ART120 - Illustrator + Photoshop Projects

This blog was created for ART118 but I will most likely continue putting my future assignments here. These were the two main projects I completed this term for ART120 (Computer Graphics).



This was my final Illustrator project. We had to design a book cover based on the style of Art Nouveau, Art Deco or Russian Revolutionary. I was really drawn to Russian Revolutionary but I thought it would be really popular and decided to challenge my pen tool skills with Art Nouveau. I like the design overall but, as my teacher noted, it IS a bit too geometric and symmetrical for the period. My goal was to modernize it but I think it would have worked better with more organic lines. I feel like my pen tool skills have increased greatly since this assignement. I based the color scheme on various Alphonse Mucha paintings and I'm pretty happy with them overall.



This was my final Photoshop assignment. We had to create a travel ad and had a lot of freedom beyond that. Our teacher said it did not have to be based on a real place. I decided to make mine an alternative history where dirigibles had become more popular than airplanes. This was loosely inspired by a little obsession this last year with Mad Men. I wanted to create a Pan Am-style 1960s travel ad with an airship. I created my own airship line called Hermes Airships, after the Greek god of travel and flight. I created various logos and decided to use a set of 3, as seen at the bottom. The middle image is a stylized version of Hermes' winged shoes. I created the silhouettes in Illustrator from parts of about ten different photos. I found the city image off Google Images, desaturated it and faded it to white. I scanned the zeppelin image from a book and colorized it. My parents mentioned that phone numbers began with letters in the 60s so I formatted the phone number to suit the period. The address and number are from the art building where my class took place. I set out to create a clean, modern, 60's-inspired ad and I'm very pleased with the outcome.

Design for the Other 90%

I’ve been a Graphic Design major on and off for about eight years now. I attended Bennington College in Vermont out of high school but felt it wasn’t the right fit and left. After living at home and applying to various New England schools for a year, I made an impulsive decision to move across to the country to a city where I had never been – Portland, Oregon. Once in Portland, I attending the McDonalds of art school, the Art Institute, for a short period, as the idea of spending $40,000 for another year of school was unappealing. After another few years out of school and in the “real world”, I decided to suck it up and finish my degree at Portland State University. I stuck with Graphic Design because of the degree’s versatility. I’m still not 100% sure what I will do with my degree but I’d always liked the idea of doing layout for a publication or more recently, toy design. Sustainable design had honestly never occurred to me before this term. I think I always saw the art world as a self-contained environment and though it can and does affect people, I never thought that it could change lives. When we began our charity: water project, my eyes were opened to new artistic possibilities. I mentioned in a previous paper that I like accessible art – I don’t think art should be for the elite few. I’m slowly reconciling my idea of the art world as self-contained and my love of accessible art. I realized that art and design can serve a real purpose. The charity: water project allowed our class to focus their efforts on a worthy cause. It’s a challenge to create art that is beautiful and functional and there seems to be no greater challenge than to create design that addresses basic survival needs, like clean water.

I briefly researched an on-going movement called Design for the Other 90% for an in-class presentation and loved its ideas. The movement focuses on the 5.8 billion people that have been traditionally ignored in the design world. Rather than art for the sake of art, Design for the Other 90% explores simple, low-cost solutions and unique ways to address basic survival needs for, well, the other 90% of the world. The movement brings together people from all over the world, from students and professors to architects and engineers, to design unique ways to increase access to food, water, energy, education, healthcare and affordable transportation in developing nations. Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York City hosts a traveling exhibition dedicated to this movement. Coincidentally, I had already planned to visit this museum when I’m in New York later this month. Unfortunately, the exhibition will be in Canada when I am there but I hope to see it in the future.

Cooper-Hewitt’s website features many designs that aim to serve the other 90% of the world. The design that stood out most to me was the Q Drum, a low-cost, durable container used to transport water easily and effectively. Particularly in rural Africa, people have to carry clean water miles from their home and the Q Drum reduces this burden while keeping the water clean. It’s a simple solution to a big problem and highlights how a designer can truly change lives.

Another design that stood out to me in the midst of my charity: water project was the LifeStraw, a personal, mobile water purifier. Roughly half the world’s population suffers from waterborne disease. The LifeStraw is designed to turn any water source into drinkable water, greatly reducing the risk of disease.

The website also features quick-assembly, prefabricated huts for Atlanta’s homeless population, ceramic water filters, solar-powered lighting systems, solar-powered hearing aids, and various educational tools. However, the Q Drum and LifeStraw were the two designs that I found most inspiring. Many of the other designs were incredibly innovative but likely the product of not only designers but engineers or scientists as well. The Q Drum, in particular, seemed like a perfectly simple solution within reach of a fledgling designer.

Learning about the designs of Design for the Other 90% and organizations like charity: water has given me a lot to think about in the coming years. I hope to continue learning more about artists’ influence in sustainability and what I can do to help.

Charity: Water - Posters and Postcards

A second part to our charity: water project was to create posters and holiday postcards to raise awareness. I originally understood that we would be creating Christmas cards and designed a few that would be folded horizontally:


The top shows the exterior of the card and the bottom shows the the inside as you flip the card open.



The top water drop would be cut out, revealing the blue underneath.



This was an alternate idea using an appropriate image from their website.


Eventually, it was decided to create 4.25 x 5.5 postcard stencils to spray paint. I reworked my design based on the website's stylized wells. This proved to be a bit difficult, as you had to create a design big enough to cut out smoothly but with enough information to convey a point. In the end, Luke made some stickers for the back of the postcards and we were able to limit the words on the cards themselves. I'm not as happy with these cards as I am with the ones above.



This was an early design idea for the poster stencil.



I changed the font to something larger and sans-serif to make it easier to cut out. Unfortunately, my exacto knife was a little dull and the stencil was not quite as nice as I hoped.



My original postcard design, using charity: water's typical Georgia font.



My final stencil using sans-serif font. I did not end up cutting the letters out, though, because it would have been really difficult to read.



My stencil post-spray, taken from Luke's blog.



Finally, my digital postcard. I combined elements from all my ideas into this card. I love the combination of icy blues and ruby red around the Christmas season. This was sent to some family and friends.

Charity Water Project: Jellyfish Chandelier

For the past few weeks, a group of my classmates and I have been working on what we call the "Jellyfish Chandelier" for the charity: water project. Our class created three chandeliers to be hung in the offices of the school President, Provost and Design Department. We're also hoping that at least one of our chandeliers will make an appearance in the Food For Thought Cafe.

I'm very pleased with the way the chandelier came out. Our group was small, but focused, and everyone contributed to its final, beautiful outcome.

Presenting the Jellyfish Chandelier, created by Mara Connolly, Christina Davis, Kailina Don, Kate Dukovicic, Anne Holbrook Snyder Grassman, and Lisa Lessley Briscoe.



The beginning.



We cut the tops and bottoms off of each bottle and cut the remaining cylinder into three rings. Each ring was cut so that it could wrap around the light and create a sphere.



We used a bicycle wheel for the base and strung icicle lights around it. Each icicle light was covered in three rings creating a spherical shape. This is about halfway through construction.



Halfway through construction but with the lights off for atmosphere.



The rings up close.



The finished piece, all lit up.



A view from below.



A closer look. The "tentacles" are made from the remaining bottle bottoms.



An even closer look.


Thanks to Christina, Kailina, Katie, Anne and Lisa for being such an awesome team and thanks to Lisa for providing these great pictures.

Charity Water Project: Plastic Bottle Chandeliers

From a talk we had in class today about our charity: water project, some examples of sustainable plastic bottle chandeliers: