Blogging was a completely new thing to me at the beginning of the semester. I didn't think that I had anything to say that other people would want to read, nor had I really been taught or exposed to the reasons why people blog. I can now say that I am very happy that blogging became a part of my life this semester. It was a great way to take my thought about anything that was going on in class or out and let them out, it felt good to sit down and share with my class mates things that I was learning and feeling. Reading other peoples blogs was also a really cool way to learn new things. After a few posts on my blog I saw that it really was becoming a page that was a reflection of who I am in general. Now, being 20 blogs in it has really developed into a cool way to almost get to know what my interests, beliefs, and feelings are. Its almost like a social networking site in that people can view my page and see what things I am interested in, much like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. I am going to continue blogging over the summer about my future education and involvement with graphic design, as it is something that really peaks my interest. I hope that some people were able to learn about a cool artist or clothing company that they didn't already know about before reading my blog. Blogging about my feelings was also almost a stress reliever as well. When I had things about the class or graphic design in general on my mind, I was able to come to my blog and talk about whatever I was feeling at the time. I really enjoyed this class a lot and hope that my future in graphic design does not end here.

The Psychedelic 60's

I often wish that I was around for the psychedelic and hippie counter culture in the 1960's. To be apart of music, artwork, and overall "new" outlook on life, would have truly been amazing. Unfortunately I was not born in the 60's and instead have had to look back on the time and do as much research as I can. One of the things that was going on in the early 60's was this new concept of psychedelic music and art, which in my opinion was the best music ever created, and some of the most unique and interesting artworks that I have ever seen. Some really influential graphic designers of the time were Wes Wilson, Victor Moscoso, and even Andy Warhol. The psychedelic movement started in San Francisco California, in the Haight, Ashbury District, this is were bands like the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane and artists like Wes Wilson, were emerging from in the 1960's.
 Wes Wilson did a lot of really famous show posters for the venue The Fillmore in San Francisco. From my research Wes was really the one who created the psychedelic font that looks as if its moving or melting that you still see being re created today. He was a true innovator at the time and his name goes synonymous with artwork from the peace movement and hippie culture.

Another really famous designer of the 1960's psychedelic movement was Victor Moscoso, who took vibrant and high contrast colors and used them in his art work to create a "trippy" or psychedelic look to it. He would take colors from the opposite end of the color wheel and put them together to make a "vibrating" look on his posters. He too created a lot of posters for concerts at the time including the Grateful Dead at the Fillmore and Avalon Ballrooms. His signature vibration pattern and look is still being imitated today and goes hand in hand with psychedelic artwork.

Brian Donnelly a.k.a. "KAWS"

                                      
People from New York City have a certain pride in where they are from that truly brings everyone who lives there together, no matter how different from one another. New Yorker's like myself like to support artists and local NYC brands to join in on the camaraderie with one another. Some of my blogs from this semester have reflected my love for the city when I discussed some local NYC graphic designers and clothing brands.
Brian Donnelly aka KAWS is one of my favorite local NYC artists that I have followed for a while now. Kaws is born and raised in NYC and currently lives and creates out of his apartment in Brooklyn.

His signature designs are actually very pricey cartoon like"toys" that are truly works of art and very collectible. These figure-toys are not the type you would want a young child playing around with, but more so on a mantel on display. KAWS does many other things with his artwork like created limited edition clothing, large sculptures, and canvas art. He began his art career as a graffiti artist in NYC, after getting some real recognition for his artwork he began to take it more seriously. He then became a very popular advertisement designer and worked in NYC, Paris, London and Berlin. He has also done very cool graphic designs for Nike, Vans, Burton Snowboards, and Dos Equis Beer. Like great artists before him like Warhol, KAWS has taken some iconic figures and turned them into his own vision of artwork, this is seen in his Mickey Mouse, The Smurfs, and Sponge Bob Square Pants pieces. He is a true visionary and his designs will really live on forever.

Signs

                                       

Signs can be used for all different reasons, whatever the reason is, signs all have one common objective which is to tell us something. Signs can be used to tell us what the traffic rules are, or they can advertise something to us, they can also tell us where we are or where we need to be going. Whatever way we look at it, signs are a part of all of our daily lives. When we get in our car and drive anywhere we have to pay attention to the signs all around, without them it would be mayhem on the roads and impossible to drive. In order for these road signs for example to be effective they most of all need to grab your attention. If you cant see or notice a road sign then it would be ineffective and very dangerous. But they do stand out to us and tell us weather to stop, go, yield, or so on, because of the design of the signs. Road signs are bright in color, for instance the stop sign is red because red sticks out to the human eye more than any other color. The words that they choose for signs is always very clear, bold and clean, with easy to read font types like Helvetica and Arial. One major point I am trying to get to is that graphic design is all around us on a daily basis. These road signs that I was speaking of were not just created by some kid and thrown up on all the interstates in the country. These signs are thought out pieces of artwork made by graphic designers who needed to create the safest possible driving experience people can have while on the roads. 

Business's also use signs to advertise or show the name of a particular store. The creators of these signs need to make sure that people can see the words from far away, and that the sign is in some way inviting, either if its physically inviting you into a store, or inviting you to buy a product. If I am driving down a main road looking for a drug store, I can have my eyes fully peeled on either side of the road looking for a store because I would get into an accident. Yet, with signs like CVS being in my mind for my entire life, I would see the letters CVS out of the corner of my eye and automatically associate either the shapes or the colors that I quickly saw with the drug store that I need. To me this is a great example of an effective sign. 

Graphic Design Agency

As the end of the year closes in, I began to think about the impression some of my classes have left me. Being my second to last semester at Buffalo State College in the Communications Department I was really able to look back at a majority of my major classes and tell which ones really peaked my interest. As well as my media performance class, my graphic design class really left an impression on me and got me thinking about my future in graphic design.
I began by looking at ways to further educate myself on the topic of graphic design, I was able to find a lot of really good and reputable classes and programs in New York City that looked really fun and interesting. NYC is also where I am from so I am going to check out some of these places upon returning home. The next thing I started looking at was different graphic design agencies. This is were I was able to do a lot of really cool research on the different firms out there and what each one of them have to offer. One of my favorite graphic design agencies that I found when researching was a company called Object9. Object9 has been open since 2000 and have done a lot of really cool snazzy designs for companies that I really like. From Red Stripe Beer, to a new lemon lime soda called "Bubble Up." Object9 seems to really like to take on new ideas and new companies and create a design or advertisement for them that will put them on the map. Their designs are really crisp and clean and inviting, a lot of them give the feeling of a hot summer day outside.
I hope that after leaving Buffalo State College I will be able to further my education and possibly even career in this field. I am going to follow up on some of the agencies that I researched as well and see if they have entry level positions for people starting out in the field.

Simple is better

Throughout this semester I have been learning a lot about graphic design particularly through seeing other peoples work. A common theme that I have noticed from Milton Glasser, all the way to my classmates, is that most of the time if not all the time, simplicity is better. When we began to do projects in class that gave us a little bit of room to use what we wanted and create our own graphics, I noticed that what really draws me in is a crisp, clean, image. I tried to make my projects reflect my thoughts on simplicity and a couple times might even have been too simple in searching for my simplicity. When I really started to this about this concept was when I started learning and researching a lot of famous graphic designers. After the semester of blogging about my favorite designers, as well as learning about other ones from Amy, the common theme of simplicity came up within a lot of the most famous designs of today.
In this blog, I wanted to give the opportunity to show how simplicity really does work and how the most famous designs of all time are the most simple. Frank Robbins is a man who created a very simple yet memorable and effective company design and that's Coca Cola. The famous logo was created in all its simplicity in 1885 and is still used today.

The simple Apple, used by Apple computers was created in 1976 by Rob Janoff, the rainbow version of the Apple was used until 1998.

Going with the same theme of computers, Paul Rand, one of the worlds greatest graphic designers, created his simple logo for IBM well over 30 years ago which is still being used today.

A lot of other simple yet extremely famous designs of history are Starbucks, Adidas, Google, Atari, Puma. The list really goes on and on, because these simple designs work and last for decades while others don't. Some of these designers really had the gift of taking an idea and transforming it into a simple, timeless, effective, graphic design.

Movie Posters, John Henry Alvin

After doing the poster project, I have been doing a lot of thinking about posters in general, and giving them a lot more thought upon seeing them in public. Posters can be anything the creator wants them to be from funny, to cute or stupid, they can relay a really powerful and serious message, or they can relay a quite silly one. Then there are the posters that are meant for advertisement, the ones that are created not only for your visual pleasure, but in hopes that you will buy that product or watch the movie that you see on the poster.

Movie posters are something that have been around since the start of movies, and have always been an integral part in advertising and branding a certain movie. Without even knowing anything about the movie, one can see a movie poster and think that they know weather the movie will be good or not, or certainly if they will see it or not. 

John Henry Alvin is a very famous movie poster designer who has worked on some of the most famous movies and movie posters of all time. John has done poster art for more than 135 films, and is known in the industry as the best, not to mention how long he has been doing poster designing. His first poster was for Mel Brook's Blazing Saddles in 1974!

 John's most famous works of art include, E.T., Blade Runner, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Meramaid, and The Color Purple. John also has made a lot of artwork for Disney and made all of the Star War anniversary posters. To me John really brings the essence of what going to the movies is and puts it into a poster. He brings the fantasy to you when looking at the poster for a certain movie, and really makes you want to see the movie. 

Project 4 reaction

Project 4 really gave me a chance to use my creativity and expand on all the things that I learned in this class all year. It was a culmination of all of the work we learned this year and different ways to use the Adobe programs that made this project fun and less restrictive in putting my ideas into the computer. I was very happy to hear that we would be creating the topics for our brochures on our own, which immediately got me thinking about what I wanted to do. Music is one of the biggest hobbies I have in my life so I decided I would choose music, and create my version of a music festival brochure. The cool and fun part about this was that I got to make my dream music festival, as well as lineup, and create it all with my own creative and artistic ability. Being the last project of the year, I was able to flow through certain things I wanted to do, very easily. I was able to quickly bring in background pictures I wanted on my brochure, and then change the opacity of the color so I could write the actual festival lineup on top of colorful images.

The front page of my brochure I decided to keep simple as well as pretty, with a beautiful picture on the front of what I imagined the land of the festival to look like, and a number 13 in the clouds of the picture to indicate that this is the 13th festival of the kind. As far as the inside and back cover of my brochure I wanted to keep the theme going of showing colorful and pretty pictures of the land, because to me that's what I want the festival to be all about, not only the music, but the land, colors, and culture. My favorite part of the brochure that I created is the internal sheet, this is where I was able to create my dream line up and set times. This was a very enjoyable project to complete and had a lot of fun doing it! 

The Grateful Dead

My all time favorite band of history is the Grateful Dead. The reasons behind why they are such a special band to me is for another story, for this, I would like to discuss some of the Grateful Dead's most iconic artwork, symbols, fonts, and designs. 

Even today you could visit somewhere on the other side of the world and find someone wearing a tie die shirt, or maybe even a Grateful Dead shirt, yet they do not know The Grateful Dead, this is part of the unspoken magic of the Dead. Tie Dying shirts and other items became popular from the Dead, as they met a roadie who started doing it one day. Thinking nothing of it they began to drape these large "tie dye" blankets over their equipment boxes while they played, this is when the tie dye trend started. 

Another very common logo for the Grateful Dead is the skull with the lighting bolt going through it, this too is an image that most people have seen weather they can relate it to the Dead or not. The skull is red, white and blue and have a lightning bolt going through the head, this was on the cover of the album Steal Your Face, and the skull is now referred to as the Steal Your Face logo. The logo was created by the Dead's friend Owsley Stanley and was originally used to put on the bands equipment boxes to tell there's apart from other bands. 

Another image related to The Grateful Dead is the "dancing bears" that many people see worn on t-shirts or stickers by dead heads across the world. This was an image created by a man named Bob Thomas who was also friends with the Dead and who helped on the "steal your face" logo. The man Owsley Stanley who was the man who created the "steal your face" logo as well as produced a lot of the Grateful Dead's music also had a nickname named "bear." The "dancing" bears was an homage almost to Stanley, who they were using the dancing bears as the cover for the album that Stanley produced. A common misconception about these bears was that they are actually not dancing, they are marching! clearly Bob Thomas's wasn't able to fully get his point across because they most certainly became known as the "dancing bears." 

Famous Fonts!

There are so many different font types out there, and ones that continue to be created all the time. To me, the font of a word or picture can tell a lot about what you are really trying to say with that word. For instance there are some fonts that look scary, like they belong on the cover of a horror film movie poster, yet other fonts look fun and childish like they belong on the cover of a children's story. This is why fonts are such a special way to get your points across with using more than just the word itself.
Over time, many famous graphic and type face designers have been inventing and coming up with fonts, some of them more famous and widely used than others. I wanted to show some of the really famous type faces in this blog that you may, or may not find on your Microsoft Word.
The first is Baskerville, This was a font designed by John Baskerville who used thick and thin lines to make his type face. A lot of famous designs use Baskerville such as "The Metropolitan Opera House," and "Better Homes and Gardens Magazine."


Franklin Goth is the next famous font, or type face that I would like to talk about. This is a traditional very bold font that was used in movies such as Rocky, or The Dark Knight.


Lastly, a font that you may use all the time but may never have heard of is, Univers. This is a sans serif type face that has been used on everyday things such as the apple keypads, FedEx, and Ebay.

Final Project Brochure

The Brochure was probably my favorite project that we did all semester. For me, it was fun to choose a topic that interests me and make my dream version of what I would want the Brochure to look like. At this point I have become very familiar with the InDesign program which made this project fun to do, knowing your way around the program really speeds up the process and takes away a lot of the stress. I decided to do my brochure on a music festival called Camp Bisco hosted by a band named the Disco Biscuits that I attend every year. This really was exciting for me because I was able to use my skills with InDesign to really create what I would want the brochure to look like for this festival. I also was able to come up with my dream line up for the festival which was pretty cool too. This project highly inspired me to possibly continue my education in graphic design for things that I am interested in. Who knows maybe I will be designing the next Camp Bisco Music Festival brochure.
Like I stated before this was the project where I was most comfortable using the programs we have been using this semester, mainly Adobe InDesign. I struggled a lot this semester and even past one with classes that use computer programs that I am new to. It seems to be one of those topics, like math, that needs to be pounded over and over again in my head for it to stick and for me to remember. Another issue I had this semester, although small, was the use of Apple computers over regular p.c.'s. I have always used windows and computers that were not made by Apple, which in turn makes me a little foreign to the way the computer operates every time I sit down at one, simply because I seldom use them and am not used to them at all. That said, after the repetitious use of the Apple computer in this class as well as the programs I had never used before, I feel confident that I learned a decent amount of new information and can now use these things with more ability.

I was very pleased with the outcome of my poster for project 3. I really do enjoy simplicity and showed that through my work for this project. Some people could look at this concept as less work or talent, but to me it is the opposite. Simplicity gets the the point, it usually focuses the message on exactly what the message is! having too many things to look at, at once just makes me not want to look at it at all. My message that I wanted to portray was renewable energy and going green. As someone who both works and is a consumer in this business, my poster is one that would stand out to me and remind me that all this renewable energy stuff is not just to save ourselves money, but to also save the world! A lot of posters from renewable energy companies more so emphasize why you should do work with their company and the benefits of renewable energy. This is precisely why I wanted to make a very selfless poster about the topic reminding everyone that going green such as with solar, geothermal, or air sealing, is not only for you but for the whole world.
There needs to be more selfless poster in this world that are not looking for any sort of profit, these are the ones that hit home and usually strike a cord with people. I truly am passionate about this subject and want to see a majority of the world to be using energy from our natural resources rather than polluting this beautiful place we all call home. People usually don't get it until it is too late, which I am sure will be the case with global warming and other pollution issues, yet the more posters like mine out there will remind people to stop being so damn selfish. I will find a very populated, public place to hang my poster (legal or not) to help get the message out there! as we all should!