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Hey class! I was just reading some of your blogs and I honestly can't wait to see everyone's final projects on Thursday! I enjoyed working on this project and hope you all enjoy my posters as much as I enjoy them. Congratulations to all of my classmates graduating!!! Good luck with your future.

Posters - Final Day

Today was my last day of class time to work on my final, so I busted my butt and ended up not only finishing one, but two posters! I'm so excited for how all of my posters came out, and I can't wait for the class to see them.

I'm not sure how I will present the posters yet. My mom was very kind and had the one business in her building print the first three posters for me. I framed two of them because I plan on giving them as gifts after presenting them. The third isn't framed and I don't really want to put it onto a foam board because it is a nice quality print and I would like to frame it at some point too.

The other two will be sent to my mom in the next few days. I'm debating on framing those as well - I can see the ones I made for myself hanging on my wall in my future home someday.

I hope you like my posters! I'm looking forward to seeing all of your work.

Two Weeks Left

Two weeks from today is our critique period! I can't believe how fast this semester flew by. I'm very happy with my first three posters, however my fourth poster isn't that great so far. I had so many ideas for it and none of them are turning out the way I hoped. It's the one with the quote "Without taking risks you'll never know your potential."

Wait, possibly just came up with a new idea.....I'll blog with my progress next week!

Final Project Update

So far things are going well! I finished two posters and am almost done with my third. I have shown these posters to a few friends and family members and they like them so far and some people have expressed their want of a copy of the poster when I'm done!

The first poster is the one of my cousin for her graduation. The second one is one of my brother sitting at a picnic table at Chestnut Ridge (which for those of you who don't know is a park in Orchard Park) with one of his favorite quotes (according to Facebook that is). I'm trying to figure out when to give him this poster.

The third poster is a Bandette rookie poster. My trouble with this was if I wanted to do a lot of pictures or just one of each of us rookies. Another issue is one rookie just quit the team so I was debating on keeping her or taking her out, and I think I may just leave her out of it. She's not finishing the season with us, so why should she be on my poster? My fellow rookies love it so far and asked me to email the jpg to them so they can have it (even though it's not finished yet!) They're so cute and supportive.

My last poster will be my dream poster, which I somewhat started and will work on for the remaining classes. This will be the most time consuming out of the four.

I love posters and have found myself loving being able to create my own posters, posters which have meaning to me that others seem to like as well! I think I found myself a new hobby.

Poster 1, complete

I finished my first poster for my final project! It's my poster for my cousin's graduation. It started as a generic poster - her senior picture with "Congratulations" and then her name, school, and class of 2012. The background was fuchsia with a gradient.....

After Amy said she expects more out of me, I decided to Facebook stalk her pictures and a whole new idea popped into my head. Her profile picture at the time was one of her walking by the woods, and she happened to be wearing her senior hoodie. I took the picture, made it black and white, added a pink and white border (her favorite color is pink!!!), kept her name, school and class of 2012, and I added a quote from Tinkerbelle, who she LOVES.

I can't wait to print it out and give it to her for her birthday/graduation. Too bad I have to wait until June.....I think she's going to love it, and I have received a lot of positive feedback so far from family!

My next poster idea is in honor of my brother. I was looking through pictures on my laptop and found one of him from last year of him sitting on a picnic table at Chestnut Ridge watching the sunset. I'm going to use that picture and put one of his favorite quotes on it.

I know one of my other posters will be goal/dream oriented. This one will be the most time consuming out of the three main ideas so far I think.

I can't wait for you all to see the final posters, and I'm looking forward to your final projects as well!

Brochures

Everyone, once again, did such a great job on their project! I'm so surprised at how creative we have all been thus far and I can't wait to see what people do for their final project!

For me, I'm thinking of doing a series of posters. One will be for my cousin's graduation from high school. She and I are very very close - she's like the 17-year-old blond version of me. The second poster idea, which will be pretty complicated so I'm not positive if it'll happen, is a Bandette poster. It will incorporate our team photo along with a single image of each girl along the outside. If I don't do that poster, I may create a movie poster for the short film I'm writing for another class I'm in. The film is about the Disney Princesses and their Prince Charming fighting to be the happiest of them all. The final poster I plan on creating is one I started toying around with at the beginning of the semester with my dancers.

I'm looking forward to seeing how everything turns out! Good luck everyone on your projects.

Poster & Class Update

While driving this weekend I came across the poster I wanted to write about a few posts ago. It's a campaign for Mercy Hospital's new emergency room. The main focus of the posters I've seen say "closer" but the "er" at the end of the word are in red where the rest of the letters are in white. We talked about how red is a color that stands out and stays in your mind, which is probably why the poster stayed in my mind! It's a cool concept having the "er" stand out because the focus is on the new emergency room. With it being tied in with "closer" we get the idea that the emergency room is close to us when it's needed. Very cool campaign idea, I was impressed!

My dad saw my updated brochure. Only a few more minor adjustments and I'll be done! I hope to start my next project at some point in class on Tuesday. I still have no idea what I want to do for it, but one thought that came across my mind was to make a movie poster for the script I'm writing for another class I'm in. I'm not positive if I'll stick to that because I'm not that great at editing images in photoshop, but it could be a fun project. We'll see.....

Brochure Process

Hey everyone!

In class on Tuesday I came up with two different templates of a brochure for my dad's company. I was lucky he told me exactly what he wanted included in the brochure - but he gave me TOO much information and I had to find ways to shorten what he wanted to say and make the design appealing.

When I finished the two templates, I printed them out and brought them home for him to see. He had a few things he wanted to to fix between font size and style, image size, etc. Overall my dad, mom and I decided to move forward with template two.

I hope the design turns out nice! I like the front a lot so far, simple but the company stands out. I hope you like the final design!

Lauren

Lots to say!

I have a lot I have been meaning to post about.

First I wanted to say how amazing everyone's posters looked! I'm very impressed and inspired. People came up with designs I never would have thought of doing for concepts that crossed my mind while trying to choose a topic. I'm happy with the response I received from Amy and my classmates. I like how almost everyone took a concept close to their heart and made this poster personal. I think in the end we all got a little closer as a group and we all understand each other a little better. Great job everyone!

Second, let's discuss spring break. The weather was AMAZING! Didn't get a ton of sleep like I hoped, but I did get some work done, and I was able to visit with a lot of family- thanks in part to my favorite unofficial holiday St. Patrick's Day!!!! My 2nd cousin was the grand marshall of this year's parade so all of us (first, second, third, fourth cousins!) marched in the parade together- what a fun time!

Lastly I want to write about our new project- the brocure. I decided to make it about my father's company Kirchmyer Media. The two of us discussed design and content over break. I hope it turns out well- maybe he'll actually use them for his business when it's complete! If you're curious as to what he does, here's the company website (which was created by my brother!) http://kirchmyermedia.com/

See you all tomorrow!

Poster Designed with a Message

I decided to use this poster from changethethought.com, designed by Christopher Cox in, I believe, April 2008.

There were two versions of the poster, this one and one with brown/green/yellow/red colors in it. The color caught my attention right away, partially because the teal/aqua background is my favorite color (as I sit here in a hoodie, jacket, and high tops of that color).

The words almost seem as if they're moving due to the change in their direction. It makes the message come to life in a way. The two "moving" words are change and thought. It is a way to physically see how changing one thing can change another, like Newton's law "every action has a reaction."

I like the design of the lines and the arrow taking up the white space in the left corner. It's simple but catches my eye. The arrow reminds me of the "Above the Influence" campaign about saying no to drugs and alcohol. Similar to that, if you say no to an influence, you can change the way you are perceived by others and by yourself.

This poster is very "now." I can relate this message to my own life. There have been many instances where I feel a little tired or am upset about something and that one little thing will make me feel that way for the rest of the day. If I simply just changed my thought to "I'm on the beach on a hot summer day" instead of "it's really cold walking through this snow" then I could feel warmer and I have a happier thought in my head.

It's a little hard to read at first, but after really looking into it I love it. Very cool, thought provoking design.

Advertisement

I had an ad in mind, but it's nowhere to be found online and I've been looking. It was the advertisement for Mercy Hospital/Catholic Health's emergency room. I saw it a few times in the past week or so and searched online for it, but nothing yet.

I'm looking for a new ad in the meantime.....

Feb. 28 Class

Today's the day our instant-book was due (well, supposed to be due). I'm glad I handed out my booklet. I had a few concerns before passing it out, such as worrying about how people would like my simple inside page, but everyone who commented seemed to like my project! I still wish the images turned out a little cleaner, but overall I'm happy with my finished project.

Looking onto Project 3. I had a few topic ideas on what to do for it but I couldn't think of a design for any of them. While looking up a topic for another class, I decided (well, I'm 98% sure) I'm going to do it on World Down Syndrome Day. I'm going to keep my design idea a secret, for now, but hopefully it meets the guidelines! I'm very excited to get to work on this.

Finishing Product

I'm currently folding all of my instant books. The quality of my pictures aren't what I hoped they would be in print version, and the inside of my book isn't spaced the way I expected it to look when cut, but after 20 copies I can't edit, print, fold them, and have them ready for class...

It's not the finished product I pictured in my mind, but considering it's the first time I've ever done an instant book I'm pleased!

The theme of my story is my journey with dance. The title is "Kinetogenic Life" which uses both of my initials of my name. The word kinetogenic means causing or producing movement/motion, which is exactly what dance is!

I hope you all like it!

Second Project

We have started our work on our second project. When it was first assigned I was very confused as to how the format was supposed to be specifically. I understood it was six pages inside, a front and back cover, and the other side of the paper could be a picture of some sort. Besides that, I had no idea what to do- how much should be type, pictures, story.....

During my break before class I took a glance at some of the examples on the website from our class blog. It helped me to see other people's work, but I was still confused. I wasn't sure if things had to be self drawn through the computer, if we could use actual picture, etc.

FINALLY after doing a little bit of class discussion I understood what we were asked to do, and an idea finally popped into my head: why I dance!

Yes, it's a little expected, and it's things like this that label me as "the dancer," but that's just it, dance IS who I am. I would be a completely different person if it was never in my life.

I'm excited to see where this project leads....hopefully I'll have a nice finished product that everyone can enjoy!

First Project

Considering I have little-to-no previous experience working with InDesign, I'm very pleased with the outcome of my first project. It was fun experimenting with fonts, colors, shapes, design....

Originally I was going to make my design bright and wordy- lots of color and lots of information about me like my jobs and my family. Instead I created a blue background. Blue's my favorite color and that shade of blue is very calming and easy to look at. I chose to have the writing to be in white. The blue and white are simple but look nice together.

My name is the focal point, with a larger font than the others. It is also outlined. On both sides of my name are a font which somehow is a design with a shamrock incorporated into it. I'm 50 percent Irish and love it, so the shamrocks were the perfect little touch to my name.

Surrounding my name are some of my favorite quotes that inspire me to be me and to continue to learn and be successful. Not only are the quotes important, but also the people who said them. Two of the authors are dancers. Dance has been in my life since I was three years old and now I am a professional, so including dance was just as important as the shamrocks! The other known author was Babe Ruth. Baseball/softball has been in my life since birth. My father plays/coaches, my brother plays, and I played for ten years. Although it's not a huge part of my life anymore, it is still a part of who I am.

I hope you all enjoy the project! I can't wait to see how much more I grow with InDesign and Photoshop this semester.

Pre-Class Thoughts

It's almost 10 minutes until class begins today....

I just edited my project a little bit more. I think it turned out nice! Hopefully I can find out if there's anything else I should fix before submitting it!

Today we have to bring in pictures- I think we're learning about photoshop and editing images. I'm looking forward to learning even more new things.

See you in class!

Thoughts on Class

I feel like I learned a lot in class this week. I never noticed how much fonts impact our everyday life. For example, I never noticed how prominent the font Helvetica is! I now feel as though it's everywhere I go.

Today on my way to work, I caught myself staring at the road signs wondering which fonts they were....which probably isn't a good thing seeing as my focus should be on the cars on the road.

This week I also learned a lot about InDesign. I used it once before to work on a final project for my journalism class in high school, but I had no idea what I was doing (although the final product looked nice). I don't think my project is the best project ever, but I really like how my design came out. Hopefully you all like it too!

See you on Tuesday!

First Entry

Here it it, my first official blog post! The following are my responses to our first blog assignment:

1.) Why is it important for Communication majors to study design?
It's important for Communication majors to study design so they understand what their audiences see. It's important to pay attention to every detail in something we publish. If it's not pleasing to our eye, our audience won't want to look at it. The better the design of a product, the better aesthetic reaction from the audience.

2.) Why does good design matter?
It's like I said in my response to question one. If the design doesn't look nice in our own eyes, it won't to our audiences. A good design will get the message across and attract the attention of the target audience, and then some!

3.) Write about a favorite piece of design that you’ve noticed. This can be a poster, a package
design, a billboard, a menu, a brochure, etc. What do you like about it? Why do you think it can be
considered good design?
It's not necessarily my favorite piece of design, but after working there for a few years I like the design of the Build-A-Bear Workshop logo. The logo is a circle with the store name around the inside of the circle. The colors involved in the logo are white and primary colors. The simple color design is easy on the eyes and attractive to both males and females, which is perfect for the store. In the middle of the logo is a bear, string, sewing needles, ladders- as if the big bear is being created like guests can do in the workshop. Letters in the words are also replaced with buttons. It could be considered a good design because it tells guests the name of the store, it's kid friendly and easily liked by guests of all ages, and the colors don't single out either sex. Overall it makes guests feel welcome while walking into the store and it's fun to analyze.

4.) Any other impressions you have after our first meeting?
I'm looking forward to learning more about design! I love being creative and am excited to tap into my creativity even more. I already feel inspired after class and learning about our first assignment. I've had ideas running though my head since I left the classroom. Hopefully I'll be able to add designs to my portfolio by the end of the semester!