Canadian design Resource

Pressed Ginko Necklace

Design: Grace Lee
Client: Eikam
Date: 2011

For this assignment we were asked to look through the Canadian Design Resource Website and find a ceramic that you favor. I chose the pressed Ginko Necklace. What makes these necklaces stand out from everything else is the shape and color. The shape reminds me of a old fashioned fan used by the royal family because of the semi  circle shape.The faded colors remind me of a sting ray because stingrays have a  faded gray color and the necklaces resembles them.

Skull drawing

Kinetic Typography Artistic Reflection

Kinetic Typography Assignment

TGJ20P

Title: Skyscraper

Medium: Flash 2.0 and illustrator CS4

The song I chose was Skyscraper by Demi Lovato. She previously went through an eating disorder and she got a lot of criticism about here weight. She came out with many songs talking about how she won’t let people judge her because of her weight. The idea behind the song I chose is that she is strong like a skyscraper and she isn’t going to let people bring her down. She is happy with who she is.  Although I am now sick and tired of hearing this song I like to relate to it because as a kid I found it very hard to fit in but now I don’t let to let people tear me down because of who I am and what I look like. The whole concept of my design was to have the lyrics of the song build up into a skyscraper and I think my final product came out very well. 

The thing I like most about my final product is how all the words come together to create the skyscraper and although my vision of how the animation didn’t come out exactly as I planned I still think the shape of a skyscraper is clearly visible and easy to identify. If I could change one thing though it would be to have the animation zoomed in at the beginning and then have the final product be revealed at the end for anticipation. I should have asked for help when I first started because I was a little unsure with how to create the effect but this is my first time using this program so I still think I did very well.

As I wrote before my overall concept was to have it build into a skyscraper, but I didn’t just want to have the words show up. I made the words come in at different directions and different speeds depending on what the word(s) was. For one line “like I’m made of” instead of having the same line reappear I had the one line change color to represent the repeated line. I was very happy with this effect. I hoped to make the overall building of the skyscraper more appealing and not feel like it was being dragged on.

I am not very tech inclined so I found using this program difficult at the beginning. What I found most challenging was getting the words to all fit together in the entire skyscraper because I spent about one full class just rearranging the words to create the building so it could be identified as a skyscraper and knowing where and how the words would come in. When I faced these challenges I usually asked for help from another student or my teacher and although the challenges may not have been that difficult to most, for me I felt very satisfied when the whole process was over even though it looked relatively simple. When I figured out how to get the text to fade in/fade out from a helpful tutorial, I was satisfied and was able to recreate the effect again without the tutorial. You can look for the link I posted on the blog.

Tips and Tricks: Tuesday April, 17. 2012

Flash Tutorial: Fading in and fading out text

Will working on my Kinetic typography in flash I wanted to have the word "glass" fade out. I looked through many tutorials and they all said the same thing but I found this one the most helpful because it was straight forward and it gave a example of what it would look like at the end. I would recommend Flash text effects to other people.

Class visit to the AGO

On Thursday march 22, our CyberARTS grade 10 class went on a trip to the AGO. We looked at contemporary, modern, Canadian and renaissance art. I have chosen three pieces from the gallery that I enjoyed and thought stood out in the medium and scenery the artists chose.

Younger by Kori Newkirk

This is a contemporary piece from the gallery and  an interesting thing about this art is that although you cannot see it in this photograph, the medium used is many strings of beads. This really caught my attention because of the medium used but also how the artist used the different bead colors to create different values and shades that make the piece look  realistic.The spots where the different values really stick out are the clouds and the trees. The change from white to blue is very gradual in the clouds and  the darker parts in the tree show where there is shading. Overall this is a very unique piece.

Maligne lake Jasper park By Lawren Harris

 This is a piece by the Canadian artist Lawren Harris of the Maligne lake in jasper park, Alberta. What I find interesting about this piece is how the artist uses darker tones to create the different values in the reflection of the lake and the shadows. I also think the reflection of the mountains in the background make the painting more interesting to look at and unique from  other paintings Harris has done. Harris has painted many Canadian scenery's but you always see the landscape itself not the reflection.

Fine weather, Georgian bay by J.E.H MacDonald

I don't know what really makes me find this painting interesting, but I just like to look at it because I feel like I'm being transported to the actual lake. I like how the focus isn't on the actual people but on the overall look of the lake.

Reduction Printmaking: Here comes the sun

                  Describe which print you were most satisfied with?

I was most satisfied with print 7/9 because the colors printed well on top of each other and except for a few spots where the colors overlapped where they are not supposed too, the print still looks clean and finished. I wanted to use bright colors to make the bird contrast with the background and I think the colors came out very well. One thing I am very happy about is the clean sharp shapes that I was able to create, I knew to make it easier on myself I should use sharp lines and shapes. Lastly this print is very eye catching in the sharp lines and shapes, the contrasting colors and it's simplicity.

What was the most difficult part of this assignment?

The two big challenges I faced with this assignment was the variety of colors I used and all the negative space. The subject I chose;the toucan, is a very tropical and colorful bird and I even took out colors to make mine simpler but I still think I had too many colors. I had five colors which made the process long. I also found becuase my print was simply I had a alot of black space with no detail and when it came to carving out the colors more specifically the green it was very time consuming although I will be honest I cheated a bit. Although I faced these challenges with my prints I still think they came out well.

Describe what is strong about your design. Why is it a good design?

My design is very simple and I think that is why it is strong and effective. The shapes, colors and placement create a clear image of the bird. The shapes and colors  make the subject eye catching and yet simple. Also the placement of the bird to the bottom left corner makes the print more intersting than if it was smack dab in the middle. Lastly, although I don't have alot of detail in the background I think it puts more focus on the bird.

Describe how you used the elements and principles of design in your prints?

I used many principles  such as shape, color, design, placement, contrast, balance and unity. The shapes created the clear image of the bird and the bright colors contrasted with eachother. I placed the bird to the bottom left cornor to make the entire print more pleasing. I balanced the colors in the bird to make it look realistic. The colors created unity in the whole design and made it more eye catching because if the print was in one color it wouldn't be very eye catching.

If you could change one thing about your artwork, what would it be and why?

If I could change one thing it would be to have used less colors. I am happy with how the print came out and all the colors work well but having the multiply colors made it very time consumning with printing and carving. If I could also change one other thing it would be to have a design in the background becuase I had a lot of carving to do and although I did cheat a bit and cut out the background it still  made the entire process very time consuming.

Helvetica Movie quotations

"Typeface is your main weapon in modern communication" Neville Brody

    We see typeface everywhere on walls, cars, buildings, in the sky and we don't even realize it and if you started looking around at the different typefaces you will notice that you will constantly see Helvetica. Even now you are reading this blog post in helvetica. In all of our advertising designers are faced with a big choice of what typeface they should use to express the message or feelings of the advertising, company or campaign, etc. Typeface is our main weapon in modern society today. Neville used this example to describe his reasoning, If you had a jeans sale and one advertisement used ragged and rough typeface, and the other used clean and sharp typeface they would both display different messages. The rough and ragged typeface would stand out and advertise that the jeans on sale will make you stand out. The sharp and clean typeface will show that the jeans are nothing  but normal and they are just regular jeans. 

   I agree with Neville because you could use any font to advertise or express something , you just have to choose the right one and sometimes it can be difficult because you don't know what would be the best. In the film many designers agree that you can use helvetica for most things. You can make it bold or give it italics to express the specific feelings.But some designers disagree and some are in the middle.

"It's air, you know. It's just there. There's no choice. You have to breathe, so you have to use Helvetica" Erik Spiekermann

Speikermann is on the opposite side as Neville and believes helvetica is too over used. He compares Helvetica to air and mentions that like air Helvetica is just there and it is now in our world just like we need air to live. It's everywhere and now we can't take it away. Spiekermann uses the example of a person heavy in the middle walking around in a tight shirt, it would look weird. Helvetica is like that in the sense meaning it won't always work for everything but most people just go to helvetica because it's there.For me specifically I need to choose what typeface represents my work that I am creating and make sure I am conveying the message I should be conveying. Spiekermann just wants something different. I don't agree with Spiekermann but I am also not a typography designer and haven't been creating different typefaces for years.Until watching this video I really didn't see that most print I read or saw was in Helvetica but now that I have recognized it everywhere I have noticed that even though most brands and company's use it, they add something or do something to it to show it represents there brand or company. For example American Apparel and American airlines both use helvetica but they both give off different expressions. American Apparel expresses fun and creativity and American airlines expresses professional and reliable.


Typography is everywhere and after reading this blog you will identify helvetica whereever you go.