My Creative Process

Here is my final video for this class!

My Creative Process from Alyssa Moore on Vimeo.

December 1st- Last Class

So today was our last actual class meeting before we meet for finals to turn in our 50 apple renderings and our 5 minute final video about our creative processes.  During class Jimmy just asked us what design classes we were signed up to take during the Winter quarter.  He then told us what we were supposed to get out of those classes and what we should know as a result of taking them.  I found it pretty awesome that a professor is actually interested in the academic process in the graphic design major as opposed to solely focusing on the class.  It's always nice to know that some one wants you to succeed.

Anyways, time to get crackin' on those last few apple renderings and film some stuff for my final video!  I'm just not stoked to hear my own voice played to the class, but it's nothing compared to the big scheme of things.  I'll just have to deal with it.  I can't wait to see what everyone else did for their final video!

November 29th- Beautiful Losers

Beautiful Losers trailer

Monday we spent most of class watching a movie called Beautiful Losers.  After watching the film, Jimmy tried to initiate a discussion in class about what we thought the movie was about.  I gave my answer, but I don't think it was what he was looking for.  Still, it was what I got from the movie and what I thought it was about.  Different people can watch the same thing and get something totally different from it.  If I watched it again I would probably get something totally different from it as well.  Anyways, my answer "It's about doing what you love because you love doing it."  A few other student gave answers but the discussion didn't seem to go anywhere.  Mind you, it's the last week before finals and I take it everyone is either stressed out, exhausted, or hit the wall.  As a result, Jimmy asked us to post in our blogs what we thought the movie was about so here it goes.

According to IMDB this movie is a documentary that, "follows the lives and careers of a collective group of Do-it-yourself artists and designers who inadvertently affected the art world."  True, that's technically what it's about but I'm still sticking with my original answer.  It is about doing what you love (artistically) because you love it.  All of the artists in the film made their art because they loved to do it.  They originally were not looking for profit, they just enjoyed what they did, showed it off to their friends, and had a great time doing it.  Most of the film talked about a gallery one of the artists in the film opened called Alleged Gallery.  This was a gallery in a crappy part of New York city where he and his friends showed their artwork and had parties.  This gave them a real sense of community and sparked a real do-it-yourself art phenomenon in not only New York, but around the country.  At one point, Aaron Rose, the founder of Alleged Gallery talks about worrying about not being able to pay rent for the gallery but shows still went on and the artists continued creating and showing their work because they loved to create.  Alleged was a great influence on what street art is today and pretty much introduced it to the world as being art even though it it not traditional art.

Looking back on it, for the most part I think the film was about the introduction & rise of do-it-yourself art & street art and doing it strictly because the artists loved their art form(s) and creating things from nothing.

The Design Process: Stage 7- Production

Wow, is this really the last of our reading for this class?  Hard to believe.  Anyways, here goes my last reading response...

Production is the last stage of the design process, but the job is not quite done yet.  The idea must now become an actual object.  To make this happen you must work with a production team and the feedback you have received in order to produce the best possible outcome for the object that was once merely an idea. 

Aspelund also discusses the importance of prototyping and testing during the production process.  There are three different types of prototypes, which are: concept prototype, throwaway prototype, and evolutionary prototype.  Aspelund describes the prototype model as being a representation of the idea that can be roughly thrown together but it's main purpose is to communicate the basic concept to the design team as well as the client.  A throwaway prototype is a model that is created to test a particular aspect of the design, which most often is functionality, interaction with environment, and exploration of the object's scale.  Evolutionary prototyping is used when specifications are not certain or need to be explored further.  Changes can be made to this prototype as new decisions are made and explored.  Aspelund states that it is very important that one must not confuse the prototype with reality.

Part of the reality of designs are the decisions made based on budgets, scheduling, materials/aesthetics, and sustainability.  A designer's job is about making choices and these choices are highly influenced by budget, time allotted for the project, and materials.  These choices will all effect the outcome of the object.
Lastly, Aspelund reminds me that I must not forget to always document my projects as a designer.  I have learned the hard way about the importance of this due to crashed hard drives, but another reminder doesn't hurt.  As a designer I must keep a record of all of my work and keep it neat and organized for future reference.  Who knows when I might need it later for my portfolio or as an example for a client.

November 17th- Dreaming About Finals

 

In today's class we watched a PBS documentary called What Are Dreams?: Inside The Sleeping Brain.  The documentary mostly dealt with scientific studies about dreams and their purpose.  In one study they found that REM sleep (dream-state sleep) boosted creativity, but another study found that too much REM sleep led to a tendency for depression.  I found this interesting and tied this back to the idea in one of the TED Talks we watched previously in this class where the author of Eat Pray Love talked about the reputation of artists and creative minds being depressed and self-destructive.  Maybe creativity and a tendency towards depression actually have a scientific link? Hmmm...

Of course Jimmy found a way to cleverly relate this to our class.  Since REM states of sleep boost creativity and can stimulate ideas he assigned us all to think about our final project before we go to sleep and then hopefully dream about it and spark some ideas for how to go about completing it.

Our final for this class is to create a video that somehow shows our particular creative process and what graphic design means to us and why we are in the field of design.  It's basically a self analysis.  Coming up with a plan on how to effectively display this clearly and creatively in a video will be challenging.  I hope that whole dreaming up ideas thing works!  I'm more of a nap person, so getting REM sleep will prove to be a challenge in itself for me.  Oh, and the final will be posted onto this blog for all to see as well!

November 15th- Stuck at SFO

So this morning I was supposed to catch a flight back to LAX from SFO at 7:30AM and then jet off to class from there.  I had no such luck.  Unfortunately, my flight had been delayed and I was stuck in San Francisco for a few more hours.  Luckily I had my laptop and got my reading review for this class finished during my wait, but I was bummed I had to miss class since I always learn something of value in every one of Jimmy's class sessions.

During my trip to San Francisco to visit my twin sister for the Veteran's Day holiday weekend, I stopped by Clarion Alley in the Mission District.  For those of you going to San Francisco in the future and enjoy seeing street art I highly suggest it.  Plus, it's not your typical touristy thing to do and it shows off what a great artist community San Francisco is.  Here are some pictures my sister & I took of the art work at Clarion Alley:

 

 

 

 

November 10th- Binaries & Beauty

 

When we all signed our roll sheet for class Jimmy noticed that today's date was a binary number because it's digits only consisted of 1's and 0's.  The date was 11-10-10 or 111010 in binary.  Of course by noticing this, it sparked up a group discussion and problem solving exercise that Jimmy came up with.  He gave us the binary equivalents for the numbers 1through 7 and had us as a group try and figure out the next 3 binary numbers based on the pattern(s) of the previous seven.  After about half an hour of group discussion and problem solving, a majority of the class was convinced that they had found the correct next 3 binaries, but I was not convinced.  The group had not sold their idea to me, which is a strategy worth learning and utilizing in the world of design.  Anyways, I decided to do some research and these are the correct binaries for numbers 1 through 10:

The remainder of the class was spent sharing the ten images with one tag line for those who did not have them in the previous class session.  I presented my set of images and my tag line was "beauty."  The picture posted above was by far my strongest image in the set of 10 since it can be read many different ways by the viewer even with the tag line.  Because of this, Jimmy decided to keep it to use as an example.  How do you read this image?  I also purposely chose the image to poke fun at the fact that everyone in the class is working on their 50 apple renderings, which from some light laughter when I showed the image to the class I think they got the inside joke.