Response

I love the Pantone color book! First off, it was an easy read, which was good because this week was CRAZY! Secondly, I really learned how colors can subconsciously play a role in consumers' decisionmaking. I never knew that blue was used the most in advertising and businesses because it is a reliable and dependable color. I just always thought that red, white and blue were the most used colors because of the country we come from! I also didn't know that red-purple was considered a color that inspires creativity. I had always thought that orange helped the creative juices.
There was a lot I knew, but a lot I didn't know and I have to say that that is why this class has been so much fun so far. We have such a big workload, however we have fun learning new things! Kudos to the Pantone color book for making reading fun (especially since I read it after my American Lit. homework)!

You Can't Miss: blog

This week, Noisy Decent Graphics has two really good posts I thought I'd share with the class. The designer went to a showing about a graphic design firm in England called Pentagram. One of the designers has such a great poster that he posted on his blog that I just had to show you all. It just shows the power we can display through text and images; this job never ceases to amaze me!
Also on NDG, the question of the week is What would you put in the Graphic Design time capsule to be opened in the year 2130?
This really got me thinking. I would try and gather up some of my favorite designs. First off, I would find a really cool website design I like and print it out to show the template (I can't pick one off the top of my head now...it changes weekly!). I would also throw in a few Entertainment Weekly's and a few city mags (Like Los Angeles or Portland) for good magazine design references. And just for fun, I would throw in a sheet of tattoo designs because I think in 2130 tattooing will have some new form of art being used with live human subjects at gallery shows and such (so it would be interesting to put a piece of tattoo history in there so they could see how good and how bad some people's tattoos actually were in 2007). Keep in mind here that I have a fascination with tattoos, although I have none. I'm too indecisive.
So, after reading my weird rant, what would you put in the capsule?

Critique

My first feature for "Vox" has been an interesting one. I had a difficult time coming up with a concept for the article because it is one of those "already done" topics: interracial dating. I knew I didn't want an all black-and-white themed story so I decided to use three different approaches.
The first one was to use hearts: not my favorite. I kind of made this one knowing it wasn't going to work but just so I could clear my head of the whole relationships and hearts mindset. The second one was a photo-inspired illustration in illustrator using hands and bodies to show a relationship between two races. At the last minute, I decided to put a little strategy drawing around the headline of the X-home team and O-opponents. It was something I knew everyone who'd played a sport could relate to because every coach uses it (even my old cheerleading coach did!). My third rendition has been lost in my computer somehow. I had drawn some illustrations (sort of cartoon-ish) and had a pretty good design going with them, however, my computer thought otherwise. I lost my entire folder of work because of a glitch in the Adobe program I was using! Talk about annoying. This upset did however change my viewpoint on the design—it was too sports-related and not enough relationship and race-related.
I am still trying to get the point across and still working with some drafts, so I thought I'd put up the first draft of the second rendition (the one everyone liked the best). Let me know if you have any ideas or thoughts on it!