Design Used for the Greater Good

I was randomly surfing PSDTUTS.COM when I found this interesting collection of 23 examples of design used as a force of good. It contains designs intended on bringing issues of the homeless, world hunger, and fresh water supply in other countries into the public eye.

Most of these designs are used as street advertisements from not only the United States but all over the World, from countries such as Brazil, England, Portugal, and Germany. I feel they are extremely well done in grabbing the viewers attention and some really get you to think. I really suggest checking these out if you are interested in real world design for the benefit of humanitarian and world aid organizations.

(You can click the picture or the link.)

My Feelings on Blogging

Before life drawing, I really didn't know what blogs were about, but I had read some and they seemed to just be people venting about whatever they wanted, and people commenting on random things. It took me awhile to get used to, but blogging to me is just like keeping an online journal of your experiences on a certain topic, ours being Life Drawing.

The thing I enjoy most about blogging would be the satisfaction of showing others your work and the ease of sharing visual imagery back and forth without having to meet face to face. Blogging also helps to organize our drawing process and to analyze what we have done in class as each week passes, whether it be on the mannequin or just drawings done in class. The only frustrating thing about keeping a blog is remembering to update it regularly and to critically analyze your drawings after ignoring most of what you had learned up to the point in class.

I have been trying to post about other things as well to get the weekly requirements for class but it's hard, for me at least, to share feelings about a drawing or my work as an artist, but I really would like to get better at that. Something that I have not yet posted about but would like to is information about graphic design and specific designers that inspire me when I am working on projects not relating to life drawing.

Having students in groups helps to split up what each of us is required to look at and to comment on. I try to comment at least once a week on each of my group members posts, but it is hard when not everyone keeps their blogs updated, so sometimes there is a lack of comments on my part. I will definitely try and work harder on checking and responding to my groups blogs, as well as keeping my own up to par. No one would want to respond to my blog if I had not contributed to theirs as well.

I like the blog assignments so far but if I got to assign one blog assignment to the class, it would be to do a drawing outside of class. All you would need is one person to sit still for an hour while you draw them, and if not you would just take a picture of them in a random pose and draw from that. =D

How would I rate my blog up to this point? As far as being helpful to group members and responding to their posts, I would probably rate myself on the lower end but definitely hope to improve as the rest of the year goes on. In terms of image quality and trying to represent myself professionally, I would have to rate that somewhere in the middle to higher end because I do actually put time into a post when I make one and also compositionally, try to keep the whole blog from looking messy and unattractive.

I look forward to seeing the end result of the blog after the class has completed!

Three "Best" Drawings So Far

Span of Gesture Drawings

These six gesture drawings are numbered in order of completion in class

Current State of the Mannequin

Class Summary

Upon entering class the first day, I wasn't really expecting anything because I had never talked to anyone who had the class before. Drawing from a model has probably been the most challenging thing so far and close behind that would be the building onto mannequins with clay. I consider model drawing the most challenging because before this class I was pretty bad at drawing a figure and keeping proportions correct. I was unaware we would be exploring as much detail as we have so far into the human body and the anatomy of each muscle group. That in itself has made the class even more interesting than any other drawing class I have had.

I feel my figure drawings in both the long poses and gesture drawings, just keep getting better. I also think that building the clay mannequins isn't as difficult as I thought it was going to be, as long as you don't fall behind on anything. As long as I keep improveing on whatever I do in the class, I will be very satisfied when the class is over and will attempt to continue exploring figure drawing long after. Drawing the figure is much more interesting and challenging than drawing boring old still life, not that drawing still life isn't important too. =P

As I am a graphic designer, drawing a figure isn't so important as having some of the important skills on a computer, but I still take the class seriously and try to improve myself more in the drawing department.

Hamilton Wooden Type Movie!

Movie: Typeface
Drawn Here: Contemporary Design in Conversation

"Although the heyday of wood type was more than a century ago (think “Wanted” posters and circus broadsides), its revival and preservation carries on today. A new film, Typeface, chronicles this effort by documenting the Hamilton Wood Type Museum in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, which houses one of the premier wood-type collections in the world and runs letterpress workshops for designers and artists from across the country. Join us for Drawn Here: Contemporary Design in Conversation, featuring a special sneak preview of the documentary film and a post-screening discussion with director Justine Nagan; Bill Moran, St. Paul–based designer and letterpress guru who cowrote a book documenting Hamilton; and Greg Corrigan, designer and technical director of the Hamilton Museum. Presented by the Walker Art Center, AIGA Minnesota, and the Minnesota Center for Book Arts."

I went to view the special 9pm screening at the Walker Art Center last night with a few friends and I must say the film was exceptional. I included a brief description above that talks a little bit about the base of the film and the director, who took some questions and also formally introduced the movie to our audience before the screening.

The Graphic Designers of today's computer age do not appreciate the old techniques of letter-press and type setting, and I myself am ashamed to say that I would fit pretty well into that category. It's not a person's fault though, since computers have become the standard in almost all of today's graphic design firms.

The film brought to light the importance of not forgetting wooden type and type setting used for printing. After seeing the film I have become a strong believer in perhaps reviving, or at least passing on the skills that Hamilton Wood Type, in the past, has given the world.

The fact that all these amazing presses, not to mention boxes upon boxes of cut wooden types are sitting in a warehouse-like Museum, in an extremely simple and quiet town blows my mind. I really hope none of this history is lost.

Since the museum is in Two-Rivers, Wisconsin, a town just 2 hours from my house in Appleton, I am definetely going to take a trip there this summer or Winterm and maybe do some of the printing I saw in the movie. (Click the picture below to check out the Hamilton Museum's website)

My Current Obsession

Currently for my advanced Packaging and Product Design class, we are doing an alchohol project. I chose beer for my project and must design not only the brand, which I decided to make from scratch, but I then must print labels or onto actual bottles (3 different kinds of beer), and also make a gift that relates to either the New Years Holiday or beer drinking. Everything must be designed into a Holiday Package, celebrating the introduction of my new beer, from Husar Brewing Co.

I'm using my last name for the Brewing Company because I thought it would be pretty cool to see what I could come up with for my own family name. Since the name Husar is Czech, I decided to create a Czech style of logo and packaging.

The only problem for me in designing a Czech style is the fact that I am not very knowledgeable about the history of the country's designers or design. So in the past week I have become obsessed with researching its' history and trying to find out as much as possible about it so my logo and brand has a strong identity as being from the Czech Republic.

Check it out if you want to, this site contains some interviews with current Czech designers and also important imagery from each time period in the country's design history.

Skeletal Structure Drawing + Figure Muscles

These pictures are from 2 different drawings in class a few weeks back. The drawing of the figure was about an hour, while the skeleton drawing was a half hour.

I'll start first with the drawing of the skeleton. To me this drawing turned out a little more detailed than I would have liked it to, but overall I think the scale and proportions are correct for the most part the exception being increasing of the skulls' size. I started this drawing as lightly as I could before darkening in the pelvis and rib cage. I feel there is somewhat of a good atmospheric perspective because the skull is lighter than the rest, and the front side of the pelvis is darker than the back side.

In the other drawing, the one of the model, proportion wise the only thing needing correction would be to slightly reduce the height of the figure's waist. This was a very interesting pose, because not all points of the figure are grounded and the stick is helping the figure to balance. I also drew a few of the quad muscles but I was a bit confused as to what muscles I was able to see while just glancing at the figure. You can also see placement of a few of the spinal erectors. I believe a strong point in this drawing is the line variation and the attention to highlighting the figures muscle tone.