Welcome to Room557

Ode to a pencil

Most of my students know that the Papermate Sharpwriter is my favorite pencil to sketch with — so much that I hand them out in my onsite branding classes. I ran across this video today — apparently other folks share my passion... Adam and I love this tool for exactly the same reasons. And the last box I bought I thought the same thing about the color (see video). It's also nice to see other folks go on tangents on screen.

It's still the best pencil out there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLwo1kOcwxs

Nature of Identity FA16 (and SP16)... Lots of Awesomesauce

The fall of 2016 found Nature of Identity busting at the seams insofar as student count. A shift in the program meant that more students needed to take the class that semester than ever before and the seat count more than doubled.

At the same time, I had just made a major shift in the class by altering the flow and number of deliverables. The latter was great news as the change found 100% of the work the students were doing past week-1 finding its way directly into the final project in the final format — which meant no reformatting was necessary. Also, by separating the project into three smaller books (+ a website), it not only allowed for production throughout the semester, but the stack of books was a good bit more robust than a single book. It also gave more room to showcase process... as well as made the set more modular should they only want to show the process or the strategy during an interview. So, all good things... just a lot of change at once.

That said, we also had a record success rate at over 97% passing... which, for an advanced studio is quite good. Kudos go to the students who did absolutely fabulous work.

The basics of the class remain the same. We've added some exercises along the way and sharpened a few elements, but the idea that the students are looking deep into the heart of a brand to uncover what they're truly about is still a core element. This isn't a class about wingdings on coffee mugs and the students emerge ready to tackle some pretty high-level shiznit.

So, without pause, and in no particular order, let me throw some links your way: (I'll hot-link them soon... there's lots of cutting/pasting involved and there's just not enough coffee.)

Nature of Identity... New(er) Work

It's been a while since I've updated this page with new work from GR604: Nature of Identity... not because there hasn't been great work, but because I've been distracted with a toddler. On the contrary, the work has been fantastic — some of the best yet — and it's time to sit down with a cup of coffee, compile the links, and share it.

If you're not familiar with the class, take a minute to review the verve of the class in the old post. The principles remain, but as of late, more and more students have taken a brave storytelling approach — envisioning their projects as more than a simple wash-and-wax, but as deep dives into the "what-ifs"... and taking on social issues, environmental concerns, educational opportunities, and gender concerns along the way.

What role does RayBan play decades into the future after we burn up the ozone layer? What happens when Planned Parenthood is defunded and reverts to the original vision of Margaret Sanger? If Erector leaves the toy aisle and instead partners with education to further STEM interest, can we build a better future? Can Avon and Miss America truly embrace current women's issues?

In the class, we now require that the students not only have a website to feature their brand, but an Issuu.com file to house their final book... for a few reasons, but mainly because if the website goes belly up, the Issuu file will remain. In the links below, there's a good chance that a few of the websites might be... (aahem)... less than adequately maintained*, but the Issuu files should be intact and definitely worth a look.

The class is also evolving and two students, Park and Esmeralda, took the challenge last semester to try their hand at the revised format — breaking the singular brand book into three separate books and a website, each serving a different part of the project from strategy to brand extension...

It's a long list, so grab your own cup coffee (or seven) and enjoy.

(*as of the date of this post, the below websites were working... honest.)

 

Student: Andrea Novo
Brand: Planned Parenthood
Website: http://www.thesangerinitiative.com
Issuu: http://issuu.com/andreanovo/docs/the_sanger_initiative_by_andrea_nov

 

Production Thinking

We've all heard of Design Thinking and it's a great way to envision how designers see the world — and how we can help the world see itself. However, there's a practical side that we might call "Production Thinking" that's sometimes hard to teach in design school.

Recently in one of my classes, the topic of designing for production — especially when designing logos — came up.

Redesigning the Masters

One of my favorite projects is one I've been using since teaching at UCBerkeley. It's a simple formal exercise with an underlying verve of historical relevance. In it, students take classic modernist posters designed by Josef Muller-Brockmann, Jan Tschichold and Herbert Bayer and create a series of new compositions — in gray-scale and color, and working with scale and placement of the original elements.

When we first tackled it — almost 15 years ago — the students moved the elements physically (cut paper), but it soon transitioned to a digital exercise. One of the surprising revelations is that they were far more "free" when using cut paper.

Over the years, the project evolved. A part-two later found the students using the same "content and intention" and designing in the style of another designer — this found them doing research (and designing a one-sheet biography page) and emulating another designer's style and technique (but using the content from the original poster). Even more recently, we've begun examining the intention a lot more closely and it has revealed that the original posters — although beautiful — don't really do what they're meant to do (announce the time, date and location of a concert, for instance) and the students are challenged to improve the hierarchy based on the objectives. Yep, improve on Josef Muller-Brockmann at week-16 of art school.

In the end, it always yields some fun compositions (and many better than the originals)... take a look.

Visual Literacy / Project-3

One of the things that we stress in our program is the proficiency in building visual systems — and communications with a purpose. In the graduate program, this starts early in the 2nd semester in GR618/Visual Literacy and continues throughout the program.

The third of four projects in GR618 is called “The transformation of vernacular communication” and helps the students take the first step in understanding the importance of staying focused and developing cohesive visuals. The goal is to develop a suite of materials — from printed (2D and 3D) to digital — to help communicate the identified messages.

The project began more than 10 years ago when I taught at Berkeley Extension and has evolved each semester since. The inspiration for the project was similar to Cardon Webb’s Cardon Copy (note: ours was first!) and — for a while — found the students hand rendering the signs as well as developing new materials.

Several years ago, we began to increase the focus on the intention(s) of the message and developed a worksheet to help the students do that —what are the primary, secondary and tertiary messages of the original sign? In any system, not everything can communicate every element and by identifying what, or instance, a poster could do best and what a website can do best, the students develop a system of varied materials that communicate the 3-5 different intentions in various ways depending on the media. We even get into the nuances of the purposes of an app versus a website and how each can function differently.

This past semester, with the help of fellow Associate Director, Jeremy Stout, the project took another evolutionary step and eliminated the hand-drawn element in favor of introducing the students to the idea of a light-duty creative brief including audience profiles as well as a mood board exercise.

In the end, the short 4-week project yields deliverables strong enough that many students have begun to include them in their final portfolios (1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9) — not bad for a 2nd semester project!

This semester, we had some great examples… take a look.

Dana Van Etten: Berkeley Free Clinic

Original Sign

Town Hall Posters

Each semester, we have a town hall meeting... the kind where everyone gets together and chats and someone takes notes. I make posters for them. Sometimes it's fun to look back on the old ones... even the ones we didn't end up using.

Visual Thinking (Summer 2013)

The summer semester wrapped just a few weeks ago and I wanted to share the stellar results from a debut class: Visual Thinking

We've recently reconfigured the curriculum a bit and this class is a new one to the line-up in a third semester slot in our MFA program (so, still fairly early). In Visual Thinking, students explore various ideas, narrow focus to a single topic and design a suite a materials around a central theme... giving it life through a unique brand. This class is in preparation for their thesis exploration which will begin the following semester.

I've been writing the class from the ground-up (50K+ words... whew) and it was debuted this summer in a condensed semester. Summers run at 2X speed, so any class is a tough one in the summer, much less a new one with such high expectations.

Nonetheless, the students rose to the occasion and produced some absolutely stunning work. Over the 7.5 week semester, the students researched their topic, defined their brand, created an identity and followup materials like brochures, websites, environmental graphics, apps and packaging... and summarized it in a process book and video (linked below). It's pretty amazing.

Take a look at some of the final visuals, process books and the accompanying walk-through video. Each one is worth your time.