The Art Institute

Adventures in Art Classes

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Web Quest – Typography

This week’s topics were lettering /typefaces and one of my favorite type foundries has to be Hoefler & Frere Jones. I have researched and written a paper on them in the past. For those of you who are not designers, you might be surprised to learn that the computer generated text you read is usually a very expensive font designed at a type foundry.  That font was paid for by the software company in order for them to include it in your package for your use.

Some of those typefaces (a collection of fonts in one family) are inspired by old, hand rendered type from centuries ago and others are more recent such as Arial and Helvetica. There is a whole fascinating history around the topic of typography and it can be mesmerizing how typography impacts history (or maybe that is just the geeky graphic designer in me showing up.)

Hoefler & Frere Jones:

http://www.typography.com/fonts/index.php

This is a professional type foundry. This is the type of company you would hire if you were setting out to create a brand for your own company. They have designed fonts specifically for brands such as Martha Stewart Living, Wired, and President Obama.

http://www.typography.com/fonts/font_overview.php?productLineID=100018

I especially like the numbers fonts they put out such as the Greenback, based on the look of our American dollar. They also suggest a font that goes well with it, as if you are choosing a wine to compliment your dinner!

You can even test drive their fonts. Example: http://www.typography.com/testDriver/index.php?productLineID=100018

Expect to pay for a font from them if you want to keep it. Numbers alone is $129 for a single computer user, but you can price it out for up to 50 users.

Font: a single style in a typeface such as what you are reading here.  Another font using the same typeface would be Times New Roman Bold. You thought you were just making the lettering darker, but in fact, you are using another font!

Typeface: a collection of fonts in one style such as Arial: Arial bold, Arial italics, Arial Narrow.

Right or wrong, these terms are often used interchangeably and I find myself guilty as charged.

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Web Quest – Vintage and Retro

One of the things we do in Design History each week is a search for good online links that relate to that week’s lecture material. Those I find interesting I will include in a post each week.

Graphic Design from the 1920s and 1930s in Travel Ephemera

http://www.travelbrochuregraphics.com/

This is an online gallery of a personal collection of travel ephemera. It is an astounding group of images by a person who has spent nearly 20 years collecting old posters and travel related pieces as he has traveled around the world. What I find very fun about the site is the joy that the creator obviously feels in the world of old ephemera. It is an amazing site I would recommend bookmarking for future reference!

Smashing Magazine: Celebration of Vintage and Retro Design

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/04/21/celebration-of-vintage-and-retro-design/

Smashing Magazine itself is something I recommend to any designer who wants to keep up with current trends and design related content.  However, this is a wonderful writeup with excellent photos of vintage and retro design. Some of the designs in this particular collection are more modern, but reflect a vintage style. It is a “celebration of retro and vintage design — ads, illustrations, book covers, pins and posters from 1920-1980s.”

The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Egyptian section

http://www.metmuseum.org/

I love this location for an overall research location with a historical background. I love art and I love history and this site has been tremendously helpful when I am looking for a specific timeline or image examples from an era or people group such as the Egyptians.  It covers a lot of ground including Asia.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hi/te_index.asp?i=14

They also have a resource link list that is helpful: http://www.metmuseum.org/education/

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Design History – Ancient Designs

Design History is my online class for this winter and I have fallen deeply in love with it. Week 1 started the subject off with a bang over  discussions of the beginnings of design. With that, we were to take an old style and imitate it in a logo form for a fictitious tourist company.

Following is my client presentation for a logo and business cards for a hot air balloon company in Arizona. It is a bit tongue-in-cheek as I do realize petroglyphs, rocks, and hot air balloons don’t really go together. It was fun!

For the full presentation with thumbnail sketches and more images, please click the following pdf link:

Garvin_W1A3_ClientPresentation

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Christmas Break 2010

Christmas break was approximately 4 weeks long. With all that time, you would think a lot would get done, but on the contrary, it seemed I only accrued more to do! I did fit in some fun with the family with our seasonal cookie day, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, visits to the Eiteljorg museum’s first train setup, and visits with friends.

Incidentally, this was also when one family of kids broke out into chicken pox (Christmas Eve) and promptly shared it with their cousins on both sides of the family. Kids at our church were dealing with the result of that all the way through Jan.

One design related item I did accomplish was the annual family calendar that did not get printed until the end of January due to printer breakdown.

This year I chose a theme of vintage children’s books and had a lot of fun with that. This has always been a favorite topic, but the more research I did on it, the more in love with it I fell. I even purchased a couple of vintage books… a Mother Goose book that my Mother grew up with and one of my own first books that is falling into tatters. Now I want to start collecting vintage children’s books! The art is so amazing (especially because it is not computer generated!)

I did not include all the months, but here is a slideshow of some of them and some wonderful links are included below.

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Vintage Kid’s Books My Kid Loves – a blog with wonderful images

Project Gutenberg – Free vintage e-books – the children’s books have gorgeous photos and you can download these to your e-reader

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At Home with Pencil and Paper

While I struggled with the advertising projects, the Life Drawing classes were an oasis for me. I felt like I had finally come home and was losing myself in the homework. I understood this. It was basic. It was kinetic. It involves the whole being – spirit, mind, body – as well as many senses that are untouched in my computer work (which is still very left-brained for me.) It is difficult to explain. 

When in the lab, I lose track of all time and the world is upright. Nothing else matters but the challenge before me, and I fell in love with capturing  in graphite the reality I was experiencing. This then translated over to my technical pen work, which can be seen in my Corporate Communications final and this year’s Christmas cards. It also inspired me to pull out my oils and brushes once more and start painting my beloved Christmas ornaments.

I came back to the “me” I love being… the artist me… the me who loves the world she sees through appreciative artist’s eyes. I am happy and it is impacting more than just my school experience… it is eveloping my whole world.

Here is my final lab drawing on my large sketchbook.  This is with a live model who would stand for 20 minutes at a time, then take a 10 min break. Each time she came back the folds in her clothing would change, so that was a challenge. One of my fellow students wasn’t thrilled with the back view, but the front view involved a shirt full of ruffles and a textured vest… I think this was the easier view for the timeframe we had (2 hours or so). I could do this all day long!

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Sketchbook: Oil Miniatures

Another thing I used my sketchbook for this quarter was to practice drawing dogs. Charlotte ordered 4 ornaments to give as gifts to her agility friends. So first I practiced with Bailey and Toby just to get a feel as to whether I could even draw the semblance of a dog!

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Final Design Layout

For our Design Layout class, the final was to choose an inanimate object, write what it means to you, and then design three 11×17 posters. They were to be photographic, illustrative, and text only. My object was key lime pie and I wrote about the first time I had ever tried real key lime pie when Lainey and I visited the Florida Keys.

With all my energy diverted to my Corporate Communications class, I let the creativity slide a bit on this project (and the teacher commented on that.) I plan to use these as the basis for a frameable final print to go in our kitchen, so I think of them as my “roughs” of the final project, which is not yet finished.

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Sketchbook: Holiday Style

The final weeks of my sketchbook for Life Drawing were gearing more towards the topic of Christmas. This included documenting my ornament painting, a poinsettia we had, as well as reaching back into my photography class last year and using my Mary/Jesus  images to create this year’s Christmas cards.

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Branding: Finding my Voice

Life Drawing and my teacher, Beth, both contributed to my finding my voice in the brand. As I struggled with how to be myself in this computerized project, Beth kept commenting on my fine arts side. So I decided to move in that direction and voila, a sketched tree and bird became the basis for my branding presentation.

It began to “have legs” as I could do a lot with the sketching idea as well as the stylized bird.

For a view of the entire process in an interactive .swf file, go to my online presentation.

Here are a few touchpoints created for the brand:

  • Front and back of my business cards
  • Letterhead
  • Tag
  • Holiday tshirt design
  • Online banner

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