Entries Tagged 'Assignment' ↓

For the next assignment, everyone in my class will be creating his or her own 4″x6″ two-color design revolving around the theme of “-made.” We were each assigned our own prefix—I was assigned “custom(-made)”. Other examples that were assigned are: re-, hand-, and home-. We will be producing polymer plates with Boxcar Press and printing them on Vandercook letterpress machines (pictured below). In the end, we will be compiling our prints into books and each taking (at least) one home!

This assignment will be very fun—and an exciting break from the computer!

To be honest, I hit a creative wall with this assignment. Maybe there were too many other things happening at the same time, but as the due date neared, I couldn’t find the mental energy to focus on this project as closely as I wanted. My products tags suffered the most as they were my last priority. Ultimately, however, I am pleased with the results. I think my final designs speak to who I am and my illustrative style. The pieces I’ve created are simple and attractive and might appeal to a wide audience. I feel like I could pick this project up again in the future and complete mat designs for other specific poses.

I’m also happy that I tried to design for product development as this is something I think I’d like to practice more in the future. This would be a good project to use as a critique in the future—what I learned on my own and what I could improve with further training.

Product tags are in place! I just need to refine them before printing tomorrow…

I’m looking forward to mounting and finishing tomorrow night. It will feel so gratifying!

… if only it weren’t for those darn product tags, for which I can’t seem to find the brain power. Hopefully I will be smarter tomorrow!

This studio was photographed (with permission) at the Yoga Center of Minneapolis.

This is the last week I’ll be spending time with this assignment. Class critique and final, mounted designs are due next Tuesday. Hopefully I’ll be able to post my progress a couple more times this week because I have a lot of work ahead of me! Any feedback is greatly appreciated!

This past weekend I made some progress with putting my designs in context to yoga practice and retail display. My retail display contains two of my three major pieces for the series: the product tag and the display poster. The product tags (3 layouts for one specific pose/color to be developed this week) will contain the majority of my typographic design (health benefits, pose tips and, of course, pose name) and will be mounted on one board together. The display poster is important to show my pose illustration quality. I’m not sure if I should print this piece to scale or full size (24″x36″ like my original yoga poster), but this piece may also be mounted on its own board. The contextual retail display (with final tag and poster designs applied) will also be mounted on its own board.

My yoga mat design is the third major piece of this series, though it is possibly the most important. This is, after all, where my ideas for this assignment began. I will be focusing on the same pose that I develop for my product tags (Fire Log Pose might be the best pose to work with) to create a more artistic and interesting mat design. In the illustrations to the left, I’ve laid the texture of a yoga mat under each design in order to further influence the design. I’m not sure if this is necessary or if it detracts from the design. Ultimately, the graphic I work with will be mounted on it’s own board.

My last board will include my final mat design applied to a contextual image (as seen to the left) and perhaps my three other mats. I don’t know if I’ll develop them further, but perhaps they’re necessary to show the overall grid system of my mat designs.