Years ago I drew
Letters, symbols and colors
Now I draw again

219 NWI

Raised here all my life
Memories have been cherished
This is where I’m from

Live live to the fullest

To true happiness
Just live life to the fullest
Always be thankful

You are amazing

You are everything
I ever wanted and more
You are amazing

Pain is love

Through painful heartbreaks
Stay strong and be confident
Smile and fight for love 

Stay strong

For the strength it takes
To walk with pride and passion
Leads to true success

Music is life

The sound of music
Takes me away to my own world
High above the stars 

Je suis

Je m’appelle Jamie
J’aime à dessine et écrire
Je suis une artiste

Logo Savvy is a book that showcases branding projects delivered by a collection of featured design firms such as: Pentagram Design, Soulsight, WOW Branding, Futurebrand, H2D2, alongside several others. There are quite a few interesting take away points from this book as well as a few lessons.

The take away I got from this book is the insight to the strategic and creative process and the execution served by the featured design firms. It’s good to see how other designers approach branding projects from different perspectives. Seeing that helps open up new avenues for creativity and new thinking lanes for myself as a designer.

This book is also a great source of inspiration. There is quite a lot of creativity packaged up inside the front cover. I recommend taking a peak.

Thus far, my summer has been really good and I couldn’t have been more excited to take a weekend away from the buzz of Northwest Indiana and venture out to Muskegon, Michigan and camp for a few days. Check out some of the neat pictures I took below!

the trip

The hike at Sugarbowl and Lost Lake was great. I got a good run in while making my way back down the dunes (at the end, I almost got sick due to dehydration! ha!). It was also good to relax by the beach for a few hours and work on getting a tan. While my friends and I took on a lot of adventures during the day, at night it was great to just sit by the bonfire and enjoy the vacation.

If anyone hasn’t been up to these parts of Michigan, I highly recommend visiting!

While I still uphold my responsibilities at the Center for Innovation Through Visualization and Simulation, I’ve scooped up another role as graphic design intern at Ad Force Creative (the name Ad Force is a pun of Air Force!). In just one week, I’ve designed a plethora of different print and web based collateral for some really awesome clients: James E. Snyder of Portage Indiana and Indiana University Health just to name a few.

“The Ad Force is a collection of top talent from the worlds of advertising, design, marketing, and business. Team members have been recruited for their unique abilities and experience. The aim is to provide an agency of excellence for clients who demand a job achieved efficiently and effectively the first time.”

In a very competitive industry, the atmosphere is very friendly and supportive which are qualities that make my internship so much greater. Below are a few photographs of the Ad Force Creative studio.

Thankful as I am to be apart of a great creative team, I owe thanks to my mentor, Chase Talon, for giving me the opportunity. There’s plenty of great projects I’m looking forward to work on, many great people I’m looking forward to meet and so on.

Image courtesy via Flickr.

Earlier, I was reading Jorge Frascara’s chapter “Graphic Design, Fine Art or Social Science?” from Audrey Bennett’s book “Design Studies, Theory and Research in Graphic Design” and somewhere in the content had prompt me to stop and think about that question. Was it an art or a science? A little bit of both perhaps, but that’s just my opinion which I’ve opened up for interpretation.

“Graphic design has existed long enough for its role in society to be easily understood. However, unlike architecture, literature, or the fine arts, it has developed without much theoretical reflection. It has evolved into a sophisticated practice in a piecemeal fashion, with scattered efforts aimed at the development of subareas, such as posters or books, but without either the critical apparatus in literature or the dialogue presence in architecture.”

-Jorge Fracara

Essentially, the purpose is to effectively communicate in a visual form that evokes an emotional response, but when we concern ourselves with the visual aspect of the design, do we focus more on the behavioral sciences of our target market with our work or the distinct style and how our work appears? Is it more about “what looks unique” or “what works?”

In our practice, just how important is it to really understand human factors, the way we think and perceive and the way we react to graphic design? Can’t the artistic approach achieve the same results if we’re to concern ourselves purely with the elements and principles of design (balance, emphasis, unity, harmony, proximity, etc.)? Which approach is more measurable in terms of the quality of the overall design? At first, I would almost reckon the best methodology is to focus on what works over what looks unique.

Is it science?

Because we’re hired to design for the same purposes for the same types of clients in a small world, this is where I stop and ask, aren’t styles and trends just as important? If people are positively responding to trendy designs and the magnitude of that exposure is exponentially significant, shouldn’t graphic design revolve more around our target audience’s emotional response and be used in conjunction with parallel marketing/advertising strategies? Is that a reason why clients prefer trendy and fashionable styles, that they’ve seen elsewhere, in their designs, given if they know that’s how their audience will respond to them? Isn’t this where, “what works” takes precedence over “what looks unique?” In theory, does this make graphic design more of a science?

“Persuading an audience to attend an exhibit, travel to another country, or invest in a company is inducing that audience to take an action. In an attempt to persuade, the designer develops an argument within the two-dimensional space that defines and represents an audience’s future experience.”

-Ann C. Tyler

Image courtesy of Flickr.

Is it art?

A common caveat is that a design can become highly convoluted if we don’t understand why we’re designing it. The design process seems to involve more of a scientific methodology that requires a measurable result/purpose (selling a product/service for a company), rather than approaching the process from an artistic perspective. However, isn’t the artistic approach where the bulk of creativity comes from? In terms of constructive parallel thinking, being able to conceive outside of the scope, conjure new ideas without judging their merits, and draw them out to envision how they look along with choosing meaningful letterforms and colors are all artistic traits that’s involved in our work; so doesn’t that make graphic design an art?

Conclusively, I believe graphic design can be both an art and science but not one without the other. To briefly justify my opinion, the distinctive appearance of a design is derived from the artistic/creative approach but it needs to effectively convey the desired message to the right audience, therefore it’s imperative to research, study, and experiment how our designs can evoke the desired emotional response from our audience. I think the camaraderie between art and science in design is what enables us to be creative problem solvers. Of course, the way I look at this question could be completely different from the way you may see it and I may just simply be over thinking the entire question altogether. Nonetheless, I still find it an interesting topic to ponder.

What are your thoughts?

To look back on March 5th, I had wondered how my first go at helping build a student organization of my own would work out and now, I realize it wasn’t so bad. In fact, it was a lot of fun to connect with new faces and learn some pretty neat things about them. Even though it took 7 weeks to become an official organization; after 5 meetings, 3 guest speakers, and 2 tours, I think we all did pretty good in the short time that we had before the semester ended.

Now that summer is here, I’m excited to take a break from school work but even more so excited to continue participating at networking events, art shows, and conferences. In the best interest for SIGGRAPH, I would love to see our members also participate and help contribute some really cool ideas to better establish ourselves as the “De-facto” group of technology creatives of Purdue. Below is a short bio of SIGGRAPH spring 2012.

Short Bio

I: The Introduction

March 5th, 2012

Our first SIGGRAPH meeting included +25 students from various backgrounds including: 3D graphic artists, motion graphic designers, web designers, film makers, flash animators, and video game designers.

II: The Importance of Mentors/Mentees

March 19, 2012

In the second meeting, we were excited to meet and talk with graphic/web designers Ryan Wake and Teresa Zorzi of Four 11 Mentors along with my mentor Chase Dunlop about networking, mentoring, and how college students can make the cross into the industry.

III: A Look Into 3D Immersive Technology

April 2nd, 2012

Our third meeting was dedicated to our vast majority of 3D artists & animators as we toured into the Center for Innovation through Visualization & Simulation (CIVS) along with Purdue Calumet’s Marketing Association (PUMA) and CIVS’ very own Immersive 3D Graphics group (I3GD). Wearing 3D glasses, it was like walking into an iMax theater except we were able to interact with the 3D animated projects such as a virtual blast furnace, simulation of a protein structure and a cool virtual 3D whack-a-mole game.

IV: Creative Critiques

April 16th, 2012

This meeting was dedicated to a huge creative show-and-tell/critique by our SIGGRAPH curators from classroom projects to client projects. Our members paid close attention to detail, layout, typography, flow, and overall message.

V: Super Computer Fiesta

April 30th, 2012

To conclude the semester, we wrapped it up with a grand-finale tour into Purdue Calumet’s super computer with several thousand processors, a cooling system, and an inside chamber where you can see our members hanging out.

For the summer

So far, the big event to look forward to is the Downtown Hammond Art Tour. All SIGGRAPH members are encouraged to go, as it will be a lot of fun and definitely worth the time. Other than that, we definitely have some wild ideas for the summer ahead and plans for SIGGRAPH Fall 2012 where we hope to have the equipment, technology, software and time needed to design a project of our own to enter into the annual SIGGRAPH competition.

Leave a thought behind

Whether you are reading this as a member of SIGGRAPH or not, thoughts, ideas or advice is always welcome here as well as comments. Because our members career-paths are so diverse, we aim to think with an open-mind for ways that can give members opportunities to explore the realms of design/technology, meet other people from the industry, and learn what it takes to be the best design/animation group in NWI.

Jason Mraz – I Won’t Give Up

Bruno Mars – It Will Rain

Wiz Khalifa – Say Yeah

Chuck Ragan – Nothing Left To Prove

The Fray – How To Save A Life

Walk The Moon – Anna Sun

Jason Aldean – Fly Over States

Ending Thoughts

What did you think of these songs? Were any of them songs you like? Any songs you think I should listen to? Leave your thoughts below. I’d love to hear them!
 

Just in case anyone is wondering, or looking for new sans-serif fonts to add to their collection, here’s 7 sans-serif fonts that are in my current palette (my 7 lovable fonts). Click on the images or titles to view the fonts.

Proxima Nova

This font is definitely one to consider. The stroke or stem has the same width applied to each character, all lowercase letters fit equally between the baseline and the x-height. What I find unique is the bowl on the lowercase a. The kerning, by default, is almost perfect. There’s many more appreciative things about Proxima Nova but simply put, this is a font I would invest in. (Did you notice I use Proxima Nova on my website? Yep, it’s a core element of my branding.)

Futura

What I always find fascinating about Futura is its anatomical structure. Futura is known as a geometric sans-serif and as you can see why, it’s excellent for headers and in some cases work as body text on the web. My logo is actually a customized version of Futura to further emphasize the geometric anatomy and detail.

Ubuntu

A free font, courtesy of Ubuntu, and one that I don’t use much, but I definitely like it for these reasons. It’s unique and would make any header stand out against a body of sans-serif text. The unfortunate thing about this font and I’m wondering what other designers would think about this one is that it wouldn’t be effective as a part of a brand scheme as it is, after all, Ubuntu. I’m also wondering if there may be some copyright issues pertaining to the use of the font. I still think this is a great font for personal use.

Helvetica-Neue

Helvetica Neue, or just Helvetica, since it’s derived from Helvetica is what I would consider a great choice to use for body text and it also works great for headers. This humanistic font is modern, simple, and yet powerful.

Univers

What I like about Univers is definitely the vertical scale. The anatomical structure seems to resemble Helvetica but the difference between the two is the vertical scale along with a few individual glyphs. Because the vertical scale is lower, it’s easier to read as body text on screen.

Gill Sans

One of my first favorite fonts, I continue to use Gill Sans all the time, especially in the classroom when I’m writing term/research papers. What I like about this font is the style.

Frutiger

Frutiger is another humanist font that contains a strong range of alphabetical characters. As you can see in the name, the ascender of the letter t is slanted at a subtle degree. This and other individual glyphs make this font stand out from the rest. Another great choice for body text and even for headers.

Here’s my 8 likable sans-serif fonts that I hope to use someday. I don’t have anything to say about them at this point as I haven’t had the chance to use them yet. Click on the images or titles to check out the fonts.

Motiva Sans

Blanch

Sofia Pro

Museo Sans Rounded

Neustadt

Gibson

Nimbus Sans Novus

Antartida

Ending thought

What are your favorite fonts? I’d love to hear what fonts you like or use as your own font palette.

One of my preferred ways to stay creative is to listen to my favorite music and then drift out with different music and explore into unchartered genres. It’s just a little way of keeping me going till I can get the job done.

That is where this post comes in. I just started listening to Massive Attack out of curiosity and the first song I played, Teardrop, caught my interest. The feeling of hearing that song was immersive so I decided to hear more songs from them. I didn’t realize that I would like most of what I heard and felt the need to share it with everyone. Massive Attack are a British DJ and trip hop group from Bristol England, you may want to learn more on their website.

Here’s my playlist of the week with Massive Attack. The music videos are also well done.

Splitting the Atom

Angel

I also thought these songs were amazing too in their own unique way:

1. Unfinished Sympathy
2. Teardrop
3. Inertia Creeps
4. Butterfly Caught
5. Karmacoma

It’s good music to listen to if you want to explore or find that adventurous feeling.

Suggest your favorite music

I have a passion for listening to music of many genres, especially different, unheard of, and experimental genres. This week, I’m sharing my favorite Massive Attack songs and next week, I’ll share more songs I find throughout this week.

Have a suggestion of any music you like? Share your suggestions on the comment thread below.

In 2009, I had made the most important decision of my career. I wanted to design for a living because it was fun, challenging, and rewarding. The fun, challenging, and rewarding part was learning the things about design that I didn’t learn while I was studying at Ivy Tech. Today, as a student of Purdue University Calumet, I continue doing the same thing. I strive to push myself beyond the knowledge of the classroom in order to explore and expand my horizons. Up until now have I yet to give anything back to those I’ve shared class with, or have conversed with. 2012 is the year I have accepted a new role and responsibility as Vice President of the Purdue University Calumet’s collegiate chapter of the ACM SIGGRAPH.

What is SIGGRAPH?

Special Interest Group, Graphics, SIGGRAPH for short, is aimed to foster a membership community whose core values help them to catalyze the innovation and application of computer graphics and interactive techniques, valuing in excellence, integrity, Volunteerism, Passion, and Cross-Disciplinary Interaction.

At Purdue Calumet, SIGGRAPH is a student-run organization. In the curriculum of computer graphics technology, students are exposed to a multidisciplinary environment with fields such as: graphic design, video game design, 3D animation & modeling, post-production & motion graphics, web design & development, and back-end programming. With a large skill set to learn, our mission as a student-organization is quite similar to that of SIGGRAPH.

We aim to foster a membership community with the same core values, but just like with my determination alone, we’d like to go above and beyond that and help create a bridge for students to see what is on the other side, that side called “reality.” Already exposed and immersed in computer graphic technology, we have yet to learn about the industry, about the networks, and about the little things that prepare ourselves to survive in these advancing fields.

From nothing to something

In just seven weeks, since the beginning of the 2012 Spring semester, President Ron Delhaye Jr. of R.Delhaye Studios, Treasurer Ryan Olson, and myself have brought SIGGRAPH back from the ground where it had laid dormant for some time. We definitely intend to brand ourselves in such a way that encourages other students from different majors to connect with the design students and grow as a community. Design and computer graphics technology can be applied to many things that are outside of the video game industry or movie industry. We have the knowledge and skills to solve real-world problems for many other industries. Networking is vital in our discipline.

Students, much like myself, who have spent years searching for the answers to questions about making the jump towards the real-world have done so without much success; therefore, it becomes harder to do what you love to do than it ever has. That is why, we think it’s important to do whatever it takes to find the answers to those questions for the students today so they can decide whether this field is fit for them.

Three people cannot make a student-organization successful alone and cannot always be expected to deliver opportunities to our fellow members. In order for us to have a chance at being a successful community, we have to be there for each other, support each other and collaborate together. That’s where our chance is. This is why we choose to be a democracy of equality. It is, after all, an organization run by us, the students.

A chance to build a brand

I’ve taken on the responsibility of shaping our brand from a design standpoint. Even though our organization is a child of Purdue University Calumet & ACM SIGGRAPH, our brand is to represent both respectively.

Everyone who is apart of SIGGRAPH here at Purdue Calumet is hoping to gain something new and unique from it, an answer to a certain question not found in a textbook, or an opportunity to apply not received in a classroom. As our organization prepares for the upcoming bi-weekly meetings, we are constantly sharing ideas with each other in finding new ways we can turn this idea of bringing students together as a whole to a reality.

Ending thoughts

I’m nearing graduation soon and I’ve always had an interest to help other students out, build friendships, and create opportunities for people to benefit from. This is why I’ve decided to give back to what has made me who I am. I want to see my friends and acquaintances experience success as much as I want to experience success.