Hero's Journey - Photoshoot

One of my classes this year is called "design thinking", where we've learned different tools for helping your brain get past all those annoying little road blocks, and also how the mind works.
Our big project for that class wasn't anything like the other classes I've taken - no printing things, or designing whatsoever. We had to go on a Hero's Journey.
It's basically something - anything - that puts you outside of your comfort zone in one way or another. Or something that's just generally hard for you to do. One of the girls, who's a real ham and always has something funny to say, went a week without cracking a joke. Another didn't talk for a week - she was only allowed to make incomprehensible noises.
These photos are from my Hero's Journey: I was the model in a photoshoot.

Mine was a mix of a bunch of things, now that I think about it.
Number one: as much as I'm an expert faker, I don't - in fact - like meeting new people all that much. I prefer to stick with the same old people I've known forever and leave it at that. To do this I had to meet Julien (who's actually a friend of Kat's) Worse still I had to email him without knowing a THING about his personality, or whether he'd think I was a nutcase.
Number two: I had to actually organize. If only you could see my room at this moment you'd understand.
Number three: I had to wear makeup and not look like I'd just rolled out of bed. I can barely tell blush from eyeshadow most days, and we all know I prefer grubby jeans to anything nice!
Number four: I had to keep from making stupid faces in the pictures. THAT was difficult. I make faces even when I don't realize it.

In the end Julien was a sweetheart (and VERY good with a camera), Claire came with me to keep me from being a nerd, I got to explore downtown Toronto, and I did not - PHEW! - look like a charity case.

(I'll tell you what, though: don't go wandering around the waterfront without a coat on in very early spring. It makes for cold fingers and noses)

Typography 3 - Project 3

Time to learn about a typeface.
ALMOST the same project as last term, where we learned about a typographer. Only this time we had to make what's called a "type specimen". Long story short: type designers use these to showcase their fonts, and how they can be used.

Eight glorious pages of GOUDY. Mmmmmmm. Goudy.

Sadly the project has had an adverse effect on my sanity, because I can no longer go ANYWHERE without seeing typefaces. They're everywhere. It's terrifying.

Deceptive

Here's the part where you guess why this flower is deceptive.
I dare you!

Oh alright I can't stand the whining: it's not a flower, it's a glass paperweight.
The Sheridan glassblowing classes had a glass sale, and I couldn't pass this lovely up. Whoever made it (they couldn't tell me who, exactly, was responsible) blew paint into the glass as it was firing. It actually looks a lot like a Morning Glory. And those imperfections - the bubbes - are actually what made me really like it. They ended up looking like water drops.

This was fun to photograph - a lot like those beads from way back in first year.
Only because this was such high quality glass it didn't show any secondary coloring like the beads did.

Comfort? Who needs it!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAT!

Congrats!
You're 19! Which, I might add, is moderately terrifying.

Interactivity Design 2 - Project 1

This was a short project. Take a photo of something industrial, make sure it's long enough to make you scroll sideways across the web page, but not long enough that it makes you scroll down.
Cover said image with a pattern you derive from the image itself.

The idea was to make the viewer want to scroll sideways to see the rest of the image.
Since this isn't in a web page format right now you don't get to scroll.
No scroll for you.

Research in Design - Food Project

For Research in Design, one of my lecture courses this year, our final project was to research anything we wanted about: FOOD.
How great a topic is that, anyway?
Other than the fact that it made every last person in the class hungry every minute they were working on it.

I chose cake, because let's face it: I REALLY like cake.
We had to collect our own photos, too. Which meant I got to take a lovely jaunt down Eglington Avenue (an all day jaunt I might ad) to find bakeries and anywhere else that sold cake. Thanks to working at the Delta, I even had wedding cake photos to use.

This is the final print product. It's a teeny little book: only 7 inches long by 5 inches high.
I was also fancy/lazy and did French folding for the pages (that's where you only print on one side of the paper, and just fold it over)

I've also included some of my favorite photos.

Communication Design 1 - Project 3

For once, for ONCE, I love a project outcome from this class.
How do you spell relief?
APPARENTLY you spell it "create a brochure convincing people to donate to a cause"

That's literally all we were instructed to do.
Technically it's supposed to appeal to an older audience, but I feel like mine will work for anyone with female relatives. Maybe that's my ego talking. But the ol' ego hasn't had a chance to stretch it's legs for a while, so I'm just going to let it run rampant for a bit.

Specifications for the project changed a bit because of the strike.
The brochure itself is 8 inches high, 16 inches long. Before the strike messed up our lives we were also supposed to create an envelope for it, as if it was a direct mail piece (you know - those flyers you get in the mail all the time, asking you to donate, or informing you of events you might be interested in)
Class resumption meant less time to get critiques on the project, and hence the scrapping of the envelope.

This one folds a little differently than conventional brochures.
It's kind of like a scroll. The back pages are all folded into one another, and hidden under the cover. It's supposed to entice you to turn the next page. Um...
It's a lot more effective in person. Haha.
Photos and the actual file can only do it so much justice.

It's on nice silky paper, too.
Which is lovely. I got tired of having to print on card stock (I can't seem to mount anything on thinner paper to illustration board without ripping it to shreds... hmmmm...)


I have to really thank Jessica Truscott for this. It's her stock image that I used.
It's actually surprisingly difficult to find GOOD portraits of emotions. Most of them are too over-the-top for my tastes. So props! I love your stock!