color picker.

In Professional Practices on Thursday, the group that I am part of – the identity group – was able to help choose colors for our final logo and overall color scheme. We were lucky enough to at least be in on the decision-making process with Casey and Leslie, which was definitely a good experience. I have used and learned a little bit about Pantone colors before, mainly from Tricycle, but this was a pretty short and intense lesson about everything Pantone. Leslie has an amazing full set of Pantone swatch books that we learned how to use and how not to touch, and even though Casey had chosen some of the best color schemes for his logo already, it felt good to be there to agree on the finals.

Pantone swatch books are made to be an exact match to the colors that your final printed (if printed at a legitimate printer) piece will consist of. They mix the colors to the exact number and put a little touch of each in each different Pantone book. There is a few different options that will affect your final outcome, depending on the type of paper you use and what you are using it for. The most commonly used options are the Pantone solid coated and solid uncoated

Set of Pantone swatch books

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Although this Pantone set wouldn’t be incredibly useful for most of the student project we put out right now – not to mention way to expensive for most of us – it was awesome to have the chance to learn about one more thing that we may not have gained very much information on until getting into the workplace. Thanks Leslie, for risking your swatches in our untrained company.

Times Free Press.

Frank Anthony at Times Free Press

On Thursday, February 26, our class was able to go on a guided tour of the Chattanooga Times Free Press. Our tour guide was the infamous Frank Anthony, the VP of Operations at the Times Free Press. It was a priveledge to be informed by someone who is so full of knowledge and knows the newspaper so well.

The most interesting part of the tour was the very beginning, when Mr. Anthony showed us the history of printing, and we were able to see the antique equipment that the Times has in their possession. We were shown steps in years and years of history in just a few minutes, but it is consistenly mind-blowing to me to experience – for just a minute – what creating something like the news has consisted of in the past. Mr. Anthony showed us a Linotype machine and how it worked, and the time that was invested in creating just one or a few lines of type. The Linotype machine was made at the turn of the century and was used until the 1970’s or 1980’s. Unbelievable that in such a long period of time, nothing that worked more quickly than the Linotype machine was created. Compared this to the time we live in now, just a couple decades later, when it is expected that a brand new computer will last only a year or two before it is seen as “out-dated”.

I have also been on a tour of the Basler Zeitung, a newspaper in Basel, Switzerland, and was pleasantly surprised to notice the similarities in the two newspaper processes and the cleanliness of the plants. The people were also all very friendly, and although it seemed like a very high-stress working environment, it all seemed to be under control. I have to admit, it seemed a bit too intense for me, but it would, nonetheless, be an incredible experience for anyone to work in such a fast-paced company.

Thank you, Chattanooga Times Free Press and Frank Anthony, for our very interesting and educational experience.

paper paper paper paper paper.

On Thursday, February 19, our class had the priveledge of going to visit Paper Plus, a local post in a national chain of paper stores. I know that the most exciting part of this visit to most people in the class was the fact that there was a rack of paper sample books right inside the door, and we were able to take as many as we wanted.

Paper is fascinating to me, and honestly has been since I can remember. I know that people say that a lot, and really just mean for a few years or something, but really…since I can remember. I used to make paper when I was little, and when I lived in Germany I had the amazing opportunity to visit an old-time paper making shop. This inspired me and a friend of mine to re-discover paper again.

At the small and intimate paper mill, we were given the opportunity to stir the rags around in a huge vat, and then dip in a screen and shuffle it in order to get all the water out, and peel the paper out. We were also shown how a paper mill is able to put a watermark into a sheet of paper, which was completely fascinating to me.

Me and this friend that was amazed with me were all about making a buck, and because we lived in Germany, we were unable to have any kind of job; so we would make things and try and sell them on our own tiny blackmarket. After we went to Basel, to the paper mill, we spent an entire Saturday in our dorm kitchen making pink paper out of anything we could find. The only really bizarre thing I remember us including was pink shoe laces. It was kind of a shoddy process, we had to find the screen somewhere and then build frames for it, and at this point I’m actually slightly impressed that we went through with it. Unfortunately, no one was really interested in buying our pink Valentine’s day paper. They had no idea what they were missing. It will be worth millions one day.

So anyway, all of that to say, in a completely roundabout way, that I enjoyed going to Paper Plus. It was an opportunity to be reminded of different paper weights and companies, and gave us the opportunity to start “getting in” with yet another company in Chattanooga. Thanks to Alex at Paper Plus, for listening to our sometimes inadequate questions and filling us with your knowledge.

PR workshop

On February 18, our class had the opportunity to go and listen to a workshop on press releases given by Janice Hashe. Janice is the editor of Pulse magazine, and has been dealing with press releases for some time now. She has been in Chattanooga since 2006.

It was interesting to go and listen to Janice, because I have never had the patience to sit down and think about organized press releases. For one, I have never had the need for a press release yet in my life; I’m sure I will at some point, though, and so I’m glad that I was forced to sit down and pay attention. The environment was good as well, which added to the comfort of taking in as much as I could about something I have never been particularly interested in.

It was a long workshop, and just a few of the things that I learned were sending a press release to an editor – and how to address the editor, taking photos for stories in the newspaper, and just how engaging a press release needs to be. I feel like I have heard some of these things before, such as an emphasis on spell check and how to send photos, but because I do not pride myself on how well I write, I have never considered the fact that what I write for a press release needs to be interesting and interacting from the beginning.

One of the things that Ms. Hashe stressed the most was the importance of contact information, and listing your own contact over and over throughout a press release. If this does not happen, the editor automatically has no desire or time to try and figure it out.

acting the part.

Although I have never experienced trying to sell something to a client per say, I feel that there is some similar experience in both trying to sell classmates a design during class as well as trying to convince an employer to hire you.
I think that being confident about yourself and about your design and design style is one of the most important things that you can possess in order to sell someone on something. I think that it has always been that way in any type of marketing. If you are trying to sell something to someone in order to increase your sales or respect, you have to be convinced in the product yourself.
For some reason, my mind relates this whole concept to old sneaky medicine men. Or maybe that’s not the right title. But then people that used to drag their carts or their wagons around with tons of interesting things to look at, much of it fake. This person, who was most likely a bum of some type, needed to either be convinced himself, or have an incredible acting spirit to seem convinced. If he was trying to sell water in a bottle as some kind of saving liquid, he needed to act in a way to convince people that it had saved him, and would also save them.
It’s a way of making money, and I think that it is an incredibly important skill to have, on top of about 15 million others that sometimes seem equally important in our field of graphic design. If we are not absolutely convinced in our design, it will be hard to sell it at all; but if we can muster our acting abilities and come up with legitimate reasons to buy what I’m selling, it is harder but just as possible to succeed.
In front of a group of clients or possible employers, it is easiest to sell something or sell ourselves if we are also sold. To maintain control of the situation and group of people, though, it is important to realize that if we are not sold, we need to pretend.
The actual presentation of what we are attempting to sell is also key – if we mumble and slouch and have not given a few good thoughts to what we are wearing and who we are looking at and focusing our presentation on, there is a good chance that we will fail. Although this is harsh, it is reality. We need to think through every step of the procedure, from how we put our clothes on to how we will greet clients, to how we will stand and act while we are in front of clients.
It is hard for anyone to master these characteristics, if anyone actually ever does. This is obviously a hard thing for us as students to dedicate ourselves to and learn, because we are focused on the aspects of study that we find ourselves most interested in; “presentation does not seem like a part of print.” “How can selling ourselves be pard of our complex way of thinking about art?”. Ultimately, in order to do the things that we love within design, we need clients. We need someone to make our design for. I don’t think it’s really pleasant, but I also don’t think I can probably survive and thrive on creating design for my own ideas forever.
This is a hard thing for us to learn, it is a kind of switching of mindsets, from “artist” to “professional” at times. We are lucky, however, to be taught the things that we need to survive, and not only the things that we enjoy.

color.color.color.

For our second project in Process and Materials, we were each given a word pair, and were then told to capture images of what these words meant to us. Conceptualizing ideas has always been a somewhat tough thing for me to accomplish, because I end up thinking too hard to let any new and beautiful ideas come to mind. This project was no different, and although i am happy with my final images, I do not doubt that something more fascinating could have been done.
My words were rough and smooth. I have chosen skin as my medium.
Although we were meant to take photos and color correct them from the beginning, this is something that I naturally try to focus on doing before and while I am taking the photo. I do not claim to be incredibly good at it, but I think that learning to use a completely manual process before turning digital will help anyone with this aspect. I learned to use an old SLR, and although I did not really have another choice, I am thankful for this. Even when not knowing what the aperture was or how the shutter speed actually worked, I knew how to put them together to create something. I have always tried to see the lighting and imagine it being captured before snapping a photo.
In this day and age, when instead of being forced to use an old, manual SLR, I am forced (although I do not mean to complain about this) to use a somewhat automatic mean of photography. It is harder for me to imagine the output of a digital, because it is so easy to snap anything and either delete it or make it good. I feel that my photos could work on a level without color correction, but in this project, and with this means of photography, I am thankful to have the ability to color correct in Photoshop.

blindly gathering inspiration for logos.

Creating logos is something that I have always known that I wasn’t necessarily gifted at; not that I am self-pitying about this fact, but I have always lacked some amount of creativity. I have always thought this was kind of strange, since this is something that “artists” are supposed to be overflowing with. I have come to grips with this fact, and have decided long ago to just move forward with things and use any amount of creativity that I am suddenly endowed with. Many times, this creativity is simply inspired. There are far too many things in the world to take in and remember, it is known that we are programmed to only remember solidly the things that stand out to us for some particular reason. This being said, I do not know that I have a particular style of design or beauty in the world that continuously strikes me. Creation is constantly bestowing beauty all around us, and although this is the stem of everything that could be called beautiful to look at, I feel like many times this is the last thing we think to gain inspiration from.
It is strange, then, that when trying to be inspired to make logos for something natural, I feel like I have consistently been falling flat for ideas and creativity. It has bothered me, even though I knew from the beginning of our professional practice classes that this would be one of the hardest parts for me, that I cannot seem to come up with a logo worthy of putting on the local food guide.
Just recently, admittedly tonight, I have felt even just a spark of inspiration in creating TasteBuds logos. I all too many times forget that it is when really digging in and making mistakes on a pen drawing or thumbnail that creativity begins to flow. I have felt a small sense of relief tonight to have been able to come up with any kind of logo, no matter how insignificant or worthless to our cause and project. It makes a personal difference to have been able to fiddle and make mistakes long enough to have come up with something that is enjoyable to myself. One fan might be nice, but even without that, I have gained confidence.

identity guide standards.

I haven’t begun to really dig into researching identity guides, but from what I have found and have seen in the past, a normal, good-sized companies or objectives identity guide will have around 10 topics addressed within it. They usually seem to have kind of a summary of the company at the very beginning of the guide, and then go into how to use what and when and where. The logo is really the main topic of the identity guide, being the most important asset that a company can have misused or manipulated if they are not careful. What the logo means and how it can and cannot be used are a couple of the topics covered in the logo-specific section. Some companies used extra “signatures” for different parts of their companies or in different parts of the world or a city. For example, there are main Tesco stores, as well as smaller ones only situated in the middle of cities. In a case like this, or McDonalds and McCafe, different signatures are added to the original logo. These need to be addressed and specified, because they could be easily and accidently misused.
Another major issue to be addressed within an identity guide is the color palette of the company or initiative. The possibility of colors needs to be decided and specified so that the company is completely cohesive and whole.
Typography is another important factor to a company feeling stable, complete, and professional. Many large companies tend to use similar typefaces, it seems, but these still need to be specified within the guide so that an advertising agent or the company itself doesn’t screw themselves over by using a typeface close but not the same as what is specified in the guide. If this happens, it not only makes the company look stupid, but the designer can go back and point out that they now look like a fool as well, all because of a misuse of type.
In some cases, a company or initiative has designs, or graphic elements, that can be paired with the logo, on letterhead, or simply next to the name of the company. These need to be be addressed, as well as the photography style and content that a company is allowed to use for themselves. A company seems to be really the strongest when you can see any aspect of it’s company – i.e. advertisements, packaging, website – and know what it belongs to. It is important to keep the photography style and graphic elements used cohesive with the rest of the company’s identity.
These are a few of the main topics addressed in most identity guides. It seems that there could always be other, more company or project specific topics added, about how to use collateral or something, but these seem to be things that are included across the board.

research and sour cream.

Even though researching for something usually means that one is beginning a project that they may or may definitely not want to start on, I am continually thankful that researching and finding inspiration is one of the best parts of any project. Usually I think of starting something in the way that a Monday morning feels, or the way that water is floating on top of “expired” sour cream when you first open it; it is up in the air whether the Monday will turn out well or terrible, whether the sour cream just needed to be stirred or it is actually sour. Since I think it would be hard to use these two metaphors to parallel each step of a project, I will move away from that and say that although a project is sometimes up in the air, the research is usually fun and inspiring to me no matter what. It is hard for me to believe that a person would go into a project and not first dig into some recent or vintage magazines, childrens books, adverts, or packaging. Even talking to people or simply observing people is mind-blowing in making a project more effective. It’s easiest for me to be sitting right next to a pile of magazines that I have specifically picked out for some reason to look through, and having a full pad of small post-its in order to mark anything and everything that I initially think could be helpful. After I do this, my mind is so packed full and swirling with ideas that it can be helpful to have a large sheet of good marker paper (Bienfangs graphics marker paper is the best, I have discovered after much marker paper use. It is also probably the most expensive, or one of them, but totally worth it. Take it from a broke-ass student), and a double-ended sharpie nearby to write everything down. I’ve come to the conclusion that there is an extent to the information that humans are able to quickly store; it’s easier for me to know that I’m not storing anything right away, that I will get things onto something more permanent than my brain and then go back through the magazines a few more times and take away post-its that were ignorantly placed. I love showing people that are involved in the same projects as me this research, because it is always helpful to know what other people think about ideas that you feel blessed to have been given.

relationship building with Photoshop, synopsis.

I need to go ahead and admit that I am not finished with this project yet, so it is kind of sneaky of me to comment within my blogs like I actually have a full synopsis of project 1. I guess with having three blog posts over this, spread across the last two weeks, really, I feel like my feelings towards this whole topic should have changed somewhat, or at least grown to be more positive. It’s possible that I have gained more positive attitude towards Photoshop over the last couple semesters, with Photo for Graphic Design and now Process and Materials; being forced for a grade to learn to use the tools within this program is kind of essential for me at this point to even crack unknown things open and see what they’re about. I am somewhat scared that over the next couple years, I will not be forced as much or as often to use Photoshop, or I will just choose to use a different program instead, and forget what I have learned. I wish it held more appeal for me, because I know that it is essential when going into any design job now. Things like web and print knowledge are good to have and will most likely get you a job quicker, but something like knowledge of Photoshop is just common sense – you must have it. So I think that until I graduate, and in the years immediately following UTC, I need to begin to force myself to use Photoshop once in awhile, watch tutorials about random things; I know that in this way, I will find more reasons to use Photoshop much more often.