Movie Logo from James Teerlink on Vimeo.

I had the opportunity to attend the “Viva La Revolution Letterpress Workshop” at the University of Utah. The full day course was taught by the brilliant Mr. David Wolske and his assistant Laura Decker. This day-long workshop focused on the art of the political poster and how they are meant to be made quick and dirty to convey an idea.

I learned to cut a Lino block print and how to set wood type. I also had the opportunity to learn about pressure printing and photo-polymer plates. Initially I set out to create a thank you card with multiple colors, but ended up setting it in one color and blocking it up for a few passes.

I had a concept for a politically based poster that would say “Ideas are bulletproof”. This phrase is not my own, but is from a radio talk show host who believes in teaching people to make a difference even though it may threaten their lives. You may take my life, but not my ideas that I share with others. This is the case with good ideas and bad. It especially ties in with design. When you have a good idea it is bulletproof as you stand by it and build it up with good design principles and execution, it can become bulletproof and stand the tests of time.

A shot of my thank you card:

Shots of my limited edition poster

Not only was this workshop fun, but it also taught me a great deal about designing for the press. There are considerations such as spacing, ink, paper, composition, drying time etc. that all play into how the end product turns out. I ended up using a different color ink for each word or element, so I had to block up each piece on a different press. I am comfortable running several types of presses now, I just need to learn how to set metal type and eventually get my own press one day

Project overview and objectives | Design a sequential experience. The invitation needs to be mailed and provide the recipient with layers of information. The design needs to be able to be replicated as if you were to manufacture the idea.

What I learned |

Process | First I started out with a list of written ideas. From there I selected a Root Beer party, but wasn’t too sure how I wanted it to work out.

I began to sketch several rough ideas as to how the invitation experience would work. I could make it 2D or 3D.

After deciding to go with a 3D bottle full of root beer, I tried to create some kind of imagery for the root beer label.

I thought about making it feel more like a branded product with the use of a hand drawn “Teerlink’s” logo.

For my first mockup I had a crude label as my invitation.

Many other things had to be figured out at this point. I decided to make the party the “Teerlink’s Root Beer Tasting Party”. I wanted the recipient to not be able to tell what brand of root beer I had sent. For the RSVP they would have to taste the root beer and guess which brand it is. It was suggested by a classmate to make a coaster as the RSVP. I had also decided that I wanted to ship in a shipping tube. One of the hardest elements was getting my coaster to look like it had been die cut. I talked to a friend and had them cut out some mat board on their cricut machine, but it didn’t work out. I resorted to using a post card as the RSVP because it was easier to produce.

I found that there was a lesson to learn for each mock up. Here is the evolution of my labels

For the final piece I made at least 4 of everything and worked with a full 4 pack of root beer. I removed all the labels and printed all my pieces. I applied all the graphics to the bottles. Only the best bottle would be sent. After securing the package contents I took it to the post office for delivery. We will see tomorrow how things turned out!

Project overview and objectives | Use principles of observed motion to create a 5 second count or countdown. Demonstrate understanding of After Effects, motion design and sequence. Utilize music to enhance the animation.
What I learned | My experience with After Effects before this class went as far as a few Andrew Kramer tutorials. Going back to the basics allowed me to understand certain principles better. I found that there is great value in the story boarding and problem solving processes. One of the most valuable things is to seek out critique all along the way. I consulted my instructor and classmates regularly and made adjustments accordingly. My composition and storytelling improved with time. One of the most valuable lessons is the amount of time it takes to animate things correctly. Parenting movement is crucial, as is masking, easing and timing.

Process | The process may look simple, but the devil is in the details of animating each frame.

First I had to come up with action storyboards, which show important keyframes in the animation that will need to be communicated.

Initial Storyboard:

Secondary Storyboard:

Next art storyboards had to be made to show how each of the same keyframes will look in context. My art storyboards look nothing like my finshed piece due to the many adjustments along the way.

From there I spent time in Illustrator adding texture fills to each element and solving some of the design issues that had arisen. To keep things simple I grouped like elements that would be animated together into separate files. I also designated a separate layer for each shape with an appropriate name. These files with their layers were brought into After Effects. Each moving element was animated in its own composition and brought to the main composition where they were positioned and adjusted. My motion was off and my music wasn’t working at first, so after spending a 7 hour all nighter, I had to change things quite a bit. Making the necessary adjustments took another 8 hour stint to get things feeling right. After receiving critique from the class and from my instructor, I was able to make some final adjustments with color, motion elements and value. One thing that is great about parenting animation is the ability to go into the original artwork, and animation composition and make adjustments and they update in the main composition automatically. I am pretty excited with how the piece ended up, the evolution from inception to final is quite drastic.

Project overview and objectives | Make a collection of 50 items and then develop a concept that ties all of them together. Produce a well crafted box with 50 cards.

What I learned | This project was one of the most involved and extensive for me at the time. I found that there is great value to peer review and critique of ideas and approaches. My initial idea involved a wooden box with a burned insignia. I wanted to embroider each merit badge, but found that it would cost about 3000 dollars to do it, since it is a 20-50 dollar fee to set up per badge. I did design the badges using Pantone colors that are available for thread as well (in case I ever want to go get them produced). One of my biggest challenges was designing a 3-D surface and constructing the card box. Now that I have gone through the process, I could probably do something like this again quite easily. I learned about proper use of registration marks on a document. I also was able to improve my digital craftsmanship through proper file managment.

Process | For the first part of this project I had to collect 50 random objects. I chose to actually go door to door to do this and see what things people were willing to part with, but that were cool. I ended up with some interesting things like: an AK47 bullet, russian money, an old alarm clock, an ostrich egg, and lots of other knick knacks. The main reason for collecting these objects was to see if I could find a theme that I could generate into a story or a common thread for the cards.

I made an Idea list based on the stuff in the box.

After deciding to go with rejected merit badges I made a fake merit badge list of about 150 or so options. I talked to family and friends and had them choose the best ones.

Next I took the best choices and began to sketch basic ideas of how I could create each icon. In some cases things weren’t working at this stage, it was a good point to either adjust ideas or drop them for new ones.

Once I had sketches for almost all of the badges I went to Illustrator and began creating the designs as vectors. For the color pallet I started working in Pantone colors due to my initial intention to get each of these badges embroidered. In the meantime I also had to be thinking about the other pieces of the project including the card layout, the box design, and the instructional insert as well.

For each card I used images of troop number patches and fabric swatches that felt very much like a scout uniform. I placed each piece of artwork onto the respective card in InDesign and also began to design and write copy for the back. The cards were all in one massive file with 100 pages, so managing the files and links was a bit of a challenge. I haven’t ever designed for a 3-D surface before this project, so it was a bit of a learning curve. It was nice to have Joshua Balleza come and teach us how to construct and wrap a box, that helped out quite a bit. After figuring out that my wooden box idea wouldn’t work. I gave in to constructing about 3 different chipboard boxes using PVA book glue. I was pretty frustrated with how difficult it was to measure each piece right and to get it to look nice. Eventually I was able to construct a good box. For the box wrap design I bought a scout shirt for the project from a local thrift store. I used my own merit badge sash, my scout handbook, and the scout shirt for a photo shoot for the front of the box. I also bought a “5″ and a “0″ troop patch from a local craft store. After compositing the imagery I wanted onto the box wrap, I printed and applied it to the box after trimming it out.

The box wrap design as a flat Illustrator file:

Download the entire deck of cards.

Icons shown at actual size:

Project overview and objectives | Produce icon symbols for web use (75×75 pixels) based on compound words. Present the symbols to strangers and survey them to see if they get the symbols or not. Compile a summary of the survey results to demonstrate what is working and what is not.

What I learned | I learned to keep things as simple as possible. People would guess the words so literally that I had to actually make the focal point the first word and the rest of the composition the second part of the word. For this assignment I was able to “Art Direct” for my group in class. It was interesting to help others in my group solve their design problems and to try to help each other stay on task. I learned to have confidence and to be honest in critiquing others. The icons ultimately had to be read as small web icons; testing them in a web browser was especially valuable. Taking feedback from my survey and making minor adjustments proved to be an invaluable source of insight.

Process | For each compound word I drew out a word chart and tried to brainstorm from connecting associated words together. From there I began to sketch and find good design solutions that read well. Next I took my best sketches and scanned them into the computer. My scans served as a basis for my illustrator files. I used the pen tool to to define the right shape and refined the vector images from there. Next I pasted the vector shapes as pixels into Photoshop and scaled them to a 75 x 75 pixel canvas.