ID Graphics

ID Graphics was a great course I took last semester dealing with graphic design, an all-important skill for product designers to communicate their work.

The course started with an exercise in designing our personal stationery including business cards, resume, envelopes and portfolio pages. I will be rolling out the results here and on my portfolio over the next few months!

Our second exercise was closely tied to our Product Design 2 course in which we created a fictional brand for our product. I chose the name Dexter as the brand of my auto mechanic’s creeper. My goal was to create a logo that communicated reliability and mobility.

I based my design on the beautiful typeface Klavika by Process Type. Over many iterations I came up with the following logo:

The final color schemed hinted at the traditional automotive primary blues and reds. In this case the palette is shifted a bit off kilter to give it a modern look.

Our final project was to create a piece of branding for our product. I chose to create a sticker used for retail.

Viscom 2 - Part 2

Following my end-of-the-term recap, here’s the second half of Viscom 2. As I described in my first post, the aim of Viscom 2 was to teach us basic shading techniques starting with simple geometric shapes and evolving into more complex panels and forms.

Having completed the basic geometric forms we moved on to simple panels, and attempted different lighting scenarios.

Paying attention to reflected light was one of the challenges of the course.

The following week we worked with compound panels, which bend in two directions. We also tried adding form changes.

A variety of media was used including marker, Prismacolor pencil and chalk.

The next two weeks were dedicated to working with side views and trying to sculpt these semi-recognizable objects with light.

The second round of side views was done entirely in chalk and black Verithin pencil. Most of them were done on Canson 335 paper as a practice for our final rendering.

The final rendering was done on a large sheet of 18 by 24 inch Canson 335. You can see a larger view here.

3D Fundamentals 2 - Part 1

Second term is going well here at Art Center and we’ve just passed the midterm point. The past few weeks have been intense but the rhythm has slowed down and we’ll soon be gearing up again for finals. With the midterms we ended the first portion of 3D Fundamentals 2, a direct continuation of 3D Fundamentals 1 which I had mentioned last term.

The second part of 3D Fundamentals 2 will be a continuation of Study Models. We will be working on creating a dynamic-looking form out of automotive clay.

As expected, we continued to learn new tools and techniques and practice our skills with the ones that are now familiar. The class started with a refresher on the table saw. The aim of this project was to build a tool box to specific dimensions, with a sliding cover. It will be used to store our clay modeling tools in the second half of the course.

I used the laser cutter to engrave my name, adding a personal touch to the project.

Along with the tool box, we created “modeling angles” out of plywood and masonite, which will help us in sculpting our clay model. These had to be perfectly square.

The wood was cut on the table saw, then sanded to clean up the grain. Two triangular shapes were cut out of a rectangular piece of wood and stacked together so they could be made to the same shape. I then drilled holes to create the handle which was cleaned on the router and then sanded.

The parts were then glued together and finished with wax. A layer of masonite was finally added to make the angles more durable.

A new skill we learned was working with fiberglass. We started by creating a simple shape out of polyurethane foam, which was then vacuum-formed to create a mold.

Once sprayed with gel coat, we applied layers of glass fiber and resin to the mold.

After letting the resin cure we extracted the part, cleaned up the edges and finally sprayed it with gray primer. The final result is a sturdy reproducible fiberglass part.

Our biggest project was probably the so-called “geoforms” project, a set of the four basic shapes (cube, cylinder, cone and sphere) that are used for reference in our rendering class (Viscom 2). We also had to build a base and acrylic case to store these in.

The cylinder, cone and sphere all started with a rectangular block of wood which was mounted on the lathe.

From the block of wood we created a cylinder with an even diameter all the way across, which is the base for three of the shapes.

For the cone, we simply carved down the cylinder making sure to keep the proper angle and height.

The sphere was far more difficult and starts with flat angular guidelines.

We smooth these down and use a laser-cut template to check the accuracy of the surface, slowly chipping away at the high spots.

Eventually the shapes were sanded down to the exact measurements, the grain was patched with wood filler and the shapes were primed and painted.

Building the acrylic case was a rather frustrating and arduous process, but in the end the result was a rather nice set of reference material.

Second Term Begins

My second semester at Art Center is starting today with Viscom 2. Last term we learned the basics of perspective and this term seems to be more about shading and environment.

Over the break we were given a few pages of homework to keep the concepts from last term fresh in our minds. I turned to my biology background for inspiration and grabbed one of my favorite reference books – Hawaii’s Fishes: A Guide for Snorkelers and Divers. Here are a few of my vehicles inspired by tropical fish.

Design Fundamentals 1 and The Way Things Look

In the interest of making my first term wrap-up complete, I thought I should mention the other two courses I took last semester. Sadly I have very little of my work for these classes in digital format, hopefully a brief description will do.

Design Fundamentals 1 was divided into two distinct parts over the semester (Art Center calls semesters ‘terms’). The first half was a basic typography course in which we hand-drew letterforms, learned to space them correctly and created logotypes. Initially our assignments were to refine over several weeks hand-drawn versions of our name in Caslon, Futura and script. We also learned about the history of typography and worked on improving our architectural handwriting. Our final project was an open-ended assignment to create a logotype for an application of our choice.

I decided to design a cover for one of my favorite books, Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome. First published in 1889, it’s one the funniest books ever written. It retraces the journey of three men (to say nothing of the dog) traveling across the river Thames. The humorous anecdotes are generally an exemplification of Murphy’s law.

After a few rough layouts, here is a scan of my final (hand-drawn) book cover.

The second part of Design Fundamentals 1 was a color theory course in which we mostly worked with gray values, learning how variegated they can be across different media and painting our own grayscale.

Finally, we ended the term with a half-semester long class titled The Way Things Look. Our professor (who writes Design Investigations), took us through 20th century design describing the history of different movements such as Modernism, Art Deco, Streamline, Post-Modernism, etc. I found it fascinating and obviously an important addition to our culture as fledgling industrial designers.