Letterpress Triptych Concept and Process

The concept of my triptych series was to convey the good, the bad, and the ugly of my life in college. The social scene is what I believe to be one of the most fun aspects of college, so for "the good", I chose to illustrate a classic college drinking game, beer pong. For "the bad", I drew a stack of books as a representation of classes and studying, which always seems to interfere with the fun stuff, and for "the ugly" I illustrated a diploma because personally, I would like to stay in college for as long as I can! As an element of interest and playfulness, I used the drawings as letter forms within each word. Deciphering what the word spells out is slightly ambiguous, which is intentional because I did not want it to be blatantly obvious. The style of the illustrations helps with the ambiguity due to the loose, blind-contour-esque line drawings. Moreover, I wanted to have a vintage feel to the series, so I used a pencil to draw the illustrations and chose to print on a tan, textured paper with a burnt brick ink color.  The imperfect prints of the wood block letters helped further enhance the worn, vintage look I was striving for.

For each piece, I simply arranged the wood block letters to my liking, inked them, placed my paper on top, and ran it through the letterpress. Once dry, I drew my illustrations with pencil and cropped each work to 9" x 8".

Letterpress Triptych Project: Sketches

Our final project for GD1 came quickly. For this assignment, we were asked to create a triptych that utilized the letterpress, which were essentially the requirements. With only three days to complete the project, we were required to think of a concept in a short amount of time. Due to the broad nature and short deadline of this assignment, I became extremely stressed and confused about what to do. As a designer, I love adhering to guidelines and have trouble when I am given full creative capacity. Seeing my frustration, Ange suggested I create guidelines for myself and build a concept off of my own limitations. So, I decided that in my triptych I would only be able to use one color for the letterpress, my images had to be my own illustrations, and the size of each piece would be roughly 9 x 8. Like many other projects, I began to find inspiration for my concept on the internet. I googled "things in threes", which sparked many ideas. I was particularly intrigued by the idea of "the good, the bad, and the ugly". I thought it would be fun to choose a subject and then illustrate what I perceived as good, bad, and ugly of the subject. College was one idea that readily came to mind seeing that the semester is ending and exams, papers, and projects are a few things I definitely dislike about school. Without much time to mull over a solid concept, I chose to run with this idea. I started to think of images that would relate to each word. I instantly thought party cups could symbolize "the good" since everyone loves the party aspect of college. Books could represent classes and studying, or "the bad". Finally, I thought a diploma could illustrate "the ugly" because who actually wants to graduate and go into the real world?! When I chose all the images I wanted to use for each word, I tried to figure out how I would incorporate the text and image together. I immediately thought that using images to represent letters would be a great way to integrate the two and add some playfulness and interest. I plan on having the triptych series to evoke a somewhat vintage feel by using my own pencil line drawings as well as creme, textured paper, and a dull, red ink for the  letters. 

Rock Star Supply Co. Final Poster

Here is the final poster I designed for our Rock Star Supply Co. campaign series. I mentioned in my previous post that our group was collaborating on a few pieces; however, we ended up having each person take responsibility for a specific piece. The poster, obviously, was my design assignment. Comparing the first draft to this one, the overall layout and organization of the poster remained the same; however, I made changes to a couple elements. For example, instead of a calculator, the focal image is now a megaphone, which better pertains to the poster's title, "Listen Up". Furthermore, the title banner was switched from a white background with black text, to a black background with white text. Finally, the circle was filled with a tint of the pure green hue, seen in the main background of the poster. All in all, I am very happy with the end product. I think that the design is clean, direct, and striking, which in my opinion, are key components in a successful poster. I particularly love the screen print style of the image. In addition, I think the color palette is successful. The combination of black and white provides great contrast and the vibrant green color adds interest and draws even more attention. In addition, the poster remains cohesive with the other work in our series. The ticket, palm card, and web site landing page can be seen on Katie Lindgren's blog, which shows how we tried to maintain similar elements throughout, such as the typography, image style, circle "ripples" and title banner.

Rock Star Supply Co: Poster and Ticket Draft 1

For this next project, we were challenged to create a series of work that promotes a concert organized by Macalester students and sponsored by Rock Star Supply Co., a non-profit organization that recruits volunteers to aid teachers and tutor students in Saint Paul schools. Ange assigned us into groups of three or four. Each group was given the responsibility of inventing a name for the concert and designing a poster, palm card, website landing page, and a fourth medium of choice around our theme. My fantastic group members include Ryan Weber, Katie Lindgren, and Becka Galarowicz. At this stage in the project, our group chose to divide and conquer. Ryan and I volunteered to tackle the poster and Becka and Katie began working on the website. Ryan also designed the palm card and I created the ticket. The first draft of the poster Ryan and I collaborated on is shown to the left and my first attempt at the ticket is shown below. Following our critique in class tomorrow, we plan on working together more as a group to finalize the pieces. 

The Macalester students requested a design that is simple, utilitarian, and energetic, which effectively promotes their event as well as Rock Star.  Given these guidelines, our group first agreed on maintaining the clean, modern aesthetic characteristic of this organization. Additionally, we selected a similar color palette, using black, white, and a highlight color and planned on placing the Rock Star logo in all four mediums. While incorporating brand identity elements is important, they also advised us to focus on the concert as a brand in itself. Our first hurdle: selecting an original concert name. After much brainstorming,  we decided to title it "Listen Up"; a name that pertains to both the academic and music aspects of this event. Our concept is centered around an image of a raising hand holding a calculator. The hand and calculator serve as the main icon for the series and can be seen in other media. As opposed to a pencil or a ruler, we chose this school related object due to the fact that the calculator best related to the Macalester student's interest in using the slogan "rock stars: entering the equation, becoming the solution." Furthermore, we incorporated a hand raising the calculator hoping that it would be somewhat reminiscent of the revolution fist, a symbol of action, power, and unity. Also, in some pieces, circles radiate from the icon, which we implemented to enforce the idea of sound. 

Informative Series Final

After solidifying the overall concept in my final sketches, the next decision I faced was choosing my color palette. Seeing that we had the limitation of using only variations of one hue, I knew I wanted to work with either a burnt orange to resemble peanut butter or a plum to resemble jelly. I ended up selecting burnt orange. As you can see, my final work remained very similar to my final sketches. However, some changes I made include the removal of the hamburger from the poster, color separation between the visual and text components and a campaign logo. 

I am extremely happy with the final product. I think all three pieces are cohesive, but also offer sufficient variety as well. Obviously, the cohesiveness is apparent in the color palette, typography treatments, illustrative style, hierarchy of information and layout. The variety can be seen in the different tints and shades used from the pure hue in each design, the different images, ratios (numbers and symbols), supporting text and layout orientation. Furthermore, I think that the design is playful, eye-catching and clever and the message is simple, straightforward and logical. I believe the campaign would draw the attention of any parent if they were to see the advertisement at a grocery store, in a parenting magazine, or on the highway as they head home from work. 

Informative Series Sketches

First Round of Sketches

Second Round of Sketches

I began this project by researching more about peanut butter & jelly sandwiches and discovered a website called the "PBJ Campaign". Check out the web site at here. I came to find out that the organization   actually advocate's for the consumption of this lunch favorite. They claim that  replacing plant-based meals for animal-based meals can save water, conserve land and slow global warming. Without hesitation, I knew I wanted to run with this idea and came up with my own campaign  around the statement "make a sandwich, make a change", which I thought could best target parents with children. I found many great statistics and became particularly interested in statistics using ratio comparisons. For example, one statistic stated that "the land required to produce beef in one hamburger could produce enough peanuts for 19 pb&js". My first round of sketches tried to play with the idea of numbers and emphasizing that more is better. I used a repeat pattern of slices of peanut butter or jelly for the magazine and flyer and stacked sandwiches for the billboard as a representation of the greater number in the different advertising media. I intended a small paragraph to be placed beneath the number as supporting text. My second round of sketches, uses different comparison symbols and includes a hamburger and a chicken to further reinforce this comparison. The billboard, however, shows one sandwich and removes the number element. I also began experimenting with an illustrative style using line drawings and off-setting the fill color. My second round of sketches left me feeling more confident that I could successfully translate my vision into a cohesive, playful campaign for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Persuasive Poster

For this project, I chose to try and persuade my audience to want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, one of my favorite lunch choices since I was in grade school. From the beginning, I knew I wanted to utilize pathos as my persuasive method. For most people, peanut butter and jelly was a food staple as a child, and as a result, the nostalgia that this food brings would easily trigger a person's emotions. I knew a good catch phrase was extremely important to my poster, so I began this process by thinking of short but clever statements that related to peanut butter and jelly. Two of the statements I thought of related to the ingredients of peanut butter and jelly; "salty meets sweet" and "better together". The third phrase came about after I googled "peanut butter and jelly" and came across "peanut butter jelly time"; the most obnoxious and bizarre song so many people hate to love. From there, I experimented with using the main ingredients of the sandwich as my main imagery as well as the sandwich  as a whole. I also came up with the idea of incorporating a paper bag into my poster to use as a frame or background texture. After talking with Ange, she suggested that "it's that time" was my strongest phrase and I agreed with her choice. At first, I wanted to go for a pop art look. I created a pop art drawing of the sandwich, bold, block letters for the text, and a half-tone image of a paper bag as a background. While my idea seemed cohesive, creative, and direct, during our first class critique, I received feedback that the sandwich image was hard to read as peanut butter and jelly and there was tension between the "peanut butter jelly time" theme and the nostalgic presence that the paper bag evoked and I needed to commit to one of the two.

In the end, I chose to take the direction of the "peanut butter jelly time" theme. In order to successfully achieve this idea though, Ange reminded me that I needed to further research the iconic elements that make this song so well known. The bit mapped cartoon of the banana is the main identity of the song, which made me think that I could incorporate this into my design as well. Seeing that I was already struggling with my image reading as peanut butter and jelly, I decided that it would be best to bit map the two main ingredients of the sandwich: peanuts and grape jelly. I wanted to continue to use big, block text for my typography; however, Ange pointed out that using Arial Black font did not connect as well with a bit mapped image. Thus, I altered some of the letters in the text to appear bit mapped as well. At first, I divided the poster into sections: 1/4 text (black background, white text) 1/4 image (white background) and 1/2 text (black background, white text). This arrangement though, separated the elements of the poster rather than connecting them. Instead, I positioned the imagery next to the first two lines of text,    breaking the barrier between the black and white background. 


Overall, I had difficulty adjusting to the bit mapped style that this poster called for because my design aesthetic is partial to precision and crispness. Though I felt slightly uncomfortable, I am happy with the finished product. I think that the statement, in particular, is catchy and thought provoking and all the elements of the poster successfully relate to "peanut butter jelly time". Here is the finished product!