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. 

November 8th- Creative Briefs & Visual Language

Today class started with a discussion about Ismael Obregon's GAUGE talk.  Jimmy asked us what we thought about it and I pretty much just stated what I posted in my previous blog entry about Ismael's talk.  It was great to hear my fellow students' opinions an it as well though.  I learned that I was not the only one who's expectations weren't quite met, but we all still seemed to take something valuable from Ismael's presentation regardless.  We then handed in our creative briefs and discussed the importance of presentation.  Some of the class had typed up their briefs while others chose to hand write them.  I chose to type up my creative brief and treat it like the real deal as if I were working for a client in the design field.  Jimmy then described the importance of doing so and showed us examples of actual design creative briefs.  Most were simple and to the point so that the client could easily read and interpret them.  Judging by the examples, I did people well on this assignment.  

Later in the class Jimmy asked us to present 10 images with a single headline that changes the way the viewer sees the image in 10 different ways.  This homework assignment was given weeks ago, so unfortunately I did not have the images with me in class to share.  I was not the only one who did not have the images, so Jimmy let us bring them in the next day we have class.  Thank goodness I didn't miss out on my points for that assignment!  I was freaking out in my mind about missing the assignment I had already done but did not know we were going to present it weeks later.  At least this taught me to always be prepared and to have your work with you because you never know when you might need it.

The Design Process: Stage 6- Communication

This stage in the reading mostly addresses the importance of not only the art of communication, but the art of presentation of idea's, work, designs, etc.  When communicating or presenting, as in all things in life we communicate or present, we must first consider our audience. 

In the reading Aspelund states that, "The different audiences you will be presenting to have different needs and expectations.  Clients, corporate officers, production staff, and fellow designers will be looking for the information they need and will present different communication challenges to you."  This made me realize that you must consider who you are presenting your work to before you decide how you are going to tackle to try to sell them your idea(s). 

Aspelund also describes the four levels on which the information you are dealing with can be when you are presenting a design.  They are: statement, concept detail, and planning.  It is always good to be aware of these three distinctions even if they are all not utilized in your presentation.  Knowing these levels and clearly presenting them will clarify the purpose of your idea and/or design.  The importance of language was also brought up again.  It seems like in every class, presentation, discussion, and homework assignment in this course has had something to do with language and communication.  Realizing this made me zone in on this section of the reading the most.  "The rules of language differ from visual to spoken to written, but in all cases you should be clear and consistent."  Clarity in visual language is a definite key ingredient in design!

The Design Process: Stage 5- Definition/Modeling

This stage of the reading was all about starting to make your design a reality, detail,  and the hierarchy of a design's needs.  This stage is where the design process starts to move away from the exploration stage and moves towards a physical reality.

The author describes a design's needs by putting them into levels.  They are as follows:
Level 1: Functionality
Level 2: Reliability
Level 3: Usability
Level 4: Proficiency
Level 5: Creativity

The part of the reading I was most interested in was where the author described the importance of details and how they effect the outcome of your model(s) and represent your idea.  The author, Aspelund, states, "The correct treatment of these details, whether functional or decorative, is crucial at this stage.  Their definition and treatment will not only influence the outcome of the final design, but their presence or absence of the model will also present your idea in a certain context.  As your model is the first impression your clients and colleagues get of the physical manifestation, a false or inadequate impression can be quite harmful."  This made me realize and pay attention to the fact that as a designer I must be aware of how my models are read by my clientele as well as my peers.  Putting forth the effort into the detail of my models will help my ideas be read more clearly in the physical realm.

Words changing meaning of an image:

GAUGE presents Ismael Obregon

 

Thursday evening, the founder of the design company Oishii Creative, Ismael Obregon, gave a talk at the Music Hall on CSULA's campus.  He started his talk by showing a video called Words and then talking about the importance of visual language in design. This video is not only beautiful, but very effective in displaying exactly what visual language is all about.

WORDS from Everynone on Vimeo.

Ismael then had a question and answer session with the audience, which was composed mostly of my peers and fellow classmates.  This was the part where I learned the most about the design world and what Ismael does.  I appreciate that he wasn't using the talk to promote himself or his company and that he genuinely seems to love design and what he does for a living.  Above everything else this re-inspired me to be continually creative and curious not only with design but everything that surrounds me.  At the end of the question and answer session he said that if anyone would like to visit his company's studio, that they are more than welcome to.  I am definitely going to take him up on that offer!  Who knows, maybe this could lead to an internship opportunity in the future!

November 3rd- 7 Deadly Sins & "Powers of Ten"

Today we brought in our images representing one of the 7 deadly sins.  I'm dyslexic and accidentally brought in 7 images instead of 10.  For some reason I thought there were 10 deadly sins and we had to get 7 images to represent one.  Whoops! 

The sin I decided to represent in the images was the sin of sloth. When the class looked at my images they had a tough time figuring out what sin was represented.  This made me realize that I really need to work on representing something more clearly so that the audience and client can easily read the image.  I found that I read into my images, but the viewers did not.  I was also confused and did not quite know whether the images should be direct or indirect, since in previous assignments the images and words attached to an image were somewhat indirect and changed the meaning of the image.  Even though I made a mistake on this assignment, I definitely learned from it! 

Later in the class we watched a short film by Charles and Ray Eames called Powers of Ten.  This film depicts the relative scale of the Universe in mathematical factors (powers) of ten.  It was a lot of information to take in at once and I was a bit overwhelmed.  I feel that the only way to properly, fully describe it is just to watch it, so here is a link to the short film: Powers of Ten

Our homework assignment is to create a one page creative brief for the film that we watched.  This means that we each have to describe the purpose of the creation of this film by describe the who, what, when, where, why, and how's of it.

November 1st- Absent :(

I unfortunately missed class today.  I'm bummed because Jimmy's class is definitely one I look forward to and I don't want to fall behind.  I did, however, find out from a classmate what was covered in class.  Jimmy discussed the word "methodology" and then the class saw a short film called "Why Man Creates" by Saul Bass.  The class then went over the 10 sketches that he assigned as homework last week, and lastly we have new homework assignment. For this assignment we have to pick 1 sin out of the 7 deadly sins then find 10 images that display it clearly.  This will be difficult for me since personally I have no idea what the 7 deadly sins are and when ever religion is brought up, my mind automatically shuts it out because I believe religion generally does a lot more harm than good to society.  But I need to put my personal thoughts aside and stick to the task of communicating an idea through images, even if the subject isn't to my liking.  Learning to do that will benefit me as a designer.

meth·od·ol·o·gy

noun \ˌme-thə-ˈdä-lə-jē\

plural meth·od·ol·o·gies

1: a body of methods, rules, and postulates employed by a discipline : a particular procedure or set of procedures

2: the analysis of the principles or procedures of inquiry in a particular field 

October 27th- Game Day!

Today was game day!  I was so excited to get to play board games for the whole class period. Despite the fact that I was stoked to play board games for a few hours, I knew that ultimately this was all part of Jimmy's master plan.  Somehow this would teach us something valuable as far as design is concerned.

During the class I got a chance to play two board games.  The first was my childhood, favorite, Candyland and the second was a game I played for the first time called Scrabble.  Maybe I'm just getting old, but I enjoyed Scrabble far more than Candyland.  I think this is because Scrabble requires actual strategy and stimulates the brain, whereas Candyland relies on just pure chance.  Towards the end of class Jimmy assigned us our homework.  Based on our experience with games in class, we had to come up with 10 sketches of our ideas for games. 

October 25th- TED Talks

I think everyone decided to show up to class as zombies today.  We were all physically there, but were unresponsive for the most part.  Maybe everyone just had a severe case of the Mondays.

Anyways, during class Jimmy showed us two more TED Talk videos.  The first video was a talk given by John Maeda and he explained his thoughts on the "laws of simplicity."  The statement that struck me the most during his TED Talk was that simplicity in life is more enjoyment and less pain.  The second video we watched was a talk given by a comic book artist by the name of Scott McCloud.  The thing that struck me the most during his talk was that during the creative process you can view the computer monitor as a page or as a window.  This idea is very important to the design world and made me totally see graphic design in a new way.  During the design process, if you only see the computer monitor as a page instead of a window you are limiting the design as well as your creative potential.  From now on I will make it a point to view the monitor as a window and not contain my design to a page on a computer screen.

Scott McCloud on Comics TED Talk

The Design Process: Stage 4- Exploration/Refinement

This stage in the reading was all about the exploration and refinement of ideas.  The importance of exploring and refining ideas is to come up with and present ideas in a clearer manner.  In the design world, I think this is vital because without being able to effectively explore different ideas to show the client and refine them so that they can be visually read by the client, it would be very difficult to explain your design idea(s).  This reading and these ideas presented in this stage all tie back to when Jimmy was talking about visual literacy as well.

Further in the reading, the author explains how important sketching is in the design world.  Drawing is a language and it is how designers first start to visually express their ideas.  As a designer one must practice sketching ideas all of the time no matter if it is on an old napkin, newspaper, or sketchbook.  This is something I know I need to practice and start doing more of.  Sketching more often will definitely help in improving the visual literacy of my design ideas and encourage myself to pour out all of my ideas on paper so that they are tangible and not forgotten in my thoughts.  I'm going to make it sort of a work out routine for me and sketch out new ideas every day.

The author also mentioned that sketching is not the only form of expressing design ideas, but three-dimensional mediums may also be used.  I found this interesting and I think I am going to challenge myself to build models in 3-D when my ideas call for such mediums. 

Now I'm off to start sketching some ideas I've got in my noggin!