Author Archives: Libby Clarke

Week 10, Class 2

Classwork

Type Book:
We are winding down on this project at last! You should be proud, you have worked so hard! I am handing out the final list of all the pages you need to have in your book. You are responsible for tracking all of those down.

Consolidate all of your documents into one big one. This will take a little while and you need to be patient until you get the hang of it.
Tutorial Video

Zine:

Today, you needed to have your dummies ready. You also need to have all of your assets ready to bring into the document, either by scanner or direct import. I want people scanning! Get in there!

InDesign
Paragraph & Character Styles:
Now that you are putting together bigger documents, you need to know how to format as efficiently and consistently as possible. We will work with these concepts in class today so you may start applying your established styles with greater ease.

Character Styles  |  Paragraph Styles

Homework

Type Book:

Put together your type book. Make sure to use this as an opportunity to polish it into a whole, cohesive piece. Infuse your design with wit! Make this a portfolio piece for the next couple of years! If you do get it together sooner than the deadline, send me a pdf and I will give feedback that you can take or leave as you wish.

Type Books are due to me, printed and bound by
April 25, the Friday after Spring Break.
Late submissions will drop a letter grade every day they are late.

Zine:

Your zines need to be completely put together next week. We will be critiquing them and making sure they look sharp. You will be finishing them entirely Friday of next week and turning in the printer version also on April 25.

Printed versions of your zines are also due April 25.
You need only print one copy, and it may be black and white if you want.

Week 10, Class 1

Okay, I am basically over the whole skipping thing, although I did have to kick a few butts via email. I understand that you may have to use your discretion and miss class once or twice. I just think it is so high school to pull that with a sub. I happen to have asked two amazing people to fill in for me so you could benefit from working with them. This is my beef: those of you who skipped are treating your education as if it were a right and not a privilege. This education – no matter how humble the setting – is a huge chance and if you blow it off, you are only cheating yourself. I was angry because I have a pretty good idea what each and every one of you are capable of when you care. I do not want you just toeing the line to meet the minimum requirements for the course, I want you to exceed them because you want to push yourself to your best possible manifestation. It’s all on you to take the chance you are being offered. Goodness knows, this may be the only time you have to do this.

Anyway, enough said. I seriously do not like that crap, though.

Classwork

Review midterm

Type Book

  • Logotype slideshow and review
  • Illustrator expedition:
    • Outlining text
    • Cutting, manipulating
    • Bringing it all back to InDesign

Sheeeeeee’s back! It’s that slightly annoying woman we have seen before…

This is an awesome video on logo design:

Zine

  • Go over the work you have done so far
  • Setting up your document. Here is a template.
  • Walk through the scanning process
    • Processing images in Photoshop
    • Have people scan work
    • Bringing in images into InDesign, placing them

Homework

Type Book

Finish all exercises we have had so far. We are wrapping up every last one tomorrow and going over what you need to do to print it well. Be sure to have all of your digital files ready as we are going to put them all together and clean those puppies up!

Zine

You need to have your document laid out with placeholder text and images by tomorrow. We will continue scanning any physical work and getting it into your files as fast as we can.

 

A Word about Attendance

I am deeply disappointed to see how many of you chose to skip class while I was gone. Attendance is always required, I went over this before I left. Let me remind you that the school policy is such that I may fail you out of my class if you miss 3 or more sessions. I am going to exercise this authority.

  • One person had someone else them in and didn’t show. Seriously?? You pulled this on Prof. Giuliani, who has been teaching for years. She totally spotted it.
  • Over half the class missed Friday. Over half. Inexcusable.
  • Those of you who have three classes will be hearing from me today. You may have failed out of class.

Week Nine, Class Two

Today, you will be taught by Prof. Marianna Trofimova. She is a renaissance woman, really an amazing person! Talk to her, she is a visiting scholar just like Prof. Giuliani yesterday!

Today, you will be concentrating on figuring out how you will produce the imagery and designs for the zine.

To recap:

  • Your zine will be 12 pages, including the covers. The booklets will be made of 3 sheets letter-sized paper folded in half and stapled on the crease (saddle stitch).
  • You can design in color (we will discuss images and color next week), but you may print the booklets in black and white if you want (color can be pricey). The interactive version can be color without any cost.
  • You must make your zine about something you care about passionately.
  • You must make all of your images and write all of your text, although some quotes (credited, of course) are allowed.
  • Yes, you can design these with a great deal of freedom, but we will be crafting the typography so that we use and explore all of the techniques, rules, and guidelines we have covered so far this semester. This is NOT a free-for-all!
  • You may use up to 3 different fonts in your zine. You may use different weights and styles of those fonts, but I will definitely reign you in if you start going wildly off track.

Classwork

Group critiques: You will be split up into groups of 3 or 4. Each person will present their ideas and get feedback for 6 minutes.

When you are presenting:

  • You need to be succinct. Say what you are doing, why you are doing it, and who you hope will read it.
  • No excuses! Just show what you have and let the group kick in with feedback.
  • No dawdling! I understand, your classmates are interesting, but you have work to do. Keep the crit on target.

When you are critiquing:

  • It does not matter if you like the work. You are there to help that designer do his/her job better, not just please you.
  • “I like it” and “I don’t get it” are equally lazy things to say. Tell the designer what is working for the intended purposes and audience and what is not, what else can be done and what should be abandoned and why. Help the designer come up with his/her next steps.
  • You may have to critique the work of people you think are not doing a very good job. This is your chance to show some care for others, develop the muscles that will help you become creative directors later on. think of all of your classmates as team mates, help them all get better. Every moment is a possibility to teach and learn.

Imagery:

You are going to see several easy ways to create imagery.

  • Drawing
  • Collage
  • Printmaking (remember, you have the know-how to carve your own images, so get. on. it.)
  • Photography
    • Paper sculptures: you can photograph these and make all kinds of cool stuff !
    • Have your friends act things out and take pictures of them! Use your imagination!
  • Painting
  • Pen & Ink

Homework

  • Zine: You need to have your images developed as sketches. These can be rough, but they need to be worked out and ready for development. I will start bringing the scanner every class I can as of next week and we will begin to lay the designs out digitally once we discuss resolution and color.
  • Type Journal: Keeping your subject matter in mind, find 3 fonts you might work with in your zine. On your type journal, discuss why you like each one and how you hope to use it.

I will see you next week!

Week Nine, Class One

Hello! remember that today you will be working with Prof. Maria Giuliani, a particularly amazing illustrator, designer, and typographer. Just to remind you, I am writing this [scary voice] from beyond the borough! I am at the Southern Graphics Council Conference in California, so be as great as you usually are and work your butts off. I will be so happy to get home to see you next week!

Classwork

Logotypes or word marks:

A logotype, commonly known in the design industry as a “word mark”, incorporates your company or brand name into a uniquely styled type font treatment. Type fonts come in thousands of possible variations, shapes, sizes, and styles, each conveying a slightly different impression upon your intended audience. Images can also be integrated into a logotype, often to great visual effect. Of prime consideration when selecting a logotype or wordmark is legibility and ease of recognition, even when reduced to the size required for printing your business cards.

Type Book

We are getting to the really exciting stuff! Here are the files.

  • Typographical Patterns
  • Embellished Quotes
  • Logotypes

Zine

  • You have been working on your mood boards. If time allows, Prof. Giuliani will speak with you about your ideas thus far. Once again, she is phenomenal, so talk to her, get everything you can!
  • Now that you have some basic ideas, you need to come in tomorrow with some definite ideas, captured in sketches or on your dummy and be ready for small group critiques of your ideas and rough sketches.
  • Tomorrow, you are going to go over some basic ways to make images with little or no tools.

Homework

  • Type Book: Finish all of the Type Book work and send it to me for feedback.
  • Zines: Be ready with your developed mood boards, roughs, and dummies. You will be split up into small groups to go over your ideas. Then, Prof. Trofimova will be working with you to develop ideas into imagery and text. Be ready to have your idea socks blown off, she is tremendously creative!
  • Type Journal: Find 5 logotypes in use on your commute to school. Upload them to your journal and tell me what you think of each, one or two sentences will be fine.

Typography from Saturday

 

Week 8, Class 2

Midterm grades still pending

I tried! I really did! Still about half to go, so I will send feedback/midterm grades in the next few days. I will also post some office hours for those of you who need to talk to me about the grades.

Zine Assignment

Here is the assignment, in full:

  • You will produce a 12 page booklet, including the cover.
  • You will produce all the content. This is big!
    • You will write the copy (you can do research and then write it)
    • You will produce all of the images: you will take photos, or draw, or collage, or build images out of type
    • No images grabbed off the web are allowed. At all.
  • This booklet will be letter-sized paper, folded in half and stapled at the crease.
  • It will be printed in black and white (this will save you quite a bit of money when you go to print) but you can design it in color.
  • After the print version, you will be taking your design and adding interactive elements and producing the zine for tablets.

Next week

Remember, we will have 2 subs:

  • Prof. Maria Giuliani (Thursday)
  • Prof. Marianna Trofimova (Friday)

Be in time and ready with your work, they are both excellent instructors with very different teaching styles from me. You may learn stuff from them that I haven’t been able to get across, so this is a huge opportunity! Do not assume next week is a write-off–you will be producing the last of the Type Book pages and planning your zine, loads of great work to be done.

Classwork:

We will discuss the subjects you have all chosen and cover a few more international type reports. We will build a dummy for you to start working with in the design of your zine.

Type Book:

Today, we are going to look at some samples of A-quality Type Books from previous students. You will then go over your work so far and strategize about any changes you need to make.

Homework:

  • Go back over your Type Book assignments: make improvements based on our class discussion. You will be wrapping up the exercises next week and then we will clean them up for the final presentation at the end of the week.
  • Start gathering material you will use to inspire your work on the zine. you need to have at least 20 images or articles on your mood book
    • Use Pinterest to gather ideas that you will turn into your own, personalized content.
    • You need to have your mood boards ready on Pinterest for discussion next week. From there we will figure out how you can produce images and content from those sources.

Pinterest Basics

How to pin to Pinterest without the button

Week 8, Class 1

Hello!

Today, we have our MIDTERM!!!!

I will post the file for that once class has begun.

Classwork:

  • Go over a few more type reports
  • Introduce the Zine Project: we will talk through it a bit and look at some samples.

Homework:

  • Think of your subject for the Zine Project.
  • Write a 3 paragraph essay about your subject on your ePortfolio for tomorrow. Include a couple pictures if you can. We will be going over these ideas tomorrow, so have something to talk about ready or you will look a bit foolish.

 

Week 7, Class 2

I am feeling pretty blech again, but I will keep on plowing through. Y’all are worth it.

Classwork:

Type Book:

Type Color:

Type Hierarchy Vids:

Simple Grid Rehash

Homework:

Study for the Midterm!

Be on time, I am starting at 2:35 with the exam.

Study Guide:

Look at the quiz, that will be a great guide for you for some of the material.
The exam will be all encompassed in a live InDesign File. You will be using the InDesign tools to put your answers into place properly

Stuff you need to know:

InDesign:

  • How to export a pdf
  • How to paginate a multi-page document
  • How to work with master pages
  • How to package a file
  • How to compress and email a folder
  • Placing images

Typographic Concepts:

  • Alignment: possibilities, how to use it well
  • Tracking: possibilities, how to use it well
  • Width/Weight/Posture
  • Stress/Contrast/Serifs
  • History of Letterforms
  • History of Typography
  • Typographical Anatomy
  • Kerning, Leading: Kerning Game
  • Five Families of Type
  • Grids: parts, working on them