Shopping

Today I went to Home Depot and got the light for my lamp.  I think these default lightbulbs will be alright, but I might experiment with colored lighting etc.  I also went to Michaels and found some glue that I hope will be good for this.  Its called 'Amazing Quick Hold Contact Adhesive". 

I spent a while in the print lab trying to print out designs onto my bristol board sheets but didn't have much luck.  The guy working there and I got one of them to print, but after that it wouldn't work.  So atleast I have a template to base the other 11 sheets off of.

I'm gonna spend the next few days assembling my idea and it should turn out to be pretty interesting.  I'll have to upload some pictures

peace
-caleb

This Week

Yesterday we continued brainstorming and working on ideas for our 'lampshades'.  I am doing a lot of folding and cutting and planning out designs on paper, and I have a few ideas that I think could be really cool.  The only things I'm worried about are gluing edges of paper together and getting them to stay.  I will probably have to get the glue that Margie was talking about that dries extremely fast.  I also need to make sure to have a bunch of process photos.

Also, we got our projects back from last week, which was quite prompt! nice work teachers.

I was pleased with my result, surprised here and there, but I'm actually glad that they are making the process count as 50% with most of these projects because I have really capitalized on them. 

peace
-caleb

What! a Week

Wow
I am so glad to be done with this week
Our design project finished up really well, although we spent ALL week last week and time this weekend working on it.  Tonight I finished mounting all of the individual designs, and pictures in my accordion book.
Rubber cement is pretty lousy, you'd think it would stick really well but I had to go back in and put more in places.  Glue stick baby!

Now I need to finish some things for the Process Work so that my project can be complete

I also have an English presentation tomorrow morning before class, and we had a paper due in Art History yesterday, so it's been a busy and hectic week and I'm so tired.

peace
-caleb

Word Work

So this week our group finished up the 36'' cardboard letters.  We decided not to paint them, but to use brown duct tape to seam the edges of the words.  They look pretty nice and it was relieving to finally set them up somewhere and see what our finished product will look like.  Today, we tried many different locations and orientations for DISPLACE, and we came up with some that we really liked.  We're sort of taking a detour from our original plans of placing the words in Potters lake, and going for something more... dry.

We took a bunch of pictures today and I will post them when I get them on the computer.

peace
-caleb

Another Day

Tuesday the 9th
-Today in class our group cut out most of our cardboard letters and built the 'I' and the 'E'.  We spent most of the time translating the 12'' pieces into the 36'' model and cutting cardboard.  I think we underestimated how big a 3 foot tall letter actually is when building it three dimensionally - we've needed to buy a bunch of sheets of cardboard, which sucks... but hey, what can you do?

All has been well so far, we are staying on track and our letters look pretty nice... I'm excited to spray paint them and check them out at the locations we've thought of.

READINGS:

-Photo OPS: This reading went over some of the basic techniques of creating an interesting composition or specific visual effect through photography, with some exercises to help build on the examples.  Some categories were: symmetry and asymmetry, framing, movement, repetition, close-up (magnification).
--- I feel like I prefer asymmetrical compositions... and the article points out that symmetry comforts the viewer, while asymmetry challenges.  Does this mean I like a challenge? Probably not.
--- I thought they made an interesting point about repetition, and how a speaker uses repetition to emphasize a point or attract attention much like a photographer should.  (or any artist for that matter)


-Documents and Pictures:  This was another reading about photography and the effects of history on the use of photography as art, and the effects of history on photographers and their craft.
--- Some interesting points that were made: Art's value can be measured in proportion to the mental labor employed in it, or the mental pleasure produced by it - according to Sir Joshua Reynolds.  Artists who merely copied an image were viewed as mechanical and mindless, while invention was highly sought after.  This is a concept that I believe still applies today, where creativity and differentiation (invention) are highly valuable concepts of art and is something that artists must constantly strive for.

Over the Weekend

On Friday morning I experimented with Illustrator while I was working on my color designs and I learned a few cool tricks.  I think this project not only helped me when working with color in illustrator but it also helped me exercise my illustrator technique and learning things like the blend tool.  I was having trouble getting the fonts to work even after I downloaded them to the computer, so I had to just copy and paste the "capture"s that I had already typed from earlier... I feel like there are still some ideas that I haven't gotten to explore yet with my word, but I have been able to come up with some cool ideas.

Right now I am uploading my file to the server while waiting for our 4 pm lecture.  The art history test went well today so that was a huge stress relief.

This Week, Dude

This week went by really fast, but its because I've been so busy.  In the last 48 hours, I've spent 24 of them on campus - either in class, doing homework, or painting the new banner for a fundraiser for the ECM (the building west of the oread).  Its been a little stressful, because I have an Art History test on monday and plenty of homework over the weekend.  I've also gotten little amounts of sleep because of how much work I've had to do - I've had to get up early as hell in order to fit it all into my day...

It was nice finishing project three and handing in our projects, but I don't want to move on yet!  We're already fully engulfed in project 4, and I am currently working on the color exercises due Monday on the server.  Thursday's lecture in 315 was a little confusing because its sometimes hard to distinguish what's ACTUALLY due for next class and what is just an exercise or a point the lecturer is making.  It also doesn't help that my laptop ___ing sucks and isn't very portable, has a virus, and needs new sticks of RAM before I can get Adobe Creative Suite.

Despite all of this frustration, I've been getting all of my work done on the school's computers.  Thanks, KU.  After thursdays class I was completely confused, but I stayed after and worked with Margie on my designs and found out EXACTLY what I need to do for monday.  It was hard to come up with questions while we were working on it in class because I don't have a macbook, and couldn't set up my illustrator document and pick my colors like everyone else... but now that I've got my .ai document it all makes sense.

happy times
-caleb

Thursday's Class

Yesterday in class we started the first explorations of project 4 (Typography).  Margie was gone so Chris guided us throughout the few hours.  Basically we cut out our words/letters/paper and tried brainstorming some ideas about typography and using the 6 inch square to convey our verbs.  We spent about an hour and a half and most of us got a solid 6-10 ideas finished for the critique that followed.  At first, my word was a little difficult to come up with ideas for (capture), but the more we work on it the easier it is to find different ways to convey the meaning.  This definitely requires a lot of creativity and pushing yourself to find more ways to think outside of the box with the restrictions we have.  I have a bunch of scraps now and I might have to print off some more 'capture' sheets to finish the 20 'sketches'. 

My process notebook for project 3 is going well so far.  Its about 100x better than it used to be.  I need to type up some of my reflections about the project and other things that are required for the notebook.  As for the poster for the project, I've already printed mine out so its nice to not have to worry about it.

I'm in a good mood (its the weekend), and I feel like Kenny Powers right now, which is not a bad thing.

peace
-caleb

CAPTURE

Today in class we posted our rough drafts of our grids for Project 3.  I thought it was interesting seeing all the razors and staplers etc.  What I had today wasn't quite finished, and now I've revised many of my parameters and touched some of them up with color, placed them on the grid and experimented with the positioning.  I think I have my final version now which has an interesting composition overall while still following the guidelines of the project.

For Project 4:
I've chosen the word CAPTURE... defined as

1. to take by force or stratagem; take prisoner; seize: The police captured the burglar.

2. to gain control of or exert influence over: an ad that captured our attention; a TV show that captured 30% of the prime-time audience.

3. to take possession of, as in a game or contest: to capture a pawn in chess.

4. to represent or record in lasting form: The movie succeeded in capturing the atmosphere of Berlin in the 1930s.

Now I need to get the rest of the materials for Thursday's Class.

peace
-caleb

Continuing

Today was a great day to be a design student... atleast I thought.  It was just a relaxed day, and I got to go to the lab and work on some more things in illustrator.  I'm already getting used to some of the keyboard shortcuts and being able to manipulate things exactly how I want (like in photoshop).  Right now I'm making each parameter in its own 6x6'' .ai document and then I'll put it all together in the end.  It's a lot of documents but Chris told me to do it this way. 

I took the color quiz, and I found it tough to just pick colors off of your own instincts instead of thinking about it too much.  Anyway, I got some funny results:

Your Existing Situation

"Needs extra attention and must feel he is very important to those around him. If he doesn't think he is being spoiled enough, he may shut himself off from others."

My advising appointment is scheduled for Thurs. Nov 4th at noon.  It was basically the only spot open, so I'll have to go during our BDS studio time.  I need to start thinking of some possibilities for a minor.

This Happened

Today we brought in a handful of refined sketches to be put onto the computer and illustrated/refined even more.  I've started with my "cut and paste", "painterly", and "non-traditional" parameters in illustrator.  I've been working on getting a solid gestural sketch that Margie likes - and I think it will be a hassle trying to re-illustrate a gestural (with very loose, sketchy lines) sketch in illustrator... assuming we're supposed to?

Regardless, I think it'll be fun to see everyone's sketches in completely different styles laid out on a grid.  Also, the typography should be interesting.

Let's Put Our Sketches on the Wall

Yesterday was an interesting day in our Think and Make class.  We covered the entire wall of the room with sketches of hand tools.  These weren't just pencil sketches, no.  They were

gestural
painterly
graphical
circles/triangles/squares
photocopier
twig paintings
one line drawings
hand tool functions
textural
take two from this list and put them together
sketches of what our hand tool does to other things
drawings of adjectives (yep, its possible)
extreme abstractions
drawings on kleenex?
typographic

Out of these sixteen categories, we must make cuts until we find our best sketch of each, then we'll put them together to make our dream team. 

Seriously though, I'm excited to refine my sketches, scan them, and start working in illustrator.  I thought it was cool going through everyone's sketches and putting our check marks on the favorites... I wasn't surprised at which ones got check marks for me, but its nice to have other opinions as always.  So today, I'm gonna finish the sketch refinements and get them scanned.  I have

more sketches left.

peace
-caleb (and if you know who that is in the picture, you're awesome)

Thursday

Yesterday in class we began four new sketching parameters for the Design as Communication project.  These are the last four parameters (specific meaning, extreme abstraction,  another surface, and typographic).  I am finished with 'specific meaning' and about done with 'another surface'.  The new surface one is intriguing so far because I tried some watercolor on paper towels the way it dried was interesting.  I plan on working on the rest of the sketches this weekend so I can relax a little.

We are also starting to use the pen tool/illustrator so I'm excited for that.  I'm already pretty familiar with illustrating with the pen tool and making the curves I want, so I'm excited to expand my skills even more.

peace
-caleb

Tuesday

So yesterday we got moving on some more of the sketch parameters for our project. I got about 20 finished for the functionality one, and started a few for the textural depictions of our object. My object, sadly, was broken by my roommate at my house last week, but I'm able to get some more angles on it that were harder to see before. Im still in the process of figuring out which parameters I need sketches for, but I'm excited to start using illustrator to refine my best ideas so far.

My other classes are going well, I feel like I had a strong test performance in Art History this week and had a solid first writing assignment. I need to read the book more though.

Thats how excited I am about having to read more.  That's also the face I make when David Cateforis tells jokes (kidding, he's a nut)

This Week

This was a good week of school.

Yesterday in class we worked on some more sketches, such as sketching our object using only one line, using straight lines, not looking, etc. My object is a toilet scrubber (dish scrubber) by the way. I can tell that my sketching abilities have already improved from this project only. I have about 60-80 sketches so far.

Comics

I enjoyed reading these comics online. It was much more enjoyable than reading a text. There were many great points made, such as the notion that something as simple as a line can have many different connotations behind it. It was also pretty interesting how they pointed out that in a comic, smoke from a pipe has the same lines that come from the stench of a garbage can, and that even when taken out of context, the reader can understand these lines - that they mean it reeks. Illustrating the invisible happens when artists (or anyone for that matter) continually use a certain symbol until it becomes REAL. This is similar to what we're going over in my english class (intro to poetry), we've gone over a chapter about symbolism in poetry, and many symbols become what's called "conventional symbols" - which are exactly what is being talked about in the comic: symbols that are used so often that they acquire a standard significance.

In 2002 when I was in sixth grade, my brother showed me some of the basics on Adobe Photoshop. I had always loved drawing and sketching, so this was a completely new medium to express my creativity. I searched around for tutorials and starting making amateur abstract designs, and looked around on message boards and compared my work. I started making larger things in photoshop around '03 and '04 such as:

http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/9216/dilute.jpg

and

http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/5258/synapse.jpg

and then moved into more Illustrator related design work in about 2005

Now I make stuff like this:

http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/3373/lokedownpreview.jpg
http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/56/shirtgridpreview.jpg

I've always been inspired by people like Justin Maller

http://www.justinmaller.com

and other freelance designers with lots of different styles. I'm excited to expand my skills beyond Photoshop and Illustrator and work with 3D programs, animation programs... whatever. I think it would be cool to try animation and video production, and of course I would be pleased to do almost any sort of design work as a career.

Reflections on our Project

I am glad that we (Caitlyn, Stephanie, Taylor and I) finished our project so successfully.  It was a nice team effort to come together like we did and create a poster and prototype.  I feel like we did a nice job of communicating our ideas and coming to a conclusion of what we wanted to do with our project.

Now its time to move on to the next project, and the first step is to find five "hand-tools" and sketch them out.

Thanks to Margie for letting us out early so we can enjoy our weekend!

peace
-Caleb

I interviewed 5 boring people

Here are my interviews for a 60 cent watergun

Questions:

1) How would you use it?

2) What are the object’s flaws?

3) What’s nice about the object?

Interviewees:

-Derek - age 18

            1) To play with kids

            2) Water leakage, hurts to hold, cheap material, bad trigger

            3) Atleast it didn’t cost much

-Jackson - age 18

            1) To spray at people

            2) Water leakage, trigger is bad

            3) Fills up quickly, shoots far distances

-Samir - age 23

            1) To shoot people but not kill them

            2) Water leakage, gets water everywhere, trigger is too small

            3) Small and portable, shoots far

-Kelly - 30something?

            1) To have water fights

            2) Sharp edges, doesn’t shoot if you don’t hold it straight up, hard to fill

            3) Shoots easily, shoots far

-Jake - age 18

            1) To shoot it

            2) Color sucks, its ugly, water leakage

            3) Doesn’t cost much, fun to shoot

Might as well post about IDEO

Since everyone's doing it, i'll join in.

The IDEO video was a little documentary about how the employees at their company go about their work on a day to day basis.  The guy in a tie and mustache seems like the best boss ever, he's always going from place to place and noticing all the changes to people's cubicles (like hanging their bikes from the cieling) and he seems really enthusiastic about everyone's ideas.  He points out that even the most outrageous ideas are helpful because a more realistic idea can spawn from it.  Some interesting things from the video was their brainstorming process and how they actually build their prototypes.
-As they brainstormed, they put up a big chart and place sticky notes with their ideas in the corresponding category (we tried this in class).  Basically, this helps them figure out the strengths of the product, what needs to be improved, and how they can start improving its design.
-Once their ideas were organized and they figured out what they wanted to do, they visited the grocery store and took pictures of people struggling with the current carts, and took one for a test drive to help find even more problems with the design, asking people's opinions as well to get more perspectives.

In the end, their new cart was built with all of the features they wanted to include, helping improve the function of the cart and giving it a modern look.  Some of the features like hanging the bags up inside the cart, and having temporary boxes for their cargo to prevent theft were really intriguing to me.

When we finished watching the video in our class, I went to my 2:30 entrepreneurship class and we watched the same video and did a case study on IDEO's new shopping cart.

how weird.
-caleb

Art History

So far I've really been enjoying David Cateforis' lectures.  I also feel like I've learned a lot about ancient history (not just art) and I haven't even gotten down to a rigorous study schedule for the class yet.  I like the Greek portion so far, more-so than the Egyptian stuff... and I feel a little inspired by the designs of their architecture (parthenon).

Headed to his class now
-peace

Click my name below.

Caleb Newberg