vis lang :: object selection

I am definitely inspired by designer/vinyl toy industry - and decided to use one of the new Peskimo Bamboo Zoo figures I bought: Captain Fritter!

"Captain Fritter" (Peskimo's Bamboo Zoo, 2008)
An original created by


Designer/vinyl toys such as these are often targeted towards art enthusiasts and toy collectors, but appeal to a wide range of people of different ages.
Designer toys definitely evoke a sense of unique artistic aesthetic, and are not surprisingly one of the centerpieces of a new growing artistic movement.
Toys such as these are distributed by companies such as Kidrobot, whom commission artists and designers to design the toys. They are produced in limited runs, ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Thus, once they're sold out, they're not available again.
Additionally, the MoMA acquired 13 Kidrobot toys in late 2007, which are now part of the museum's collection - in the "Just In: Recent Acquisitions from the Collections" installation.

Index: grafitti artists, spray can, sharpie, plastic mold(?), display shelf, etc.

Summer projects.

DIY Munny Dolls!

A little project I've taken up between work and studying this summer.
I've completed two so far:

[original working sketch]

[original sketch]

Prang Air-Hardening Clay
Model Master Enamel Paint
Black Sharpie

_"look this way."

Statement:
What are these people pointing at?
Everything in our world is united by a single, vast sky. With Photoshop, I just shortened the space between points A and B. So when you point up at the sky, you could be pointing at virtually anything.

_end of semester statement

I’ve definitely learned a lot over the course of this past semester – many things which both supplemented as well as challenged the lessons set down last year. I learned to push in numerous different directions here – even if I had my own reservations about something. Doing so helped me to learn to experiment, step outside my own comfort zone, and not be afraid of failure. From each direction I tried, regardless of whether they resulted in success or not, they all contributed to my decisions made, eventually coming to a final solution. But what was definitely the most stimulating thing these past few months was the assimilation and implementation of ideas across the classes.

While we did work on sometimes very different projects; each with varying concepts and problems to contend with – there were still numerous levels of learning and parallels being drawn between the three. Things I learned from Michaels could very well translate into tasks in Jamie’s – or vice versa.

In Michael’s Image Making course, I learned to develop my own image-making skills, which would carry over into projects undertaken in my other two studios. With assignments such as the Seven Deadly Sins or the Six Degrees Project, I learned to look at different angles and such when photographing my subjects, or conveying an idea through its indexes or symbols, rather than the literal depiction. Lessons here easily translated over to other assignments such as the Placards done in Visual Communications, or the Lecture Poster in Typography 2.

In Jamie’s Visual Communications course, it was a challenge to establish my own cohesive, legible and working visual language; especially one that could appropriately convey my chosen subject matter, and be applied to different types of media. I had to learn to understand things such as the subtleties between revealing complexity, and removing complexity. These things and much more factor in to all that we as designers need to contend with. For the work that we produce shouldn’t just be a piece on the wall – they’re large working ecologies. Lessons learned here often paralleled, such as in the Placards and our Type+Image Books.

And finally, in Michael’s Typography 2 course, aside from trying out both analog and digital means of exploration, I was able to work with typographic hierarchies, and type’s ability to influence meaning. We did a substantial amount of research in this course as well, and thus I had to familiarize myself with how to control this info through hierarchies – and then implement them in things such as Magazine Spreads. Things I learned here were adapted into things such as our 6 Degrees Project, or the Placards.

All three courses taught me the importance of creative problem solving, exploration within defined parameters (whether it be our own or someone else’s.), and the importance of exploration – And it is a blend of the three courses that I hope to take with me into future projects.

_placards: digital process

1.) Initial Concept Sketches + Notes:

I toyed around with a number of different concepts during the initial stages of this placard project: where sushi is found, physical attributes of the dish, cultural associations, symbolism, etc. In the end, I decided to explore sushi in regards to its physical attributes and cultural associations.

2.) Image Collecting:
To get some idea of what kind of direction I wanted to push in for the placards, I began to simply collect as much imagery as I could find. The fact that the final placards were to be of a relatively small size, the process of collecting images I could use was much easier, and resulted in a larger cache of possible pictures I could use.
There weren't any real restrictions I set down for myself during this phase of the project - a lot of the images were related to my concepts, but some weren't. All in all, they helped me to brainstorm for possible solutions.



3.) Slicin' n' Rollin':
Question: So what can happen if you take an image and treat it like you might a piece of sushi? At this point, I began playing around with making slices of my selected imagery, and interweaving my icons into it.
Also, I printed out my three selected icons (temaki, maki, nigiri) onto sheets of vellum and cut them out, to give them a quasi-translucent quality. That way, when they are overlain on my images, some of the colors and hues could bleed through. It felt like a better thing to explore than the simple starkness of a black and white icon.






4.) Placards
Early drafts of my placards.








5.) Placard Revisions
At this stage, something I needed to seriously consider was how to integrate my type/copy writing. I scanned it some handwritten text of my selected words, and composed them digitally in Photoshop:


Placards with hand-generated type:




There were some problems with these first placards with hand type though - some of the writing felt too awkward (i.e. "cold"), and needed some refinement. I also adjusted some of the colors in the placards.

6.) Final Placards:
The final three placards I presented for final critique:



Notes, points for improvement from today's critique:

• Rework, refine "Raw" placard. Raw meat is somewhat illegible.
• Push more with type, such as in "Raw" or "Colorful."
• "Cold" - perhaps lighten image, to help with type's legibility.
• Think about how to make the type expressive. (ie. "cold" could be white?)
  

animator vs. animation::find+share

Animator vs. Animation by Alan Becker

....I was reminded of this animation I saw a while back, since we're working with Flash and all.

_placard revisions

_placards progress

Physical Attributes:








Cultural Associations:

_final magazine spreads + project statement

Project Statement:

For me, this project was very challenging, whether it be from the organization of information, the furthering of established visual language rules, typographic hierarchy, or just legibility in general. But it's also a fine assimilation of the things that we've been learning in both classes as well.
One of the first challenges I had overcome was definitely how to organize all the research I had done into a visually cohesive and legible infographic. There were numerous levels of complexity that I had to contend with at one time - forcing me to go through four different paper prototypes before finally graduating to a digital translation of my idea. But it was a necessary ordeal - once I had resolved my major issues by hand, they were infinitely simpler to consider once I moved into the digital realm.
On the other hand, I had to look at this project from a typographic standpoint as well. If my infographic was the core of information, then the magazine spread is that which houses it. Both are equally important - and needed to complement one another. Blending the two together was much more than dropping it into my InDesign document and calling it a day. But that’s why I can appreciate that the progression of both the spread and infographic happened parallel to one another – so I learned to implement similar languages to each. And thus, by learning to contend with all these aspects, I've hopefully compiled the works from both classes and composed them into a visually working ecology.

_Infograph + Magazine Spread Revisions.

After Friday's small group critiques, I made some revisions to my infograph, as well as the magazine spread which houses it:
Took out the "old" texture background - tried an image of a makisu, or bamboo sushi mat instead. I chose this type of texture/image instead to allude to the spread's title image. (See below.) I've also moved the infograph's title to outside of the piece itself; so now it sits above the infograph in the spread's red bar.
Currently researching major events of the 15th - 18th century, to add to the timeline.


View of the infograph placed in the magazine spread:
Old version

_digital infograph

Preliminary digital version of my infograph. Incorporated dotted lines as connectors between the timeline and countries, Japanese names for icons (as suggested in group critiques on Friday.) The texture on the infograph's background is comprised of old parchment textures that I scanned it, with other miscellaneous crinkled paper scans layered on top.
One of the first things that stands out to me is the white of the icons. That color is present only on the timeline, and nowhere else. So currently, I'm trying to think of ways to perhaps resolve this.







In other, infograph-related news; I couldn't sleep on Friday night for whatever reason, and ended up making a very different infograph during this bout of insomnia:


It essentially graphs the amount of time I spend using Adobe Creative Suite programs, (Photoshop, illustrator, etc.) compared against other activities of my daily life. (sleeping, studio, etc) I really don't know why I chose a circular format; when you're infographing at 4am in the morning, one doesn't really dwell on details such as that.
Granted, there's a lot of problems with it...I'm probably misleading viewers into thinking I sleep, browse the internet and work in studio at the same time.

_sushi through the ages_infograph

"Sushi Through The Ages"
Paper Prototype Infograph Progression

Version #1: Initial infograph draft. Lots of legibility issues; needed to work on copyrighting. Timeline is evenly spaced; misleading in regards to chronology. Map and editorial text seems incidental. Lines from icons to cities are not working, type is haphazard.

Version #2: Icons on timeline have now been staggered, more appropriate to conveying progression of time. Need to line up text, explore different lines to connect cities to icons. Map and editorial still incidental.

Version #3: Chose "Sushi Through the Ages" as title for infograph, need to add subtext to clarify what is being graphed. Dotted line on timeline is not working.

Version #4: To balance out the two countries, added prefecture regions to the map of Japan, edited out editorial text and secondary map. Went back to solid black line for timeline. Currently refining dotted line styles for countries and icons.

_orphan works legislation

As aspiring artists and designers in today's world, we have to learn to contend with numerous aspects in regards to our personal and professional lives. Thus far, my main concerns have always mostly centered about meeting deadlines, process documentation, craft and the like.
But in recent months, I've been following a very disconcerting development in the creative works copyrights field that one of my former speech and debate team members directed me towards.
It's called the Orphan Works Legislation, a proposed bill which seeks to change current US copyright law; something which has sparked intense debate both stateside and internationally.

What is the Orphan Works Legislation?
Currently under under US copyright laws, you do not have to resister your creative works in order to own the copyright. (Sometimes referred to as "passive copyright.") But essentially, you own something as soon as you create it. There are international laws that also support this. Currently, within these copyright laws, we are allowed to sue for damages should those copyrights be violated, in addition to fair value.
However, the Orphan Works Legislation would drastically change that. Potentially under the bill, NOTHING you create is protected, unless you register it with a commercial registry. The real kicker in this? None of these registries artists currently exist. Additionally, the bill states that the registries would be run by private sectors, thus raising the potential for there to be numerous registries, rather than a single official channel.


Now, questions many are probably asking now: who and why?

Who was this legislation written by?
Orphan Works was started by 8 law students and a law professor named Peter Jaszi at American University, who wants to overthrow the idea of authorship, because "individuals are small and creations by them should be owned by the public" because they're influenced by the public.

Why is this legislation being proposed?

According to the bill, Orphan Works is here "to amend title 17, United States Code, to provide for limitation of remedies in cases which the copyright owner cannot be located, and for other purposes." To free up "old works." (In cases where artists have died, abandoned the work, etc.)
While the ends that they want to achieve might be justified, the means in which they seek to accomplish this are definitely not.
But by reading the bill, you can easily deduce another reason for this; and this brings out the fatal pessimist in me. Simply put: it's all about money.
Let's say in a hypothetical situation that this bill was indeed passed, and all artists would have to register all works they made in order to have copyright protection. In the US alone, there are millions of artworks being made each year. If the creators of those works want copyright protection, they'll have to pay a registration fee. You can imagine the enormous profit that could be potentially made from this.

There's also a recent radio interview with Brad Holland of the Illustrator's Partnership, discussing numerous issues this legislation could have.
In the end, it is artists like us who will be hurt like this. It's not fair, and no matter how you wish to sugarcoat it, it's nothing more than petty theft. It's a slap in the face for artists and designers alike. It does away with an artist's right to exclusive right to copyright - it reduces the work we make to public domain, up for fair use.



Orphan Works Further Links:
Orphan Works @ Blogspot
OW at ALA
ASMP
US Copyright Office
House of Representatives Hearing

_inforgraphic references.

I type this entry from the luxury of my own apartment - for the powers that be decided to knock down a tree, a power transformer, and all power in the design building. Anyways:1.) I was of course drawn to the patterning of dots generated by this particular infographic. For the amount of info it alludes to, there doesn't seem to be too too much visual noise.

2.) In later revisions of my infograph, I started looking for more organic, natural connection lines that I could use in my own timeline. I really liked the smooth, flowing curved lines in this particular example.