Learned how to make a book today and fold some paper...wasn't to bad. We learned a lot of ways to make an accordion book. Getting pretty excited to start building the big letter! We'll have to see how it goes. :)

Response to Photography Essay:

Photography is one of the many beautiful things in life. It allows anyone to capture a moment, any moment in time and to document it forever. With this project we are supposed to document our finding of how to convey our word’s meaning. By reading Photo Ops, I was able to understand a little bit of the knowledge that goes into photography. I had always thought that in order to get an unbelievably good picture you had to be an expert on photography, but the truth is you only need a camera and something to shoot. Experimenting with the light, shadows, and angles can get you a good picture. There’s also ways of movement, continuity, close-ups, symmetrical and asymmetrical images, and framing that will help give a photographer experience and make them get a better shot that they might’ve not been able to do before. It gives you a variety to choose from. The only way to get better as a photographer is to practice. I once took a job shadowing class about photography. We went to this lady’s studio and she taught us about angles, lighting, and how to morph a picture into something amazing. Reading this reminded me of that time. I hope to further my experience in photography while I’m here at school and during this new project.

            By using photos to document it is the neutral, style less, and objective way of documenting. By using pictures as documents, the viewers receive a great deal about our worlds from the images; it allows people to see certain things that they were not present at. This is why documentation through images started way back when artists painted and sketched. Those were the first forms of image documentation. It was said by Talbot that the “image emerges without and conscious involvement from the photographer.” Documentary also provides the viewers with direct access to truth. In the reading it was really cool to see how documentary had transformed through generations. Also to see how it was being used was really cool. Documentary can help reconnect us to the past, the images tell a story within themselves. This is how we are supposed to use our own images in this project, to show how our words relate to everyday life.

Response to Parts of a letter:

“Typography evolved from handwriting, which is created by making a series of marks by hand; therefore, the fundamental element constructing a letterform is the linear stroke (stem).” I had no idea that the actual start of typography started over 500 years ago. By realizing the vocabulary will help a person develop a better understanding of it as a whole. Type is about harmonizing letters to create a word as a whole. There is a lot of vocabulary that goes into typography, more than I knew of actually. I first thought that typographers just designed letters. It all seemed so simple, but there’s more work that goes into it, more than I would have ever realized unless I read this. This document about typography has taught me so much about parts of a letter that make up its form. I feel so educated now that I know what makes up a certain type of letter. “Immaculate typography is certainly the most brittle of all the arts. To create a whole from many petrified, disconnected and given parts, to make this whole appear alive and of a piece – only sculpture in stone approaches the unyielding stiffness of perfect typography.” Each font is different and has different multiple parts to it parts. I would like to know how typographers create their own fonts and how long it takes them. With as many fonts as there is now it amazes me that some haven’t been replicated yet. I have gained a whole new understanding of typography after reading this. I still cannot just recognize just any font like many other people can, such as our TAs, but hopefully after this project I will be able to.

My group's word is Condense:

The definitions found are:

• To make or become more compact or dense: concentrate; to change from vapor to liquid.
• Synonyms: Contract, shrink, compress, constrict
• To reduce the volume or compass of
• To make more concise; abridge or shorten
• Physics 
• To cause (a gas or vapor) to change to a liquid
• To remove water from (milk)
• To become more compact
• To undergo condensation
• Smooshed in between two things

Notes:

• Letters stand for sounds
• Sounds link together to make words that have meaning
• Language flows 
• It changes
• Words may sound the same, but have completely different meanings and are spelt differently.

Ideas so far for the pictures:

• Put in between two cars
• Between two buildings
• in a cave
• In between bookcases
• angle the letters in a "v" and have two people look like they are pushing them together.

A little worried about Thursday. We got a lot done today in class, but yet there is still so much to do. Our poster isn't yet finished, and it should have been last week. It bugs me when people procrastinate...anyways i'm looking forward to how our commercial turns out. I feel bad for putting it all on Adams shoulders, but I guess each of us all had separate assignments for the project and that was his. Plus he's amazing at drawing and he likes to do it. So i'm happy that he's happy to do that all for us.

Lets see what Thursday brings...

Today has been a productive day.

We found that everyone had gotten at least some kind of cosmetic thing done over the break. Ben, Andre, and Adam all got hair cuts, and I got my eye brows waxed. Harrison wasn't here today.

Besides all the fun stuff we got a lot done today. We finally got our final prototype decided on and done. I feel like it took forever, but we decided on our final story board too. It's all animated so I think it will be really fun to do and watch. We decided on our final poster so we'l get that printed out next Tuesday.

I am a little worried that some things won't be done on time. A little nervous :/ but i have faith in my teammates so hopefully the end of the project will go well. I do believe in horoscopes and mine reads that if i put faith in people it will all work out, so hopefully it's right. Anyways my process book is almost done so that's helpful too. It has 26 pages so far so it's going to be a long one. Hopefully its cheap to print :)

Response to Understanding Comics Chapter 2:

At first I had no idea what the guy in the comic was talking about win he kept turning down the people' depiction of what the object was. I was like "Okay where are you going with this?" But then They went into a segment on how the drawings weren't what they really were. Like how a picture of a cow wasn't a cow. Then the big word of Icon popped up and then I started to understand. It made me think back to when Jeremy Shellhorn came to talk to us in our BDS lecture about the types of signs that were used in design or on a poster. He said the meaning of signs went from denotation to connotation and from seeing to interpreting. As the viewers we construct our own meaning of the pictures or signs. The signs can be either an icon, index, or a symbol to represent one thing. The non-pictoral meaning is fixed and absolute, where the appearance doesn't affect their meaning. They represent visual ideas. A picture's meaning is fluid and variable. Words are abstract. In pictures the level of abstraction varies. In cartooning the focus is on specific details. It's stripping down and image to its essential meaning. While looking at icons or symbols, we assign identities and emotions where none exist. When the figure talked about how our face is like a mask that everyone else but ourselves can see, I'v always wondered what my face looks like through someone else's eyes. I thought that was cool. I know that we can look at mirrors and what not, but we only have a certain way of looking at ourselves. Do people see me the same way I do? Throughout this chapter I felt like I was learning how to write a comic book and where to place things. Hierarchy and where words should be placed and in which a=order to put the pictures. I learned how the different styles have consequences far beyond the mere "look" of a story. They are a form of visual communication. There is "no life here except to which you give it to." It made me think that we as people give life to what we want to through our thoughts and imagination. I'm not much of a comic book reader, but I really enjoyed reading this in comic book for instead of a text book. It was very informational. And it was a comic about what goes on in comics...how ironic. Now I feel like I know why comics are made the way they are. People like to envision themselves in them and to bring fantasy into reality. It made me think of Marvel's The Avengers and all those other superhero comics. Also I think for out group commercial we're doing part comic/cartooning. So I feel like in reading this it will help us in illustrating our commercial to its full potential.

Response to Understanding Comics Chapter 5:

This chapter stated how emotions and senses can be conveyed through certain backgrounds, lines, words, and pictures. It's so that it can evoke an emotional or sensual response from the audience. Impressionism and expressionism are being used to their full potential. It stated that a line can go from passive and timeless to proud and strong to dynamic and changing to unwelcoming and severe to warm and gentle to rational and conservative to savage and deadly to weak and unstable to honest and direct. Many emotions can be conveyed through the simplest forms of art. This brings me back to what we are learning in our drawing classes from Tom. We're learning very technical ways of drawing and getting proportions right but we are also working on the darkness of the lines and confidence in the lines. If a person sees a dark line it could stand for anger or confidence, but if a person sees a light line it could mean softness or unconfident. It really depends on what the authors perspective is on it and how they want the audience to convey their message while looking at it. This chapter really helps us understand the importance of emotion and senses that are depicted from certain pieces of artwork. Even in the littlest things, some kind of emotion is being expressed. This is going to help us today by helping us as designers or artist become aware of how we want our audience to feel or to respond to our artwork.

This commercial was straight to the point. It uses only just a few words and the action of the product to get it's point across. I thought it was pretty cool, especially since I haven't seen a shower head like this. I would totally buy it.

I  really liked this commercial. It kept me entertained and it uses the dog to show that after a while of working things out, there is a new look to the product. That if you give it time and work towards making yourself look better, you get a better outcome. I liked the music in it too. The only thing was that the car wasn't really mentioned until the end..I'm not sure if thats a good or bad thing. I like it when commercials use music instead of people talking too. It gives the viewer something to think about and analyze themselves.