Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Hydrogen Symbol

Here's a link to a Hydrogen symbol I'll have you download today, as a possible element for the Hydrogen Fuel logo:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/je2pmu7zq95jxez/h2.ai?dl=0

Monday, February 23, 2015

Names for a Hydrogen Fuel Company

In addition to the poster presentation on wednesday, please come to class with three proposed names for Paul's Hydrogen Fueling Station company. Some of the "concept words" we kicked around were:

Futurefuel
Blue
Bluefleet
Clean
Tech
Energy
Hydro
Water
nextfuel
horizon
nextgen fuels

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Homework for Next Week


This assignment is due at the beginning of class on Wednesday, 2/25.

As a prelude to our poster project, everyone is going to do an in-class presentation on a poster artist or a poster movement, so that we get exposed to a variety of poster styles and approaches. Present images in powerpoint, or as an image slideshow. Everyone will have 10 minutes to present and take questions. In addition to the presentation, you'll need to print out and hand in a minimum three page paper (double-spaced), which will serve as an outline of your presentation. That's three written pages -- not one written page and two pages of pasted-in images. If you want to include images as supplements to the three page paper, feel free. Include a fourth page that lays out your bibliography. If you can get your hands on some actual books to bring to class to show around, please do. There are a few poster art books in Prim Library.

In your presentation and paper, give a description of the artist/movement, and what the social context for the work was. Who was the audience for the posters? What sorts of messages were they trying to convey? Who paid for the posters to be made (if relevant -- some posters, like the May '68 posters, were not commissioned)? What made the posters interesting or unique? What made them stand out? In addition to giving some biographical and social context, pick out several images that interest you, and critique them in some detail. What sorts of formal decisions make the posters "work" (or fail to work, if you think they're bad posters?)

Single out at least two posters, and write about the following elements in each poster:

Describe the qualities of the fonts, and how they are used
Describe the use of color
Describe the use of imagery
Write about the balance between text and image, and the overall composition
Describe the communicative impact of the poster

You could break down the paper in this way:
1 page of personal/cultural background to the artist/movement
1 page dedicated to a specific poster
1 page dedicated to another specific poster
1 bibliography page

Below is a list of poster artists or poster movements to choose from. Plug the name or prase into Google images and pick something that appeals to you visually. Once you've chosen, write your choice in a "comment" to this blog post -- don't pick artists/movements that have already been "claimed" in the comments section (this is first-come, first-serve). You're not restricted to this list -- if you'd like to do a presentation on some other poster artist, just name them in the comments section.

This should go without saying, but don't plagiarize. You'll get caught, and that'll suck.

The Beautiful Angle Poster Project
Art Chantry
Brian Chippendale
Shepard Fairey
Rupert Garcia (chicano movement posters)
Eugène Grasset
Gary Grimshaw (psychedelic 60s posters)
Miss Amy Jo
Judge (judgeworks.com)
Frank Kozik
Strawberry Luna
May 1968 Posters (1968 Paris Uprising, 1968 Street Posters)
Rene Mederos (and Cuban poster artists of the 1960s)
Victor Moscoco
Alphonse Mucha (and Art Nouveau)
Polish movie posters (esp. Jan Lenica)
Print Mafia
Soviet Movie Posters (esp. The Stenberg Brothers)
Soviet propaganda Posters
Théophile Steinlen
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
US WW2 propaganda posters
Leonetto Cappiello
Tyler Stout

(The top image is by Bay Area Chicana artist Ester Hernandez)

Thursday, February 5, 2015

Homework for Monday: Character Sketch

On Monday, you'll have some time to finish up your logo design - and we'll also get started on doing a vector character design. This could be a character "mascot" that would accompany your logo - or it could be completely unrelated to your logo. It's possible to go pretty simple for this one, if you're intimidated by the idea of drawing something (the Yeti, below, is made up of pretty basic shapes). Your homework is to come to class with a sketch of your character. As with the logo project, I expect you to have an idea for the psychological properties of this character, and some ideas on how those qualities are reflected in design choices you made for the character.

If you're looking for ideas/inspiration, check out these links:

http://design.tutsplus.com/tutorials/creating-a-simple-kawaii-yeti-with-basic-shapes-in-adobe-illustrator--vector-10738

http://www.ryancoxusa.com

http://naldzgraphics.net/inspirations/mercedes-cerspo-yemayema-character-design/

http://www.creativebloq.com/character-design/10-tips-kawaii-character-design-514833

http://bongangart.com/78658/1234741/art/yuck

http://design.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-create-a-stinking-zombie-flesh-eater-in-illustrator--vector-2246






Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Logo template

Can be downloaded here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rb2k7xmbbmp0owj/logo-template.ai?dl=0

Geico 2015 Super Bowl Ad



I think this ad falls under interesting characters, and also (kinda) people you'd like to associate with. The interesting characters are funny, but the old man is also telling you how cool he is and how successful he is. He's telling you how much you want to be like him because of all his cool stuff. It might be also a testimonial of a lifestyle, he has all that swag because of calling geico and saving on his car insurance. I think it was effective towards both young & middle aged people (it's audience), because it was actually very funny.

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Super bowl Commercial

This commercial falls under the fifth and sixth forms of advertisement: exemplary story and benefit causes story. It works under "exemplary story" because the commercial narrates a sad story to show that it would be smart to buy NationWide to protect your kids. It also kinda works under "benefit causes story" because you conceive that story back from front. The kid died bc he didn't have NationWide Insurance but it could have been avoided if he had better coverage. It was an efficient way of advertising the insurance because the subject hits home hard. Nobody wants unnecessary death in their life.

Monday, February 2, 2015


 This Super Bowl commercial falls into the fourth format of advertisement, comparison.
Sprint its telling us that Verizon and AT&T are expensive.  Sprint is advertising an event to cut the price in half for new customers coming from both Verizon and AT&T when you turn in your old phone. I believe this is an effective add because it was simple and funny with a good pun.  This was the most memorable ad. for me throughout the game.

Superbowl Ad assignment

SUPERBOWL AD ASSIGNMENT

For next class, I'd like you to read/review a couple of articles about "the 12 Types of Advertisement" – as classified by creative director Donald Gunn, way back in 1978.

Here's a six-minute video about the 12 types:

http://www.mediabistro.com/unbeige/donald-gunns-12-types-of-tv-advertising_b3604

And here's a transcript of that video, just for easier textual reference - it has some example ads embedded, although unfortunately a good chunk of the embed are no longer working (the ads are excerpted in the above video, anyway):

http://adsoftheworld.com/blog/ivan/2007/jul/24/12_kinds_of_advertisements

I want you to pick out one of this weekend's superbowl ads (you can google "superbowl ads" or see a selection here), embed it on this blog, and write which of the 12 ad types you think it is, giving supporting examples for your classification. Also, write whether you think it's an effective ad or not – and give your reasons. Please check in on this blog to see if the ad you're picking has already been taken.

For instructions on how to embed a youtube video on blogger, click here.