Memo - 5/3/2011

To: Rich Rice, English 3369 Professor

From: Colin Niebergall, Student in English 3369

Date: May 3^rd, 2011

Subject: Important lesson learned while enrolled in English 3369

While taking English 3369, perception was the one concept that stuck to me through out the semester. Although other concepts are very important to the design process, perception, in my mind, has the most significance to both the designer and the audience needs. It is not just the perception of the design itself, but also the sub concepts with-in perception that got my mind running.

I enjoyed thinking about how I thought my specific audience in each of my designs would react towards what I was trying to voice. According to Kimball/Hawkins, “document design involves anything that supplies text information, giving us opportunity to communicate, convince, persuade, and express.” (rice.com/3369) The feel, the touch, the look, were all gauges towards my specific audiences wants that I had to decide by myself. These aspects can be called “visual-spatial thinking,” and although I used educated knowledge to gauge these needs, I was able to do so with out extensive research due to my perception of my individual audience. (Kimball, 73)

· Design 1 – Perception of old photo reel

· Design 2 – Perception of a Thai based text, while easy to read for the audience

· Design 3 – Perception of students that don’t want to waste time reading an flyer

· Design 4 – Perception of a relaxed state of mind that is stimulated in the movie

· Design 5 – Perception of a logo used in context with the business

This is a very important skill that designers need in this day in age to be able to compete in a larger market. In many cases, a designer will not have the ability to extensively research the target audience through market research. Market research can include, but are not limited to:

· Focus Groups

· Usability Testing

· Surveys

These research methods require time and can be very costly. As our generation moves towards the forefront of why products are being created and market, time becomes a distinct disadvantage. Our generation is based on the quickness of information that is received due to new technologies that include cellular devices and the Internet. New products and ideas can spread like a wildfire, or just be a campfire that can be put out quickly. When perception is brought into the picture, along with the designers’ ability to understand audience awareness, that designer is able to make a distinct connection with-in the target audience with out wasting valuable time and or money. Being able to do this as an individual designer can save the clients’ idea and or vision from competing companies, products, and ideas. This does not mean that market research is not valuable, but that market research has yet to be able to catch up to the speed in which products are designed and released in today’s’ market.

The above states why perception, in my mind, is the most important concept learned while taking English 3369. My final portfolio will show how I implemented the idea of perception in my re/designs, along with the other concepts learned through the class. The concepts that will be covered, include:

· Learning Objectives

o Audience Awareness

o Critical Thinking

o Diversity and Multiculturalism

o Grammar and style

o Communications Skills

Along with design principles that include:

· Design Principles

o Contrast

o Repetition

o Alignment

o Proximity

My last re/design for this class was the ultimate interview getter, the resume. I have made resumes before, but never really spent much time or cared about working on them. These resumes were all design in the dreaded “Microsoft Word” and of course I spent minimal time devoting working on such a dreadful thing to think about, getting a job a few years. I am just joking about the job part being dreadful, but the designs of these past resumes were awful. Here is where the weird part comes into this story, I actually spent days thinking about how I would go about designing a resume for this class. I felt like it would be a valuable experience to use an advance program like that of “Photoshop,” while also getting a design out and opening my box of ideas for latter job possibilities.

Let’s get to how I came up with my idea, the one above, in the lovely jpg that I have provided. As you know, I came to class on Thursday still stuck with all these ideas in my head. Like I told you, I’m not good at coming up with good design ideas, I am better at doing what people need from me out of design. Anyways, going though ideas and my most recent resume, you were able to talk me through some, if I may say so myself, pretty good ideas. I thank you in advance for the help that you have provided us students this semester. An idea came to mind when I asked you if I should use a company logo in the resume. I automatically thought, let’s go with the “Dallas Stars” logo. I love the team, I love hockey, and I love the amazing “Ice Girls” at the games. A small logo in the top right hand corner of the resume turned into a water mark stain, another one of your ideas, that turned into a water mark stain covering the whole document it self. The stain worked out well, but I did find some problem areas while designing the rest of the document.

Space, like always, is an issue while designing. You do not want to clutter too much or too little in one area of a document. The information needs to be readable, reliable, and realistic in order to capture your audiences’ attention span. For a resume, the audience is pretty straight forward, most likely a HR (Human Resource) employee under the “Dallas Stars” system. I had to do something different to capture that attention. The watermark was a good way to start, but I needed to add a little extra to convince that user to keep on reading through my document. I decided to leave the text aligned and normal on the left side of the document, but when the reader is ready to go on to the second column they are confused, but still want to read, so they turn the document so they can read it. This does require some work by the audience that is viewing the document, but I believe in the end, the user will understand the reasoning and appreciate that I put extra work into the specifically designed resume.

Alignment is pretty specific through out the document, noticing that the sides are even, along with the text on both the left column and right column when looked at as four separate pieces of information. I also added in a granite coloring to each subtitle to add an effect of worn out ice that is typically seen at any ice rink around the country. Overall I think this design went well and that I was able to over come the issues of space by changing the direction of the text.

Re/design 4

Re/design

Original

I decided to take a stab at re/designing the “Dazed and Confused” DVD cover for my forth re/design. I have always thought that the original cover was ugly and did not really construct the right atmosphere of the movie. Going into this design, I found my self struggling with the perception of a DVD cover in American culture. A sudden realization into the designing process told me that I could not deviate too much from this perception in order to not keep my audiences attention. What I mean by perception in this manner is that most DVD covers in America are in the same format from one to another. A basic Title, with a tag line, and a picture, is what our culture expects to find when looking at movies when deciding to buy or rent. I decided to keep this basic outline, but add in a little flare that could connect the whole piece together and add cultural perception to the cult minded film.

Perception

Perception was a hard aspect to handle in this re/design. I wanted to make the movie cover relaxed and free from constraints because the movie is about teenagers trying to do just that. I thought to myself on how to group different parts of information with out using borders. I was able to do this on the front of the DVD cover by using my text effetely. For the title of the movie I went with a text called “Broken Tour Poster” found on dafount.com. In my mind this text conveys a relaxed teenage mind that could possible be under the influence of drugs and or alcohol. The text is different, not usual, and most importantly, a cool way that might be doodled in a teenagers notebook. I used a flag effect to bend the text, but each word as a separate wave. This adds to the psychedelic mood of the movie and the need to be free as a person. The tag line under the title used a simple Helvetica text because of the easiness to read the information. I decided not to use an effect on this section of information in order to help the user understand that it is separate from the title. Something new in my design that is different from the original is the use of adding a main actor line at the bottom of the page. These actors were not big name actors when the film was released in 1993, but in 2011 these actors are known for their works in other films. I wanted to keep the back page simple, so I used Helvetica again for the description of the movie. I was able to separate the two sections by implementing a landscape picture between the two parts of information. The first section of text is a basic description, while the second section of text is a more broad description of what to expect.

Culture

Because the film is considered a “cult classic” and that cult classics are marketed to a specific audience, I knew what my audience would want to see. I did not deviate from the clouds in the background, but did deviate from the psychedelic nature of color in the original. In my mind the original has a mood of gloomy, depressing nature, which does not embody what the film is about. The film is funny and is showing the life of different groups of teenagers in high school. I hate clichés, and the one about high school being hard and depressing is not what is found in this movie. There are parts in the movie that might be considered hard and depressing, but the over all them conveyed is kids trying to find who they are as a person and deviating from the status quo. I also implemented the “intoxicated yellow smiley face” because it’s a symbol that the audience would recognize with the movie. The use of the peace sign was not implemented because although the sign is used in the movie, the symbol it self is from the 1960’s, not the 1970’s. I also implemented the DVD logo and the Universal logo on the spin of the cover to make it look more like an actual DVD. The audience would expect these kinds of logos on any major DVD cover.

Rhetoric

As I have stated before in this post, I wanted to keep this design simple and carefree. When thinking about rhetoric and how I was going to implement those feelings I decided to use two images, front and back. The front image was edited with a blur tool to make it look like the characters are just floating in the air, but still acting like teenagers with confused looks. The back image is just an image of your basic high school hang out in front of a building. I also used this image to imply Matthew McConaughey famous quote, “That’s what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age.” I didn’t want to type it out because I think that it will connect with two different viewers in my audience. One viewer will have already seen the movie and know the quote from the picture, the other viewer who has not seen the movie will make the connection after seeing the movie and remember that scene next time they look at the cover. A risky move, but I believe the “cult film” audience will enjoy it. I did not use a blur on this image because I wanted to separate the two different parts of information. On the bottom of the back page I used the same text that was on the original. This text seems to be the same on all DVD covers, so I did not want to deviate to hurt my audience perception.

All in all, I think my re/design came out well. I kept it simple, and clean, while adding visual cues that will trigger in the audiences mind. In my opinion, this re/design is more pleasing to the eye of the audience and captures the atmosphere of the movie better than the original. I hope you enjoy with what I came up with.

Blog Post 3/27

Graphics and culture, what does it mean when we think about these two terms as a whole? We have to think about our audience and their perceptions first. The audiences’ perception of cretin visual elements can make or break a document. A designer must have the ability to recognize and implement these visual perceptions in order to cue the readers mind into the topic of the document. One way to cue the mind of the reader is by use of graphics in a document. The intent of graphic use in document design is used to “show ideas or information” with in the document. The use of graphics also allows the audience to use their own visual rhetoric. The document has to be appealing to the audience in order to capture the attention of the audience. A designer must be specific though when choosing certain graphics and how an audiences and their culture perceive those graphics.

Understanding cultural perception is very important when it comes to designing documents. Your audience has a database of cultural receptors and meanings stored in their mind and it’s up to the designer to be able to recognize those receptors and meanings. The designers’ job is meant to capture that audience and inform the audience about the message that is being brought to their attention. With the understanding of theses factors, graphics can be implemented to help the audience understand the information in a more concise clear manner.

In class on Tuesday I decided to take on the project of redesigning the cover for the movie dazed and confused. When thinking about the audience of this specific movie I can see myself using graphics that tend to be more psychedelic in nature. I also want to be able to implement the use of the “peace sign,” as well as the “yellow smile” that is used in the original cover. I am going to try and implement a sense of carelessness and freeness that the characters strive for in the movie. With the use of graphics, I believe that my audience will be able to understand what the movie is about, even if they haven’t seen it before.

The re/design of the informational sheet for the English department and the possible jobs one could receive with an English degree from Texas Tech was somewhat tedious. The reason for this is because there was so much required text that the original had on it that the new design needed to have. I had to come up with a way to comprise this information, but not make it unbearable to read for the user. Idea came to my head; why not use the sky over the English building to include this information. The picture that was provided in class was the one that I decided to use for this little in class project.

I started out in Photoshop with a basic u.s. letter size that was specific talked about in class to reduce cost of printing. I then decided to use an offsetting gradient that was composed of gray and white colors. I then brought in the photo that was supplied to us in class and made it cover a 3rd of the paper. I started with the title, which I changed a little bit from the original. I went and beveled the edges of this title to make it pop out more to the user. Of course it is in the color of red to make the connection to the “red raiders.” Now it was time to implement all the required text, or jobs that one could get with an English degree. The text was somewhat redundant and unbelievable, but the client wants all the information that was on the original. I then implemented each title of job in the sky, ranging in different text attributes in order to break up the information and not confuse the user of the document. I was joking to kala in class about what I was trying to do when I said my documents reads like you can just “reach up and grab your job,” but I believe that my document actually induces that feeling, especially for a person that is trying to decided if an English degree is the right one for them while attending Texas Tech University.

I know my document is not the best, but I am going to blame that on the amount of time we had in class to work on it. I was just working with an idea and went with it and believe that I could make it look more professional in a college setting if I had more time. Saying that, I do not know if I will go back to this unless we have a chance for extra credit or if I have some more free time during spring break.

I also do not believe that I will comprise any of the elements of design in my later re/designs for a grade. When I design something, I usually story board, or at least try to, before I even get into Photoshop or Indesign. I like to be able to have something in front of me in order to build on that idea that has been story boarded. It is a way for me to track progression in a project and know that I am going through the required steps. As my last re/design for a grade shows, I did not use this process, and thus my grade suffered. Do not throw something away if it works well.

Late - 3/6 Blog Post

Information found at the following URL:

http://www.depts.ttu.edu/communications/identityguidelines/idguidelines/ttu/elements/type.php.

I am not surprised that Texas Tech University has such a strict enforcement of what kinds of typography can be used when publishing things whether in print and or on the internet. TTU is a brand that stretches all across the globe and that brand needs to be consistent with all documents. It shows order, sustainability, and most importantly a center of higher education that cares about what is being published. You will see the same kind of strict enforcements in most centers of higher education, business, and non-profits around the world. It allows a voice to be heard, or in the topic of document design, a voice that can be seen.

Lets get into what Texas Tech uses as founts and why they have chosen these specific founts. When we first go to the identity guideline page for typography, link provided above, Charter is defined. We read that the use of this fount has three reasons.

1. “key concept of fostering success, we chose a highly readable Charter to represent our primary voice”
2. “reinforces the same classical associations we recognize in our campus architecture, forms that evoke a sense of history, integrity and trust”
3. “highly versatile typeface that's appropriate for a variety of applications from formal to casual”

Now that is a lot to take in, just from one use of a fount. Knowing that Texas Tech does not do anything with out research, the office of communication and marketing probably spent thousands of dollars finding out that Charter voices the above three concepts through market research and focus groups. Full circle, it works very well to define that voice of Texas Tech University. The office of communication and marketing even go into how to use Charter in headlines and body text, noting that only a few abstract changes can be made depending on the document that is being made. They also note that users outside the university system might not have the fount Charter installed on their own personal computers and that Times New Roman can be used instead, but in the same character style. I also noticed that they want headlines to be in a gray color tone, in order to voice a friendly nature in communication. I have never noticed the use of this gray fount, but will now have a keen eye to notice this type of voice in documents that are produced at Texas Tech.

The next fount that can be used within the University system is Helvetica Neue. Helvetica is used in everything we see due to its easy nature of reading. The identity guideline website says that Helvetica Neue is a “definitive sans serif font, with a classic neutrality that allows it to be used for all types of communication.” Having watch a documentary film about Helvetica in a past Mass Communication class, I noticed the use of it in many documents around Texas Tech. The communication and marketing office even go to the degree that Helvetica should be used for sub headlines, as well as information in charts and graphics. It can also be noted that Helvetica can be substituted with the use of Arial fount with the colors of red, black, or gray.

Edwardian is the last fount that is listed on the site as a usable form when producing documents under Texas Tech University. It is to be used for formal announcements and invitations. This makes sense, because our culture has seemed to connect cursive type as formal writing. Edwardian has a specific voice and is used correctly under our University system.

Side Note on cursive writing:
This is something I struggled with when I was growing up. I was taught in my private school to write everything in cursive no matter what. When I made the switch to the public school system (8th Grade), the complete opposite was taught. I understand the need for the switch because print type is much easier to read than cursive type. I do not like that the cultural mind set on cursive type is for formal voices. It seems ridiculous to me, and sometimes I even find my self switching from cursive and print type when writing notes in class.

I would not change anything about what the office of communication and marketing has put forth on its usage of typography. As I noted above, the university probably spent thousands of dollars finding out the right founts in order to voice the needs of the University System. Why change something if it works well? These above three founts work very well in my opinion.

Due 3/3/2011

For re/design number three, I decided to go ahead and make an informational flyer for the collegiate chapter of the Association of Fund Rising Professionals. AFP, Texas Tech is a new student organization on campus and we are trying to get the word out about the benefits of joining.

The text on this document is from the national AFP organization that is given to all collegiate chapters to gain the attention of students that are not part of the organization already. I decide to make the text in the main document the same color as the text in the national AFP logo in order keep the document consistent and not confuse the users mind with too much color. I used sub headers with a larger size text to indicate section breaks of information. I then deiced to bold the website URL, which has yet to be determined by the officers of the chapter. The bold text is used to make sure that the reader will be able to find the information easily if they wanted to find out more about our chapter. In this day in age, people will want to research a website in order to find more information. When the website information is hard to find, you start to lose credibility and interest in what you are trying to convey. I also decided to put the url under the contact section of the flyer, next to our presidents contact information because the two are closely related for our users needs. I did not want to use normal bullets for the reasons on why someone should join, so I took the advice from non-designers handbook that said to use a text under windings as bullets, instead of a normal circle or dash. All the text, except the url, is aligned to the left in each section. The information in each section is bumped over a few pixels to add to the separation of information.

I wanted to keep this design clean and simple because this is a national organization and adding to much flash takes away from the credibility of the mission and values in AFP. I also had in mind that we are a new organization on campus, and thus we do not have much funds to put towards printing a lot of ink. Saying this, I still did add in some color. As you can see, the main information in the document is bordered by two blue lines, but leaves white space on both the top and bottom. This also adds to the separation of information in the document as a whole. To enhance the separation of information I also added in gold lines on the top and on the left of each section. I left an opening in the top left corner of these lines to make it easier on the eyes. I did not want my users to be to confine in the document. I believe these opening allow easy movement across the document.

On to the two logos I used. I had to do some secondary research in order to not break any laws. From what I found, I do not believe I broke any rules on both the AFP logo and the Tech logo. When a user sees this document they will be drawn to the tech logo first for a reason. This is for the Texas Tech chapter of AFP and I want students of Texas Tech to understand that. This is the reason I put the double two in the middle of the document. I did not like that there is more space between the tag line of Texas Tech and the AFP logo, but due to constraints of Texas Techs logo, I could not change the spacing. I made the AFP logo bigger in size to imply that this is flyer for the AFP organization, but under a student organization at Texas Tech.

Gutenberg press blog

The Gutenberg press is a machine that changed everything in a sense of history and we are still seeing the affects of what it means culturally today. To understand how the press still affects us today, we have to glance into why it became such an important part of our history. The press allowed an opening of knowledge to the common person. An information highway that gave people the power of reading at a cheap cost. With the invention of the press, the tool of reading became a usable resource in everyday life. Like anything new, it took years for the tool to reach the masses, but it happened. You no longer had to be part of the clergy or the crown to have what was basically the starting point of educating the masses.

Now lets go back to what I mean by power of reading, or the power of the press. Think about not being able to read through a day in your adult life. Could you make it? I’m sure we all could, but would you rather use a hammer to put a nail through something, or a rock, what about a drill? The invention of the press allowed the masses a means of circulating thoughts and ideas that were individualized and could now be read by more than one class of society. A tool that when thought about, caused revolutions, educated millions, and changed medieval society into the begging’s of what we have today. With the invention of the Gutenberg press, later and later models kept coming out, each with an advantage over the last. The evolution of the press kept on changing, trying to keep up with the population. Eventually this evolution gave us the means in history to start printed book libraries, schools for the common societal classes, and the ability of expanding knowledge in our culture. These are only a few examples of hundreds that the press allowed to become conceptualized through the years.

In today’s United States culture, owning and reading printed materials are considered a basic essential tool of life, one that is granted to anyone that is willing to be educated. Now I know that is a huge generalization, and there are Americans that are illiterate, but I am talking about the majority of the population in the United States. Anyways, how does the invention of the press still affect our culture? Well, we have to think about it on a timeline. As I already mentioned, the evolution of the press started becoming larger and larger. Culture shifted again with the invention of the computer into the Internet, which became popular. The masses wanted more, and like printed books, the Internet was profitable in the eyes of entrepreneurs. Information is at our fingertips, through our computers, and now our phones.

The comparison I’m trying to make is that printed materials were in fact the Internet for society in the past. But unlike handwritten books, which died out with the invention of the press, printed material is still used in everyday life. We have not reach a point in our society where all printed materials are thoughts from the past. They still have meaning, can carry an abundance of information, and many people still prefer reading printed material. All this information that we are now able to gain and read from multiple mediums are all connected to the invention of the Gutenberg press. Without it, where would we be as a society now? It is impossible to answer that question, but possible to think about what it could be, for better or worse.

These two photos are an example of what I did this weekend. Although these are from last week, the photos still composes what I did this week...Disc Golf on the weekend. These are out in Mackenzie park. I really enjoy the second one because it captures not only the people in the photo, put the disc itself which is in focus.

Late - 2/13 Blog Post

Page design-
What is it? Page design helps a user/reader of a document understand what is being conveyed. It is a combination of text, visuals, headings, and much more that is utilized in order to convey that message, what ever it is. It allows an easy movement on the eye, and if done correctly will relax a user while reading. Kimball and Hawkins discuss the “three perspectives on Pages” which are perception, culture, and rhetoric. All three are very important principles that all designers must think about before thinking about how their page will be viewed by the user. This then led’s into thinking about how our users will view our pages and if they will skim, scan, or read. This is where designing comes into play.
As Kimball and Hawkins start on page 120, you want meaning in your pages. You need to be able to make your user have a connection with your design. What is the rational for the user to look at your page? Then we get into sequence, patterning, Z pattering. Order. We then need to make sure we utilize our power zones in order to capture the users attention and then most importantly keep our users on the page. We want our users coming back ultimately.
Kimball and Hawkins go into talking about design elements. We have been discussing these elements for the past couple of weeks in class. It is always important to keep these topics in mind in order to not fall behind.
Onto the menu design that Kala and I worked on for re/design 2 that was posted on Thursday. I actually enjoyed working in a group on this design. It worked out well, which normally is not how I feel when working with other people. Kala had an idea and we just sat down and started designing. Anyways, we were trying to keep it simple, but add in a little culture. We knew that we wanted to use black and white as our contrast, but add in a little elegance as well. The elephant was used because it is the national animal of Thailand. We used bamboo to add to the perception and to add borders on the inside pages, as well as the back page. We separated items according to how they were separated in the original design from Bangkok but added spacing to ease the eyes of the users. The back page was somewhat hard to space out because there was so much content, but I believe that we where able to separate the descriptions and the dishes well.
We used Photoshop on this design because Kala has more experience with the program than Indesign. Normally I would of done this in Indesign, but it still worked out well in Photoshop. We used the grid option to make sure our alignments were the same. I cannot stress on how much the grids help while designing things. I hope we discuss more about the use of grids later in class.

Due 2/10 (Created with Kala Taylor)

The above four images are like a 4 page book. The two center images will open up, and the last image is the back of the menu.

When designing our menu for the Bangkok Thai Restaurant we instantly knew that we wanted to emphasize culture. We then searched and downloaded the Thai land font “Pad Thai” to include as our main font within the menu’s title and subtitles. Because we felt this font was harder to read the smaller it got we made the decision to use an alternate Bangkok font, “Silom”, for the menu’s actual description. Although the font might not be identifiable to most, the name is very identifiable to those of Thai culture as it is one of the most well known streets in Bangkok. We also wanted to make it clear that when creating this menu that although it has Thai emphasis, it was created for the American audience. We show this through our simplistic color and design theme. We also right-aligned the text on the cover to constitute what we have learned through Robin Williams, which is: Even though right alignment can cause the title and subtitles to be distant there is still a visual connection between the two elements. Our mindset behind the use of more than one bamboo on the cover was to implement depth. Often, depth is eliminated in design and unfortunately so, as it is one of the most visually intriguing concepts. The bamboo on the cover also gives an element of proximity. In this area of design the eyes are enthralled by the two visually similar objects placed in close proximity within each other. To add proximity, and to add to the visual intrigue we included an elephant, which is Thai land’s national animal.

Although we right aligned the cover page for visual captivation, we decided to keep the actual items and descriptions within the menu left aligned. We did this as to not confuse our American target audience. We chose to keep the text aligned and consistent; we did not want to overwhelm our audience with multiple fonts, colors, or schemes. We took into account that most Americans skim and scan text so we indented the descriptions from the titles of the menu items as to appeal to a quicker find for the audience. We used repetition through the art scheme of the bamboo sticks to take the eyes towards the titles within the menu. We also used repetition with the bamboo sticks within the menu but they are vaguely shown so that we are not taking away from the context of the menu’s descriptions. Contrast is an obvious element as the use of black and white are executed. Black and white creates the highest contrast possible. Also a pure green has a very large contrast with black as well. We wanted to stay concise with our document so we were sure to use the same approach throughout our menu, we feel through our consistency and positive versus negative spacing we have eliminated ambiguity. Everything on our menu was created with a purpose, whether it was to add depth through art, or limit our font sizes to 4 and our font styles to only 2. We thought of perception of the audience and we wanted to eliminate that Gestalt rule of common fate in which the expected colors are red and probably poor design. We wanted to give a mental transaction or interaction within our audience’s minds of simplicity, cleanliness, and a sense of Thai land Americanized.

Three Concepts

From what we have read in both texts, I really enjoyed Kimball/Hawkins chapter three. I enjoy reading and learning about theories because theories are not set in stone. They can change and be manipulated depending on the circumstance. In document design the same thought can be attributed to designs that seem to break all the “rules” (theories), but still seem to work within the specific target audience. It intrigues me to think out side the “box” and to take chances because this is how advancements happen. Now I am not saying I am an advancer in anyway, but thinking outside the box allows a creative side that I believe more people should embrace in them selves. Once again I am getting off on a tangent so, lets get to the three concepts that caught my attention the most from chapter three.

Concept one – Grouping –

Grouping catches my mind the most because it is a concept that is not really thought about at the conscious level when looking at a design. Grouping allows the mind to relax while looking at a design, allowing the eyes to have an ease of flow through a document. There are four topics that are discussed under the grouping section, as followed: proximity, similarity, continuation, and common region. Although these four topics are cited as laws, they are still important aspects that can change or influence other theories.

Concept two – Ecological Perception –

Under ecological perception we come across some very interesting terms. First is Affordance, or “the qualities of an object that allow us to use them.” Second is usability, the study of how a user interacts with an object and or product. I like to think about affordance because, as I’ve said before, we tend to not think about how products work. We know how products work though because of affordance and the ability of the human mind to do without thinking, or theorized by thinking with the unconscious mind. This then brings in the notion of usability. How can a product be useful and designed in order to take account of affordance and the ability of the mind to act on impulse “without much thought?” Our mind is trained to recognize things that are easy to use in order to not over flow the ability to make conscious decisions. A user will become unenthused to use a product if the product requires too much thought. Usability allows us to understand what works for us/users, and what doesn’t work for us/users when using a product. If we as designers understand these concepts when designing something, you will be able to save time and money.

Concept three – Theories on visual culture -
Visual culture fascinates me because our visual sense is so powerful. What is taught and comprehended in one culture might mean something completely different in another that fascinates me the most. Visual culture conveys a whole wide range of identities that can change from one place to another. For instance when an American see’s the colors red, white, and blue, most will think of our country values and reasoning of the United States. If the same colors are seen in another culture those American values and thoughts of reasoning are not conveyed in the same way. They view the color scheme in a completely different way. It is important to understand these differences in cultures when you are trying to reach users that cross visual cultural boundaries. As a designer you do not want to offend the people you are trying to capture, in most cases at least.

Assignment 1

For assignment one I deiced to design a business card. In class on Tuesday I started story boarding ideas that could become possible designs. Doctor Rice informed me during class that I should make a card for a company I could see my self-working for. I thought about this for a while, but decided to use my idea for my resume design for this one. Pretty much the idea was to design something geared towards photography. I went with a freelance nature photography idea, something original where I could use one of my own nature shots.

Now when you are designing things, it never turns out the way you want it to. This is where the notion of having a few different drafts comes into play. The strategy that I usually use is making a few drafts, all with a purpose. With each draft I look at what works and what doesn’t work and improve on what I have. For this assignment I developed four different drafts. I believe using this process is very beneficial because you learn from experience and eventually designing becomes second nature.










As you can see from above this is what I came up with. The last image is my final design. From reading in the books and from past experience I could tell that I needed to align all my text in order to not confuse the user/reader of the card. I decided to left align because I wanted to capture my users attention with the photo before they noticed the text in order to add an unconscious question of ‘why is this photo here.’ I used a drop shadow on the photo to movie the users eyes towards the text. When the eyes move towards the text the reader notices my name. I used larger text and drop shadows on the uppercase ‘C’ and ‘N’ to enhance this movement. The next thing that is captured by the eyes in the text ‘freelance nature photographer.’ I used papyrus text because it is more rustic and connects visual to the word nature. I then added a line of slashes to inform the mind that this is the end of one section of information and that another section of information is about to begin. As you can see the slashes match with the slashes on the top and bottom of the card. A simple repetition that might not be noticed at first but adds to the over all design. I will explain the reasoning about the border aspect of the card later. The new section of information is written in simple text that does not pop out as much. I used a bold effect on the last line of my personal website in order to keep the users eyes moving back in forth on the card. This is a design aspect that I did not know about before this class, but I now see the importance of keeping the users eyes moving around.

The next part of the design was to incorporate a border to enclose the information. My thought was why not design a card that simulates an actual photo real. Although most photos are digital in this day and age, the imagery is not gone. Most people will recognize that the border is similar to film reels. Doing this adds a connection to the purpose of the card. A users mind will unconsciously think about photos before they read a single line of text. I also wanted the user to notice that the card itself is photo in a film reel it self.

For the border I started out with an orange gradient to correlate with the sun in the photograph. When looking at this first design, I found myself over whelmed with the amount of orange in such a basic design. I decided to change the borders to a solid black to represent an actual film reel and to add some sophistication to the card as well. As the “non designer’s design book” describes, if it’s not the same, change it completely. It is a simple contrast that adds to the appeal of the whole business card.

I used in-design and photo-shop for this assignment. Everything except the photo was designed in in-design. The photo was saturated in photo-shop to add more vibrant color to capture the users eyes.

I hope you enjoy what I came up with.

Colin Niebergall

Artifacts

Artifacts:

Resume:

A hobby of mine is taking photos. It has been a hobby of mine since I was a kid, using basic cameras. For a year or so I have been taking photos from my Android phone and thanks to some friends who own DSLR's, my friend Clayton, and Tarryn who is in this class, I decided to get my own DSLR for Christmas. Anyways, I kinda want to redesign my resume geared towards photography. Although I do not see my self making a living as a free lance photographer, it would still be neat to have a photo resume on hand.











Business Card:

I have never had a business card, but I do remember as a kid looking at different kinds of designs and picking up business cards from the printers with my dad when he owned his own business. I was looking through some examples online and this one caught my eye. I do not know what I want mine to look like yet, but it will have design in it.





Movie Poster:

Like I said in class, I want to make a movie poster for my own movie project. If it turns out that I can not film the movie for my rock & roll and media class I still want to make a movie poster. Either a redesign of a film that I like, or I might go ahead and make the one for my own project, the film just wont be done. Possible redesign could be the poster for dazed and confused. I love the movie, but I do not like the poster.














Advertisement:

I think it would be amazing to work for national geographic, so I am thinking of maybe designing an billboard or what not for this section. If not national geographic, maybe discovery or some company that deals with the natural world.

















Brochure:

I have to design a brochure for the Association of Fund raising Professional - Collegiate Chapter - since I am the communications chair. Here is an example of something that I found online that I liked -not a AFP brochure. The brochure that we have now was made in publisher...blah...so it is my job to make a new one.







Other options:

I really liked Tarryns idea of cd covers so I might switch that idea with one of mine.

I also liked Kalas idea of designing a sports calendar. If i deiced to switch one of my ideas with this one, I would do it over the Dallas Stars because I could possible see my self working in their organization.


Four Basic Principles of Design:
1. Contrast- It is what makes the reader look at the page in the first place.
2. Repetition- Develops the organization and strengthens the unity.
3. Alignment-Creates a clean, sophisticated, fresh look.
4.Proximity- This helps organize information, reduces clutter, and gives the reader a clear structure.

Assignments

Hello fellow classmates. Many of you in this class already know me, for those of you that do not, my name is Colin Niebergall and I am a senior Public Relations Major, With a Minor in Technical Communications. My hope is to be able to find a company that offers educational benefits so I will be able to pursue a MBA after I graduate with my undergraduate in PR. This plan seems like the most efficient to expand my professional career. As all of you should know, plans never seems to go the way you plan them out, for better or for worst, so I always go with the flow of things. I Actively think about my future, but always keeping an open mind to different paths in life that seem to creep up. Saying that, I really don’t know what to expect in the next few years of my life after I graduate in December 2011, but I do know one thing – I do not want to be stuck in a career choice where I will be unhappy. Easier said than done, most would say, but my goal is to wake up in the morning and be excited about my work/profession/job.

Now, for this class, my goal is to expand my knowledge of design. Design is something that interests me because it is a way of communicating with visuals, at least in this class. Let it be through text, or images, etcetera, we see design at almost everything we look at. We never really stop and think about the procedures and thought that go into the actual design of a product though. What works, what doesn’t work, principles, the usual, and outgoing ideas that come forth. What can make or break a company, a team, or an organization. Even while you are reading this blog on your own personal computer, think about the time, money, and effort, that the company put forth to make the design of your computer. It just didn’t pop out in one single thought. It took teams of people, with different skills and abilities, to produce the unviewed communicated tool of design that is at your hands right now. Design is sneaker than one might think, but the power of it is amazing. It affects both the conscious and unconscious mind at the same time.

On to the assignments in this class, I could see myself doing everything that we came up together in class on Thursday. Seeing that we have a total of five assignments though, I think we could split the semester up into two sections. Section one would be geared towards designing stuff for our own professional selves, for example, resume design, business card design, things that we can use when we all get out into the job market. The second section would be geared towards our own majors. For my major, I could see myself designing advertisements, brochures, flyers, and most importantly logos. I want to focus on logos because this is an area of design that I lack in knowledge. I have designed logos before in other classes, but I tend to judge my own work to the extreme and can never really be satisfied with what I have come up with. They seem to have held up pretty well for a grade in those classes, thank goodness, but I know that they would not be implemented in a professional environment for public view.


Sum everything up in an easy view:

• Section 1 – Two assignments
o Resume Design – Non basic – Creative design
o Business Card Design – American Psycho anyone?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoIvd3zzu4Y
Have an open mind people…it’s funny.

• Section 2 – Three assignments
o Advertisements – Company that one might work for, maybe advertising plan: Implementation, design, setup, pricing ect.
o Brochures – Company that one might work for, Same as above
o Logos – Redesign of a current company, or self made logo