2008 Graphic Design Fundamentals

edit: I had this thing beautifully laid out in the original posting box, but the posted space is smaller than the space you write it in, so it messed everything up. jerk.


Ok, so this is the project I did with Martha Scotford in the first section of second semester.

First, we were assigned a letter by random, and we had to carve the letter out of a linoleum block. Then, we did that a second time, and had to create a pattern on the letter.





Then we printed the letters with Speedball ink, and brayers. We had to have 3 perfect letter onlys, 3 pattern onlys, and 5 combinations. But the process to get those good prints created many many more prints.














Then we had to take everyones letters and form a phrase out of them and post them somewhere around the design school. The phrase we came up with was "I eats children". We thought it would be interesting to show it in perspective where you had to look at it from one spot to see it all, so we posted it on these columns outside of Kamphoeffner.




We also learned how to use the letterpress and printed a phrase that we were to find. At the time we didnt know we would have to connect our phrase to our letter prints. My phrase was "it's hard to fight in a gazebo." The typeface I used was 36 pt. Grandby lite. I thought it fit the silliness of the phrase, and i also didnt capitalize the first letter to go with that theme.Next we had to make 4 collages. They each had to include our phrase and images, our letter and images, or all three.


My first collage was about my phrase. It has images from a book I found in a bookstore from the 50s. The images are of a happy family, and the one at the bottom is of a father reading the bible to his family.






The text in the circle says:
tommy: "thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path."
dad: thats good tommy, billy which bible verse is your favorite?
billy: "i can do all things through christ who stengthens me."
dad: great one billy. how about you sally?
sally: "its hard to fight in a gazebo."
dad: ...billy, you'd better get the belt.

The theme of this piece is contradictions. The contradiction of black and write, text and pure color, straight lines of text, and jumbled chaotic text, small text to large text, and a "happy, religious family" to a family with skewed morals. It is also another contradiction, because the piece is quite silly, but also quite serious.

The next collage I did was a bit more straight forward, and connect the images to my letter, N. There are a few lines about noses (N for nose) and images out of a book I found. I wanted the style to be very light, almost like an illustration in a children's book. The quote in the middle picture says "You smell through your nose. The air goes up your nose and into your head. When it gets in your head you can smell it."
The third collage I made had a similar feel to the first one. The images came off a record cover I found. I thought the couple looked very... cheesily happy, so thats what sparked this collage. At the top it has my phrase, and the dialouge goes like this:
man: "One of these days Alice, POW! Right in the kisser."
woman: "Oh but darling you cant, we're in a gazebo."
man: "Frankly my dear, I dont give a damn."

The quote is from the television show, "The Honeymooners". I have a fourth collage, but I havent gotten around to taking a picture of it yet...











Finally, the last thing we had to do was compile all our process materials, such as sketches, extra lino prints, collage materials, etc, into a process book, and bind it together. I drilled holes through the stack of papers and bound mine with some linen string as a Japanese bind.




Woo, that was a long post. But now its done. I think I've pushed a button to make my text underlined, but I cant find the button to take it off, so... oh well.