App Icon Making

Made some icons for the "Culture Shock" application.

Icons for MX

Trying to come up with some icons that communicate words like online, culture shock, America, Britain, school, facetime, etc. Building them vectored in Illustrator.

Here's some of the few that still need some revising.

Creating an Icon

GENERATING ICON SKETCHES

1. Uses lowercase letters to target the informality and "organicness" of GreenAir. The insides of the g and a are hollowed out by the shape of leaves.

2. The A is mimicking that of a radio tower to hit at the immediate obviousness of GreenAir being a radio station.

3. By adding the full title, viewers are then able to see what the company is called at first glance. No guessing what the "GA" stands for. The cursive text, again, adds to an organic notation of what the "feel" of the station is. And it being a station, henceforth, demonstrates the radio tower and signal.

4. By adding the full title, viewers are then able to see what the company is called at first glance. No guessing what the "GA" stands for. The radio on the side was the most obvious demonstration for displaying that GreenAir is, again, a radio station.

5. This approach was more of an aesthetic one. I tired to picture a more contemporary logo and incorporate the leaf which is a universal symbol for growth and environment.

6. Uses lowercase letters to target the informality and "organicness" of GreenAir. The insides of the g and a are hollowed out by the shape of leaves. Using the opposite of number one, the black and boldness (what would eventually work it's way to being the color green) stands out more than a simple outline.

SIMPLER FORM

CONNECTING CONCEPTS

Thinking about last critique or discussion over the logo of Green Air, I decided to incorporate stylized letterforms and the symbolism of the leaf and the radio tower in the counters to push what Green Air actually does. Also, I left Green Air spelt out at the bottom so the audience would get used to seeing them together and when they're are separated being familiar with just the letter forms GA by themselves.

Smithsonian Exhibit // Round 2

Anchorage and Relay // Round 1

Identity & Applications // Title Proposals

For a mock museum exhibition I have come up with the following directions with some possible titles.

DIRECTIONS

Woman's health:

1. She-Problems

2. Only Us

3. Is this Natural (For a Woman)?

4. A Different Kind of Woman

5. My Body's Not Supposed to do That

Native american's today:

1. True Life: Native American Indians

2. Current American History of the Natives

3. Life Today: American Natives

4. Stereotype Vs. Reality

5. White Effect(ed/s/ing) Red

Patterns // Inspiration

LAST CRITIQUE

During the last critique seniors Ramzy and Laura suggest I focus on the following:

-Play with scale more (that can also add depth).

-Pay attention to the positive and negative space that the icons and pattern is making.

-Combine more icons for content and interest.

Also, they suggest to turn any pattern into a real object (to put the pattern on something like a book, t-shirt, etc.) to see how it looks.

INSPIRATION

Considering I am working with Native American icons (with a pattern masked into them) I decided to search for more reason as to the layout and direction my patterns were going to take. With this in mind, I took a stroll down to the Nelson-Atkins Museum, right down the block. They recently opened a Native American exhibit. I was immediately taken back by all of the amazing art and artifacts that the exhibit was composed of. Here are some images I took via iPhone

After studying these pictures and already made patterns of mine, I will move forward trying to execute the feel and visual geometry Native Americans once did and continue to create today.

Patterns // One

Using are icon set, yet again, for the next project, I am working on making patterns. Using harmonious and dramatic patterns, I came up with a variety of ways to display and arrange my icons, both conceptually and physically in positioning. Here are a few of my patterns

Book Jacket Series // Final Post

INTRO

When first approaching this project, I stared off with some books that I thought has appropriate subject matter and contents that matched my icon set story. The story Vision Quest involved the journey of a young native american boy that went to find is power animal to then take over and become chief.

PROCESS

If you click on the image below, you will be able to see the changes made throughout each phase of the project.

1:2 Involved considering a symbolic image for the back of the book cover. For a book about spiritual rituals and beliefs, I chose to use dirt. Ground from the earth makes the connection and has the connotation of growth, roots, and nutrient.

2:3 I messed more with the typography and took more care in being able to explain the banner on the front page. The tan icons on the front page turned into a purple icon, to match my icon set color.

3:Final Even more care in the consistency of measurements and typography was taken. Also, the four icons on the back moved to the front, the icon became a backdrop for the information text. The single icon on the front was deleted and just highlighted in the row of four icons by color.

FINAL COLLECTION OF BOOK

(flat)
(portfolio images)

Information Graphics // Final Post

ACHIEVING OBJECTIVES

When creating information graphics, the goal is to produce a series of education data that can be visualized. When making these series, we had to incorporate our icons. My infographs use my icons while still displaying visual, educational data by taking actually information and making them into easy to read charts and graphs.

Out of the 3 information graphics, I was told to do just two. I ended up with one being a timeline and the other was a spacial comparison. For the timeline, I made sure that the spaces between the dates were fractionally accurate to demonstrate temporal comparison. With the map that I made, I sectioned off the United States to show size of regions and locations of certain groups of Native Americans. This is how I displayed spacial comparison.

Important factors that information graphics are composed of are formal sensibilities of typography, color, hierarchy. All of these factors help aid the information graphic to be accessible and engaging. Throughout my information graphics, I used color to display my icons and headings on columns of information. Hierarchy was achieved by the sizing of icons in both of my graphs. Also, a redundant use of some of the icons in the timeline and key, made for a focal point on each of the infographs. Color was also used for the icons to promote them as a focal point as well. As far as the typography goes, alignment and leading to create consistency was used. The typeface used for both titles was used for dominance and to reflect the title for the magazine article. All of the consistencies made the infographics look neat and added balance but the structure and layout of each is what made them interesting.

LINEAR PROGRESSION

FINAL MAGAZINE LAYOUT

My final magazine spreads incorporated my information graphics into the layout. They correlate with the article and subject matter of Native American Indians. Which, intern, has the world to do with my icons set created so long ago.

Book Jacket Series // Round II

FOLLOW UP

After my final class critique, I have decided that the following changes need to be made.

CHANGES

-Fix the background of the book.

-Consider the bar/band.

-Look at other typefaces.

-Change images to duotone

-Mix up the tone of the books; consider moving from light to dark.

BACK PAGE

For my back pages, I added a different image that had a little more to do with the book, instead of butcher paper. Also, this new texture would add more color and a different texture to each book. Here are my thoughts:

Planting book; grass.

Rituals and spirits; dirt (earth).

Growing up; fur.

Craft & Lore; leather.

EXAMPLE

BAD EXAMPLE

Here is an example of what I am NOT doing (because it is ugly). It was worth a short thought to see what it would look like.

Information Graphics // Going Digital

THUMBNAILS

Here are some simple thumbnail sketches that will be directed towards my iterations for my final infographs.

ROUND ONE

This is the first round of digital iterations

TIMELINE

COMPARISON

LOCATION

Book Jacket Series // Sketches

IDEAS

I find sketching out ideas helps narrow down directions in the process of designing, especially when the design is digital. Here are three directions I have come up with. One direction will follow into my final project.

Book Jacket Series // Creating Ideas

Here are some quick ideas from notes

SUP MIND MAP?

ONE

Covers > collage > layered, cropped pictures > add color photo filter

TWO

Find relevant object for each book cover > scan > manipulate with photoshop to layout

QUESTIONS

Should all typefaces be the same?

Shame theme of layout?

How different can each layout be and still be cohesive?

Magazine Spreads // Try 2

After considering and revising my old spreads, I have come up with the following iterations to better balance my text, give more space to my outside boarder, close up the gutters, close up some leading, etc.

insert scans here

ITERATIONS OF GROUP 1

ITERATIONS OF GROUP 2

ITERATIONS OF GROUP 3

Sorry guys, I definitely took up half of a wall in Bodoni.