A Logo Has Been Created!

Afternoon, friends!

I'm so excited to announce that a logo has been created for my personal photography brand. It has been a work in progress with my super talented friend Grace. She is currently finishing her BFA at Academy of Art in San Francisco.

Grace has shared with me her past work and I've always really admired her style and the work she produces is so clean and creative. So, when I was ready to create a brand, I knew I wanted to work with her.

We worked on figuring out what direction I wanted to go with photography and I shared with her that I didn't want to just focus on one area of photography, but be diversified in the projects I take on. I also gave her a board of images I identified with when it came to my work and she worked her magic.

When Grace presented my logo choices, I was so happy when I saw this one. It was creative and clean. I love that she personalized the font for me with the L slant and the rounded edges of the letters.

The numbers on top represent the F-stops and I really love the layout of my name. She found a nice balance in everything.

Below is the black and white versions of my logo and the pneumonic device (simplified version of the logo) that I will be using as my watermark.

Now I'm ready to get business cards printed and I can brand things better now. Thank you so much Grace!!

Word Cube

 

Using a poem, song lyrics, story exempt or any body of copy, our third final project of typography class was to incorporate that with making a 3d object expressive. In this case, it was a clear cube. This pushed us to think of type beyond being a form of communication, but as symbols for expression.

To create a side to appear darker than the others, the kerning of the words can be tighter, and the opposite to create a more open space.

The hardest part of this project was creating a flow and allowing each phrase to stand on their own.

This was one of my favorite projects from last semester and I keep it on my desk. The copy I chose is from The Holstee Manifesto. This manifesto was a great inspiration for me when I was debating between continuing on with a job and career I wasn't happy or passionate about, or taking a risk and going for a BFA in Graphic Design.

If you've ever felt stuck or dissatisfied with what you're doing, but you're fearful of change, I recommend you get this manifesto, hang it up  and look at it everyday. Then, set out a plan and go for it.

An Update & Paul Rand

It's been a while since I've posted and that's because I've been swamped with a fun load of projects to tackle in preparation for the end of the semester. I have about two to three big projects to tackle per class for the final, on top of the ongoing assignments. It's been a challenge, but great exercise on multitasking and stretching my brain creatively. My days have consisted of waking up extremely early to go to work around 5AM or 6AM and then class and homework afterwards. Some days, my days end around 11PM after spending more than 12 hours on the computer or drawing.

However, as I'm doing all this I am SO happy. I am grateful that I get to go to school to do all this. I can't believe it at times.

There are days where I do feel like I am in a rut creatively, but I take a step back and allow myself to just relax. I do find myself feeling a bit guilty if I feel as though I am sitting idly by, but I remind myself that rest is just as important as working.

I haven't posted any work for a while, but here is a layout I had done a few weeks ago on Paul Rand. I chose not to use any of his photos in the layout because so many people had done that in previous classes. Not only was he iconic for his work, but his black glasses, which I thought were synonymous to who he was.

This is my final layout after working with my professor to go over some changes such as the leading, font size, alignment and placement. This professor has engraved GUIDES into my head, and I am actively trying to always use them. Guides are not there to be restrictive, rather it gives order to layout, even ones that look random.

After the tweaks, I was very happy with the layout. I chose to enlarge the glasses even more to have them fall off the page, which made it feel less constrained.

I enjoyed doing my research on Paul Rand. He was a brilliant man who made a huge impact on the design world with all his work. Another fun fact I stumbled upon was that he had worked with Steve Jobs. Very cool. Anyhow, take a read at the article I had put together and maybe you'll discover something new.

Enjoy!

Expressive Words

In our typography class we had to illustrate expressive words with the layout of letters. This was a really fun assignment, and I'm posting some I've done. I still have a few more words in mind and can't wait to get started on those. I recommend designers doing this exercise if they're ever in a design rut. It gets the wheels turning.

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