reading response #11

"Setting up a Studio" from How to be a Graphic Designer, Without Losing your Soul by Adrian Shaughnessy

Oh yeah, this is so what my studio would look like. Live Worm Studio is the professional Graphic Design Studio at Queensland College of Art, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. The studio runs commercial graphic projects for students to gain professional experience and to build up their portfolio's. Compulsory studio classes are also run through Live Worm Studio. 

A friend of mine and I have been talking about opening a studio since we first met in the program last year. Our styles are so different, yet the two of us work seamlessly together, balancing out her organic flow with my modern structure. I didn't realize that outside of just renting a building, throwing all our supplies in it and coming up with a logo, there would be so much to do to make our studio work. Coming up with/dividing roles, making a business plan, getting funding, registering the business...and this is all before coming up with a name and identity. 

Shaugnessy's point about a designer's authorship and the importance of that really spoke to me. I am really still struggling to find a really set and defined style for myself; I waver between clean modernity and musically inspired fluidity, but all while keeping a structure. I don't know if going to a firm would help me refine my style or stunt my growth; opening my own studio would certainly help me more quickly define my style. I've always been a chameleon though; I like to fit my style to my client's needs and not restrict their possibilities to what I "normally" do. 

reading response #10

"Being Freelance" from How to be a Graphic Designer, Without Losing your Soul by Adrian Shaughnessy

Seriously, ain't it the truth? This comic totally captures the average night of a freelance designer, or any kind of designer for that matter.

Oh, how I love typography.

Mostly what I got out of this reading is that freelancing is a good thing and a bad thing. The good parts are the flexibility and control over what you do and how you do it. The bad parts are the self-regulation and scheduling (if you're not good at it already), fluctuation in payment, using your own materials/renting space, and generally the scarcity of work. But if you're tough and motivated, like working alone, or have a special skill, freelancing is for you. 

I think freelancing is also a great way to boost your portfolio while waiting to get a permanent job with a firm or company. It shows them that others are interested in your work and are willing to pay you for it and gives you a great opportunity to try a wide range of projects, from corporate-type stuff like business cards and logos to more creative book and media projects.

reading response #9

"How to Find a Job" from How to Be a Graphic Designer, Without Losing your Soul by Adrian Shaughnessy

I am finding this book to be one of the most helpful graphic design books I've bought. I really feel like I can return to it again at varying points in my career at get advice. I find this section especially helpful because I've been constantly fretting about what I'm going to do after graduation. I know I want to do packaging design, but how? Where do I go? How do I find these jobs? How do I make my portfolio awesome? Shaughnessy answered all my questions and so much more.

Gee, I only wish the world was so wide open to us. But, it's really more like this:

I feel like sometimes I need to present myself as some kind of packaged deal. My work does not matter unless I have some kind of experience to back it up, but I can't get experience when no one will hire me. I also feel like these folks here sometimes:

I'm constantly linking my website on all kinds of art and general networking sites (see right for my card with my URl, haha!). It gets a little repetitive, only to be drowned out by everyone else's constant linking of their websites and shameless self-promotion. I guess that's my problem with this chapter: if this is how everyone else is supposed to act, how to I stand out? 

I've always wanted to know what to do after an interview, and I'm glad Shaughnessy talks about this. I love the idea of leaving something behind for the person you interview with, and I've never really considered doing this but will certainly in the future. He also recommends creating a mailer for your work to send out to people and continue working on small projects for friends to expand your portfolio for another interview. 

I was also interested in how Shaughnessy describes what your portfolio should look like. I was surprised to learn he prefers loose-sheet, highest quality prints in acetate sleeves over portfolio books or binders; the smaller without being crowded the better, but it should be at least be housed in something that is professional and sleek. He recommends laying out the pieces in a grid and using some kind of underlying unifying element. In addition, he says print designers (like myself) should include finished printed specimens and hand them over immediately to the interviewer to look at and comment on. 

I feel that I do really well in interviews, and I know how to show the interviewers that I'm hard working and willing to do anything they'd ask me to. I just have to find that place that loves my personality and my designs, which I have yet to do.

reading response #8

"Attributes Needed by the Modern Designer" by Adrian Shaughnessy, from How to be a Graphic Designer, Without Losing Your Soul

I can relate to what Shaughnessy says about album covers being a huge inspiration for a lot of designers. I, too, am extremely inspired by great album art, CD packaging, book covers, any entertainment medium really. I've got this in my own collection that I ogle constantly:

Of course it's Metallica's newest album, Death Magnetic, which the designer, Turner Duckworth, won a Grammy for! I don't have that special edition package collection on the bottom, but I do cherish my plain album version.

I also have this, Foreigner's Records. The great thing about mine is that it's missing the front labels so you can see the record through the slots, but I still love the original intent of the packaging. The inside picture shows the band at a diner, flamboyantly dressed and seemingly making the other patrons feel distressed.

I wish I had this, NIN's Ghosts I-IV. The whole design just rocks my socks off.

The three attributes a designer needs according to Shaughnessy are Cultural Awareness, Communication, and Integrity. I feel like we are learning these thoroughly at PSU; cultural awareness involves a lot of research that we take on ourselves to learn about our audience and their culture to appeal to them more sensibly, we constantly communicate with our professors and each other and constantly learn how to communicate our points clearly so that a client can understand them, and we have to have integrity with everything we do because our name is on it and our work is a reflection of our stance in the world. 

One thing that hit me the hardest was what Shaughnessy emphasized the most: the single most important thing you can do when discussing a job with a new or potential client is to demonstrate understanding, openness, and receptivity. The designer who shows only signs of self-absorption and narrowness of focus isn't going to inspire his or her client. He goes on to say that demonstrating knowledge about the topic you are designing for is more important than talking about your own work excessively; if you can show the client you know their industry well, you can spend more time listening to what they want for their design and how you can achieve their goals. 

thesis progress

So for my deadline on Monday, I wanted to focus on producing a full-scale model of my packaging to show my group and Lis how the thing is actually going to work. Since I have a tendency to wait till the last minute to put my packaging together, I wanted to avoid that by doing it first and having it planned out before I start doing the really time-consuming part: the actual game.

This is a dieline for the whole outside of the box, keeping in mind that the actual visuals on the box were done quickly just to differentiate between the sides. The red/green/blue folds in half over itself and is attached to the bottom/top with 1" strips. The yellow squares fold in half diagonally to form triangles. The tabs created by the triangles and the squares in the center slide into the red/green side pockets created by the fold. The box is all attached as one piece, minimizing the amount of cutting and maximizing visual potential.

This would be the view of the box all folded out and laid flat. As you can see, the folded sides are perfect spaces to put some kind of placeholder for the pieces or activity supplies. The center design is a placeholder design that would be permanently attached (and covers the 1" piece attachments to the top/bottom. Corner holders would then keep the removable boards in place during play, allowing them to be changed depending on the problem, issue, argument, or scenario.

This is a dieline for the insert tray that would hold all the pieces, boards, cards, and activities. The multi-colored rectangles on the right top/bottom are the barriers that section off the tray. The center square on the right is actually the bottom piece (I want every inch to be considered and not show and places where its been glued or attached). This also folds much like the box itself, but will be permanently assembled to make it slide out first before the box opens completely. 

As I've said before, I want this to be completely different than other board games, showing the couple that the designer cares about them and their problems and wants to help solve them easily and efficiently. 

UPDATE: Thanks Jimmy for suggesting the use of magnets to keep the corners from coming apart so easily. It will also look nicer too because it won't make me have to mangle the sides of the board when it's folded out.

reading response #7

"Personas: Practice and Theory" by John Pruitt and Jonathan Grudin

I thought that Personas were a very tedious way of learning about a target audience. It seems like a lot of steps and work to interview people in the audience, enough to get the kind of data you're looking for, make the profiles, create screening groups, etc. etc. But I did see some benefits of Personas.

One, they create a strong focus on users in a fictionalized setting, which allows for more variables and possibilities when dealing with the scenarios. They can be more shallow or really in depth. For example, I found these personas created for public use by Penn State's Teaching and Learning with Technology Unit as models for any digital medium. They had to have been created by studying many pictures and features of different ethnic groups, because otherwise their portrayals would not be accurate. However, they do not need to delve into the personal lives of the people they're modeling because that is not a part of the rendering of the illustration.  

These persona profiles seem very in-depth and research intensive, but not very design oriented. I don't think I get much of a personal response to these people because there is nothing dynamic about the presentation.

This does a better job of visualizing the different facets of the target audience's concerns and priorities. The persona becomes the focus by being the center from which everything radiates. There's not as much information as the one above, but you are a bit better connected to the real 'Angie.'

reading response #6

"Is it Possible to Touch Somebody's Heart with Design?" by Stefen Sagmeister

First of all, I really love how this is laid out. Sagmeister pays so much attention to every detail, and he really knows how to design books so they're not exactly how you expect them to be. Already this is inspiration for my project; I do not want my board game to be 'typical' or look like the other board games on the shelf, because I think they're crap. They have no visual hierarchy, the colors are everywhere, and there's no more attention paid to the package than the game because it just plasters pictures of people playing it all over. Get creative! Do something innovative with your box! Here are some examples of board games with amazing designs that don't fit the norm:

I know I've used this one before but I still love it! A design student re-worked the Monopoly packaging, bringing it down to its most basic elements and using a warm yet neutral color palette. This makes the game look more classic and timeless, making its history apparent to the person playing it. 

Another design student created this packaging for the Swedish game Pendago. It is so elegant, rich, and modern. I love how the instructions are on the inside top of the box and is reflective. He really thought about using every inch of the packaging to represent the intellectual side of the game, and I want to use every inch of mine to represent the process of working through issues but while being fun.

This cute banana-shaped pouch holds pieces that go to the game Bananagrams. This Scrabble-like game is more fast-paced and has less rules and counting points, allowing the players to think less about how to play and more about what words they'll use. It has a very universal feel; people that speak other languages would probably be able to still play with the addition of a few other characters. I like the simplicity of this game, and I would like mine to be just as simple so the couple can get to the root of the issue without worrying about how they're going to get there.

Overall, the whole notion of designing to touch someone's heart is sort of foreign to me. I am a very, what you would say 'corporate' designer; I like my logos and my layouts to be clean and efficient with little clutter, and although this can touch your heart if done in the proper way, it's never been my goal and often can come off looking sterile and rigid. I've never thought about this concept, but I guess it's what we've been learning all along; we need to learn our clients or our products to properly design for them or it, and the logo or design needs to speak to them if it's going to speak to anyone else. With this project though, my design HAS to touch their hearts. I am, after all, dealing with the subject closest to the heart: love and relationships. 

I may end up solving this problem not through the look and feel, but through the intimate experience of the game. It's only for two people, making it so you have to have alone time with your partner to play it, and it requires you to set the mood to make the experience more enjoyable. The activities that the couple plays are going to be designed to allow them to learn more about each other and create a stronger connection. I think this touches the heart in many ways; the couple should feel like I really understand relationship issues because I've been through them and it's very important to me to keep my relationship healthy and the lines of communication open. 

I feel like that a lot of what Sagmeister says in this pertains to some very personal projects, and the things that touch someone's heart may not do it for others. The t-shirt he wore for his mom during the interview was a nice design, and it was a nice gesture, but how many other people appreciated it? But is that what's important; should we aim to make as many people happy as possible or do a really good job at making one person happy? I think I want to make as many people as happy as I can, and this game should do that.

term long project logos

So I've been working on some logos for my term long project, which you should know by now is a game that guides couples through relationship issues and helps them to better understand each other. I've decided on the name "Work It Out!", which I think follows a fun, retro theme that I'm trying to go for.

This style is more of a 50s-60s game feel. It's coming straight from my love for the retro game show style, thus the color palette. It's more fun and wacky, I think I could make the charts something unexpected if they use this style.

This aesthetic comes from a vintage French card game, and it's much softer than the other logo. I like this one because I can really play with the logo using the idea of the flowcharts and have a very simple iconic system. 

Any ideas on which one I should go with?

reading response #5

Directed Storytelling: Interpreting Experience for Design by Shelley Evenson

Ethnographic research through directed storytelling seems like where I'd like to go with my research. I am developing a survey to figure out what issues I should deal with in my game, now titled Work It Out! This article gave me some clues as to how to ask my questions in the survey. 

1. Describe your partner in a short paragraph. What are some positive and negative aspects of their personality/characteristics? How is your relationship with this person doing at this current point in time (if you have a hard time describing it, use a 1 to 10 scale, 1o being amazing and 1 being terrible)? 

2. When was the last time you and your partner argued? What was it about? Did you talk rationally or yell and/or fight? Was this a usual fight for you and your partner to have? 

3. Where were you when you had this argument? Do you feel your location effected the argument, i.e. made it worse or helped calm it down? 

4. Were you physically with your partner at the time of the argument or was it over some kind of technological device like the internet, phone, or cell phone? Do you think this effected the argument?

5. Think about the argument you had. Restate what it was about. Then really think about the cause behind the argument. What set it off? Is there some reason you continue to have this argument, or is this the first time you've had it? 

6. Name some things that both you and your partner need to work on in your relationship. Then name some things both you and your partner do well in your relationship. Do you feel the positives outweigh the negatives?

7. Describe a time you and your partner solved an argument positively using a discussion method rather than a fighting method. What do you think made this discussion successful? Was this an argument that you had before, or something new? Judge whether or not you have resolved the issue; have you had another incident based around this argument since this positive discussion?

8. What do you think makes your relationship with your partner strong? What are some things that weaken it? What do you think makes a relationship strong in general? Do you have these qualities in your relationship?

9. Name the top 5 things you and your partner argue about. Rate their intensity and importance on a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being very important/high intensity argument and 1 being not important at all/zero intensity.

10. If there was one thing that you would want to say about your relationship that you haven't already, please let me know for the best possible guide to solving your relationship issues.

These could get edited, but it'd be cool if there's one you see that you want to answer and you comment!

Now, onto more about the reading...

I like how Evenson describes when to use direct storytelling; it seems perfect for my project. I am making diagrams, and direct storytelling seems to lend itself to that. 

This is a diagram from the article that I thought was really lovely. Although mine won't be in this style, I thought it was a nice illustration on the kinds of information graphics you can make out of the data collected from direct storytelling.

I find it interesting that direct storytelling can be used for a variety of purposes, not just for graphic design purposes but for marketing and demographics as well. This diagram breaks down the steps to really broadening your consumer base and ultimately marketing a successful product or idea. The blog I got this from, The Innovator's Sweet Spot, goes on to explain each step and talks about using direct storytelling as a method of marketing research.