think carrie, think!

Grad Type Assignment 2: Done.

I’ve been slaving away at this assignment for weeks. Or at least it felt that way. I wasn’t really happy with anything that I had come up with until the very end (and still, there are things that aren’t quite right… but that’s the way it works with all these projects!).

The final product: a 24″x36″ color poster printed on semi-gloss paper. Instead of writing about the project description, here’s the short blurb that is included on my poster, I think it gives enough context:

This was an exercise to visually map sixty minutes of our life. We were given the freedom to document anything we wanted. I’m not sure whether it was the fact that on this particular day, I was comfortably settled in my chair by the window drenched in sunlight, or if I was just in a desperate need of some sort of break, or if I simply sought pleasure in doing something completely mundane, but I decided to count the number of bricks on the wall in my apartment. I never got around to counting them all; it seems that my mind can never get around to catching a break, even if I’m just sprawled on my chair basking in warmth, taking a rest from school, and counting bricks.

And here’s the poster (click to download pdf version):

As always, lots of lessons were learned doing this project. We did a similar project with Dan Boyarski in our Studio I class last year, but now that I’ve developed a bit more skill in this area I think I’ve been able to take away a lot more than I was able to before. I learned most about hierarchy in doing this piece–how to map different types of information in a way that captures the essence of your piece yet avoiding a cluttered-looking layout, how to engage the audience using different layering of information and movement in depth using typography.

These skills aren’t only useful in designing nice looking posters and book covers. I’m finding that it’s become easier even just organizing thoughts, or diagramming models. Being able to communicate information is such a crucial tool to have for designers—and this all becomes a lot easier when you’ve learned some basic skills in things like typography.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 19th, 2007 and is filed under design, school, typography.