120

What The Heck Are We Doing Today? Book Printing and Production Preparation!

Hey Hey! A few things to keep in mind when you are making your book! Today is the day where I trouble shoot your questions and help you get your books READY!

*Though I prefer inkjet prints, the main goal is to turn in good looking images. If the laser printer that you use produces good work, use it!

*print at copyman, kinko's, your own inkjet, your own laser printer, any of the school labs, documart, minuteman, oregon blue print digital, lazerquick, just to name a few. If you don't have a favorite printing location, now is the time to scout one out to use for the rest of the time you are in school!

*Not all of your pieces need to be on heavier stock paper. If you are exploring with different types of papers you may use a thinner stock. The main point is that I don't want your prints printed on flimsy copy paper. This is not appropriate. If you want, you may use a variety of papers. Go to Paper Zone or Paper Source or Arvey's and explore! They sell a TON of different paper by the single sheet. I brought in a bunch for you all to look at. 

*Your book MUST be bound, but it is up to you how you bind it. 

You may coil bind it

you may print all of the images as cards and create a folder for them

you may punch a hole in the corner and fasten with a metal ring (brought one into class)

you may design a paper band and wrap your images

you may find a clear plastic bag (arvey's and paperzone sell them) and neatly pack all images into this as well (your images must fit your bag - this doesn't mean that you find any sized bag or envelope and just shover your papers into it.)

You may do ANYTHING that you can think of as long as you are not simply handing in a stack of papers to me. Your work MUST look like a finished product and not a pile. Please check with me if you feel unsure of an idea. Neither one of us wants to be surprised.

*It will be helpful to print your images with crop marks so you know where to trim (will show you where this is in class).

*NO PIXELS. Look closely and carefully at your prints. If you see pixels you are doing something wrong and this is unacceptable. Test print an image or two in class today to check!

*Don't forget your cover and title page.

*Flatten your images! Print at 300 DPI! Save as a .Tiff (if your image treatment allows) or a HIGH QUALITY JPEG. 

*If you are using a computer typeface and your image is in illustrator, convert to outlines.

*If you want to add extra images or elements that is up to you. What you are responsible for is 30 images, title page, cover and having them all bound in some way - any extras are up to you!

*CRAFT IS KING!

*Remember! you are making a finished piece and not just a stack of images!

BRING YOUR BOOKS PRINTED NEXT TUESDAY!

ALL OF YOUR IMAGES ARE DUE TODAY IN A FLICKR SET!

 

What The Heck Are We Doing Today? Class: May 26th and May 28th

look at all of your images so far...woah!

Tuesday, May 26th: 15 more images due. Upload to your flickr stream. You should have a total of 25 at this point. I will be going around and talking with each of you about your progress and recording where you are at. After I have finished speaking with you, continue working on your images!

Thursday, May 28th: Your 30 images selected and uploaded to your flickr stream. We will talk about printing and production today! Please put your 30 final images PLUS your title page into a flickr set on your photostream.

Almost finished guys! Let's finish big!

Image Book: One Quick Addition // Table of Contents Page

Hello all! I have been watching your progress on flickr and it is looking great! One quick addition for the front of your book. I would like for you to great a table of contents page describing your image treatments page by page. (see above example) You don't have to include an image if you don't want to, but I would like for you to take care in designing this page. Take into consideration your type and placement. This will go at the beginning of your book!

Next Assignment: Image Book!

My final image book winner: SUNGLASSES (this image was created by knocking out the background, converting the image to grayscale, applying a pink and red duotone and then copying and pasting the glass twice. I will show you how to do this too in class!

Image making and selecting are huge parts of being a skillful graphic designer. This next assignment has us choosing an image and then applying many computer and hand done techniques to it sowe create new and unique imagery. (Down with internet imagery! down with stock photography! BIG UPS to generating your own material! HUZZAH)!

In the design classes at PSU it is important that you are able to create your own imagery in a variety of ways (computer, handmade and the skillful combination of both) to be applied in a variety of ways (posters, editorials, proposals, branding, book covers, packaging - you name it - an image is probably involved).

This next and final assignment will see you tackling many objectives! File management, book construction, printing methods, scanning issues as well as image generation in a TON of different methods!

I am giving you a HUGE list. From this list you must pick at least 30 different image treatments to apply to your chosen image. You are also given extreme flexibility to employ your own ideas and treatments that are not listed on the master list. I encourage you to balance your final list with an even amount of selections from the COMPUTER list and the HANDMADE list.

Each of your documents will be 7.5 wide x 7 tall. I am giving you a half inch extra in width because you will be spiral binding your final documents. Remember that about a half inch of the left hand side of your book will be used for the spiral. 

You will be outputting all of your images on either matte heavyweight ink jet paper or laserprint card stock. You will be scanning in all of your handmade images and outputting them this way as well. NO lightweight copy paper print outs please! 

Click the following link to see the list of treatments for you to choose from as well as the due date schedule!

Weekend Homework: Image Book Brainstorm

Field Notes Jam Session: Some objects I am considering for my book: 70's sunglasses, ceramic bunny, headphones, fake mustache, russian nesting dolls, pink eraser, red plastic ring, a scan of the pattern on my favorite shirt, can of green beans, converse all stars, picture of my grandma when she was young, elementary school picture of me!

For your next assignment you need to pick an image or an object that you own. Sounds simple, right? Wrong! This step is probably the most CRUCIAL part of your entire next assignment.

I really want you to write, look, think, explore and experiment to find the PERFECT image that you want to work with for the next two weeks. You will be taking this image and doing at least 25-30 different image treatments to it. You will then print all of the images out and bind it into a book. More details on all of that later - the main focus is your QUEST FOR THE IMAGE!

RULES:

1. Your object/image must be something that you own. I do not want any images from the internet. Let's generate our own content! Take your own pictures! Scan in objects! Take your own pictures of objects!

2. Your image shouldn't be too detailed in shape or content. You will be doing a variety of treatments (in photoshop and with your hands) so I want this to be something you can work with and reproduce.

3. Please come up with many ideas and email me / blog about it / flickr images of what you are thinking...let's help each other come up with the best and most flexible image!

Some of the stuff we will be doing to your image: 

--->variety of photoshop treatments (extract background, change colors, copy and pasting, halftone, duotone and much much more).

--->variety of hand treatments combined with scanning (ie: drawing, cut paper, collage, xerox transfer, photo copy, stencil, non traditional printing and much much more).

It is essential that lots of thinking goes into your image choice. Again, talk with each other, talk with me - I want to know!

DUE ON TUESDAY: print out your final three choices and bring them in for class discussion and final selection.

What The Heck Are We Doing Today? Class: May 12th & 14th

Example Proposal #1: Click on image to read more project information.

Example Proposal #2

Example Proposal #3

Hey! Welcome to week seven!

DUE TUESDAY: Your three FLAT building image proposals uploaded to the blog. You do not need to have these images applied to your buildings just yet (unless you already do - then please upload and share).  Please remember to leave detailed descriptions in your captions and any questions that you might have. Also, please update your blog to show progress and process. 

REVIEW: On Sunday I sent you all another folder filled with more images of the buildings. This time there are already some masks in place for your creating ease. I also uploaded examples of how I want you to present your final proposals on THURSDAY. Please take a look at this flickr set so you can start working on getting your files prepped. I included detailed description about how to prep your document in the body text of the sample file. Read it!

In class today we are going to work on making revisions to your ideas and also preparing your final documents.

THURSDAY: Three 11x17 building proposals printed and ready for hanging in the hallway. No mounting please.

I am going to introduce our next photoshop assignment and we are going to get to work on this in class!

Please be updating your blogs with your project process and tutorial process. I am still midway through grading and hope to revisit and finish up with all by the end of this week. I would also like to have one on one convos with each of you about your progress and grades in this class. Watch for in class sign up sheet to come.

Ward's USTREAM Demo!

Remember guys? you were there! You may count this as one of your tutorials for this week as well! Thanks again to Ward for being awesome!

Special Guest: Ward Jenkins!

Hey ALL! We are super lucky to have Ward Jenkins here with us today! He will be sharing his work, inspiration and process! Listen up because he is going to be kicking out a sweet tutorial to share as well. The man is TALENTED and oh, so knowledgeable. So exciting!

Check out his STUFF!

WEBSITE

BIO

BLOG

ETSY STORE

What The Heck Are We Doing Today? Class: May 5th

Above: Haymaking by Lisa Congdon (aka: your skype guest today!)

FULL DAY MY PEOPLES!

DUE: Your logos mounted ever so expertly. GASP, I simply cannot wait to see the beauty that is sure to be presented before me. CORRECT?

UP FIRST: Introduce the new assignment. Read through the blog postings and say hello to student special guest JIMMY! He is here for back-up reinforcement about why this project is important and why I must think you all are pretty smart to give you all such a big deal assignment. This is REAL! This is where you can use your developing design skills and smarts to really effect CHANGE! 

Jimmy and I will talk, talk, show, talk, show and get you appropriately pumped.

SECOND: At 10:30 the lovely, rad, smart, skilled, savvy LISA CONGDON will be beaming in to talk with you about image making, art making, working for other people, working for herself, image gathering, blogging, photographing, store running and all around VISUAL WOW. Prepare. Remember to review her sites that I showed you last time (scroll down for appropriate linkage).

THIRD: I will be going through a few photoshop basics and tutorials. Check out some of the links after the jump for some helpful TUTS.

NEXT ASSIGNMENT: Art Buildings Need A Facelift! STAT!

above: UGH! These three buildings really belong together? what? you mean they aren't condemned?

Okay, so our buildings look pretty crappy, right? Well, let's fix it, okay? One of the GREAT things about being a graphic designer is that you can make big ideas a reality with the combination of smart thinking and wicked skills.

Your next assignment will have you coming up with THREE ideas for the art buildings and then superimposing them onto the photos of the buildings that I have provided.

Your final three ideas must encompass the following:

1. Color Solution: You may use a maximum of four colors to tie the buildings together.

2. Photo Solution: The red building will be able to have graphics affixed to it. Please come up with a photo-based solution for the red building and complementary color solution for the annex and parking garage.

3. Vector Solution: Again, the red building will be able to have graphics affixed to it. The vector solution could be patterns and/or images originated in illustrator and then applied in photoshop. Again, pick a complementary color solution for the annex and parking garage.

You will pick two photos to apply each treatment. This makes for a total of SIX photos (for three different treatments...get the math?) You will provide a written explanation for each treatment (the hows and whys of it all). Your written explanations will be delivered to me in the form of a blog post coupled with your imagery.

Today and tomorrow we will be brainstorming, making concept sketches and refining our thumbnails. In class on thursday, I will show you how to apply the photoshop and illustrator ideas onto the building images that I have supplied for you all.

Due Dates:

Tuesday, May 5th: Introduce New Assignment / Special Guest PSU Student Jimmy Presler Brainstorm in class / Research 

Thursday, May 7th: Bring in 15 different building idea thumbnails / in class tutorial / WORKDAY

Tuesday, May 12th: Pre-Crit your three ideas on flickr in class / workday

Thursday, May 14th: FINAL building ideas uploaded to flickr / process blog post 

read the art department call for submissions after the jump! See, your idea could end up on our building!