So for the second half of the quarter, the class was tasked with creating two posters in a series using one of the theories relating to the integration of type and image. Upon further review, it was decided by the professor that we would be better served by committing all our efforts into one developed piece. I decided to design a poster calling to attention the social issues surrounding the diamond industry in Africa, employing the theory of fragmentation.

Along with starting off in the usual manner of doing research, and sketching pages of ideas, I happened upon a rather impactful video of TED speaker and “Ad Man” Rory Sutherland. What I found fascinating was listening to Sutherland’s views on how perception assigns value, and if that perception can be skewed or influenced in anyway, you can effectively change its intrinsic value. So in regards to this project, it was my intent to explore how to visually devalue diamonds through perception. I believe that through creating a strong sense of visual discord with form, color, imagery, and even language that I was able to create a poster that was inherently both uncomfortable and aggressive.

For the sake of time I’ll hold myself back from going into the many small details and nuances that mean so much to me as its designer and let you explore and make of them what you will, developing your own meaning and symbolism. And!, as I often do, I created a nice zoomify version down below for you to play with, so make sure to zoom in and pan around to your hearts content. As for the finished product it was very much a growing experience as I worked hard to push my aesthetic and conceptual abilities to a new level. Also I feel that fortunately I’ve opened one of “those doors,” where I can see many more possibilities in the work. I’m playing with the idea of taking the concept and the form much further, creating an actual series of variations based on the theme and seeing where that takes me.

Click and Drag on the image to Pan and use the slider to Zoom in and out.

Normally I wouldn’t be to keen posting up exercises leading up to a project, but I really like these, so here they are!For the second project in Type 2 I’m developing a series of two posters that use two of the four accepted theories of creating relationships between type and image. The four are; Separation, Fusion, Fragmentation, and Inversion. I wont go into any kind of depth of what these are, what they mean and all their subcategories, but for those interested, in these two sets of exercises I’m using separation and fusion respectively. For the exercises the class was asked to take for words (excitement, tranquility, historical, and natural) and write a sentence about what it meant to us, then to create a design utilizing the two theories.

It’s been far too long since I’ve done some heavy lifting in photoshop so I decided to stretch my figurative legs and have some fun, I’m sure this will come across in my approach to the second set of solutions. Theres a lot of thinking and social commentary going on in those two dealing with historical distortion, and degradation of the natural world. On the other hand the first set is more pure design using a tight grid and slight re-imagining of a De-Stijl typeface by Theo Van Doesburg, to really drive home that tight square grid. In any case check it out!

This quarter in Type 2 there are only two projects with brief exercises before each; for the first I was tasked with making a book.The problem posed to the class was to gather poetry with emotional themes from contrasting perspectives, then develop each in spreads using formal and experimental typography to give the poetry typographic voice. The contrasting themes I chose to go with were viewpoints on military conflict, choosing a now historically heroic Second World War, and contrasting that with contemporary conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. I decided to approach the ten pieces of literature individually, designing each its own voice and feeling, ultimately visually conveying it’s emotion.

One would think that with half the usual amount of projects usually expected in a studio class that there would be less work, fortunately this was definitely not the case. I say fortunately because for the first time I was able to flesh out and really pour in a great amount of working hours to truly experiment with something new and refine it to a finished state. Most of the design solutions that I worked with in these spreads are new and personally innovative. Even with the physical construction I was able to experiment with perfect binding and new types paper for the first time. Overall I feel like this was a big step for me as a designer, and I’m pleased with the results. Check it out below.

Let me start off by explaining a couple things about this class. Unlike all the work I’ve done leading up to this post at SCAD, this class is team centric. The first day we were broken down into teams of four and tasked with creating and branding our own design firm, by the second class we were down to three members… Never-the-less the remaining three forged ahead, settled on our name (Nijiro), and I as the “Creative Director” of the group created our logo with a ton of great input from the team. From there we all worked on getting together a mood board, all the deliverables (cover letters, pocket folders, etc.) and a brochure advertising out services together. A tight deadline and an agonizingly long all niter later, we were able to present a very professional and  resolved branding and identity of our faux company. I have to say that I’m lucky to have partnered with dedicated and hard working team members; Josh Beckwith and Lucia Sagrera. You can check out Josh’s crazy work at his web site; Postit Labs. Check out all of our hard work down below.

I’m always trying to squeeze in some screen printing at any available opportunity. This quarters been rough so far, but I’ve managed to get some in.

I’ll try and keep this one short and sweet. I’ve been needing some new threads, so I printed up a few shirts with a couple designs for my screen printing biz that I’ve been messing around with. I think they came out great, check ‘em out in the gallery below. As for the parking sign, I have some of the most inconsiderate neighbors out there. I’m happy to say like my other sign, since its been up theres been no problems.

This was my final project for the summer quarter of production. It’s a bit late getting up here, but the time did not go to waste, I ended up playing around with a cool way to display the work. Briefly about the work itself, I just had some fun with this one. I wanted to keep the design simple and convey a kind of tongue in cheek elegance that can only come from a themed costume party. I chose to set the booklet in Archer, a simply stunning slab serif, and use only three colors. I had a lot of fun composing the silhouette illustrations, drawing great inspiration from the awesome end credits of Pixar’s “The Incredibles. The Cities in that some of the illustrations are set against (in order) are Savannah, The absolutely stunning 2013 New York skyline, and Chicago on the back cover.

Now for the cool part! Directly below is an interactive page viewer. To work this you have you click and hold (grab) the corner of the page and flick it (much like an iphone) to turn the pages. This is a nice new relatively unknown addition to indesign which exports directly to an .swf without opening Flash. Very cool. Play around with it let me know if you like it. I plan on using it with other work in the future.

Click and hold the corner and flick it to turn the page, or just single click the corner.

For our third project of this summer quarter we were tasked with designing packaging for an item. I chose to create packaging for fine quality screen printing inks. Since I’ve been experimenting  heavily with screen printing, the idea of packaging the inks seemed obvious, and provided a way to test out my abilities in the medium. Conceptually I envisioned the packaging as a true testament to the actual product, I wanted the consumer to be able to see the quality, opacity, smoothness, etc. of the product up front. I also wanted the packaging to be easy and cheap to produce, I intended for it to be used by a small company servicing a smaller consumer base, who could produce these in house with their own product. The bottles I’ve had laying around and the paper I used is recycled and is actually the paper used to sandwich and protect expensive paper so I ended up getting it for free.

From there I started off as always with really rough sketches, then designing and testing the actual box. Next I worked on the branding and logo sketching in Illustrator. I wanted a block printing look to the type with a contemporary aesthetic, which I’m confident I achieved by going with the slab serif typefaces I chose (Aachen, and Clarendon.) Due to good planning and scheduling (a first!) I was able to spend an ample amount of time in the designing phase producing and revising many maquettes.

At the fulfillment (production) phase, I’m proud to say that for the first time ever with the silk screen process it went extremely well and without incident. I spend most of my free time away from school projects continually experimenting and refining my processes, and finally its paying off! I feel the paper choice ended up being great and the speckling from the recycling process ended up giving it an unexpected character. I’m super pleased with the results, and received a positive reception upon presenting it in class. I’ve taken a ton of images for this project, check it out. Any questions feel free to give me a shout.

I really love these competition based projects, and even more, I love screen printing. So I figured it was about time to make up for past failures and produce this poster with the silk screen process. This competition was put forth by Enmark who sponsors the grueling run up the “south’s toughest bridge.” I personally take that assertion to heart as I meekly made my way up the bridge on my bike to grab some shots of what the bridge might look like as your run up it. The limitations of the project where that it had to be a three color job, sized 11×17, and the Enmark logo had to be in it along with the supplied copy, thats it. After collecting said shots and tons of sketching I decided on the design. I felt it was clean, simple, big and bold. Once that was done the real work began… What a way to kick off production design.

I can honestly say that producing this poster was a culmination of two full days (and late nights) of work and endless trouble shooting. I felt as if it was fighting me every step of the way, literally trying it hardest to keep me from success. I kept my head up and continued forward, and only one bruised fist later I had this stunningly beautiful print, worth all the missed sleep and frustration.

In addition to the poster there was a shirt design required that will be given out for the run, and in its design I just kept it the same and I feel like it translated well onto fabric. First place yields 400 smackers, so hopefully the judges will like what they see.

So as you may, or may not have guessed, I’ve taken issue with the special little presents that I’ve been finding on my tiny plot of back yard dirt. Process pics after the… Read More

So I’ve been spending tons of time continually experimenting with screen printing.Heres a couple shirts I made up for a good friend with an obnoxious disposition, which I hope comes across in the couple of shirt designs I made up for him. The first shirt was an addition to an already printed shirt featuring Kobe Bryant. He wanted the shirt to mock all the “haters” of Kobe, and celebrate his awesomeness. For the back I did a simple typographic design with the copy he wanted and the counter of the 4 made up with the years that Kobe won the NBA Championship. For the second shirt I designed the front and the back. Again I wanted a simple design to showcase my friends love for plantains. The front is a halftone image of  a bunch of plantains, and the back is a Nutritional Facts label. Its all meant to be fun and playful and I think definitely telling of my buddy’s personality. Ugh, I wish I had some plantain chips right now… or some Mofongo or even some Platanos. I gotta get my dad to overnight me some… hint hint. Overall I love how the shirts came out and I’m excited over my increasingly sharp skills with the medium. Hopefully they go over the same way with him!