Friday, May 14, 2010

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

T4: Duplicitous Typeface Revised


So I attempted to create the lowercase letters of the typeface we created for our type conference. I did also bring the gap in that we originally had in the first one. Something was said to it's legibility when words were formed (and I even misspelled a word), so I decided to take the space out. I also had to redraw all the original letters because in order to create the lowercase, I needed more room to create the angles. I didn't think about that in the original one, so I had to make the letter "s" and "x" in a 4 by 4 box area....wasn't gonna happen.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Starbucks: New Chalkboards


F
rom the process of our new remodel, we scored a sweet new large chalkboard. I got my hands on it pretty quickly. Here are the latest two signs that have been displaying. The frappuccino one below is the current one. Also, I just heard this weekend that our store isn't done with the remodel. Thank goodness, because I was beginning to get worried. Apparently, they were waiting to get more feedback from both customers and partners. I hear...they are staining the beams on the ceiling, replacing the bar style tables in chairs with regular height ones, and painting one of the walls a deep red. Can't wait for more changes...and warmth!


Tuesday, May 4, 2010

User Exp: Final Poetic Wayfinding Experience


To recap, the problem was to create a may from the graphic design building to each of the shuttlecocks located on the lawn of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. The final form I created is a two-piece artifact. The first is a water bottle conveniently hung on a carabiner and the second is an envelope with a pair of scissors and an instructional card. The card will not only guide the user to all three shuttle cocks at the Nelson, but also provide instructions for creating their own shuttlecock, which all happens on the walk there. That is the poetic part. The user is asked to make small stops and perform a task which will make the user more involved. I included a couple images of the bottle that I created using cut paper, illustrating some directions. The bottle directions are also color coded in orange and the cut paper alludes to the action of cutting the bottle. Throughout the directions I use very descriptive words that little helpers in monitoring the user on their walk. I also reference other things along the way such as the Kansas City Art Institute. I'm pretty excited to user test this again! If we do...





InfoArch: I got my rollovers working!




So far, my rollovers work, and this background is at a 90% opacity to still have the background show through.





Sunday, May 2, 2010

T4: Type Conference Final Process


Micah and I began with Beneath the Surface. We ended with Duplicity, TypeCon's 2012 conference theme dealing with form and perception. In my opinion, getting to where we ended in final critique was a very long process to go through. In the identity alone, Micah and I kept coming up with more and more ideas on how this theme of multiple messages residing in one form could evolve. Throughout the beginning stages, our identity was constantly being questioned. Is this reflecting our type experiments? Is this reflecting BOTH of our experiments? Should we use an icon?

When we began thinking of our artifacts, we knew we wanted ones that were not only different than usual, but ones that reflected the multiple forms of our project. Our six artifacts were 1. a custom typeface, thanks to fontstruct 2. a mailer 3. laptop sleeve 4. name tags 5. venue banner 6. iphone app.

To recap, the mailer contained information about the conference, a return mailer that is perforated to be returned for further information, and a poster. The laptop sleeve contains patterning on the inside, while the outside houses the logotype. The name tags were unique in that they provided a way for attendees to network with no excuses with the perforated pad of name tags that could be handed off. We even thought of possibly making that for the iphone so attendees could "bump" their business card to one another. For our venue banner, it has three sides to it so that when they are hung vertically, they would ideally rotate allowing an attendee to view the different messages that are around the banner. And finally, the iphone app would contain the schedule of the conference, providing the attendee with choices between sessions and different sneak peek bios on some of the guest speakers.

To restate, our venue that we chose was the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art. We originally chose it because of it's multiple floors and multiple rooms which allowed for lots of workshops, breakout sessions, and whatever else that would be in our conference. There is also a place for speakers to speak in the auditorium and Rozelle Court. During critique on Friday, one of our guests judges pointed out that there was also a nice contrast between the old and new architecture which plays well with our conference theme.

Overall, I'm really happy with where we ended up. Of course some things could still be fine tuned a little more...such as the mailer, but I think our artifacts are strong. Plus, Duplicity is a way better name than Beneath the Surface!

VISUAL PROCESS





InfoArch: New arrangement



I think I might have solved my navigation problem. It's at the top, out of the way, while all the content displays underneath. I like how it's shaping up this direction.