Courtney's Blog

Documenting Lake & Superior St.

2006-05-11T15:24:32Z

Not the finished design, but here's a in process image!

Documenting Place Reflections

2006-05-10T22:18:47Z

Our brainstorming ideas and our ideation process were just thinking about a place where we enjoy hanging out at and that is familiar to us. As a group we love to experience the music and cultural experience of downtown especially at Pizza Luce. Our project went great because from the start we all had the same idea of a abstract/graffitti/worn look and that made it all the easier to complete the project in such a short time. As a team we all shared our ideas and basically just combined them since we were all headed in the same conceptual direction. We decided on the best order for the photographs and picked our favorite font from a big list. For the project, Chris did the photography, Dayna did the illustrations and I did the typography. Overall, it turned out very sucessful. Some problems we had while working were of course the size. We wanted to put it in an album cover and had it all picked out. We found an awesome plain black one with a cut out hole in the middle. It would have worked perfect with the project, except our project ended up being too thick. Then we had the great idea of putting it in a Pizza Luce pizza box, but even that ended up having too small of dimensions. It was really too bad, because they were both great ideas. I think that our project had some great diverse design elements and was very unified. We used a white grid layout over the photos which really tied it into one final piece. I also made sure that the typography would run from one page to the next instead of having seperate sentences on each square. Our design also succeeded at generating visual as well as conceptual suprise. The color was absolutely beautiful (thanks to Chris's awesome camera and printer!) and the dynamic lines and angles of the pictures really help capture the viewer's attention. We just really wanted to capture that funky worn feeling you get from being downtown on Superior Street. As for craftsmanship we decided to mount the photos on railroad board in order to protect the images and keep the piece sturdy. We also used archival tape as our binding in order to protect the photos as well and keep them from not getting damaged. Overall, this project was a lot of fun and I think we pulled it off in such a short time. I think it also helped that we choice the perfect place to document because we all love it so much!

2006-05-06T16:42:36Z

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2006-05-06T16:41:05Z

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Documenting Place Project

2006-05-06T16:34:07Z

Chris, Dayna, and I are working on the Documenting Place project together. We have decided to use the crossroads of Superior Street and Lake Street as the main content of our project. We want to focus on the heart of downtown Duluth and all the cultural experiences that coexist with it. So far the project is going well and we have some great abstract and funky pictures from downtown. This project will be twelve inches wide and twelve feet long. We bought a plain black record album which we are hoping to fit our project in!

Green Man Festival

2006-05-06T16:24:48Z

For our client work project we were given the opportunity to work with two of the main orgainizers of the Green Man Festival. Unfortunately, it didn't go so well and they decided on using other work they had on hand. It was a great experience though just being able to sit down with an actual "real" client. It was also a challenge having to compromise with using someone else's artwork that was a bit hard to work with. Despite not getting to work more with the actual client it was fun being able to design for the festival that happens right here in Duluth.

Green Man Flyer

2006-05-06T16:23:34Z

Green Man T-Shirt

2006-05-06T16:09:14Z

Green Man Poster

2006-05-06T16:01:47Z

Mental Whiplash

2006-04-17T15:42:13Z

In the book Citizen Designer by Steven Heller and Veronique Vienne I came across a very interesting article called Mental Whiplash the Subjects of our Affection. I was immediately captivated by the definition of whiplash which is defined as "a wrenching change in direction." I think it describes our job as designers quite well because we are continuously growing as designers and changing how we solve design problems. Not to mention design is always changing every second! In the article it was mentioned how we as designers have the luxury to learn about the world as we work. One day we could be designing an informational poster on how to give CPR and the next we are designing the interior surfaces of a trendy store. Instead of being stuck doing the same old everyday we are designing for a wide range of things from serious information to commerical seduction to science to pop culture. Because of that we learn about everything and are able to broaden our prespectives.

]]> The article also brought up a very important subject. It talked a lot about content development in a design and as we all know it requires a lot of research to develop a responsible voice in design. It is important to teach students what the appropriate amount of research to conduct and how to research effectively. We need to understand the limitations as well as the usefulness of research and translate those findings into responsible, informative communicational elements.

Reflections Stationary Full View

2006-04-13T04:21:30Z

Reflections Stationary

2006-04-13T04:18:03Z

Green Design Box

2006-02-28T20:22:05Z

Describe the Challenge: To design an eco-friendly product to fit inside an approximately 3.5 by 14 inch box. Describe Your Creative Process: Brainstormed over 100 ideas and picked several of the best ones to decide on the right theme. Describe Your Solution: I decided to make handmade textile stationary cards and a journal made out of entirely recycled papers and natural fibers. List the Box Contents + Design Elements: 2 Stationary cards with envelopes, package of dried flowers and 1 journal. Card insert on back cover box explaining what the paper is made from using the font Zapfino for the brand name Reflections and the font Gill Sans for the rest of the type. Outline the Green Design Features: All the paper used is 100% post-consumer recycled and also made with recycled fibers like roasted coffee bean chaff and hemp fabric scraps. It contains no virgin wood fiber and is acid free as well. List Specific Eco-Friendly Materials Used in this Project: Name of material/where you can find it/how much it costs 100% recycled papers and tree-free papers They can be found at Green Mercantile, www.greenfieldpaper.com and www.twistedlimbpaper.com. Approximate cost for each package of papers are $5.95. Free samples can be found at the Twisted Limb Paper website.

Manifesto Poster

2006-02-28T20:19:51Z

2006-02-28T20:15:59Z