Oct 27 - Game Day

ugh came in late again. Anywayz we were gonna play board games during the whole class time. FUN! I brought 3 games: Scrabble, Life, Monopoly, all thanx to my aunt and two cousins. My classmates ended up playing with Life and Monopoly since someone bought another Scrabble game. The first game I played was Clue, a mystery solving where you eliminate the odds of who the killer is, where, and what weapon. It was my first time actually completing the game. The game was updated to make it more challenging with cards and more rooms. For some reason, I kept getting the dice with questions marks on it, making me kept getting the cards. That was fun and entertaining. The game was a mental thinking game of eliminating the possibilities and getting the final conclusion of who the killer is, where and what weapon. Fun game, but probably not for people who want to be active and energetic. At least I understand how the game works.

The next game that I chose was one of the games that I brought: Life. At home (SF), I have another Life game that's an older edition. So I had to read some of the new rules and be the banker. The Life game that we played was different than the one I'm familiar with as it has more rules, different amount in Life tiles, panels with new directions, and more cards. So some of them I didn't realize until a bit late, but we kept going and had fun. We had such a blast as kids were getting added, stealing each others salary card, and taking money from each other and the banker (such a challenge to play and being giving out payday money every turn). Each turn had something unexpected to occur, keeping us in suspense and excited throughout the game. The most entertaining that was that I became known as the crooked cop and Edwing kept getting children (then ended up in the river @_@ lol). Life definitely became everyone's favorite, including Monopoly from the noises heard. I'm so glad that my games had everyone having fun.

The point of us playing board games is to help us for our next homework of sketching up 10 original games. They must have: story, characters, themes, icons, conflict, risk and rewards. What an interesting assignment! Right now can think of only 3, so hopefully some inspiration will help me to complete all 10. And HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! XD

OCT 25 - iterative and films

On Monday, everyone in class was really out of it and was very unresponsive. Personally, I did an all nighter and had only 2-3 hours of sleep because of my trip to and from San Francisco. I guess we all were too tired from midterm. Also would have helped if Chomsiri was in class since she's always full of energy. Guess she had to work on the paint project since I saw her in the next class. Good thing that Jimmy was not that strict on us for our half-dead attitude ^_^.

Jimmy gave us the option of which to do first: discussion or videos. We all chose videos, but somehow we did discussion first. Probably because he was into it and we were all tired to point it out until he realized it himself lol. First he started the discussion that we can not say "don't know" as we designers are critical thinkers / problem solvers. We should be able to figure out the problem or explore ways to solve them. So the word "iterative" was introduced to us with the definition of " repetitive actions to have better goals or until successful." As designers the iterative process occurs when revising and evaluating our sketches/designs over and over until it's completed/perfected/approved. Then, Jimmy discusses the experiences of working with clients. Even though the clients are hiring designers (us), the main focus is the audience. Jimmy recommends to create 3 good designs with no personal favoritism among them. Because if the clients chooses one of the non-favorite one, it would be difficult to be active on it and improve the design. There should also be a rationale-based explanation of the strengths and weaknesses for each designs. Designs are not finalized the first time as the clients will give feedbacks/criterion to the designers until they approve.
I can understand the clients and designers relationship since I have had similar experience this last summer. I had an internship with The Rare Orchid as a designing patterns for their merchandises of clip magnets. My contact with the owner was by email. Meredith, the owner, told me what needed to be improved for each of my designs including color variations. It was a fun experience for me, even have one of designs to be finalized in production!!! Still psyche about it! ^_^

MY original design in production!!!

Back to class, there was 2 TED videos to watch. The first was of John Maeda, MIT designer and author of The Love of Simplicity. He was really entertaining and lively. The point was that simplicity is seen everywhere, even when he was taking vacation. Some of the concepts he did as a designers were simple ( drawing with cheetos, mass group of french fries, fries into butterflies = butterfries). Most of his art designs were complex pattens with many geometric shapes and mesmerizing effect. Some of his complex projects were a color patten for makeup company and flash calendars as numbers as leaves falling. Then he pointed out that simple may be good, but sometimes not ideal. Such as if the sky was always the same then there would be no sunset. He believes that simplicity is catching up to complexity, since everyone wants things to be easy/simple. His definition of simplicity is to be living in life and enjoy more. He also have 3 phases of looking at things - observation, analysis and interpretation, exploration through creation. After watching, I started to appreciate how powerful simple concepts can be to designers.
The next video was of Scott McCloud, a cartoonist. His video was very fast paced with quick visual imagery, like comic book style, but he was still very engaging and humorous. His view of vision is different from Maeda's as it follows his dad's blindness. Scott did a quick history background of himself as his dad being blind, originally can see, works in science as military engineer, his siblings follow dad's path, and himself having a drive of being a cartoonist. His ideas of the different types of vision are: on what can't see, already proven, and what can be but unproven. This can be seen in science, personal endeavors, designers, and politics, just have to watch for pattens. His view on comics is that it's a visual medium that embraces everything, including the 5 senses. He points out the sense of time in comics when the scenes change.Comics follow the spacial line to have the flow of being continuous. He then showed the different possibilities of comics on screen as an infinite canvas to adapt to the environment. Unfortunately if it had visual affects of moving pictures, it wouldn't really be comics anymore. After watching the video, it gave me a new perspective on comics and visual images. Especially since Jimmy says our final project was a 5 minute video of us individuals. Eep! I'm not the person behind the lens and never used a camera. Wonder if I can use my old camera phone so I can edit. Hhhmmmm. Can't really do anything though since he was very vague.

On Wednesday, we have game day; all day of playing boardgames. This is to help us for storytelling development. Already have an idea of a game from watching Criminal Mind. ^_^ Can't wait for class, it will be fun!

Oct 20 - Body Gestures

Reporting from San Francisco!!! Had a long day full of wedding ceremony and banquet. But the ending was entertaining since half the people were watching the giants game. Could hear them cheer now and then, and a big "hooray" when they won. lol ^_^

For class, everyone sat in a circle again and had a discussion on body language. It's very important as it helps to communicate and connect with the audience in presentations. Body language can be a physical representation of what emotion the speaker is feeling in front of the audience. They can show signs of being nervous or confident based on the body gestures. This is vitally important to us design students as we want to connect with the audience by showing our confidence and ease by our body language. When we speak, our tone and volume also affects the body language. Other parts than can play a factor in body language are: clothes, acting, improv, movement, and eye contact. The most common signs of nervousness in body language are: body shifting, not maintaining eye contact with the audience, and small movement in arms, hands, or feet.

Then we had a fun activity of each person had to present themselves with 2 truths and one lie, and the audience decides which one is the lie through body language. It was a long time that I had to go up in front of class so I was obviously nervous. I jumped right in, spoke really fast that the audience couldn't hear the three choices, and forced myself to stay still instead of being comfortable/casual. Everyone saw that, so I really really need to work on my body language and presentations. Guess I'm also used to practicing before presenting, not being taken by surprise of representing. I believe we are going to do more presentations for future class to help us in that area, since other people had similar problems of being nervous "on stage." To be honest, I guessed the lies based on mainly the facts than the body language. Analyzing the options helps me to narrow it down to one truth. Also, I couldn't really see the body language clearly since I was sitting on the side and was unable to see the face or eyes clearly. So overall, I was looking at the whole body and listening to the people's presentation. Guess this is from listening to class lectures.

Last, I believe, we went over the same homework of having 10 different phrases/meaning to a new image. My image was a cute baby in a white bag being flown in the sky by a stork. I thought I did good, but I guess some of my choices were still too literal. After class ended, I kept thinking about it and I was able to make up more new inventive ones for it. The funny thing is, that ad was actually for drugs. @_@

Oct 18 - Mood and Style Boards

For class, everyone sat in a circle for discussion and lecture. We began by looking at the contents and advertisement of  the book, Becoming a Graphic Designer 4th edition, and 2 magazines, CMYK and Creative & Quarterly. Jimmy highly recommended the book for graphic design students as it contains helpful information such as portfolio requirements and interviews. Then again, he got the book for free since he's a teacher -_-.... Ah well, if I need it badly I'll buy it online for maybe an older edition. The magazines contains advertisement made mainly by design students. There were two advertisements for art school that we discussed: a small pencil used on both ends and a baby carriage with a baby holding a chainsaw. The pencil advertisement looked like a cigarette to me cause of the smoke, but it was to show that the pencil was used a lot to make it like that. Funny that the majority of the class got that concept instead of what I got. I guess I see things differently, not sure if that's good or bad... But, none of us understood the baby and chainsaw ad. I pointed out that if the baby held art supplies instead of the tool, then it would be perfect for the art school ad to show that children need to be raised exploring their imaginations. The only thing we could come up with for the ad is that babies are dangerous.

To understand how the advertisement came to be, we learned about creative briefs - where concepts of ideas are discussed in the meeting board. The necessary parts are: goal, audience, media, and purpose. We discussed what the best way to find out what's hot/ in for our age group. For us, the best way is by watching TV mainly MTV. We used an example of bikini girls and football on MTV to explore how that concept came to be. That was interesting information for me, since it was the first time I heard of it. Definitely not something I want to watch lol XP. Another way to get more information was to be curious, absorb information and what's in. To get the best original idea, it's best not to look up the internet. If you do, the design would be copied instead of uniquely yours. I definitely need to work on that since I'm usually open to new ideas and the internet is just so handy. Hopefully I'll try to follow this advice for my creativity.

We then went over the homework of having 10 phrases /  headlines for one image. I was the first one up since I was next to Jimmy, and I did a horrible job. My image was the center of a highway and most of my words were about it such as - road trip, neverending journey, one way road, go straight, etc. Apparently I was too literal and descriptive for the concept challenge. It needed to be something unrelated to the image and still make sense while shifting different emotions and meanings. The whole circle of students had similar problems so we had to do the same thing for homework. But there were some that understood and did excellent job of having witty and unexpected headlines. Some were even humorous and emotional. Definitely something I need to work on.

Oct 7 - GAUGE Meet and Greet

Yeah, I know this is very very late. Been meaning to put this post up but got busy with work and forgot about it. XP

Anwayz, I was able to attend the GAUGE Meet and Greet at the Fine Arts Gallery at 3 pm after my art history class. My friend, Britteny, came with me so I didn't feel that awkward going. The food was Sbarro pizza  and some refreshments. While everyone was eating , each person from AIGA would go and interact with any of the visitors. Our host was nicknamed "the Boogie Man", who talked to us about the GAUGE, the website, the benefits, and encouraged us join AIGA. Then, the GAUGE people went up and did an announcement of the same thing with introduction of all GAUGE members and questions answered. Before leaving, there was a picture taken of everyone there. Unexpected but nice. Overall, it was a nice setting and the people were very nice and informative. I might go to the next GAUGE gathering.

Joining AIGA would cost $50 (compared to the original price of $100 I believe) IF 20 people joined. Saw the sign-in sheet and there were only 12 people there. Maybe there are more people interested in joining who were not able to make it to the meet and greet. Not sure when the deadline for that is, but I'm thinking of signing up. They told us to check the website for more information.

Next GAUGE meeting: Helvetica film screening, changed to 3rd floor of art building, 7-9pm
website: gaugerocks.com and aigalosangeles.org

10/13 - Storytelling and Film

On Wed. the class had a discussion over what storytelling is: the basic parts of storytelling and what makes a good story. The basic parts of storytelling consist of the beginning, middle, end, plot, characters, theme, etc. A good story contains drama, humor and different types of genres, such as adventure, drama, romance, mystery, thriller-horror, etc. Next, we had everyone share their homework of having 3 different pictures forming an unwritten story. The concept became a bit more complicated than I had originally thought as the class discussed everyone's homework. My 3 pictures only have places; it need people to make it a successful storytelling. The homework is to choose one image and think of 10 words/phrases to have different meanings for it. Not exactly my strong suit as I'm more of an obvious person than witty per se, but I'll see how it goes.

The class still had time after the storytelling lecture and activities, so we watched a video from TED - Technology Entertainment Designer with Elizabeth, author of "Eat, Pray, Love", as guest speaker on creative process. She was very entertaining and inspiring, I can see how she can be an excellent writer. The origin of the creative idea was based on Greece as "daemons" and Rome as spirits, both as separate beings from humans. This is best as it would be too much for one individual. Getting aid from God helps lessen the pressure on people. Some creative process comes unexpectedly with no source and appear fleetingly. She encouraged the creative minds to live and not on negative assumption. Don't be worried of past successes or other people's negative comments, just do work and be stubborn to stick to it through and through.

By the way, Jimmy was still his energetic self so he's doing okay. But I noticed that he didn't have his usual coffee, so he must have still been a bit sick. Random info: "jimmy" in British means "condom." @_@ I'm so thankful now that my name is a bit complicated.

Oct. 11 - storytelling

NO CLASS! Jimmy was sick so there were no class, and he emailed the homework. Hope he's ok. Could have slept in if I had checked my email the night before -_-. Anyway, the assignment is:

Visual Narratives:
    Select three unrelated, found images that when sequenced together, tell a story.
    Bring them to class, for Wednesday.
    We will put all three up on the wall, and try to “read” the story that your images tell.

So we have to do storytelling with 3 visual imagery. This will be interesting. Wonder how tomorrow will go. ^_^
Also love the ending phrase: "~ If you print this email, trees will eat you. ~" XD

reading 2 - introduction, perspective ( 1-16 p)

Yoo-hoo! Ordered the book and it came yesterday. Came quicker than I thought. And I saved around $8 for that, not much but gotta work with what you got. ^_^

    The introduction gives a brief information about each of the 7 steps for the design process: inspiration, identification, conceptualization, exploration/refinement, definition/modeling. communication, and production. The steps is a basic process of how an idea evolves to a product design.

      The first section explains how design can be seen everywhere all around us, from the clothes to the building. "A design is a plan of action, created in response to a situation or problems that needs solving." The design process have several stops to allow the designers to examine the idea until it is completed. Then, there is a comparison of how the steps of design process is similar to a romantic relationship (Cute idea, can see how commitment can be used for both situation lol.) Then there is a section of designing responsibility for going "green" in the productivity. It would be a downfall to focus on that instead of durability in the design, so it's up to the designers to decide on those factors for the design process. The designing process could be a path of a map instead of linear as the idea is of the imagination. But it's important to revisit the idea time to time in order to stay on track of producing design product.

     In "Perspective" section, the author, Karl Aspelund, gives his own various career experience and his view on design. "Designers should be creating interesting, revolutionary, and environmentally sound products, buildings, and environments for everyone." The exercise section has a design journal to go through the process of reverse-designing. It helps to give references on the path of the design process to take.

Oct 6 - Film and Discussion

I came late to class and they were watching a video lecture of Sir Ken Robinson (I believe). He was humorous in his lecture so it was surprisingly entertaining. The lecture was about the relation between individuals looking for their talent and the environment, mainly education. Surprisingly he was against the standardized education in the US since people loses their individuality. Main Point: people achieve best when doing things they love and be in their own element (natural aptitude and capacity.) They have to find what they are naturally drawn to and have passion for. But first, people need to flourish and remove hindrance. This is where the environment and upbringing comes in, education helps the people to explore different options for their passion and the friends/family would either encourage or put pressure on the individuals for their goals and passion.

The class then had a discussion concerning the video. Everyone agreed with Robinson especially about the family putting pressure on the art students. (Art is not usually the parent''s choice for their children to aim for, but rather like lawyer, doctor, etc.) I was lucky that my parents were happy with my decision as long as I had a goal to aim for. Which was funny since my mom was also a graphic designer student and attended Academy of Art, and is now a banker. lol XD

Lastly, we showed the mind mapping homework and had a minicontest for the best one with original concept and execution. The winner was Cee with "If killer carrots attacked." Very humorous and entertaining. ^_^

Oct 4 - Idea Mapping

When class started, the powerpoint/computer didn't work. So the teacher chose ME to make "electricity/ power"and be the "manager" - I did not volunteer, I blame sitting in the front seat...-_-Apparently we had to plug it somewhere else to make it work. He ended picking on me throughout the class. I didn't mind, got a few laughs. XP

Anywayz the class had a discussion on what brainstorming is. This led to mind mapping. Mind mapping is a diagram used to represent ideas linked around a central area. It's almost like a widespread outline centering on one topic/ situation. Some of the visuals presented were simple, random, generic, and humorous.

We did a quick 20 min exercise in class of making our own mind map. Mine was the most dull cause it was a Monday and I wasn't feeling active - "if wake up and miss class"....yyyeeeeahhhh.... Anywayz after look at the whole class's mind maps, we decided to have the next homework to make another that is better, bold and colored.

Reading: Design Process. cover - xviii (21 p)

Book: Aspelund, Karl. Design Process  - cover - xvii (21 p)

For some reason, Borders did not have this book so I'm guessing that Barnes & Nobles also doesn't. Fortunately, I was able to download some pages of the book but it only goes up to page 38. Hopefully this will hold me up until I order the book. And I know this is really late, but it's hard to write 3 paragraphs / a paper just on the introduction. Hopefully this is ok.... -_-

    The assigned reading is essentially the preface of the book and acknowledgment of the author. The introduction explains how this guidebook helps student designers to do design process from inspiration to production. There are 7 stages for the design process: inspiration, identification, conceptualization, exploration/refinement, definition, modeling, communication and production. The stages contain several sections to help explain each steps: objective and key concepts, perspectives, appendixes, exercises, and illustrations.

     The acknowledgment contains information of the author's 20 years experience and the people that he thanks for their contribution. There are two other sections between the preface and acknowledgment: "who should use this book" and "new to the second edition." "Who should use this book" explains that the book is mainly used for design students and professional designers. A CD is also mentioned to help on the lectures. "New to the second edition" explains how the book has been improved from the first edition with updated information and better "teachability." .

    The introduction is really helpful for me as a design student since it explains how the book would help me in the design process. It gave me a glimpse of what to expect  from the guidebook.So far, the pages are easily understood so it won't be that complicated for me to read.  From reading these pages, I learned how the design process works in 7 steps. I also learned the design process can help in the production of all art aspects.

Second Class - 9/29/10

        Second day of class Lesson - Visual Literacy
   First thing the class did was seat ourselves by birth month. Guess this helps to socialize the class and liven things up. Guest speakers of GAUGE (art committee) appeared for information if any art majors would like to attend of the meetings. The class was also required to attend certain of those meetings, so the guest speakers helped to give out a better descriptions of the committee and what the benefits are.
   The lesson starts with a discussion about what "visual literacy" is, and the basic definition is: making sense of what you perceive or reading images.  Examples: storytelling, movies, sequence of pictures, etc. The class exercises were to look at 2 photographs and state what the class see (facts) and interpret from it. Then, there was a  picture slideshow of the different messages that can be made from various images and text, some even transgressive - offensive, bold messages that steps over people's boundaries.
Picture: one army solder in casket vs several caskets, obama as joker, crucifix scene with bubble texts of Christ saying "BRB" and another person has "LOL"
   The last thing the class did was spend 20 minutes making a short illustration of why or how each person is at Cal State LA right now. I'm guessing next class, we are going to look over everybody's sketches. Yeah my drawing is very simple -_-

Art 220 - First class 9/27/10

         On the first class of Art 220 Concept Development, I arrived 10-15 min late XP. Fortunately the teacher, Jimmy Moss, was nice about it. The class was to write what we think we are going to learn and do in the class on notecards. Jimmy then read out the notecards out loud with no names announced. Most of the words use were: concept, design, process, brainstorm, and creating. There was a class discussion about what the definitions are of some of the words. Then the class talked about brand products with the energy drinks, Monster and Red Bull, as comparisons.
         Next, we had a class exercise with examining an apple and making descriptions of it as a never before seen object. (Basically, use all 5 senses to describe it - see it, smell it, touch it, hear it, taste it...XP). Apparently, one of the art project is to render the apple in different art mediums and styles on each 7"x7" paper for a total of 50 sketches (5 times a week, 10 weeks of school).
          The last thing we did ( I believe) is to go over the syllabus of the class. And this blog is part of the class assignment, so expect more posts.