Final Project

Well, I'm finally finished....
click here to view.

last day of class

Today was officially our last day of instruction. We spent time in class talking about all the things we liked and didn't like about the course. Jimmy had each of us name either a plus or a negative about the 10 weeks we spent in his class. There were many assignments that people listed as pluses including game day, the word assignments and many of the Ted talks. Some of the negatives were blogging and the rendering of the mandarins. Personally I enjoyed the days when we got to work in groups with other classmates and learn from each other. As the quarter is coming to a close I think this class has helped me not only with the development of my ideas but with my social skills. I am not a person that usually speaks a lot in class and even though I didn't do that much speaking in front of everyone I at least feel a lot more comfortable around my peers when having discussions. Another nice thing about this quarter is that as we are all starting to take a lot of the same design classes together we are becoming closer and enjoying the time we spend on campus because we are all becoming friends. I like that I have made so many new friends this quarter that I will be seeing again in my next classes. It becomes much easier to produce work and speak up in class when you are comfortable with the people that surround you. This quarter for me has been the hardest as far as work and projects but it has been much more enjoyable then any of the previous.

xo

stage 6 communication

The main responsibility of a designer is to be able to clearly communicate an idea or a design. To be a successful designer one must be able to communicate to different types of clients. There are many different modes of communication that can be used depending on who you are trying to communicate with.
- corporations
-manufacturing
- associates

When presenting a design there are four different levels on which the information you deal with can be:

 statement- who, what, where and why
 concept- concept boards and sketches to flesh out ideas
 detail- turning the idea into a physical object
 planning- directing information about design into the future

The methods, media and presentation style chosen by a designer to communicate to a client are very important and a designer needs to be well prepared in order to know what they are talking about and believe in their work 100%. Presentation is key.

MAY 25

Today Jimmy gave us the opportunity to work on our final projects. He gave us the choice of staying in class or working on it outside of class. I along with a few other classmates chose to stay in class and work on my project. I am having a hard time deciding how I want to film my final project so hopefully with a little bit of research and some inspiration I will be able to figure it out this weekend and start working on it. I cant believe the quarter is just about over.

a what? a who?

class today was pretty exciting. We played a game that focused on paying attention and communication between each other. The object of the game was to pass around an object and ask the person next to us what it was. They key was to go slowly and use a certain tone in our voices when asking and answering the questions. We surprisingly did pretty well with the game at first but as it got more difficult we had a harder time. The game was fun and i think that most of the class had a good time playing it based on all the laughter during the game.

The second part of the class we watched a talk by Sir Ken Robinson. I liked what he had to say, he was pretty funny and interesting. One of Robinson's main points was to make sure you are doing what you love. Personally I am so happy that I chose to follow my gut and change my major to art. Growing up I always took art classes and enjoyed painting but when college came around I felt like I needed to do something more then just art. At first I had no idea what I wanted to do and slowly I started to get into psychology and social work. My first year at CSULA was spent majoring in social work until one day I realized that there was nothing more I wanted to do then create art. I realized that this hobby I loved could be much more then a hobby and that I should take a chance and do something that I was really in love with. So with that being said I am so happy that I am doing what I really want to be doing. No money or degree in the world could ever change that.

DREAMS- Akira Kurosawa

Today in class we watched the film Dreams. The film was compiled of 8 short films. Each short story contained some of the same reoccurring characters but each one was a separate dream. I really enjoyed the one where the man sets out to meet Vincent Van Gogh. It starts off in an art museum where he is sucked into one of Van Gogh's paintings. As he travels through the painting he encounters a group of people who tell him where he can find Van Gogh but they warn that he has gone mad. The man travels through a field where he finally encounters Van Gogh. Van Gogh speaks to him and tells him that he must continue painting. Throughout the remainder of the film the young man travels through all of Van Gogh's paintings as if he is a part of them. That was my favorite part of this film. I thought the way they made him look like he was part of the painting was amazing and looked great. I think that the film as a whole was very interesting because is mixed art with drama and fantasy. It showed different types of dreams that we have all had and how strange, beautiful and mystifying it is to drift into a semi-concious state. Our homework for tonight and tomorrow night is to plant the ideas of our creative process into our minds before falling asleep and see if we can dream about it. I guess we shall see what happens.....

John Coy

On Thursday evening I attended the seminar put on by AIGA on campus. The guest speaker was a designer known as John Coy. The seminar started a  late because they were having technical difficulties with the projector so we had to wait around outside for a little longer then planned. Once we were inside John Coy talked to us about his life as a designer and showed us slides of many designs he did throughout his life. I thought the talk was interesting and I liked when he spoke about finding our own inspiration and motivation. He said that when we find something we love to do we know it instantly and without a doubt.  If we put out a certain amount of energy into the world we will begin to receive what we are looking for. I thought this was very interesting and related it back to a book I read called The Secret. The Secret is a book that talks about the power of the mind and the power we have inside of us to make everything in life good.  John Coy showed us many slides of his work and things he had designed. My favorite was the invitation for UCLA that had all these paper cutout and looked very detailed and precise. Overall I think that John Coy's message was an inspiring one and that many people felt like they benefited from listening to the challenges he went through to get to where he is today.