Time & Motion
The illusion of motion is quite interesting. Depending on the purpose of the image, it can illustrate the point much better than an image where everything looks still (such as a photo of a dancer. The very essence of a dancer is movement). Storyboard project for university. Team members created the imagery for the story, and I animated it in Flash. Coming up with the timeline overall, and timing each little piece of every image to...
Pattern & Diagram
I love pattern! I’m the type of person who likes order, so pattern speaks to me. There’s a geometry and mathematical element to pattern that I enjoy. And the more intricate a pattern can be, the more it can come alive. Diagrams I can’t say have been anything I can do yet. But they are wildly fascinating. I suppose that’s the order-lover in me. Everything connects and has a purpose. I remember the first time I...
Rules & Randomness
As I understand it, the human brain is almost incapable of being truly random. Even if we think we’re “randomly” selecting or distributing something, if it’s examined closely, there is actually a underlying pattern. I’m a rules person, myself. I like things that make sense, a pattern, a clear purpose. That could be why I like building websites and hand-coding all the CSS. I like making all the rules and...
Layers & Transparency
Layers I remember much much much earlier in my design career, trying to figure out how to draw a cat in Photoshop for the first time. When you use a tool like Photoshop for the first time (or even the first hundred times), it can be daunting, and I was unsure of where to even begin with drawing a cat illustration. Then my instructor introduced me to the concept of layers. It was the first time it hit me that, particularly with...
Symbols/Interactivity Project
The final assignment for my Graphic Design I class was to get together in a group and come up with cohesive symbols and eventually work those into a website. My group chose “Duluth Youth Culture” as a theme, with each of the 4 of us coming up with symbols for Music, Dining, Nightlife, and Activities. My symbol was Activities. I was a bit thrown off at the word “youth”, as I thought it meant children (hi,...
Booklet Design
The assignment: design and create a small advice or how-to booklet. I opted to make a small quick-and-easy cookbook with meal ideas. Brainstorm I thought about what I’d like to include in my booklet. Recipes, shopping lists, photos. I then worked out how many pages I would want based on what I’d like to include, and organized it by Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Dessert, and Snack sections. Here’s a thumbnail sketch:...