Tuesday, March 17, 2009

INDEPENDENT STUDY: EPIC SKETCH-SOURCE BOOK/JOURNAL THINGY

We will divide our course binder into a few sections, thereby converting it to an EPIC SKETCH-SOURCE BOOK/JOURNAL THINGY!

Here it goes:
1. Calendar
2. Journal: Reflection + Progress
3. Sketchbook
4. Source Images
5. Facts about artists/companies, etc.
6. Techniques and processes.
Dingbat Self Portrait Rubric

1. Portrait is composed of 4 distinct values:
*Darkest shadow, dark mid-tone, light mid-tone, and white space. Values are appropriately balanced in relationship to one another.

2. Portrait is broken into clean, smooth paths.
*Student took great care in creating the paths. Lines are curved and straight where appropriate. Paths do not look 'choppy'.

3. Paths are used to create clipping masks.
*Clipping masks serve as a boundary for the dingbat shapes, keeps them contained, establishes the form for that part of the portrait.

4. Dingbats have been scaled, rotated, etc. Effort was taken to make them fit together like the pieces of a puzzle. There is a distinct visual texture as a result.

5. A variety of dingbats have been used.
*At least three fonts are incorporated into your design.

6. Thorough write up--details to come.
Expect to discuss work process, covering the criteria points.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Dingbat Portrait Info

For our next project, we will tackle a challenging art task for any medium: Portraiture. The fun and funky part of our portrait is that it will be a way for us to explore a really cool aspect of type: DINGBATS!

Wikipedia says: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dingbat
A dingbat is an ornament, character or spacer used in typesetting, sometimes more formally known as a "printer's ornament" or "printer's character".

The term continued to be used in the computer industry to describe fonts that had symbols and shapes in the positions designated for alphabetical or numeric characters.

Check out this website for some examples of dingbat portraits:
http://www.walyou.com/blog/2009/01/05/creative-singers-ad-bose-sound-system-designs/

Anyway, the first steps to achieving this portrait are to:
1. Learn a little bit about shading, value and abstraction. Follow the links below for some reading on this topic.
http://www.portrait-artist.org/basics/shading.html
http://www.portrait-artist.org/basics/shading-explained.html

2. Start finding some rad dingbats to fill your different value areas. Download the fonts, save the type files in your server folder, and install them in the Fonts folder in your Control Panel.
Search for dingbat fonts that represent your personality here:
http://www.dafont.com/
http://freeres.info/free-fonts.php

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Project Proposal Questions
When doing a proposal it is important to anticipate the questions the person you are presenting to will have, so you have the answer when they ask.

Try to find an answer for the following questions. Remember, as you develop the pitch, make sure that each person is making a contribution to the presentation.

1. What’s in it for me?
2. How much is it going to cost?
3. How will it help future classes/STEP/advance the program?
4. How many places to order from?
5. How do you expect to achieve your goals?
6. Who will it benefit?
7. What will you need besides the supplies you are requesting? (space, facilities, time, access)
8. How long will it take?
9. When will you need the supplies by?
10. Is it school appropriate?
11. Are there safety issues?
12. Legal issues?
13. How do expect to manage your materials (clean up after yourself)
14. Are your materials necessary? What’s the point of getting them?
15. What’s your plan B? Do you have a plan B?
16. Relationship to Art Technology?
17. How will it get to your end user—get people to care about/use your product?
18. Why are you doing this?