So before I started coming to SCAD, I had a very different approach to completing projects and jobs for clients.  I would do a little research, complete some thumbnails, do a rough, proof to client, make changes, and complete the job.  It was almost robotic, just me going through the motions to get the job done.  It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the job and didn’t have fun with the experience, it’s just that I had a way of doing things that developed my Senior year in college and further developed working for companies that wanted quick turn around.  I had go-to fonts, a place to get stock images, and a way I did things.  It was who I was and I was stubborn to change.

Now, I have had to take a step back and really examine the way I carry myself through the process.  Get out of my comfort zone. “Think wrong,” would be the accurate description.  It’s been hard.  You always find yourself slowly drifting back to the way you do things.  It’s not wrong, it just pigeon holes you into a category.  As a designer, I want to be good at what I do, and sometimes that means being awful at trying something completely out of the ordinary.  Taking a different route to work, going somewhere new for lunch, buying a book that you would never buy.  Things I have been trying to do to make me better.  It hasn’t been easy but it has to be done.

Will I ever completely stop doing certain things like using Avenir or Pantone 2995.  Probably not…it’s who I am and it’s my own personal touch on certain things.  However, will I maybe  use other techniques to create a certain project…sure, why not.

I would like to discuss something that has been on my mind for a while. Back in 2010, on Rodger Ebert’s Blog on the Sun Times website, he discussed his idea the video games would never be considered a form of art. “Video games can never be art…Having once made the statement above, I have declined all opportunities to enlarge upon it or defend it. That seemed to be a fool’s errand, especially given the volume of messages I receive urging me to play this game or that and recant the error of my ways. Nevertheless, I remain convinced that in principle, video games cannot be art. Perhaps it is foolish of me to say “never,” because never, as Rick Wakeman informs us, is a long, long time. Let me just say that no video gamer now living will survive long enough to experience the medium as an art form. (Ebert). As an avid gamer, I would like to strongly disagree with this statement.

I am a gamer (if you didn’t catch that last part). Have been all my life. It started when my father gave me his old Atari 2600 when I was but a we lad. I have watched games grow from 2 color pixels on a screen to media that resembles big Hollywood movies. First, I would like to raise the question, what is art? Art is the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form. That right there makes video games art by default. Video games creators imagine whole worlds, with stories, missions, and characters from scratch. It takes concept artists to draw roughs of what everything will look like even before it is brought to the computer.

Skyrim was one of the most ambitious games to hit store shelves.

Films are considered art today.  But what is the difference between films and art?  How does one get the honor of being a celebrated artistic medium, while the other is a scapegoat for fat kids, and good for nothing teenagers?  It’s the fact that many people don’t understand video games or the amount of heart and soul designers and artists (yes I said artists) put into these projects.  Take a look at 2 examples.  One is from the game Okami.  The whole design is based around Japanese woodblock art.  It is a beautiful game that won up to 15 awards in the video game design community, but most people have no idea what it is.

The other example is a very popular children’s cartoon that has won awards from Emmys to Golden Reels.

I love Spongebob Squarepants.  I think the cartoon is hilarious and great for kids, but you can’t tell me that Okami is not fun to look at and just loose yourself in.  That is what art is to me, anything that you can lose yourself in and just enjoy everything it has to offer.

While Roger Ebert may not feel that video games are an art form, I have to strongly oppose.  Then again, I guess it’s is up to the viewer what they reprieve as art.  All I know is that I will be enjoying the emotional roller coaster that is video games, and I hope someday to allow my kids the same opportunity.

When I started research for my Methodologies Class, I had just a broad topic.  I knew I wanted to do something relating to color, but I had no idea what.  What about color interested me?  What about something we see everyday, and often take for granted did I want to spend grueling hours researching.  That’s when it hit me, color has such a huge impact on our lives that often times we don’t even realize it.

Most if not all of us have a favorite color, and this whole idea of Color Psychology helps, at least in a small part to explain why.  You can use color to get people to buy things, and even to invoke emotions.  How ridiculous is that?!?  You have the power to control the hearts and minds of people by the color of a logo.  Change the paint in your bedroom and you can effect sleeping patterns.

There is so much that has yet to truly be understood about this topic of color and the effects on the human brain, I just hope I can harness it for my own selfish needs.

For this assignment, we were each assigned 3 words.  Using these words, we were asked to make a list of all the words that came to mind with these words.  These words could be synonyms, antonyms, even words that related to other words on the list.  We were then asked to send our lists to 2 other classmates and have them add to the list.  This assignment in general was an interesting one.  It helped us to learn to think about everything and not hesitate in writing down the words.  This is a good technique for designers to just get things out of their head and onto paper.  It also teaches designers not to restrict themselves to the first ideas and to keep pushing.  Finally, it helps train the designers to work as a team by bouncing ideas off of one another.  While at first glance this assignment may seem rather easy, it was just the opposite.  It wasn’t that it was difficult coming up with words.  It was a challenge to come up with words that weren’t already used, or to know when to stop.  All in all, I enjoy working with other to bounce ideas off of, and hope to work with my classmates again.

I’d like to get something off my chest if I could…Of course I can this is my blog after all.  I would like to talk for a minute about the importance of typography in design.  Now most of us being Grad students understand, that type is just as important as the images that accompany it.  Why then is it that I see many designers out there who just don’t understand anything about kerning, leading or even not to use 40 different type faces together.  I remember my first year as a design student I was required to take one semester of typography.  I could take another if I choose, however it wasn’t required.  I think there is just too much to comprehend with only 4 months of a typography course.  I think it should be required to take at least a full year if not more.

Type needs to be respected and understood.  It says a lot about a designer when they can understand basic aspects of typography.  I would love to hear so horror stories from teachers or professionals about this topic.  Feel free to leave them in the comments section below.

Many times during the day I find myself distracted by articles on various blogs and around the internet.  Some deal with World News, a lot deal with football, and even more still deal with design.  I read everything from business aspects of design to what other designers are doing.

I recently came across and article on Computer Arts Magazine’s website discussing the idea of collectives.  Now I’ve never really thought about it, but starting something like a collective is actually a really helpful way for a freelancer to get their name out their and but have the ability to help others out if they get over whelmed.  It also brings to light the fact that even though many of us look forward to being our own boss, the lack of social interaction we experience during the work day can leave us feeling isolated.  Starting something like what the designers in the article did, allows you to gain the support of other designers and to build up your reputation, even if you lack some of the marketing skills to get the bigger clients.  They do say that some of the drawbacks are that instead of being within one studio many of the designers are placed around the country or across the globe.  This makes it difficult to meet or to do critiques as much as they would like.  However, I think that for people looking to break out this could lead to developing a really good team of designers with different ideas and styles.

One could also look into starting something with artists with different strengths and weaknesses.  For example a web guy, an illustrator, a copywriter, and so forth.  Where as everyone will have the ability to design something or work on different projects, they will all be able to come together to develop something extraordinary for clients.

I’d like to delve into a discussion on the why the client is important to the design process.  This goes along with the paradigm shift in graphic design, where the designers hold onto vast amounts of knowledge and create, they are now forced to become teachers and explain the process behind what they do.  The typical process goes client comes to designer with need.  This can range from logo, branding or just a flyer. The designer will then go to work on ideas, doing thumbnails, roughs, and finally developing an idea to near completion. Finally the designer submits it to the client for approval, where the client will either approve the design or make changes and the process begins again.

Here is where becoming a teacher can really become beneficial to the process.  Sitting with a client during the initial thumbnail, or rough phase can help you explain to the client why you are using certain color, typefaces, or images.  This opens up a discussion between you and the client.  Sometimes clients don’t give a designer all the information at first.  Whether it’s because they don’t believe it is relevant or maybe it’s because they didn’t even think about it at the time, this discussion allows all ideas between both parties to come out and opens new doors. Also, opening a discussion with the client shows that you are just as interested in their company or product as they are, possibly leading to new work.

Design today is a team oriented career.  Yes it is true that there are  small 1 or 2 man operations that do quite well, this is no longer the norm.  Some of the greatest design breakthroughs have been between good designers and non-designers.  All I ask is that we embrace people who have little to no idea what it is we do and figure out why.  Why do they like the way something looks?  Why did they choose that color over another one?  Answering these questions will not only make the client happy, but it will make you a better designer.

Trying to come up with the near impossible task of defining an idea or concept is enough to drive someone insane. I remember telling my parents I wanted to go to school for design; “So you’re going to doodle pictures all day?” Now don’t get me wrong, my parents have been supportive in everything I do, whether they agree with it or not. But I couldn’t help feeling like being a designer was no better than that kid in elementary school who kept eating all the glue. However, graphic design is more than that. So what is it exactly?

Personally, I feel that graphic design is relaying a lot of information to a lot of different people in a way that is understood by as many as possible. It’s using ideas and concepts in such a way, that you are able to tell a story. It’s using color a type to evoke emotion on the viewer. To me, graphic design is one of the most important concepts in human development, A single idea that is understood by all. A good example of this is the stop sign. No matter where you are, the concept is still the same.  When you see an red octagon you know that 99% of the time it means stop.  Now sure there are variations but in general it is the same idea.

Using this basic idea of graphic design is how I have tried to explain it to people for the past three or four years. Unfortunately, there is so much more that I don’t understand and hope to achieve within the next few years.