Darkroom Photography

This semester one of my classes I'm taking is to learn how to develop black and white film. I'll be honest, I was horrified at first... The thing that scared me the most are the chemicals, which smell awful.   Actually, to be honest, rolling my film scared me the most. You have to be in a pitch black room, where you can't even see your hand in front of your face. I thought she was kidding about this when she told us the first day... She's not.

I went and bought a 60's Petri Penta (right), which looks AMAZING. I love the weight of it and the fact that the shutter release is in the front, not on the top! That aside I had (and still have) no idea how to work it... There's no meter, I can barely figure out how to work the shutter speed, and it took me 15 minutes to figure out how to put the film in. That last one is mostly due to not putting film in a camera for over 10 years though....

The camera on the left is my aunt's Pentax. It saved my life. It's got a meter and automatic film rolling (to put it back in the container). This was the camera I used to get photos to be developed in class today. They turned out really well! I need to stop taking photos of plants, but overall I'm so excited about how well they turned out! Monday we start printing, which I'm nervous again, but it shouldn't be too bad! I just wish I knew how to develop color photos now!

String Typography

Did I ever tell you about the time I did string typography?! No, I doubt I did, so let me go ahead now.

Last semester I had just started my "Design Research Assistant" job. My first assignment was to create an identity for a transformative learning conference we were having at school, called Transformative Learning Conference 2012. Clever, I know...

Their whole idea behind the conference is to show connection between students, teachers, learning, participating in on campus activities, etc. I was really excited about this, really excited. It was about the time that 'String Typography' was taking off and I really wanted to do something with it. Plus, it fit within the parameters of showing connection. What better thing to use than to show a network of connections that with string typography!

Jump to 5 hours later, 30 dollars in supplies, and some pissed off neighbors I had basically given up. The tutorials I had seen said to "hammer the shape of the letter into plywood". Well at 1 A.M. in an apartment complex with thin walls this is a horrible idea. I plan B'ed it and used some extra foam board I had on hand. It worked a lot better with putting the nails in, but if you look in the photo below the letters got all cattywumpus and sad.

Needless to say, I got pretty far before taking a break for the night. I showed my professor the next day, and while we both liked the idea it's not super legible.  I still want to do something with string typography, but obviously this isn't it.

Design Fail. Lesson Learned.

My First Magazine

I've been working on making a spread for a magazine for a little more than a month now. We had to choose a magazine (within our group) and make a style guide for it. Then we got to create two magazine spreads based off our guide!

Needless to say, I hated our magazine so I was not excited about the second part. The content of the magazine itself is awesome, but the design of it is sadly lacking.

The best part is the inconsistency of the spreads. 

Anyway- we had to make a main edit well and an ad and edit. I think my spreads turned out pretty well! We could chose our own topic, so I chose building a treehouse for my Main Edit, and natural cleaning products for my A&E. I still have some tweaking to do, but when do I not!

Kate Spade

For my advertising class last semester I did a brand profile over Kate Spade. I originally started out the project liking her. I now LOVE her brand. I know I've talked about loving her before (as seen here), but it is a fact.

This project below was the book I made for the project. It's probably one of my favorite things I've ever worked on/produced. I ended up using a lot of photography to show her style, advertising, and campaigns. 

Given that I only used the computer I think it turned out really, super well! Especially since the computer hasn't seemed to be as successful as I wanted it to be in the past on basically anything. Somehow I seem to do better with photography and illustration than just making things on the computer.

Meet Lori Woolard

I'm not the type of person to tell a lot of information about myself without someone asking. It's not that I don't want people to know things, usually, but I don't like to feel like I'm intruding and making everything all about me. But, seeing as this is my blog I think I'll go ahead and share one of the most personal things I've ever put out there for a class.

My mom has MS. She's had it since I can remember, but wasn't diagnosed with it until I was 15. In the 7 years that we've known she has not had it easy. She went from walking, to occasionally falling, to needing a walker, and then a wheelchair. 

So when I had to do a photo story for my final photography project this story was not at the top of my list.   Originally I had wanted to do the process of professional letter pressing. It's interesting, unique to the people in my class, and my professor had never seen it before. Triple Threat. However, when the scheduling went awry and I only had 2 weeks left till the project was due I decided to use this story. 

My mom having MS is nothing new to me, but sometimes when I tell people I see that look in their eye, of feeling sorry for me. Let me tell you now. I hate that look. It's rough and it sucks, but it's not me in that position of having my freedom taken away. So seeing that look in about half of my classmates today was interesting. Luckily I was half dead from staying up for another project and I didn't even care at that point. 

I've written a lot. I don't even know if who ever is reading this is getting anything out of it, but I hope you guys at least have a little more insight to me and my life. On to the photos. 

I have a ton of photos I took, but these are the 6 I chose for my story. If you guys know anyone with MS or any other illness where that person needs a friend or support please let me know! I'd love to help my mom start a local support group so she can interact with more people! She doesn't get to talk to outsiders much, aside from facebook and texting.

*on an adorable note, Tyler heard me typing and when he found I was blogging he said to be sure to tell everyone that I have an amazing boyfriend {true} who loves me veryyyyy much. Needless to say he woke me up this morning so I wouldn't be late to class after I pulled an all nighter and only got 2 hours of sleep. Did I mention he did it with hugs and kisses on the nose? He's pretty perfect. 

The Kashi Project

So in my advertising class I've been doing a lot of awesome projects. I had my Kate Spade book that I turned in (and made a 100 on) :] and I've had a group project for Kashi. We're supposed to do a complete analysis on the SWOT, Marketing, Target Audience, blah blah blah. That part is boring. The awesome part is that we were supposed to come up with an advertisement for them. So this guy in my group had all the copy done, and I came up with the print ad. I based it off something they would actually use, and I think it turned out pretty well! It still needs a little tweeking, but without further ado: My print ad for Kashi!

I can't make it any larger because it will jack up the layout of my blog, but you can see it larger here!

Elevate Your Typeface

So for my Graphic Design 2 class we had to come up with a 3D typeface from real world materials. There could be no computer manipulation and it had to be done by hand. 

Now I don't know about anyone else, but every time I told someone I had a class for typography they assumed I was going to make some awesome elevation maps... Not soooo much. So that was the basis of my concept. 

I also had done some other trials for typefaces, but I think the topographic map idea is the strongest and most appealing. 

The materials I used for my lettering

The levels of the letters

Finished products

Better angle of the levels

So after I spent the 30 hours it took to cut out all of the letters (literally) I photographed them and then cut them out in photoshop.

I ended up converting them to grayscale so that there wouldn't be a variation in the color and it would be easier to change the color of them.

The way I photographed them added another level and another shadow, so for my finished typeface I didn't include the extra shadow on the bottom. I thought it would be kind of funny to include them in a few of my other letters and call it Elevate Bold. This may actually end up becoming an additional typeface that I can include if I have the time, but it will look like it's popping off whatever it's placed on in addition to the levels coming up off each other...

What kind of things could you guys see yourself using a handmade 3D typeface for?!

Pilllow Shmeeellow Final

For anyone who saw my previous pillow post and was wondering what came of the "pillow to be" I finally have your answer. I actually did really good on it! Which I was not only excited about because I was actually really pretty proud of it, but because I've only recently begun getting A's on my design projects. 

As a reminder, this was about the stage I was at when I posted last time... I knew I wanted to do a print on the back, reminiscent of shields, and burlap on the front with a sewed on shield. 

Pillow Exterior

Invite on the inside

I would like to say that my invite on the inside/typography greatly improved! I ended up doing a custom font on the top 2 lines (one...homeless). The logo still needed work, but for the time I had it wasn't the worst thing I could come up with! 

I'm still really pleased with how well the pillow turned out. It looks almost exactly like how I had planned for it to in my sketches. 

 

I used a screen print process for the back, which adds a unique element, since not all the shields will have turned out the same. I also love how the shield on the front turned out! I ended up hand sewing it, which gave it more character. Over all I think it went pretty well! 

For a few more photos feel free to look at my flickr!

The Red Barn

For anyone who knows me, I used to be an interior design major. I would like to think I changed my major, but it keeps following me around. It's like the stalker that you think you put the restraining order on, but they're still always lurking. Charming analogy, I know.

So Tuesday when we finished our 3rd assignment for Graphic Design 2 it was all I could do not to break down into a happy dance! But alas, I can't dance, and I'd be too embarrassed to even try, so I sufficed with playing a lot of Doctor Mario and watching Voyager to celebrate.

This project has been the bane of my design existence for the last month. We had to take the exhibit they had at the barn and redesign it to be better, easier said than done.

Their current exhibit. 

The main attraction of the barn. 

Since the barn has been around for so long it's a second home to the community. They love that barn. So our concept was to make it feel more like home for the guests and people who work there. We did this by dividing the barn into "rooms" where the history would be seen, and selecting awesome furnishings for the space.

So then when someone walks into the barn they'll see this! Except more realistic and with more information. 

Overall, I don't think it was too bad, but I'm excited for whatever our next project will be. I don't feel like I learned a lot from that assignment, besides the fact that my presentation seemed to get better! woot woot! 

There's more photos of the barn and the project on my flickr, red barn album if you wanna check it out! The photos aren't top notch quality, but they'll give you an idea of the space.