Let's be sure that you have been updating your artworks/pictures to your crevado account that we created at the beginning of the semester. It is important that at the end of the semester, I have access to this account and it has been updated with each of your artworks from this semester. This grade will take the place of the SLO (that Art 1 students are required to take) that account for 20% of their grade!
Project: Create a personal logo, mark or signature
This project is a quick jump into deep water. Don't worry. It's not too deep.
Some artists have dynamic and distinctive signatures. Corporations brand themselves with identifying logos. Many products and product lines are branded with a unique mark. And, of course, cattle ranchers brand their cattle with brands.
Simple graphic marks declare that one and only one source created something. "I did this!" Your job is to explore a variety of concepts and to create a simple, bold graphic mark that expresses you. Problem StatementQuick Design: Personal Identifying LOGO, MARK or SYMBOL— lf you were to "sign" each of your designs with just one "mark", what would it be? --
Requirements and Limitations (the short version) Media: Any. Colors: 3 — black, white, and 1 other color of your choosing. Size: 6" square field - You will create this in a media of your choosing and then re-create it into a stamp using linocut technique.
Presentation: 2 Products - one in media or your choosing, one in lino cut print. Label your Work: Mount both nicely crafted self-identifying label onto a presentation board. Concept Statement: Mount a brief concept statement on the back of your board. (50 words max.) Concept Sketches: minimum 20 sketches: 10 line or shape focused 10 other ideas.
Requirements and Limitations (extended details) Media: Any available and familiar medium, whether drawn, painted or mounted on paper/board. Use whatever you're comfortable with. Likely options are pencil for early concept sketches and marker for final design. However, you could use cut paper, fabric or other materials. Colors: Use black (dense, solid & dark), white, and 1 color of your choosing. This includes the ground (or background... the paper... that is, the background IS one of your colors) -- 3 colors max.
Size: 6" square field The visual field of a design or artwork is simply the space that the design fits into — it is the page or background into which the design will be placed. Your mark does not have to be square, but it should fill most of the space within this square, whatever your mark's outer shape. We'll explore balance between positive and negative space as well as the balance between figure and field. For now, fill the space well...comfortably...not too crowded, not too vacant.
Presentation: Mount your design on presentation type board, poster board, project board paper, etc. When presenting your designs, clean up distractions and flaws...make sure ragged edges, unbalanced placements, glue stains and guidelines are taken care of. Presentatation communicates how much you care about your own work — and if you show that you don't care, why should the client (or teacher)? Label your Work: Mount a nicely crafted label on the back of your board. This identifying label should include (at least) your name and email. A label is more than a quick signature on a corner of the board. A presentation's label represents you to your clients and potential clients. In professional practice you'll likely design a printed label for ongoing use. For now, make sure your name is clean, legible and intentional -- make it look like you're proud of the work that you are labeling. As a standard practice, include essential contact info on your label — clients who admire your work need to be able to get in touch with you easily. For now, include your email address on your label. All of the work that you create and turn in this semester should be labeled. Note: Never expect a client or a professor to take time to chase down a design's author. After all, if the designer didn't care enough to claim her work, why should the client/professor care? ergo: always label your work clearly and professionally. Include a Concept Statement: Mount a brief concept statement on the back of your board. (50 words max.) We'll discuss concept statements during upcoming classes. For now, just describe the traits, qualities or characteristics that you would like for your mark to express. What do you want this graphic mark to tell others about you? What impression should it make? Concept Sketches: Generate lots of ideas. (minimum: 10 line/10 shape/10 texture) Get your pencil/pen/marker moving and explore lots of alternatives. See notes below on — 10 line-dominated or shape-dominated sketches/concepts, plus — 10 texture-dominated sketches/concepts. Keep these sketches in your position and turn in with and when the project is due. You don't need to cut them out or mount them -- when we look at sketches, we'll just open our sketchbooks.
Note: bonus points if you can look like your mark on the day you present it.
Goals: Simplicity & clarity & distinctive self-identity count. Aim for a bold, clear, simple graphic that expresses you and only you. (could it be a single shape or letterform? ...a single stroke?)
Aim to balance positive and negative space — in practice, make your marks/shapes/strokes wide and heavy so that the "white space" of the paper doesn't overwhelm your design, but not so bold that your design overwhelms the field. Both figure and ground are important to visual perception, thus, while you sketch and design, pay attention to whether positive forms are overwhelming background, negative form, or whether the opposite is happening. Consider what "graphic element" might dominate each of your designs. We have already talked about and studied each of the elements and principles of visual design. A basic design strategy involves selecting one element and letting it play a commanding, dominating role. That helps to unify a design and give it a more forceful voice. For instance, explore Shape, and Line and Texture. In several design concepts, you might let shape dominate your design — use bold, simple, broad shapes along with strong light-dark contrast to produce a graphic that jumps out at a distance. Also explore what you can do with line and texture — you might have a great idea with one of them.
Process & Concept Development
Content Concept: explore how to express you in a simple graphic
Graphic Concepts: explore Line, Shape & Texture as dominating traits — Generate sketches/ideas for 10 ideas that emphasize line. Play with ideas in which line is a dominating graphic element. In order to unify a design, there needs to be repeated use of similar traits. Explore what you can do with line...flowing...jagged...geometric....vertical/horizontal only. There are endless options. Explore. — Generate sketches for 10 ideas that emphasize shape. Explore what bold shapes, and, especially, negative shapes*, can do — discover how visually expressive and how graphically emphatic, bold shape can be. *negative shapes are, generally, the leftover shapes inside of shapes -- the "background" shapes that are created in between the "positive" shapes. — Generate sketches for 10 ideas that emphasize texture. Explore what prominent texture can do. You might try using several textures in the same design. You might try using a medium that lends itself to textural marks (charcoal...drybrushed ink...pastel...marker on textured paper) NOTE: Have these sketches with you, in class.
Explore your own traits and graphic preferences...what look is you? ...and what traits are not you?
Become aware of graphic concepts that influence the mood, feelings, connotatons and ideas felt.
Concieve, refine and create a simple graphic that reflects you. Dive in and sketch. The only bad sketch is the one not drawn.
Explore many variations. Set them side-by-side and work to see the different effects that each evoke. Which is best? Why?
Become more aware of the expressive and graphic qualities of line, shape and texture. How might line express you?
Get to know the problem boundaries and goals. (read the stuff above until the ideas are in your head)
Basic presentation skill: mount your design on board, usually with consistent, even border.
Getting Started: Sketch lots of ideas...quickly. There is no "right" answer to this problem. But there are good, better and excellent solutions. Search for them!
Give yourself lots of options — require yourself to create 20 possibilities in 10 minutes. (really...you can do it.) Then step back and see which ones seem more "right" than the others. Then create more variations based on the ideas that your eyes tell you are best (you have to see your ideas on paper to really evaluate what's working. Do not try to select your best ideas until you've sketched them onto paper — that's a common beginning-designer's problem.) Refine, combine, revise form as needed. Take your OK ideas, and make good ideas. Revise your good idea until it is really impressive! Then clean up one concept as best possible, and prepare it for presentation.
Concept, Form and Craft are all required — generally in that order. Remember that your idea is more important than your skill...but push your crafstmanship as far as you can in the short time you have to complete this. In strong solutions, concept trumps craft, but craft conveys concept.