Comp-town

Over the past few weeks my favorite class this semester, Design Principles and Strategies, has taught me perhaps the most important lesson that I've learned about design thus-far: create many, many, many, and still many more different options.  Every professor I've had prior to this has really just focused on revising, revising, revising.  This time around it's more like how many ideas can you come up with for the same project? Ok, now comp up twice that many, and revise, and now comp up more, revise, and comp up some more.  In the end you should have a piece that's pretty phenomenal once you weed out all the crap. Initially, I was pretty nervous about all of this since I'm not exactly the most prolific designer I've ever met however, this process has taught me that there really are limitless ideas and limitless ways to communicate the same message.

Here is what I've come up with so far for a black and white poster advertising the BSO production of Gershwin's "An American in Paris" (phase 3 of 4):

Turns out, I really do work better under pressure!

Did it really just happen? Did I really just put off working on a final project until the very last day? Did I really just pull an infographic poster out of my conceptual thinking ass? I did.  And it doesn't suck. 

To be fair, I did do all the research weeks before hand for the research paper that this poster accompanies.  But I did have to write it all over again in a completely new way and design it.  And I thought about doing it for days and days.  Until the last day, when I couldn't think anymore--it had to get done!

Anyway, here it is--my last minute infographic poster on Saul Bass, master of film titles and the New York style:

Successful use of Rabbit!

Last semester when I was doing my re-design of Bust magazine I discovered a great typeface named "rabbit".  Kind of retro, kind of cute, and very stylized, I was informed by my professor that rabbit is very hard to use.  I was able to successfully incorporate it into my design, however knowing that I'll probably get a handful of opportunities to use it, I'm always excited when I see it out in the world.  The last time I saw it was when I purchased veggie hot dogs in the grocery store:

An excellent use of rabbit, however, a poor use of soy. Lesson learned: good design does not equal good food.

Another place I've noticed rabbit being used is in the title credits of my favorite 90's sitcom, Dharma & Greg:

So cute, so 90's, can't wait to use it again!

What I Did This Semester/ Writing and Design for Digital Platforms

Website/ Charm City Vegan (click on the screenshot to see the live webpage)

Blog/ Vinyl Kisses (click on logo to go to live blog)

HTML E-mail Advertisement and Landing Page

Promotional E-mail

What I Did This Semester/ Beat Magazine

Magazine Design: Beat Magazine (Rolling Stone re-design)

Cover #1

Cover #2

Table of Contents

Department #1

Department #2

Feature

What I Did This Semester/ Bust Magazine

These posts have been a long time coming but better late than never, right?

Here's what I did this semester in Magazine Design:


Magazine Re-design: Bust Magazine

Cover #1

Cover #2

Table of Contents

Table of Contents (continued)

Department #1

Department #2

Goals.

Alright, I'm making it official.  They say if you have goals you're 80% more likely to achieve them if you write them down.  I'm thinking that if you blog about them the percentage rises to 85%. 

I, Elisabeth Harper, am officially declaring my goal of obtaining a graphic design job by September 1st.  "Graphic design job" can also translate into "regularly freelancing".  Either way, I will be getting real world design job experience on the regular by September 1, 2011.  How will I get there? In just a few simple steps:

1.  Finesse that resume!
2.  Portfolio site!
3.  Network, network, network!

Today, when I was in UB library doing research for class, I took some initiative and checked out the freelance designer's bible:

It's official and it is on.