Category: Uncategorized

Background

The image you see on the left is the first draft of a logo I was developing for Third Place Books which is a bookstore in Ravenna. Third place books is a cafe and a bookstore in one place meant to be a place for people to stay while they’re away from home and off of work. So the goal for their new logo was to evoke a welcoming yet upscale feeling while using imagery that communicates the selling of books and coffee. 

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First I filled a notebook page with logo sketches and picked 3 of the strongest ones and with further review with my classmates narrowed that down to one. I then digitized that sketch which is the image to the left. There are books and coffee cups, even 3 books to tie in with the name of the establishment. But what was missing was the welcoming attitude, the corners were sharp and there was a general lack of character. I struggled to iterate further on this version of the logo. Then, after watching a video my professor Jill recommended, I learned to not think so literally and to focus on feeling instead. I decided to then step back and take a whole new direction. I began in Illustrator this time instead of in the sketchbook. I somehow quickly stumbled upon a few iterations that looked very similar to the version you see on the image on the right. Playfully tilted coffee cups in front of lively organized books. This iteration felt much closer to the welcoming yet upscale feel I was looking to find. I then took this new iteration to class and sent it through reviews and refinement until it looked like what you see on the right.

Results

After completing this logo project I learned a couple things about my design process. I learned that it’s not good to rush the sketching, ideating, and brainstorming phase. You do not want to try to force an idea to work because you think you have sunk too much time into it to pivot. Secondly, I learned to not think too literally and to generally relax more to let the ideas flow out of you instead of judging what you have not even put on the page yet. There is a zone that I found myself in when creating the winning idea that I was not in when creating my first sketches. A focused, clear, and free mind is required to create quality ideas and through this project, I have learned what this zone is and how I can enter it.

For this assignment we used Adobe Aero to create a augmented reality version of a card with at least two elements the user can interact with. I chose to create a graduation card for my own graduation of high school. The ribbons on the left and right both spin in place infinitely on opening the file. Then, the 2020 once tapped, moves up while scaling up then moves back down while scaling down. Finally, the rocket once tapped spins with moving up to represent where my future is heading. I had difficulties trying to do what I wanted to do though. I imported text from Adobe Illustrator as png’s that said “happy” and “Graduation” and they worked when building the scene, but once I actually played the card through the Aero app, the text disappeared. I could not figure out how to fix that issue so I was forced to ditch the text. At least the rocket works well!

Point of Interest: Thrift Stores

How I created it: Our group set up a shared Figma file to work on our panels simultaneously so we could supply the same type of information to the viewer of our panels. Then for the GIF in the middle panel, I recreated Crossroad’s logo in Adobe Illustrator and laid out 20 art boards with the triangles of the logo moving away from center and then back to center. I exported those art boards out of Illustrator and then imported them into photoshop and used the frame animation feature to create a GIF.

Assets: Panels are png files and animation is a GIF file.

Video of Panels in Action:

Clash Royale (image to the right)

Clash Royale is a free mobile tower defense game. You play against other players online in 1v1 or 2v2 matches. You deploy characters to the battlefield expending “elixir” which is always slowly recharging. You win by destroying your opponent’s main tower or by doing more damage to their towers when the time runs out. Its a game of timing, placement, and patience. I would say Clash Royale’s target audience is kids aged 10 all the way up to young adults who still like video games in general. This is the only remaining game on my phone because it is so good. What makes Clash Royale so great is the replay-ability, the variety of winning strategies, and how you can always get better especially as they add new characters. The fact that there is a pro Clash Royale league is a testament to how well this game was made. There is much to say about how well made Clash Royale is but what I personally like the most is how its free and its extremely replay-able and rewards you for getting better.

Like a Swiss army knife, us designers have tools in our arsenal we use to be successful. Here I will be outlining what tools I currently have, what needs development, and finally the tools I don’t have that I want to learn to succeed after my schooling at SCCA.

TOOLS I HAVE

Visual identity design skills. I have the technical skills to create a full visual identity for a brand. That includes logo creation, color, type, packaging mockups etc.

Basic Figma app prototype design. I can use Figma to bring app screens from sketches to an interacting prototype. I have a good feel for flow, layout, and usability when creating an app as well.

TOOLS THAT NEED DEVELOPMENT (disclaimer: all of my skills could always use development)

Photoshop for photo editing. I know how to use a good amount of the photo editing tools in photoshop but I don’t know how to use them very well. I can’t create a beautifully warm photo that looks retro using photoshop yet but I would love to learn how.

Photoshop for cut outs. When selecting an object from a photo, especially if that object is human, its hard to perfectly select the object without leaving white residue around the object that you can see when the cut out object is on a new background. I can make an ok cut out but not super high-level.

Type modification. When creating logos using type, often custom or modified type is used. I am not confident at all in my type modification skills if the font isn’t made up of straight lines. So when it comes to modifying script fonts, I am in deep water so I would like to learn how to add an extra swoop or tail to a letter if you know what I mean.

SKILLS I WANT TO LEARN

Indesign. I do not know how to use Indesign what so ever. I know it can be used for large scale layout making and organizing of elements. I know that will be a useful skill to learn for magazines, and other print products.

Web Flow. Web Flow is a program used to create websites without having to code. I would love to be able to make high-level websites with Web Flow. There are so many fun designing to be done within websites that I would love to get involved in especially for my own website so Web Flow is definitely a program I want to become capable at.

3D modeling software. I am interested in industrial/product design and I would love to be able to bring something from sketch to a 3-d modeling software to a 3d printer one day. As well as using it to aid in designing furniture and architecture.

DSLR Camera App UX Review

Usability:

The usability was intuitive on the default mode of “auto” and the “manual” mode to its right. With just a swipe between these modes and ease of adjusting shutter speed, iso, and focus in manual mode, I give these features a high usability score. Then for more customizations for how you want to take your photo, you can hit the “settings” button which will pull up a menu with lots of nice features you can enable and disable. The UX felt mostly standard and familiar. Where I encountered troubles was when I was delving into the gimmicky modes the app has. You access these modes by pressing the hamburger menu where they are listed in that menu. I am not a fan of the hamburger menu here because you have no idea what the hamburger menu contains before hitting it. But in there, there are a bunch of gimmicky modes such as the AR Portrait mode where you are supposed to be able to take a photo and then place text between say the person you photographed and the background behind them and it uses the lidar of your phone to complete this task. When I tried this feature I simply could not figure out how to do that with the text. So the usability of the AR Portrait mode was not up to par as there was not enough explanation of its capabilities and how to use them. So overall, the UX is pretty good, just when moving on to the non-standard features that this app advertised heavily in the app store was clearly not given as much time energy and priority in this app than the standard features. So, in that case, I believe this app is not whole, it either needs to drop the special features or implement them in a way that they do not feel like an easter egg that you had to explore to find.

Prompt: Pet Friendly Interstellar Vacation

Description of What I Want the Image to Look Like: I want to create a dog park with dogs in space suits in space, with the moon and Earth in the background.

Sketch:

Ai Software: Microsoft Bing Image Creator powered by DALL-E 3

Generation 1, Prompt: “a dog park in space”

Prompt #2: “A dog park in space with earth and the moon in the background”

Prompt #3: “a dog park in space where the dogs wear space suits with earth and the moon in the background”

So Microsoft Bing’s Ai Image Creator exceeded my expectations. It was really easy to use, I just needed to connect it to my outlook account to get started. The images all were high quality at 1024 x 1024 pixels. You give the program a prompt and it created 4 options for you to choose from. Then, it gives you the option to download as a jpg, share, save, and customize. The download feature is super useful. I feel like I got pretty close to my sketch after prompt #2 but the dogs weren’t wearing space suits. So I added space suits in prompt #3 and it lost the layout of the dog park that I liked from 2 and changed it to a smaller one. But, all in all I believe it got pretty close and with further prompt edits, I could get even closer so I’m satisfied with my experience. What I don’t like is that there is really no control you have over what the software will generate, the image will be different every time and you can’t make edits to an image it already created for you. It’s a get what you get type of deal. My honest opinion about this kind of software is that I don’t like Ai generated images and I personally don’t want to use them even though this Bing Ai image creator is quite cool and surprised me.

When learning about augmented reality posters, I tried to think of possible use cases for them. My mind went right to advertising posters you find on the street where adding an AR feature to them could liven them up and make them more fun. So, I decided to take an old portfolio project of mine where I created a series of advertising posters for a clothing brand I made up, and add some sort of movement to them.

I decided to add movement by putting the models on figurative conveyer belts that move in opposing directions in a perfect loop. I created a gif of this using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. First by making 17 art boards in illustrator moving each model half in inch in one direction until they complete one loop. First I only did 8 art boards but the final product was totally not smooth enough so I doubled the frames. Once I created the frames in illustrator, I threw them in photoshop and used the timeline feature to create a gif out of them. From there, I just had to give the EyeJack Creator app my gif and it was done and I was happy with the product.

I was assigned the letter Q to find in the environment and capture it. Here is what I found:

Within the Graphic team of the Creation Studio and in collaboration with the creative director, the stylists and the graphic designers of the men’s, women’s, sports and children’s collections, the graphic designer will be responsible for developing the graphics for all of the collections. .

Its mission will be:

Graphics from the Men’s / Women’s / Children’s / Sport / Collab collections

Search for trends and graphic inspirations
Proposals for technical ideas (print, badge, etc.)
Creation of placed and allover prints, embroidery and badges
Production of technical files for printing and/or embroidery
Proposals for color variants
Monitoring the development of graphics (strike off/proto, etc.)

Job Description from LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/3752020043

If I were to work abroad, one of the destinations I would consider would be France. France is a beautiful country with a rich culture and good food. They value time off work and they care about living healthy sustainable lives. I personally envy the French for collectively having that attitude unlike the US with its hustle culture. The biggest road block would be learning French, although, since I am a bit French, I would like to learn some of the language even if I wasn’t going to move there for work.

This job opening is particularly attractive because its in the fashion space which I am passionate about myself. The company is Lacoste, an old higher end French clothing brand and it is based in Paris. The particular position that is open is very interesting to me because I would get to work on the graphics that actually go on the clothes instead of marketing graphics. Since I have a love for fashion, I would love to work on designing graphics for clothing. It would be awesome know I had a hand in designing a piece of clothing that would end up in stores that next season. Added bonus: I would probably get employee discounts.