My Positive & Negative Characteristics

I would like to think that we can all improve. Upon identifiying my positive attributes aswell as my negative attributes as a teammate, I have been given the opportunity to reflect on them, and establish how I contribute to a group and how I can negativly impact a group.

Growing up as a Canadian kid, playing hockey was my life. It is a sport unlike any other for building many skills, and comradery and teamwork skills are the major ones. Hockey binds together not just the players on the team, but the coaches as well. In order for the team to be success, everyone must pull their weight, and contribute positively to have success. A team is only as string as the sum of its parts, and everyone has the ability to effect the outcome. This translates to not just graphic design, but any profession or function in life that requires working together to acheive success. Each memeber must acknowledge their own strengths and weaknesses so that they may be active contributers.

POSITIVE
My positive team attributes would be that I am adaptable, c0-operative, hardworking, open minded, and helpful to all members. I look at myself as a leader when it comes to group work as well. A good leader supports his or her teammates ideas and offers support and direction. I have always been an adaptable person, because sometimes you need to sacrifice personal views for the greater good of the group, and I have no problem doing so if its going to benefit the solution. Working hard is certainly something that my parents stressed on me, and every member of a group should be willing to work hard to to achieve a positive result. I like to always help others, even outside of the group, to make sure everyone is getting the most out of a situation as they can. A good group member pulls up their teammates when they are falling.

NEGATIVE
If there is one thing that studying graphic design has taught me, it is that you must be willing to openly accept constructive criticism, and not take it personally. My negative attributes are that I can become to attached to an idea, flighty, passive, complacent, and unrealistic. I have found myself many times were someone or myself proposes an idea and I get excited about it and don't focus on other ideas proposed. I know this is contradictory to me being open minded, but the thing is I am still willing to discuss other ideas and make the right decision for the job at hand. Sometimes during a project, I can find mt mind wandering off to other things. Imagination is a great thing, but I sometimes do not focus enough on the task at hand. One attribute that really bothers me about myself is that I can be very passive. I don't like to make other people feel bad, and I like to hear what everyone has to say because they have a valuable opinion, but this can result in me not voicing my opinion strongly enough. I have really been trying this semester to develop my creative process and open-up my creative mind to all projects. This has resulted in me coming up with great but unrealistic ideas at times. I recently developed a concept for a Hard Rock Cafe shopping bag that would be made out of leather and un-zip like a leather jacket to reveal a t-shirt underneath. While it was a great idea, it was really unrealistic for me to create, so the solution was effected because of this.

people that have influenced me

This topic is a particularily broad one for myself, as I feel that it is impossible to single out one person as being the most influential on my life. We are deeply influenced by the people we grow up with, and the people we choose to be around, however, everyone that has ever taught me something or given me advice has contributed to my growth as a person. I feel that all these people that have influenced me have allowed me to learn a diverse array of lessons, and experience life in ways that have allowed me to expand my mind. I will attempt to credit them all, but for the sake of this blog, I will focus on the ones that are closest to me.

My parents are a gigantic influence on me. They taught me my first lessons and instilled in me the values that have made me into the person I am today. They preached discipline, hard work, and never giving up on your dreams. My father made it very clear that I have a dream and never let anyone stand in my way of reaching it. My coaches in hockey had similar values and further reinforced them on me through hard work and dedication. My parents also made it clear that you work hard and finish what you start.

Teachers throughout my educational career have had great influences on me as well. Consistently through the years, they preached working hard, but also being open minded and thinking for myself. My high school art teacher contributed to these influences in a large way. She helped me to think "outside of the box" and to be aware of the power that we wield as creative people. We have the ability to influence people in our society with pieces of work that cause them to see things differently, and to raise awareness towards different issues. She was always very positive, and never overly critical. I felt that this was good because as a high school student, you are trying to develop and gain confidence in you abilities as you choose a career path, and harsh criticism, while constructive, can be detremental, as it can be received the wrong way.

I feel that all the people I have been around have influenced me and have contributed to the development of my mind. As a creative person, these experiences and lessons are vital as I can bring them back to my work as a graphic designer/artist.

Kevin King's Design Manifesto

1. Allow for the bad ideas – in the conceptual stage, write down anything that comes to mind, even the bad ideas, as parts of them may form the basis of a great idea.

2. Do not rush the conceptual stage – The computer is just a tool, a very sophisticated tool. It does not dictate your creativity, you do. The most time on a project should be spent researching the brand/product/service, writing down thoughts and ideas, and sketching down concepts freely and in an explorative manner, so that all creative options and solutions may be viewed without the constraints of the computer.

3. Experience life – Get out and enjoy life. Whether you are a designer or not, experiences outside of your normal realm will make you a more creative person and more knowledgeable as well, and can be brought to the table for any project. You only live once. Enjoy it!

4. Be passionate – Anything you do in life, especially something like a job, should be something you love and are passionate about. In a field such as graphic design, being passionate about your work and the profession is essential to producing good work and finding the ambition to put in countless hours of work on a project. Great ideas come from people who are passionate about their work.

5. Think about constraints later – although design may be created in response to constraints, it is important to not let them cloud your creativity in the conceptual stage. Think of all your ideas, push them as far as you can, and be free of constraints in this earliest stage. After you have generated several awesome ideas, pull them back and make them work within these constraints.

6. Work around others – People make design what it is. It is a response to their needs. Working in a confined area all the time with no outside interaction limits your insperation and ignores the very people you are designing for. Even if it is not other designers you work around, dialogue between you and them will open your mind to what they want to see, and will allow for feedback and open, fresh thought.

7. Beware the computer – We love our macs, but they can be the worst thing for us as designers and thinkers. All those fancy effects and tools that seduce us into designing solely for the asthetic, and can force us into using the same styles and visual solutions over and over again, making them old and boring. Think on paper with a pencil first, as their are no limits to what you can do or create, then use that sophisticated tool to make it all slick and mass-producable.

8. Theres no such thing as a stupid question – If there was, mankind would not be where it is today. Ask anything and get answers. Learning is one of our greatest tools and we can never expand our knowledge if we don't ask questions.

9. Do not fear failure – We learn from making mistakes, from childhood to death. Do not be afraid of mistakes, embrace them. A grade is symbol that does not necessarily help us. Our mistakes force us to learn and become educated, therefore school is about learning from mistakes and not grades, as is life in the professional world.

10. Indulge into Typography – As graphic designers, words are essential to how we communicate and so is the type we choose to set those words in. Allow yourself to become addicted to it. Take the time to select an appropriate typeface and apply the typography in a way that gives meaning to the word. Type is ever-changable. Manipulate it in creative ways, draw your own, look at other designers type use, look at typographic art, and study the history of type and its current trends to better understand the fonts you are working with and why you chose them.

20 words relating to my design theory

1. Function
2. Visual
3. Asthetic
4. communication
5. Ideas
6. Form
7. logic
8. composition
9. purpose
10. simplicity
11. innovation
12. thinker
13. reaction
14. educate
15. inform
16. strategy
17. create
18. creativity
19. reason
20. sketch

Revised "Design Is" Statement(1)

Design is the communication of ideas and messages that speak to a target market in a way that appeals to them both visually and functionally.

Design Is…

Design is the communication of ideas and messages through visual means that are both asthetically pleasing and functional to the target audience.

Information Usage

The following is a documentation of how much technology I used during a given week. The information is broken into categories and the day amount of time spent using the technology on a given day of the week.

READING (books, magazines, newspapers):

Mon: 1 hour
Tues: 30 minutes
Wed: 0 hours
Thurs: 20 minutes
Fri: 30 minutes
Sat: 0 hours
Sun: 1 hour

LISTENING TO RADIO:

Mon: 0 hours
Tues: 0 hours
Wed: 0 hours
Thurs: 0 hrs
Fri: 20 minutes
Sat: 30 minutes
Sun: 20 minutes

LISTENING TO MUSIC:

Mon: 2 hours
Tues: 2 hours
Wed: 1 hours
Thurs: 2 hours
Fri: 30 minutes
Sat: 30 minutes
Sun: 30 minutes

WATCHING TV, MOVIES:

Mon: 0 hours
Tues: 30 minutes
Wed: 2 hours
Thurs: 2 hours
Fri: 3 hours
Sat: 4 hours
Sun: 5 hours

SENDING E-MAILS:

Mon: 30 minutes
Tues: 30 minutes
Wed: 30 minutes
Thurs: 10 minutes
Fri: 0 hours
Sat: 10 minutes
Sun: 0 hours

CD design process: Final Stages

Well, I have reviewed the feedback I recieved on last mondays class and have arrived at my design solution for the Humber Jazz Ensembles "Prologue" CD. I am confident that my design will work well for the CD as it does not create any false associations or mis-communications with the Jazz legends such as Michael Stern and Kurt Elling, and the actual members of the Jazz ensemble. It would have been nice if they included some images of the actual Jazz ensemble, but I made the best of my resources.

I have taken a strictly typographic approach as of now, allowing the type layout to express the emotions of the Jazz music contained in the CD, as well to signify "prologue", but not blatantly, as the client does not want that.

I will welcome feedback monday and make any necessary changes before I get the CD prepared at CanClone for the deadline.

Preliminary Design Process

Upon embarking on the Humber Jazz Ensemble's CD project, I began by taking into consideration the time constraints that will be present with this project. I thought about how much time I will have for developing a concept and producing a mock-up CD case for the client presentation.

After considering this, I started by conducting a research of the Humber Jazz Ensemble, or better yet, the entire music program at Humber, to get a feel for the atmosphere and aspirations of the faculty and students. I then proceeded to read through the client brief that I recieved in class, and tried to get a good feeling of what this CD means to the students and the Jazz company. I did some additional research on the meaning behind the word "prologue", which is essentially the introduction to a beginning, or the introduction to a story.

From the research, I was able to conduct a type hunt, where I searched for typefaces that I felt related best to the message being communicatied from my research and ones that would communicated the feelings and emotions of the music and CD contents most appropriately. This stage is so critical in my personal research procedures as ensuring a proper typographic vernacular is critical for me, as I use the type and the feelings and tone being communicated in the type to develop layouts and other visual elements for a piece.

I then produced several thumbnail sketches and figured out how the layout was going to function upon assembly. I explored several layout options and type treatments. This project is one in which how the type is handled will have a profound effect on the success of the design solution.

After thumbnails I moved to the computer and produced a template layout. From there I applied my concepts and explored type setting methods, as well as the application of the photographs to the layout. I printed off my layout variations and will present them to Heather on Monday.

How do I create?…

I am a person that survives on my creative thinking. Whether I am designing a logo or cooking something for dinner, I rely on my creative process to solve problems that arise in all facets of my daily life. The world we live in can be a very difficult place for a creative person to thrive and develop, primarily in the early years of their lives, because it is constantly thwarted by those who educate us. Even though we face these obstacles, it is still possible for the creative mind to find an abundance of outlets to feed and develop in the world that we live in today.

Ken Robinson's TED talk brought up some important realizations of my childhood and adolescent years that I had not quite reflected on before. From literally the time we are taught to read and write or count to ten, it is being implanted in our brains to follow a system and conform to the norm, or what is considered "right". Emphasis is clearly placed on school subjects such as math, science, and english, all which could have such wonderful creative outlets, to which specific methods are deemed correct. Through the class discussion after the TED film, it became apparent to me that my classmates feel the same way, and as well that math and science were not their favourite subjects. But what if math, science, and english forced students to not only learn how to do the questions, but create answers of their own? Math and science courses would be so much more enlightening if students were required to develop their own formulas to solve problems, and to think of new theories on how to get accurate solutions. The great masters of these fields such as Fibbinacci, Descartes, Newton, and Einstien used their vast creativity to develop their theories, and they acheived this by being open to the world around them and exploring multiple ideas until they reached their conclusion. If students were not frowned upon by thinking creatively, and rather embraced, they would be better prepared for the future that awaits them and they would be more intelligent because of it.

I noticed from the excerpted 100 habits list that graphic designers can draw their creative inspiration from such a wide variety of places and activities, and that we must be outgoing and willinging to try new all the time so that we may add to that creativity. I feel that I draw my creative inspiration from looking at the everyday world around me because the everyday world is what/who we are designing for and if we can draw any elements out of it that can aid the design process, then it will in return result a design that relates better and communicates more effectively to the viewer/user. I like to observe my surroundings and draw inspiration and ideas from the nature and landscape that I am a part of. From nature to architecture, I find form and functinality as well as beauty that can be applied to graphic design in numerous ways.

I the creative and designer am a person that wishes to explore multiple ideas and concepts, and draw inspiration from all my surroundings so that I may arrive at a creative solution that appropriately communicates, informs, and educates the viewer, and to use my creativity in a way that opens up new concepts and theories that make the world a better place to live in.

What is Design?

Design, regardless of whether it is Graphic or Industrial, is required to solve a specific problem pertaining to the market in which it has been commissioned for. It is not solely decorative nor functional, rather it is these elements working together cohesively to produce an end result that is both pleasing to the eye and practical to the user.

Graphic Design follows these rules, only its function is to communicate a message to a specific target market that informs and educates the audience in a creative and aesthetically pleasing way. Design is therefore a direct result of the information or product in which it is communicating on behalf in order for it to be visible by its target market. It is the combination of creativity and communication working together to arrive at a solution that effectively speaks to the target audience and influences decisions.

I feel that when I design that I am in control of peoples perceptions and knowledge of a brand or product, and I feel as though it is my role to communicate in an aesthetically pleasing way and also a clear and concise way that effectively informs and educates the target audience in a visually pleasing way. I get excited when I experience good design because aesthetics and function have come together to produce something informative and enjoyable that speaks to its intended audience.

My overall view on Design is that it is essentially taking a communication problem and solving it by using both aesthetic and functional elements that inform and educate the appropriate target audience in a creative way, and subsequently influences action and decisions by the viewer.