolour effect. This picture here is an example of what the final scene picture will look like:

This image went through the same process of what I’m going to do with the others.

Well, that’s all for this post. Hopefully all you designers are making and following plans as well. Or maybe you go through a different process? Share a comment and let me know!

’til next time!

– John

Stress!

Hello reader, are you stressed out? I know I sure am. There’s a lot going on in life and when it all clumps together at once you kinda start to freak out. But don’t worry! Things will get better. How do you deal with it in the meantime though? Read on! I may be able to help you.

My three suggestions will be about first hand experiences of maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

My first suggestion is to make sure you are getting a good nights sleep. Getting a healthy amount of sleep will help clear your mind and will help you focus on tasks to come. Last year I would get about 4 hours of sleep a night because I was so overwhelmed with homework. This year I still have a lot of homework but since I’ve started sleeping better (7 hours) I find I can focus and work a lot more efficiently. Be sure to get those Z’s!

Suggestion number two. Meditate. Probably sounds silly I know, but hear me out. I find that meditating works almost as a little “restart”. Go to a quiet place, get seated in a comfortable position and focus on proper breathing. Clear your mind and think about nothing except your breathing. Imagine a vase filling with air with every inhale, letting the air swirl around, and then depleting of air as you exhale. Do this until you’ve found yourself to be relaxed and calm.

My final suggestion is physical exercise. There are two forms of this that I want to suggest. The first is stretching. Stretching is a fantastic way of relieving stress. Simply try doing the splits. Go as far as you can and just hold the position. Rest your hands on the ground if you need to. My other form of this suggestion is to workout. Find somewhere that you can train, be that at a gym or at home. Create a routine and stick to it. Any frustration or anger you have, funnel it out through raw energy. My school has a punching bag in its fitness centre and I find that great. I get to take out all of my anger on the bag.

Anyway, that’s all I have to say for this post. Hopefully I’ve helped you help yourself with some of this advice. Stress sucks so lets get rid of it. Who needs it? Not us!

’til next time!

– John

Work Environment

Hello reader, let me ask you something: Where do you work best? Today’s blog post is going to be based off of that question.

Right now I’m writing this post in my cubicle at school. (Yes I have my own cubicle at school. How awesome is that?) I have music playing, and a friend/classmate beside me doing the same project. I’ve already gotten rid of any need to leave this work environment such as the need to eat, or go to the bathroom. I have my water bottle to the right of me, I’m all set to work.

Now then, why do I have my set up the way it is? Let me tell you! By getting rid of any need to leave my cubicle, I’ve gotten rid of any possible distractions. Having my friend work beside me is a great motivator: just the act of him working encourages me to work, and if I stop working then he verbally encourages me! Music in the background is nice because it just personally helps me work better.

If you want to get work done, then you need to work in an environment that is best for you! What I have listed above works best for me, but doesn’t apply to everyone. Maybe you like working outside, or prefer working upside down. Just do whatever works for you!

This concludes today’s post. But before I end it, let me re-ask this question: Where do you work best?

’til next time

–John

Typography

Hello Reader! It’s been a while since I’ve last written a blog post. Quite a few months actually. Anyway, in this post I want to talk about one of my new favourite subjects: Typography!

I feel like typography is a very important aspect of design. An important aspect that is often overlooked. I’ve been researching typography and found this cool website that explains the different elements that make up a letter. It gives a bunch of terminology that is useful when discussing typefaces (and it makes you sound more knowledgeable).

Something that I’ve been doing to help myself learn and understand more about typography is drawing letter forms out by hand. I don’t mean like writing notes, I mean actually drawing the thicks and thins of the letters, the serifs, the right curves, etc. You get a sense of what to do and what not to do when creating the letter forms.

I’ve been drawing some black-letter forms that look like this:

Image is from this website.

Typography can make or break a design, so choosing the right typeface is what sets some designers above the rest. When choosing a typeface for body copy text, you wouldn’t choose a display font that consists of all caps, or a very thin font because that would be difficult to read at small sizes. You should choose something that would be easy to read when shrunk down to a point size of 12 or smaller. Helvetica is good for that. In my opinion (I don’t know if I’m right or not), I think fonts with serifs work better for body text. Check out this site “Vector Diary” for a bunch of good serif fonts (although not all typefaces listed apply well to body text). One thing to keep in mind, there is no single font that will work for everything! You need to choose your typefaces to best suit what it’s working for.

Well I hope all of you designers got something out of this post. Maybe discovered a new typeface that you like from one of the linked websites, or maybe you want to try drawing your own.

’til next time

– John

Crafting Type Event

Hello Reader, in this post I want to tell you about an opportunity I got for learning more about typography. Last week, myself and three other friends traveled to Toronto to take part in a Crafting Type Event. The event was a three day workshop taught by Octavio Pardo and Aoife Mooney.

Octavio is a graphic designer from Spain. He is a graduate of the MA Typeface Design programme from the University of Reading (UK, 2010). Aoife is a type designer from Dublin. She is also a graduate from the MA Typeface Design programme in the same year as Octavio. You can read more about Octavio and Aoife and other instructors here.

“Good typefaces are designed for a good purpose, but not even the very best types are suited to every situation” -John Boardley

The statement above is something we learned in the workshop. Many type faces are designed for a specific purpose and may not work well outside of that purpose. In the workshop we learned about two different kinds of type faces. The first kind is body type which is designed for legibility and can be applied to various font sizes. Body type is used for large pieces of text such as a newspaper, a book, a flyer, even this blog post. Even within body type there are many different kinds of type faces to be used. There are type faces designed for screens, for prints, for documents, etc. The other kind of type face we learned about is display type. Display type can be more expressive than body type as it isn’t used for large quantities. Display type is used for headlines, titles or signage and is not designed to be read in large portions of text, although this isn’t impossible! There are different type faces designed for different applications and situations.

 This is a picture of the instructors critiquing the type faces we designed during the workshop.

I definitely recommend this event. If you hear about it happening somewhere near you, TAKE IT! Even after taking two years of typography class, this workshop has taught me so much. I’ll end this blog post with a sample of the typeface I designed as well as a small something I learned from the workshop. A list about what a good typeface has: proportion, consistency, alignment, models, weight contrast, case relationships.

 Gemetri by Johnathan LeBlanc

’til next time!

– John

 

 

Summary

Hello reader,

This is my last blog post as part of the blog assignment for my class. There were a few points as to why blogging is a good thing for graphic designers, or anyone really. These reasons are: we get to practice researching a topic and providing evidence for our opinions, an improvement of writing skills, engagement with a greater community, development of an online profile, and an opportunity for self reflection on our learning.

Originally when starting this blog assignment I was thinking “Oh great, more homework. As if we won’t have enough already”. I thought this would be a nuisance. The further into the assignment though I realized how this could actually help me, and help me it did (as listed in the opening paragraph here). The idea of writing is still kind of scary for me, as it isn’t something I really like to do. To be honest though I think this blogging assignment did help with my writing skills. The most challenging part of this assignment was finding time to sit down for awhile to research and write these blog posts.

I think I will keep this blog going but posts will be less frequent. I’ll make sure that they are good posts though! Let’s just say quality over quantity.

Well reader, hopefully you got something out of this assignment as well. Perhaps you learned something useful from one of my previous posts to add to your bag of skills.

’til next time though, John

RGD Event – “Creativity = Strategy”

Hello reader, recently I watched an RGD video that was a presentation called “Creativity = Strategy”, by Bruce Nussbaum. It was very informative and fairly enjoyable. Since the video was online, I didn’t get to interact with anyone, which was rather unfortunate. Nonetheless, there was still some valuable information I would like to share!

I picked to watch this video because the word “Strategy” from the title peaked my interest. I really enjoy thinking, planning, and then designing so I thought this video would be worth the watch. Twas a good thing that I watched too because Bruce talked about three different strategies of design. Gift strategy, thinking strategy, and strategy of doing good. I found gift strategy to have the most impact on me.

Gift strategy is about coming up with something good and then just tossing it over the fence to consumers. Bruce said something in the video that I found stuck out. “People don’t know what they want until we give it to them.” That got me thinking “how many times have I been given something good and then wanted more?” I then realized how effective this strategy is. Take a moment to see how many times that’s happened to you. Probably quite a bit. It’s like when a gym offers a free month membership so that you can get a taste of the facility to hook you in.

I’m going to try to start designing with gift strategy in mind and see how it plays out for me. I’m assuming it will be more effective depending on what the design is, but it will still be better to try and fail than to fail to try. I wonder what other kinds of useful information I can sap out from these RGD events? I will be checking these out sometime in the near future. Better yet, I think I’ll go attend some RGD events in person!

For any RGD members out there, be sure to check out the Design Thinkers videos (you can find the “Creativity = Strategy” from this page). These video’s are only available to RGD members so if you are not a member, I apologize. Maybe RGD should offer a free month membership!

Well that concludes this post. What are some ways that gift strategy have affected you? Feel free to comment below!
’til next time, John

Interview with Jon Allison

Hello reader, for this post I am going to talk about the process I went through to conduct an interview with a graphic designer. I got the opportunity to interview Jon Allison, the art director for a branding and marketing agency called RedTrain. Be sure to check them out! He provided some excellent answers and gave a little insight as to what makes a graphic designer. The interview will be at the bottom of this post.

When looking for a designer to interview, I thought a good place to start looking would be the RGD website. From there, I found a local RGD (registered graphic designer) named Jon Allison. If you’re someone looking to get some design work done, I highly suggest checking this website. Better yet, go check out RedTrain! Anyway, I sent an email out to Jon asking if he would participate in my interview, and within a day I got a reply back saying yes. Once I had my interview questions all ready, I sent them out to Jon and once again I got a response almost immediately. And what a great response it was!

I have three very important pieces of advice that I got out of the interview that I want to share. Firstly, process work is crucial! It shows there is as much strategy in a design as creativity. It develops the reasons inside of your design, and your design most certainly needs reasons. You should stray away from doing things “just because.” This leads to my second important piece of advice: have a reason for everything that you do, and have thick skin for criticism. Criticism is a natural and healthy part of the design industry, and helps make your designs better. Be open to ideas! Finally this point here leads into my third piece of advice: design for the client. You will develop your own abilities and understanding in graphic design, but ultimately you aren’t producing for yourself, you’re producing for your client.

Process work I went through to design a logo for a school project

I must say, I enjoyed this interview process and I got some great advice to help myself as a graphic designer. I hope you got something out of this as well and are able to apply what you learned to your own practices. Please read the interview below to learn more, and feel free to share your own thoughts! What would you consider to be the most important piece of advice?

’til next time, John.

INTERVIEW

(JL) What kind of clients do you work for? Restaurants, small stores, big companies?

(JA) I work for a variety of clients, typically small to medium sized businesses. My client range includes: restaurants, real estate brokers/agents, dentists, car dealerships and various trades just to name a few.

(JL) What sort of education did you take to get to where you are?

(JA) I graduated from Liberty University with a bachelors degree (4 years) in Studio and Digital Art: specializing in graphic design. However, the key to success is not as simple as a degree, although it is important. It’s the mentors along the way and the willingness to develop your own abilities and understanding within your field. Because at the end of the day it’s about what you produce for your clients.

(JL) Do you think process work is important? Do your clients like to see it?

(JA) Process work is crucial! Some clients do like to see it, it helps to show them that as designers there is as much strategy involved as creativity. Fact is, every designer should be doing process work for the sake of the integrity of their work. As a designer, everything I do has a reason, hence “designer.” The process work is the strategy that develops these reasons. It is important to, not only have the big idea, but to know why it’s effective and why other ideas aren’t as effective. This is a difficult transition for many young designers to overcome as it’s not just about have a great looking logo or campaign. It’s about developing the most effective logo or campaign for your client. Every client is different, which is why a good designer can continually produce good work. Because even though every client is different, the process remains the same, just with different objectives in order to meet the varying needs of various clients.

(JL) What is the best advice you can give to new designers?

(JA) The best advice I can give to a young designer is to have a reason for everything you do, be confident in your ability, but never be cocky and be sure you have a thick skin as criticism is a natural and healthy part of our industry. Finally, you’re designing for your clients, not for awards or for your portfolio.

(JL) Do you have a personal set of rules that you like to follow when you design? If so, what are they?

(JA) The principles and elements of design are pretty straight forward.
P: proximity, alignment, repetition, contrast, balance, harmony, unity, etc.
E: line, shape, direction, size, texture, colour, value, etc.

In terms of personal rules I don’t necessarily have “rules,” but I certainly have values.

• As I mentioned earlier I have a reason for everything I do, nothing is “just cause.”
• I always listen to the client, seeking to understand their business (who they are and their goals) as well as they do.
• I always try to remain positive, times can certainly be stressful, every business is. It’s the nature of the beast. But at the end of the day I love what I do and it is an absolute privilege to be able to use my abilities to help clients be successful.
• I always seek to help others understand what I do. All the work is based on a relationship with my clients, not just doing my thing and hitting them with a bill

(JL) Bonus Question (if you have time):
Where do you think graphic design is headed in the future?

(JA) Graphic design has a bright future, people are beginning to understand the value and importance of good design.

However, there are still those out there that call themselves “designers” who aren’t experts in the field charging a low rate for their services. Although they are cheap, their work reflects it. These people are lowering the industry for everyone causing people to undervalue designers and the entire industry.

Fortunately, RGD is playing a major role in separating professionals from these “designers”. With this, the standard for genuine professional designers is being raised, as it should be. Clients invest a lot of money into design, branding and marketing, it’s important they invest in a professional whose work results in a good return on investment (ROI).

With all that being said, take a look around. Society is heavily influenced by design. People who are able to think differently are the one’s making an impact. Graphic design is one of the industries leading this movement. As designers, we are problem solvers and visual communicators.

Working in a Group: Accessibility Research

Hello reader, in this post I’m going to talk about a group project that involved searching for accessibility issues in my school. At St. Lawrence College my group discovered that there is an issue with accessibility regarding the elevators. There are too many able-bodied people taking them! That doesn’t sound too bad, but how about when I say this leaves no room for the people who do actually need to take the elevator? Now you see the issue.

As a research part for this project, myself and another one of my group members interviewed a student that legitimately needs to use the elevator due to a physical impairment. The results of the interview were a little scary. She told us that when she is trying to use the elevator, no one will make room for her. At peak elevator usage, she told us that she sometimes has to wait up to 30 minutes in order to get on. Other times she has been forced to use the stairs, which is bad for her health. And this is just one student out of the entire population of St. Lawrence College!

But I’m not here to rant about that, I want to talk about what it was like working in a group. The biggest and most important tip (in my opinion) that I can provide in regards to group work is time management. Set a schedule that works between your group members and follow it. Know your deadlines! As for research, we found that doing a questionnaire turned up the most results. We got to know what our target audience was like in a short amount of time. Side note: we discovered that the biggest reason for people using the elevators is laziness! This was 37% of the people we interviewed. Gasp!

In conclusion, working in a group can be quite overwhelming, but if you stick to your time management schedule then it is not so bad. How do you feel about working in a group? Yay or nay? As well I would like to hear some opinions about elevator usage. Should able-bodied people take the stairs if they can? Are you yourself an able-bodied person who should be taking the stairs? Comment what you think!

’til next time, John.