Communications Studio: Project 1
Day 1: 1/17/17
Beginning of Class
Today in class, we observed different kinds of wind-up toys that Stacie has collected through the years. At first, I was very confused on what wind-up toys have to do with communications design. Shouldn’t this be more for the products students?
But after analyzing the wind-up toys and having conversations as a whole group about their forms and functions, I learned how communications has a huge part in these wind-up toys. Just by looking at the form, we were able to find out where is the front and end of the toy, how you wind up the toy, what it might do when you use the toy, where it might be from, how fast it might go, and so much more. Different visual aspects of the wind-up toys were able to communicate different functions and facts about the toys. This kind of conversation was different from what I had first imagined communications design would be. I thought we would be doing more digital stuff, like making posters and books, talking about grids, etc. But after this conversation, I realized that communications can also be applied to more things than just posters and grids.
After the wind-up toys, we chose a designer from a list of Asian designers that we wanted to study. I chose Young Na Kim.
Day 2: 1/19/17
Today in class, we discussed the reading titled The Socio-Cultural Context for Design: The Search for Pattern. We talked about how different schemas, biases and stereotypes affect the way audiences see different designs. Not only does it apply to the people who see our designs, it also affects us as designers because we need to be careful about putting our own schemas and stereotypes into our design.
We also talked about the illustrative and formative role that design plays in in culture. The illustrative role is when society shapes design, or design reflects society. This is when design is based on what people want and need. The formative role is when society is shaped by design. Some specific instances we’ve seen in the past are the GPS, social media, and search engines. All of these designs have changed the way we function in society. Before, I only though of design as having a formative role in culture, so it was interesting to learn that society can shape design also.
Richard Saul Wurman was also briefly mentioned in class, who was a self proclaimed Information Architect. He structured and organized content, which can also be called information design, or widely known as data visualization in today’s world. He also created an acronym for different ways information can be organized: LATCH, which stands for Location, Alphabetical, Time, Category, and Hierarchy.
We also distributed the information that we gathered from the designer we researched into different categories. We came up with categories such as their style, process, values, time, influence/impact, recognition, life events, quotes, education and background.
Day 3: 1/24/17
Research: Category Organization
In class, we took our time to organize our categories that we made for our designers we researched.
Some of us took the birth and death dates of the designers and made a timeline to see the age range of the designers and who are still living. Some of us took the locations of each designer (their birth/death place and where they worked/studied) and made a map to visualize where each of our designers came from and worked at.
Most of us reorganized the categories that we made and made them more specific. For example, we only had one category that said “notable works”. But under notable works, there were so many different kinds of works. There were different exhibitions, projects, jobs, etc. that could be made more specific. So, under each broad category, we separated them into different sub categories that made it more easier to understand.
To talk about the designer I am researching, Young Na Kim is a graphic designer who is best known for her abstract and geometric styles. She graduated from ArtEZ Institute of the Arts masters program in Netherlands in 2008. She had her own studio in the Netherlands until 2012, when she returned to Korea. Her decision to move from the Netherlands to Korea was because she wanted to take on new challenges. In Korea, she states that many things are currently in process, which gives potential to move forward and try new things. More and more Korean designers are trying to find their own styles and stray from the mainstream, which attracted Na Kim to return to Korea. She has participated and designed many exhibitions not only in Korea and the Netherlands but in Milan, New York and many other countries.
The verb I randomly picked was bounce. When I told a few people around me which verb I was doing, a lot of them replied with “Aw that’s so cute!” This made me realize that the verb “bounce” has a very cute connotation to it, which leads to the second part of our discussion in class.
After talking about what denotation and connotation means, Stacie showed us a set of different typography that spelled unidentifiable words. Then, she asked what we get from the words. There were many replies like “wine bottle packaging”, “wedding card invitations”, or “children’s playroom”. After we discussed as a group, we were paired into groups of two, given sets of serif and sans serif types and were to describe each one with adjectives. It amazed me how even though some types belonged in the same serif or sans serif group, they all gave different connotations because of the little differences that each one had. It helped me understand that by understanding how to find the connotations of different types, it allows designers to choose a type that well fits with the type of work that they are doing.
Day 4: 1/26/17
Example Structures
My partner, Tiffany Lai, and I analyzed the organization of an excerpt about Jan Tschichold, which was done by a student in C studio last year.
At first, the most obvious structure that the author went by was by chronological order. By each paragraph, they showed the year the event happened and the whole excerpt upon first read went through his life from birth to death. However, after reading it a couple times and really deciphering it, we found that it was also organized in a lot of different ways. After it was organized by time, it was also organized by his style, and how it changed from hating modernism, then coming to love modernism and only modernism, then changing to a traditional style again and coming up with a serif font, Sabon. It was also organized by the location changes that were influenced by the political situation in Germany, which is where he was from, at the time. And more specifically, it was arranged by his most notable works in chronological order.
By deciphering the structure of a past student’s work, I was able to understand how organizations worked in these biographies. It also got me to think about how to organize Na Kim’s life.
Day 5: 1/31/17
More Research
Over the weekend, I got some time to do more research on Young Na Kim. She has very little interviews that are written about her, and most of them were talking about the same achievements and facts. This led me to search for some stuff on the Korean search engine site, Naver, and I found a couple interesting articles where she talked about how she came up with some of her famous works and how she works/thinks as a graphic designer. But because they were in Korean, it took me a long time to read and then translate what I read into Korean.
Because Na Kim has such a distinctive, loud, unique style, a lot of her interviews were about how she came to have that kind of style. She also is asked a lot about her tendency to break the separation of graphic design and fine arts and her exploration into many different realms (curating, editing, designing, etc.). This is why I decided to categorize her into style, personal values, and design roots (maybe not in that order). I found that a lot of other categories, like exhibitions/projects, culture, process, and education, are all rooted from her style and personal values. I believed that the most important aspect of Na Kim is her style, personal values and design roots.
Day 6: 2/2/17
Mood Boards
We were to make a mood board for today. I did not know what a mood board was or how it was supposed to be made, so I had a hard time choosing what content to put on my mood board. I didn’t want to just show the works of Na Kim and people told me that a mood board is just creating the mood of the person’s work, not just a compilation of their work. So, I looked deeper into Na Kim’s work and style and tried to show it on the mood board.
First of all, she uses bold, sans serif text with basic geometric shapes and primary colors. Her work is very modern and she takes a lot of brave steps, which is what I wanted to show on my mood board. I tried to go out of my comfort zone with the composition of the mood board to show her bravery, which was a little challenging for me. She also uses as little elements as possible, with a fair amount of white space. Although she works with installations and exhibitions, her works are mostly flat. Na Kim’s greatest mentor is her teacher at Werkplaat Typografie and graphic designer, Karel Martens, so I wanted to add some of his work to the mood board also.
We also looked at how our content would look in different typefaces. Although the most obvious was to go with sans serif regarding Na Kim’s style, I wanted to see how it would look in serif fonts also. But after trying, I felt sans serif was best because it shows more of a modern, playful and simplistic feeling, which is most representative of her work.
Day 7: 2/7/17
Medium Affordances
Today, we discussed the different kinds of mediums we will work with and how each has their own affordances. During class, we all roughly sketched wireframes for how we want our content to be distributed on the different mediums that we will work with (print, web, mobile). Since I wasn’t set on my content, a lot of my wireframes were very general. For next class, I definitely need to be set on my content.
We also talked about how there are different types of content that go on different types of mediums, which will affect how we think about the structure on each medium.
Day 8: 2/9/17
Sandwich Workshop: Flowcharts
Class started with a tasty exercise: making sandwiches. Turns out, it was to teach us about user flow and how to make a flowchart about them. By going through all the steps of making sandwiches and all of the possible options in each step, we created a user flowchart of making sandwiches. To put the flowchart into action, we made our sandwiches following each step in order to end up with a delicious sandwich. While making the flowchart, we learned different rules that are included in making flowcharts, such as lines to show paths and symbols to show a start of new options.
Day 9: 2/14/17
Intro to Grids
Today was an exciting day because we were finally introduced to grids. We were introduced to different types of grids: modular, columnar, manuscript and baseline. Although I’ve heard of all the grids with Dan, I’ve never heard of the baseline grid, and how it was used. Through the baseline grid, we learned the ratio of type and leading, and how important that was.
We also talked about the type parameters that we decided for our spreads. I chose Futura, because I thought the geometric quality of the type and Na Kim’s style fit well together. She also uses Futura in some of her works as well. I set different parameters for different types of content that will go on the page.
Day 10: 2/16/17
Using Grids
For today, I started putting what I learned about grids into action by trying to make one spread of the book. I decided on an eight column grid since it is easily divisible and a 12 pt baseline grid. The most difficult part was trying to keep true to the grid system while trying to fit all the content on the page. Pictures were hard to fit, since they were a set size. I wanted to show the boldness of Na Kim’s style so I used bold letters and a bright yellow color that doesn’t distract from the content.
In class, we talked more specifically about grids and type, but mostly about type. We talked about different rules and conventions that should be followed when using type. This was so helpful for me because I definitely was lost when creating the first spread. I didn’t know that there was so much detail with working with type, and before, I was basically doing things without thinking.
For next time, I definitely want to rework the spreads by revisiting the type and using the type conventions. I also want to start using paragraph styles to make later versions easier.
Day 11: 2/21/17
Apparently, we got the wrong sizes for our spreads. So I changed the title page cover to a vertical picture I had of Na Kim. I put the sections titles vertically because in a lot of Na Kim’s works, she plays with type and plays with their orientation. I struggled a lot with placing the pictures while following the grid. I also feel like it’s too text heavy, which isn’t really representative of her works.
During class, we talked more about grids. We talked a lot about consistency and relationships between objects on the page. To make objects not look like they were mistakenly placed or placed without a purpose, you need to make meaningful relationships between objects. Also, there should be a sense of consistency, but if it becomes too much, it can become boring. So it’s safer if you start out very consistent and start to break the consistency one by one as you work more on it.
I think I could work on scale with the pictures, and creating better relationships with the text and the pictures. Right now it looks like I just slabbed the pictures on the page, especially the last page. I want to see how I can reduce the amount of space the texts takes up. I also want to see how I can bring in the bright color element that I have on the title onto the other pages to have consistency.
Day 12: 2/23/17
I changed my grid system to a 9 column grid so that the text can become thinner and I would have more room on my spreads. I tried to incorporate the primary colors that Na Kim frequently uses in her works. I also put geometric shapes that she also uses frequently. However, the last spread had too much content so putting something in the background like the other pages was too much. I still feel like there’s too much content on each page, it doesn’t feel true to Na Kim’s simple style. Since I have a lot of text, I tried to fit them vertically longer so that there would be more space for pictures. Previously, I had them shorter height wise and made it continue into two columns, which made them occupy more space.
After a group critique today, I got a lot of good feedback. A lot of people like the graphic elements, but agreed that it was too much, like in the “Values & Culture” page. The elements could also disrupt with the legibility of the type. Also, my problem of having too much content on the page could be because of scale. The pictures are too big, and don’t need to fill up the whole page, like the last page. One way that was suggested to make the text smaller was to have a smaller point size, for both the section titles and text.
I think I need to work on making the graphic elements work and having the text work better with the images. I definitely need to work on scale, which I think will solve the problem of having too much content.
Day 13: 2/28/17
I just couldn’t get the blue triangle on the “Style” page to work, so I decided to take that out. I felt having two strips of green was too much, so I took that out also. I made the last picture smaller and changed some pictures to have smaller pictures.
From our group critiques today, some people stated that it was weird how there were graphic elements on some pages but not others. The red circle can disrupt with the reading of the text. I still need to work on the rags and some relationships of the pictures do not work. I also need to do the hanging quotes and put some cations on some pictures. I also need to put borders on the pictures that have white backgrounds so that it doesn’t blend with the paper color.
I also need to start working on my mobile and web applications.
Day 14: 3/2/17
I decided to use just circles for the graphic elements. I felt like she uses circles the most out of all of the geometric shapes and the circles will work the best in the background. I made the pictures smaller and made more relationships between the objects. But I had a really hard time with the placement of the circles.
From today’s crit, I got a lot of good feedback regarding my circles. Changing to circles was a good idea, but their scale and how much they take up of the space was problematic. Having them overlap with the words was again, disrupting the readability of the words. Maybe I could put it in the negative spaces? I still need to do the rags.
I finally took some time to work on my mobile and web.
I wanted to incorporate an interactive navigation that showed Na Kim’s fun and bold color use and the use of geometric shape. I chose the horizontal picture instead because the website is horizontally oriented. In the pages, I wanted to incorporate the colored circles that I have on my spreads to keep them consistent.
I learned you should use Illustrator instead of InDesign for interface design so I need to change that. I also need to look for more relationships and think about having some kind of grid structure even on the web.
Day 15: 3/7/17
I am still struggling with the placement of the circles. So I made many different versions for class so that I can get opinions on all and choose the best one to stick with.
Version 1: The circles are in the negative space.
Version 2: Circles are smaller and I tried to make the title page unify with the other pages.
Version 3: I took out the circles all together to get a cleaner look.
Overall, many people said that they liked the circles, and I did too, because it really shows Na Kim’s personality. So Version 3 was eliminated. For Version 2, the circles were just too much, and made it look too busy, so it was eliminated. Version 1 was the best because the circles actually worked with the content without disrupting it. The only problem was the circle’s proximity to the content on the page, which made uncomfortable white spaces.
I think I will keep going with the circles in the negative space and work on the positioning of the circles a little bit more.
Day 16: 3/9/17
Today we went to the Swiss Poster Collection. I’ve always only heard about Swiss Posters in the past and never really got to see them or what they were like, so the trip was very cool. There were so many cool posters, and it was fun to see so many cool and innovative ideas that were from the past. I wish I took pictures, but I forgot to take them because I was so intrigued at looking at the posters. :(
Day 17: 3/21/17
FINAL DAY
Spring Break was so necessary to take my mind off of these spreads for a while. I still struggled so much with the positioning of the circles. But after struggling with them for a while, I found that I was trying to force circles onto some pages where it just did not fit. So, I decided to just put circles one on each spread, instead of every page. I feel like this makes it so much cleaner and purposeful, than when I had it on each page.
