This is what I did during my spring break, I am very lucky to have had the opportunity to display some of my junk in Brice’s zine, vomitorium vol.3, this is one of 6 artworks that I did for the zine. To purchase, either go to this website: vomitorium zine
Or if you are in school and want to purchase it from me, just email me here: jovietajane@yahoo.com
oh, I almost forgot to upload the sample works! ;p
Jovieta-jane*
I think Design is just like any other profession in this world, it exists to solve a problem, sometimes multiple problems at the same time. The more I think about how design works, the more sense it makes to follow the “golden rules” of design process, I mean, we are all still students here, inexperienced, unemployed ( some of us are working, but not quite working in the design field–yet–, not saying that it is not a good exercise to be working for anyone, because, again, working=solving problems, for the employer, and also for ourselves=paying bills.) Even so, by following the “golden rules” of design process, I carefully gained (by repeating the process over and over again whenever I’m solving a design problem.) a knowledge on things that works for me, and things that doesn’t work for me. And I think it is great that we are learning and ended up “customizing” the golden rules, because then again, we are all designers (or is in training to be a designer), aren’t we?
Back to the article, he mentioned a really funny yet true example of people’s perspective towards designers and artists. People always assume that design is the special field where talents and creativity is everything. If a person doesn’t have the talent/creativity, he/she has no chance in joining this “special field”. I personally do not believe that talent/creativity can take someone a long way if they don’t have the passion to learn and improve themselves. Of course, I agree that talent and creativity does play a role in this field, BUT, again, it is just a small part of a big picture. So for those people who thinks that ” ahhh, I don’t have the talent, ah, I am not creative enough.” well I say, get over it, and well if you think you’re lacking in something, then work harder to improve on other things that you’re good at. Thats the way it works, I think, for ANY field.
Research and Discovery
I think this is the most crucial part of a design process, yes, it does seems like a big hazzle for some people. “why do we have to do this boring part? why can’t we just go straight into designing?” Well, I was one of those when I was in my first year of college in Malaysia. (and, yes, I’ve learned my lesson.) With research we gain knowledge not only about the company, but also what they need, and what problems they want us to solve. It is really important to keep in mind every time we are designing, that we are solving a problem. AND also, research is stored in our brain for a long time, and during that time of research, we might bump into something that is totally irrelevant–but incredibly cool–and we ended up using that information for our next project! who knows?
Competitive Analysis
Well, for this, I don’t know, I am trying to limit on seeing things that is specifically related to the design work that I am working on. I still do competitive analysis, but broader… uhm, how do I explain it… okay, for example: I am working on a magazine layout, and I am doing analysis on what people usually do for magazine layout, but instead of trying to find a magazine layout that solved the same problem, I just find a couple of magazine layout, examine their approach and the “basic rules” of designing a magazine layout. The reason I don’t like to look at works that solved the same problem is because I ended up solving it the way they were solved, and I love to challenge myself to have more creativity, but not blind creativity. ( I hope this makes sense. ;p )
Explorations and Thumbnail Sketching
Yes, I found a lot of people hated thumbnail sketching. I had the Ideation class the first quarter in Art Institute, almost all that we do is thumbnail sketching and developing ideas ( hence the name: ideation.) I think this is a very important step, I would like to see thumbnail sketching as a process of eliminating things that doesn’t work, and the volume of it does matter. It is sort of like dating, for some people at least, the more people that they get to know, the more they know what they want in life, and what is the solutions for their problems, and what solution suits them the best. What is great about thumbnail sketching for me is, to save me some time trying out things in the computer, it seems easier just to go and sit in front of the computer and start messing with things, but, sometimes we sat in front of the computer, having no inspiration and ended up doing stuff that is totally irrelevant such as playing online games, facebook, myspace etcetera, and I am also guilty of that definitely. So, with thumbnail sketches on paper, we can reduce the volume on doing random stuff on the internet.
Here’s when I have sort of “customized” the design process to suit my needs.
Composition
I don’t go into typography and imagery, but what I do is to decide on the composition of the layout. I have in mind a basic idea on what type of imagery and typography will work for the final thumbnails that I have selected,(I usually have some imagery and samples of typography compiled from the research stage.) I like to go and start sketching out the composition. This process is rather similar to thumbnail sketching, but while thumbnail sketching is about the big picture, composition sketches for me is a way to have a more solid and fleshed out ideas for my design. During the whole process of composition sketches, I keep in mind type of typography and imagery that I would want to use, so that I limit myself to sketch composition that would work with those, but also still giving myself room to move things around and change things.
Creating final imagery and choosing the typography goes in here.
After all of those process, the executions comes really easily for me, I just go into the computer, following the sketches that I have, still, maybe changing a couple of things that looks like it works in the sketches, but it just, doesn’t when I am in front of the computer. The key is having done all of the stages of design process, it provides me with a solid foundation of how to solve the problem.
I think that is it. I hope you guys enjoyed this and understand what I’m trying to get across, and If you have any questions, if I know, just ask.
*I’m hungry. I need food.
Cheers,
Jovieta-jane*
