Elee Holtermann's blog

For this project I wanted to see if I could find all of the letters in the alphabet in nature. I tried to avoid any letters that could have been formed by people interacting with it and find them as nature had placed them however I failed to do this for some more difficult letters. I walked around through the woods and looked around trees and leaves on the ground to find interesting shapes that might lead to any of the letters in the alphabet. Some of the letters that I struggled with were Q, R, and N.

For the Jack and Jill project we were separated into groups and asked to come up with a story that was our own interpretation of the children’s story Jack and Jill and illustrate it using only random clip art icons. My group went back and forth on a few ideas and we ended up wanting to portray a romantic story through birds that fell in love and were torn apart by an evil cat. This being along the lines of a children’s story we wanted to make the imagery slightly more graphic to make it less Disney like. At first I was really concerned that we wouldn’t be able to illustrate our story very well using the icons that we were given but I was really surprised that when we came together how well we did putting icons together to make exactly what we needed in our story.  I think that overall everyone did an awesome job in my group and I was really happy with the finished product.

For this project I started off outlining and painting over a map dividing sections of a city with different colors. When I looked over my painted map of Savannah I noticed that when I had sectioned off areas of the city and painted them it started to give the impression of a much older and simplistic kingdom rather than this urbanized, well planned out city. I really liked this idea and I wanted to take it a step further. I decided to take a section of the large city of Helsinki Finland and protray it in a much more oldfashioned layout on a map as if it was broken up into colonies. I did this in illustrator and photoshop and wanted to fuse the ancient layout of a map with a newer less traditional style. I like the idea behind this piece, restoring simplisity to a very urbanized and complex city.

Blogs are an awesome way to stay up to date with new artwork and designs. There is such a wide variety of art available and it’s really inspiring to be able to visit various artists blog’s and see what sort of new types of work they are putting out. I view blogs almost everyday whether it’s sketching, skateboarding, music, industrial design, plastic models, or houses I’m able to see new work straight from the artists/producers themselves without having to go to a museum or a convention. I’m also able to read about their insights and processes creating a much clearer understanding of the point the artist is trying to make with their work.

 One of my favorite blogs is www.uncrate.com which shows new products  that have a strong design background and have a very different concept or purpose making it stand out in the competing market. Uncrate strives on being ahead of it’s time and diverse in its content and this is definatly why I enjoy reading it so much. It’s so interesting to see these new concepts that could potentially become an important part of our lives and to see exactly why the designer came up with it.

Another great blog that I visit frequently is www.sketch-a-day.com . This is such an awesome blog to look at and read because it’s a really talented sketching and marker rendering artist posting a new sketch everyday and explaining his process and technique. I’ve actually learned a lot from this blog and would recommend visiting sites like these to gain a better understanding and different perspective of the things that interest you. I’m also a big fan of how this site is very consistent with posting really impressive work everyday.

www.smashingmagazine.com is another one of my favorite blogs which posts website and graphic designer’s work. In this catagory of a blog there is a lot of competition but I think that smashing stands out from the rest because of how nicely it’s layed out and how much time is spent working on the blog. One of the things that really stands out to me about this site is that they spend a lot of time designing graphics and layouts that could be sold but rather they release them for free to their viewers. This is an awesome concept and definately helps get your audiences attention.

For this Piece I was looking for a motif that would do something completely unexpected when it was repeated in a grid. I chose this thumbnail because it had a really interesting shape as well as various small shapes within itself that could become something visual when repeated. I was pleased with how this piece turned out and I think that my favorite part about this construction is how it forces your eye to flow through the grid

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Hey everyone I’m Elee Holtermann a first semester transfer student majoring in Industrial Design here at SCAD. I’m from Connecticut where I was previously studying Industrial and package design at the University of Bridgeport. Like many others I’m interested in various different fields of design like graphic, furniture, environmental, and fashion design. Even when I’m super busy with my studies I do my best to keep up with my various side projects. It’s nice to step away from the computer screen every once and awhile and actually build things with your hands. I think what got me to where I am today was that moment when I first started considering my side projects as more than just a hobby. I started off building and shaping skateboards for me and my friends and from there I just started expanding on a few other projects that I had always wanted to do. I enjoy building furniture pieces as well as silk screening clothes and canvases. My favorite part about Industrial Design is how it requires various different skillsets in order to see your product to it’s finished state. As much as I love designing the product it’s really intimate for me to see a 3d model of my product and see exactly how it would look in the hands of the consumer.

Other than my work I love music, I listen to almost everything and a lot of my inspiration comes from going to concerts and finding new sounds that I had never heard before. Sometimes I get burnt out on my work so there’s a few sports/activities I like to do to get my mind off of things. My favorites are skateboarding, snowboarding, and playing rugby.

I’m looking forward to our Design 1 class, I feel like it will touch upon a lot of the fundamentals of design that my old school never went over. Feel free to give me your honest opinion on any of my work, I can only grow from others insight.

-Elee

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