finishing up

It’s been a long semester and I’m feeling the toll its taken.

All in all, the last few months have been great. I’ve learned a lot, both academically and in terms of my practice, but to be honest, I cannot wait for Wednesday afternoon when all will be completed. My weekend has been entirely devoted to tying up loose ends by getting projects and papers done, as well as studying up for a couple of exams. Its been at the cost of more than a couple short nights and long working hours, but the end is in sight and I think its worth that little extra effort to finish strong.

I leave Vancouver this Friday back to Calgary where I can look forward to the couple feet of snow and dramatically subzero temperatures. It probably sounds like I’m sarcastic, but I’m not. Sure the weather could be a little warmer there, but just to be back home will be great. I’ll be able to sleep in, enjoy some home cooked meals and catch up with my friends who should all be back in town from university.

Yup, should be sweet.
Now its back to the real world and getting what needs to be done done. Only three more days.

Final Booklet

Here is my final booklet pdf.
There were some issues uploading it, but I managed to get it done.

It was an exciting project. It was my first time using InDesign and while there was a lot of unfamiliarity and frustration with the software, the final product turned out well in my opinion.

Booklet

Getting Started

The hardest part of many projects is getting started. It’s trying to think of that really good idea that would bring your project to life. However, sometimes, the ideas seem stuck and when this happens, little progress gets made.

One solution to this issue is to get inspired and what better way to get inspired than to look at other people’s work? I think there is no better way to get the creativity flowing once again. Often, I will go to the Emily Carr concourse gallery and look at whatever is on display there. Other times maybe I’ll go to the library and read some of the magazines on various topics. Sometimes, I’ll search both design blogs and art blogs in hopes of finding something that’ll peak my interest. Usually, one of these will provide me with some inspiration to get started. Usually this is just the beginning of a long process, but it’s an important one because starting on a project that you are not excited about will probably yield a boring end result.

Here is a great website if you want to browse some amazing art. It seems as though its updated daily and the stuff that they upload is usually top notch.
Enjoy.

Final Poster and Logo

Project 2

Project two is now done and done.

For my issue, I decided to go with something that I felt very strongly about. The issue that I addressed was one that involves the city of Vancouver attempting to pass new legislation that would allow police officers the right to enter any location at anytime during the Olympics with giving only 24 hours notice. The aims of the legislation is to give the police the ability to remove displays from public view that are deemed “inappropriate”. What is considered to be inappropriate remains illusive, but I feel this is besides the point.

The real issue here is that Vancouver is moving in a direction that no civilized, first world, democratic country should even think of going. Why should police temporarily be given this increased authority? If we accept that this is ok, what will be next? Will we even recognize our currently familiar city or country if this continues?

It is important that we don’t allow something like this to take place. It really has no place in our city and is extremely unfair to everyone.

Anyway, here are several iterations of my poster design. I wanted to keep things abstract and mostly simple, relying on the relationship of the objects on the page as opposed to manipulated images. It was also important for me to keep a certain distance away from the subject matter. An issue I have with a lot of posters is that they employ a much to commanding visual language. They become didactic and this, at least for me, tends to repel the viewer as they want to engage in the image and have a part and say in it as opposed to being ordered into listening or obeying.

I hope you enjoy my posters. I will upload the final poster after the “big reveal” tomorrow!

Poster V.1

Poster V.2

Here are a couple photos of where I would imagine my poster being place. They were taken nearby the art gallery where the Olympic countdown clock is. However I believe that my posters could really be placed anywhere in the city. They aren’t that site specific.

Dezeen

For anyone interested in design, both industrial and communication, I’ve got a great website/magazine for you.

Dezeen is a website that showcases international design from every corner of the world. It features designers that span every possible designable venue such as architecture, clocks, furniture, cutlery and other things. It’s a great website if your looking for inspiration or just to be wowed and you don’t need to be into design to appreciate it either.

Give it a look. It’s updated multiple times throughout the day most of the time, so give it a look and look often.

Final Images

Finally, after two weeks, here are my final images. They took some time and definitely a lot of patience, but in the end I’m pretty happy with how they turned out.

The image of the snake in the water was by far the most difficult. I guess it was so hard because I had to copy and paste tiny portions of the snake’s body and then distort it in order to create what you see. I then had to try and create some convincing splashes where the snake meets the water. Maybe even more difficult than that was making the boat’s wake, but in the end I think it’s looks good enough.

I also had some help with creating a greater perception of depth at the Digital Output Center where I got some good advice on using gradients to darken and lighten areas.

Anyway, here is the image in its completed form on my computer. The printed version uses the gradients I explained, but the image I am uploading doesn’t as I did that final editing on a computer at the DOC.

Might not look like it, but this was waaay tough.

My next photo is the image of a dinosaur towering over a Denny’s where a squad of plastic army men are converging. This was a much more straightforward task, it wasn’t easy, but I knew how to do it.

Certain things about this image that were particularly difficult were firstly, erasing the power lines in front of the dinosaur. This was just a very time consuming thing to do. I’m sure there must of been an easier way to do it, but it was unknown to me. Secondly, I had to distort the army men to a point where it appeared as though they were standing on the pavement. I then copied them and darkened the duplicate to make the shadow. This too had to be arranged in a convincing way.

One thing I particularly like about this image is the the smoke coming from the dinosaur’s mouth and the army man who is partially burned. I think the relationship is kind of interesting as there is no evidence that the dinosaur really lit the guy on fire, rather, it is implied.

My third image remained as it was in an earlier post of mine.

Source Photos

Here are my source photos that I eventually turned into my final images.

Project I

For this project, which is to be a series of three images based on the idea of “Imagining the Impossible Dream”, I have decided to try and depict a monster rampaging through downtown Vancouver.

A week ago, I decided that I would do a narrative for these images. I had the idea that the first image would show the monster in the city, the second would show a helicopter baiting the animal with a piece of meat and the last image would be the helicopter leading it out of the city. Now, I’ve changed my mind about the piece, maybe a little late, and I think I would rather just have three photos of the occurrence without narrative.

This is because the narrative communicated in the series isn’t that interesting. Also because, I think I could really use a variety of imagery if there wasn’t a rigid narrative, as I think I would end up having to recycle images to communicate the story.

Anyway, I did complete one image entirely and got started on the others. The two unfinished ones though are going to be scraped and I’m going to have to start again. This means I’m going to have a lot of work in these next couple of days if I want to use the Digital Output Center.

Here is my first image, tell me what you think and how it could be improved. Thanks!

I'll upload the process this following week.

we feel fine dot org

Wefeelfine.org is a website I found about years ago somehow.

Basically, the website gathers information from all over the internet (mostly from personal blogs and diaries) about the emotions of people in various demographics and locations around the world.

These emotions are then organized and represented on the website as different colours and shapes.

You can click on any moving object on the screen and it will then reveal a written message that describes the emotion. It also has details on the age of the emotion’s author, the time it was written, what the weather was like among other details.

Give it a look. It’s a cool concept.