The Process of Thumbnailing

This activity focuses on the importance of thumbnailing as a technique for testing design ideas on a smaller and quicker scale.For this exercise we were asked to draw a banana in 49 thumbnails and choose what we considered to be the most effective solution.

After drawing all my thumbnails, even though pacman was my favourite. I found this image jumped out at me the most and included a larger amount of elements and principles of design which I like.

Grids, Layouts and Flow

This activity is an introduction to the invisible grids used within designs to allow objects to have some association with each other.

Part A - Find two examples of layouts, one that doesn't appear to follow a grid and another that does. Explain why you think they have/have not used a grid.

I believe a grid has been used for this layout due to the clearly visible columns. you can especially see it on the bottom left corner where the picture has been cropped on the side to fit the grid.

After playing with a ruler on this page, the only evidence I found of a grid was down the right hand side; however that did not repeat throughout the rest of the page. This brings me to the conclusion that this layout does not contain a grid.



Part B - Find two magazine layouts that appear to contain grids and indicate where you think the grids are.

Elements Of Design

This activity was all about the elements and principles of design and how to use them effectively to help communicate ideas within your design.

Sketch some still life objects using a frame to crop the scene and focus the mind on the shapes inside the frame.

 

Find an example from a magazine that incorporates design elements and principles. Use a pen to show what they are.

Using Indesign, create a mini booklet comprising of  the elements and principles of design.

Use Photoshop to create a texture using the gradient tool and a filter. I chose the texterizer filter for this exercise.

File Structure

This activity was about file structure however, as part of it we had to put together a flyer using Adobe Indesign. So I thought I'd pop it up here as well.

Colour Fundementals

This activity was the most fascinating activity of this course to date! I love colour and the way it can effect you without you even knowing.

Part 1 Colour squares - collect a spectrum of coloured paper. I gathered mine in a hardware store.

Part 2 Colour associations - write the words you associate with different colours using a range of tones and shades.

Part 3 Colour wheel -  Add colour to a colour wheel using Adobe Illustrator.

Part 4 Colour wheel and schemes - make a colour wheel using the coloured paper collected previously, identify the primary, secondary and tertiary colours and use more of the coloured paper to create colour schemes.

Part 5 Create a colour collage - Use Illustrator and numbers to create a collage using one of the colour schemes.

Part 6 Colour associations 'Australia' - find colour schemes that reflect Australia and make a mood board. Also, make a mood board that uses the colours that reflect your life.

Part 7 Colour branding - collect an range of logos including what you think they are trying to communicate through colour.

Part 8 effective limited use of colour - a look at illustrations using limited colour and how effective they can be. 

Part 9 Colour research - research colour document to held understand colour use.

Here is the link to my research document. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByN7lShSXn_sd3A5N2psck1NbDg/edit?usp=sharing

Positive and Negative Form

For this activity we were asked to complete two parts. 

Part A: Draw the negative space using three of the words provided. I chose Jaws, Ghost and Ice Cream Cone.

Part B: Find examples or whitespace used effectively.

Billboard

There is a lot of white space used on this billboard. I find it quite effective. The eye is immediately drawn to the product being advertised.

Magazine

Very effective magazines cover. I like that it’s not crowded with other stories and the colour of the text used looks great.

Website

I love the colours used in this website. It’s warm and rich like coffee. Because of the white space around the stories, your eyes are drawn to read them but I found I took in the picture as a whole as well.

Movie Cover

I read somewhere that white space particularly with light blue was deliberately used for movies such as The Notebook as it appeals to the romantic side particularly with women. 

Design Industry Learning Activities

For these learning activities we were asked to research and share our knowledge on giving constructive feedback, finding trends in the design industry, ethical and legal work practices in the design industry and look at positions vacant and relevant skills for Pre-press Operators and Junior Graphic Designers. We also had to include links to relevant and helpful websites.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByN7lShSXn_saU5STDRZdGcwLTA/edit?usp=sharing