Final Project for ARTD287

How sad! Our final post for Design for Social Change.

Working on the last project was sooo much fun... except for the whole finals week pressure of getting everything done. :0

Our team worked really well together. We had a couple of meetings prior to the due date where we shared research we had found, ran poster ideas by each other, and talked about how we would layout the presentation. We followed this up by posting this information on a shared google docs.

We kept in really good contact through our google docs...asking advice from each other and critiquing the posters.

We met at the Digital Media Lab at 11:00 AM on Wednesday. Here Amanda and Kate helped me with photoshop. It was fun... and quite the learning experience. I think we all learned something about how to fill the word CONGO with a picture. Thank you, ladies!!

First we had to find the right picture (the one I had wasn't high enough resolution) and then we had to size it just right for all of the faces to show up and not be cropped oddly. My posters were actually a weird combination of Keynote (power point program on my laptop), InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator. After my posters, we did a final critique of the posters.

Then the "Under the Bridge" gang showed up saying we needed a power point presentation... at first Nick (happened to be sitting there) sounded like we didn't, but then he started to vacillate... like he was thinking it over and liked the idea. I didn't think making a Power Point would be that hard. So we went to lunch and did a Power Point and picked our theme songs.

Great posters by all. It was a great class and I really enjoyed working with all of you.

Take care and have a great summer.

Janet

Final Project!

Well my group has pretty much covered all the logistical stuff -- everything went smoothly and we had a certain visual interplay that was completely non-verbal that I'm still a bit astonished from.

For my work I focused mainly on how to get a fair amount of information across without being too wordy or clunky. I worked hard at eliminating words from the posters and representing the information visually without focusing on one single part of an issue. This approach worked best on my "Price of Pleasure" poster:I wanted to juxtapose pleasant, summery colors associated with vacations with the ridiculous amount of waste created by cruise ships to make the information all the more jarring. I think it turned out well.

Right before my group decided on a topic I was working on a research project on Puget Sound pollution for an oceanography. I came across lots of information that was compelling but very dry. I then had turn the info into a pithy little assignment that didn't do it justice but with this project I felt like my group did justice to presenting the information, at the very least.

Back to design. For my other poster I wanted to focus on the overlap of endangered species and serious pollution and suggest that there was some connectedness between the issues. I kept the species to a minimum because there are 29 threatened or endangered species in Washington and something like 40 Superfund sites, each of which has a different kind of pollution so I abstracted it a bit to show overlap. To keep the design from being too abstract I had to get some cute, cuddly little animals (the pygmy rabbit) and some iconic Washington animals (whales, salmon). The end result was:


I am less happy with this design, though it accomplished the goals I had in mind. There is a bit too much open space and segmentation going on at the top of the design that I didn't really know how to fix. I also ran into trouble figuring out which fonts to use -- which fonts would best capture the tone I was looking for. I like the way the map turned out and the colors work in the design, I think.

Overall, it was a good final project and my group was pretty awesome, though I think any possible permutation of group members would have been great since the class in general was pretty great.

HAVE A GREAT SUMMER!

One last thing

Open to interpretation and therefore the fine art version of our logo.

Under The Bridge

What's beneath the surface of churning turmoil as well as found under a tranquil veneer? Dive under those waves, under the beams of support, and there it is, under the bridge. Our purposeful cephalopod. Rejected logo to the right, better one to the left.

Our group project was designed as a guerrilla arts group. We picked a theme (Puget Sound, baby!), communed in digital space, inspired, fine-tuned, convened in reality and compiled.

Since we were designed as street artists, I decided to roll with in-your-face-imagery. The point was to make the average passerby pause to look at my poster. Robbie mentioned pollution issues surrounding cruise ships, and that begin my jumping point for my first poster. After some researching myself, I was disappointed to see that cruise ships create more pollution that airplanes. I know that save-the-whales is the classic and now cliche example of environmental protest...and hippies. But I wanted to take that and do something new with it. Nev also did this with his fantastic Toxic poster.

This was my first idea:

Which morphed into my actual poster. I wanted to include a spot for facts and information, and make something more "designy" as in "used a grid or something." (Robbie took care of filling our infographic niche)

I also wanted to show the "beautiful majestic whale" as a more human grumpy cetacean.

The whale is angry.


For poster two, I played on childhood memory and ideals with an Arielesque mermaid in a garbage graveyard. I wanted gritty eye-catching, and so the little mermaid was doomed. Really, a mermaid couldn't live in the sound's waters.

Mermaids of course are mythological--just like the fantasy that everything about the Northwest is super environmental. Well, for being a green area, Puget Sound is especially disgusting.

I decided to go without any words like street art often does. As for the technicals, both of my posters were made entirely in illustrator by my hands and frustration.

You were a fantastic group to work with, guys! And our other group did some wonderful work too. Really, we're just an awesome class. It's been great learnin' with all of you!

Final Project

Well folks...bloggin for the last time...so it's time to get sentimental. This project all in all went smoothly. Our group always had great communication due to our online presence. We created a facebook page and the words flowed freely through our keyboards and onto the main "wall". We decided our team would be called "Under the Bridge" - giving recognition to the mysterious and supposedly gigantic Pacific Octopi that reside under the Narrows Bridge. We felt that like our 8 legged friends, we were mysterious, intelligent, strong, and capable of legend.

Our team worked separately but was still close in our continued theme of Puget Sound Pollution Awareness. We all had separate goals and themes that we wanted to create but through our communication were able to tie it together into a project of oneness. Our team was fantastic! We all brought special talents and elements and most importantly had a great time creating for change together.

My project really started with the googling of the word "Toxic" after reading about the toxicity of Puget Sound. A lascivious image of Britney Spears popped up everywhere...needless to say I fell in love with it. I searched and found another image of a Orca Whale as well as the skull and crossbones (I wanted there to be a dark image to battle Britney's beautiful mug). After messing with hue, saturation and opacity it really came together. I absolute LOVE this image and it sparked a want to do more collage based art and imagery. Anyways from there the slogan "This is the sound our orcas know" was put into play. The word sound referring first to the toxicity of Britney but also Puget Sound. I think this poster is great, and one of my favorite works this year.

Poster 2 was also based on a music theme. I loved Britney so much I wanted to keep songs in play. The poster was on loss of habitat and how more building and pollution is causing animals to leave. I'm a fairly large Beatles fan, who isn't? I mean, the Stones are better, but still the Beatles are fantastic. "She's leaving home" seemed extremely appropriate so I did some googlin' and found the perfect image. I used that as the base along with a tope colored background and built up the elements until it looked right. I love the large "70" and how it appears that the eagle is flying into the sunset of the "0". This poster is straight and to the point and I believe it works well.

The fonts used in both posters were based on those used in the Beautiful Angel posters. I wanted a very screenprinted/blocked look. I downloaded custom fonts and adjusted the opacity appropriately until it had a look that I saw fit.

I really enjoyed this project: the work I was able to, the fantastic work of my teammates, the time working with my teammates, and the presentation and work of the "Dr Congo" group. Their project was grounding...they did a wonderful job.

Thanks Lace & Nick for a eye opening class!

Enjoy your summer everyone!

-Nev

Social Change Poster

One more social change poster.

Digital Storytelling

First of I just want to say that all of your projects were amazing! The images and the music that you all chose were perfect, and I liked how different the tones of each story were, despite the fact that we were all given the same task and the same topic. I think it captured the fact that there is an infinite variety of ways that youth violence can affect people.

I was not altogether happy with my final project. Sitting in the DMC after a marathon of working on my video for a good 5 hours straight, I was not happy with my audio, but couldn't bring myself to take the time to fix it. At the time I was happy with my decision to not include any music, I thought that it fit with my images and the tone that I wanted to portray. After seeing how much music added to all of your projects, however, I left feeling like mine was a little empty, or at least lacking. So I'm going to go back and add music and fix up my audio because I liked my images, and I thought that my story had potential.

My process for the project was to first get my story cut down to what was really needed. From there I recorded and edited that audio and then I started thinking of metaphorical ways that I could use images. I found that I have kind of a strange tendency to take pictures of my feet when I go places, so I thought that I would use pictures of my feet to symbolize journey and the passage of time. I used the image of the plant because I felt like fear had planted some doubt in the pit of stomach and grew as time passed.

In trying to find music, I couldn't seem to find something that fit the mood of the piece - all the songs I listened to seemed either too sad or too upbeat. But I found a song on a benefit cd for the DR Congo with Congolese women singing and it's perfect.