Self-Branding

In Professional Practices, we are working to develop brand identities for ourselves as designers. We will have a presentation folder complete with resume, second sheet, letterhead, business cards, notecards, and envelopes. I am working with this logo for myself, built on a triangular grid.

The logo is placed on business cards in bright colors on top of the triangular grid from which is derived. The card design is reminiscent of Op Art from the 1960’s… visually jarring, made from geometric shapes and garish color combinations. I am getting into the whole process trying many approaches, from typefaces, colors, and papers.

Printers Guide

I have put together the printing guidebook for class!  It can be accessed by clicking on that rad cover preview image. The book was easy enough to assemble on the computer, and will serve as a great reference in the future. I am very excited to receive my copy in the mail and show it off.

AIGA Voting Effort

Our Processes and Materials class had the opportunity to work with our local AIGA chapter, AIGA 50, with two representatives from the Chapter acting as our clients. As a class, we were charged with creating an initiative to encourage all AIGA 50 members to vote in the 2008 Presidential Election, and then to develop a brand around the initiative. For weeks we toiled and troubled as a class to agree on a name, but to little avail. Ideas such as “Turnout,” “VOICEin,” and “100% Win” were tossed around before we finally narrowed ourselves into “Volume Through Volume,” a name which we deemed to be conceptually valid on multiple levels. AIGA worked with us throughout the process, keeping us in check and guiding us in the right direction. After we all submitted potential logotypes for “Volume Through Volume,” they chose one for which we were to create a poster and a pin. The project challenges us to think of original ways to propel a concept into the local media, and how to influence our city. The guest clients from AIGA were challenging, but they gave insightful feedback and were blunt, which I liked.

New York City

I went to New York City with twenty other members of the Art Department and it was amazing! We visited many small galleries, hit the major museums, and saw this incredibly awesome store full of design and art books called Printed Matters Inc.

At the Met we saw a Gustave Courbet exhibit, which was nice because I am writing my paper about him for Art History.

I was fascinated by the culture and the fast pace of New York City. I loved the way in which its inhabitants were all doing their own thing, and did not have time to pass judgment on others!  In this way it was very different than the Southeast.  It was an incredible trip, full of inspiration and fun!

TAKE ROOT Revisited: The Printing Process

During the production phase of Take Root, we brave journeyed far and wide across an ocean of print vendors, navigated stormy seas of confusion and avoided print pirates wielding high prices before finally spotting land at Chatt State, where our months of labor and carefully proofed digital files were made manifest before our very eyes! The printers made lithographic plates of our print material, which coated some beautiful recycled paper with spot 364U color, bringing our dreams to reality! Oh and the print shop had this awesome machine that perforated, scored, and folded each brochure in one second flat. When all the hard work, the friendly printers at Chatt State, and some impressive little machines came together, they made for some totally wicked brochures!

Me and totally wicked brochures.
Photo by the Trace.

happy sunday!

I have a book

In Stevie’s photo class we are studying important fine arts photographers of recent years. Following in the style of Ed Ruscha (Twenty-six Gasoline Stations, Thirty-Four Parking Lots) I documented every trail marker for twelve miles of hiking (over 400) and put them together in this book, which is now available through Lulu.com and is coming to me in the mail!

http://www.lulu.com/browse/book_view.php?fCID=2203882

TAKE ROOT, the launch

On Friday, March 7, Take Root was unleashed on the Chattanooga public.

photo cred Tracy Moore!

here are the shirts and gear on display before the ceremony:

takerootgear.jpg

Our class was able to meet with many local leaders, and we were given plenty of attention in the form of a video interview and several photo ops! Watching our months of hard work come to fruition was very fulfilling, and I think Take Root will really make an impact in Chattanooga.

Wet/Dry

We recently covered halftone and duotone imagery in Processes and Materials. Each of us received an assigned word pair, (mine being wet/dry) and took photographs which represented these words in a conceptual context. I received help in the form of Joseph’s acting skills; he was kind of enough to act drunk for one photo and hung over for the next. After selecting our images, we ran each though a six-step process: color, color to halftone, halftone to duotone, duotone to duotone with inverted curves, inverted curves to custom curves, custom curves to do-whatever-we-want.

Soooo, without further ado, here are the progressions themselves:

WET

DRY

The progression from first to sixth picture in each set should reinforce the concept for each. In the future, these photos will be used as the visual basis for a printer vendor resource guide for designers, published by our class through Lulu.com.

How to write a press release

In regard to http://www.prwebdirect.com/pressreleasetips.php

Write a strong brief about your newsworthy story. Write as if your release were to be released with no further modification, which means use good grammar and avoid passive voice. When formatting your release, include a brief headline, a body of text which is free of html/computer coding, and end with a small bite about your company, then include your contact info. It’s as simple as that! (sorta.)

Here is an example of a jargon-filled press release:
Zimbra is the leader in open source, next-generation collaboration and messaging software. We provide innovative experiences to end-users and their administrators because we see existing tools are fundamentally broken. We also believe in compatibility with existing infrastructure and applications (both open source and proprietary).

And here is a really ridiculous press release:
FIGA ITALIAN RESTAURANT IS THE NEW CHOICE FOR HIP-HOP DINNER PARTIES

New York November 10, 2004 Figa Restaurant in Greenwich Village has become the new boite of choice for the private dinner parties being thrown by the Hip Hop cognescenti. After the high profile surprise celebration for Sean P. Diddy Combs 35th birthday, which saw the likes of Mariah Carey, Paris Hilton, Russell Simmons, Damon Dash, and many more, Figa has been scheduling private events with custom designed menus.Jay-Z was so impressed with the food, presentation, and ambience of this low-key eatery, that he threw a birthday party for one of his key personnel there last night. Robin Broughton celebrated her birthday til the wee hours with other music industry insiders such as Bad Boy s Tracy Waples, Def Jams Mike Kyser, Fade to Black executive producer John Meneilly, lawyer Matt Middleton, and others.Neighbors of the small Bleecker Street restaurant are becoming all too familiar with the sight of idling Maybach s, Surburbans, and Town Cars.

Figa, an Italian restaurant with a Northern slant, is owned by Roland Biamonte and Marco Lavilla. The year old restaurant is quickly becoming the supper club of choice for those in the know.

For more information:
Steve Kasuba
The Velvet Road Group
P 212 999 5584
F 917 777 0004
steve@velvetroad.com
www.figanewyork.com