Thursday, October 27, 2011

Logos and Letterheads and Envelopes

Assignment: Pick a restaurant / business / whatever and update their logo. Then put the logo on a letterhead, business card, and envelope.

My starting point:


My look-and-feel collage (complete with images of Azio's dining rooms):


My revamp:


This was for the rough critique today, and it's not quite as edgy as I was hoping for, but it beats the direction their website is going in!




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Mahogany Wood Sculpture

I finally have a picture of my wood sculpture!

Well, I have the clay model standing here next to my newly laminated block of wood:

Monday will bring band sawing it down to its outer contour, then I'll turn it to the side and do the same thing over there, and then I go in with carving tools!


I have other things going on in Typography and Metals and things, but it's very cold in my room and it's no fun to type right now. Also I don't have those images yet.

So I'll just tell you about those sometime later!




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Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Bracelet Crit!

Pretty much everything went very well!





I forget what all she said, but Debbie really liked my design!
I think there was something like texture and activated and space and all that good stuff.

So yay!


I'll take better pictures later for the gallery.




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Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Bracelet Success

So oh my gosh. That thing where everything goes amazingly happened again.

I went into school to work on my bracelet--tra la la--and knew that today had to be the day when I pieced my axe together. It was all sorts of complicated since I had to get both sides completely perfect puzzle pieces of each other so that the seam would be sturdy and look good and all that.

So I'm filing it and lining it up and filing and holding it up to the light and I finally decide to just solder it. If there's holes or if it's crooked I can always cut it apart, which will make it easier for the next go around anyway.

So I binding wire it, and I put solder all over it, and I flow it and it worked--on--the--first--try.

Holy crap, look:

Like, seriously? How does that happen? I did buff it a bit and finally cleaned up the edges, but look at that seam. It's beautiful!

XD
So yeah, the piece is coming along nicely, and it looks like it'll be fairly wearable.

After I get my wires in on the sides you'll have to sort of twist it on, but I think that'll be fine.

As far as ball rivets go, I bought my wire (well, I guess they're closer to tiny rods) and melting back the ends was surprisingly easy.


So pretty much everything is awesome.

The deadline got moved to Monday, which totally saved my life. It was originally due tomorrow, so I was going to have to stay late (after already going in early) and finishing the whole thing. And I was in there for about 3 hours and I got a lot done, but I have a LOT left.

Like deciding what sort of finish I'm going to use on it. Hm.




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Thursday, October 6, 2011

Cartoons and Other College Projects

Alright. Our Figurative Typography project is really hard. I had no idea just what the Prof was looking for, but all she was saying was "make sure you use the shape of the letterforms" .

So... I looked at my sketches, which were cute little cartoon guys, and pretty much just copied them onto InDesign using type. Which I guess is the point, but mine was so simple.


Buuut... she said she liked them! And by "them" I mean "him" since I only have one dude completed. Partly because it's difficult and time consuming, partly because I'm blogging right now in class.


So here is my project so far. I left a lot of pages out since they're simply not completed, started, or in any way special yet.













But yeah, I asked if I needed to add more detail, and she said I could, but I didn't have to because I was showing off my style and it was expressing everything effectively. Soo... My little dudes shall prevail!

Also other people are doing cartoons. Some people have the whole realistic face shaded with overlapping words and things, but for the most part everyone's doing something different.




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Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Time Management

This is my schedule for the next few weeks:

Wed Oct 5 - Sculpture midterm.
The material is pretty easy, but our prof may very well make it very difficult.

Thu Oct 6 - Typography rough print due and midterm.
We're doing figurative typography, which is basically drawing using only type, which is rather time consuming. Midterm covers a few chapters...

Mon Oct 10 - 5 large, full-fledged drawings of ideas for our wood project--two views each.
I want to put a lot of effort into this. This will be my very first wood sculpture and I want it to be freaking awesome.

Wed Oct 12 - Small metals bracelet critique.
I basically have a week to learn how to forge a small scale axe. And then to finish everything. Also my design needs to actually be functional, so we'll see how that plays out.

Thu Oct 13 - Typography project due.
6 front and back cards: 5 illustrations, mounted onto cardstock. Also an illustration board with cards mounted on it, also a digital process binder will all sorts of progress and concepts inside.


With the proper planning and mindset to get things done, this is totally doable. But gosh looking at it all at once makes me cry.


Looking back, the sculpture project that came after live model was a hand or foot study. I did the foot because I'm awesome like that, and this is what turned out:

I've cleaned it up a bit since this picture was taken and continue to smooth it out and such as it dries.

The cool thing about this foot is that it is not the finished sculpture. This is actually a pattern for a mold that will be filled with molten iron. Heck yeah, iron pour. I can only watch, since there's all these training classes you need to do before you can participate in. (Which I will totally do once those start).

One thing that I hate about this piece, is the actually the whole thing. We're going to want to be able to lift the mold clean off, so there can't be any undercuts for it to snag on as we slide it straight up. Because of this, the side of the foot goes straight down into the base, the heel is completely lost, and the fact that the foot is extended makes it look weird.
The composition with the light switch was also completely last minute and I had been just totally frustrated for about 24 hours before turning this in. Blargh.
Whatever.

Maybe the iron pour that I actually participate in will be over something a little more special.


[breaths: in, out]

On to Small Metals. I missed last class due to the sniffles and stressing over feet shaped things, so I've almost forgotten all about it.
Luckily for you, I take pictures at the end of each day:

I may very well have to revamp how you're supposed to get it on and off. If that gap in the middle is big enough to fit ones wrist after I add the axe head, then there's no problem.
If it doesn't end up big enough and becomes silly to try to make it that way, then I'll probably make the axe chop into the end that rests on the arm, then open up the bottom.
The spikes that come in on the sides are very important to me, but they extend in past the size of my hand.


I wish I could show you my Typography progress. Trying to do illustrations of realistic faces is slightly unreasonable, so I'm doing (still very expressive) little cartoon dudes. Actually, let me take a picture of my sketches for you...


I miss my scanner. But it had decided not to connect with my computer, and I haven't needed it desperately enough to put any more effort into fixing it than I already have.
Anyway, this awkward photo shows of Gleeful dude! He's totally cute. And just as cute when made out of parentheses and D's and L's.

And the guy on the back of the page is totes freaking out. He's Panicky dude. I'm sort of excited now that I've actually started working on it and know just what I need to do. I'll post those pictures later when I'm at a computer with InDesign on it.


Alright. I am tired. I'm going to go eat a bowl of cereal (or maybe not--I'm really tired) and then go to bed.




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