Reflecting on 3369

Reflective Memo- Culture.

Learning about culture in design was not simple. 3369 Document Design was a crash course of sorts, in my experience. I came into the class having never used Photoshop or Adobe InDesign, and by the third week or so I owned one and consistently used the both. I really had myself figured out before the class and felt that I could not contribute to document design by any respectable means. I felt that I didn’t have the natural ability. By the second redesign assignment that opinion of myself had reversed. I realized great design can come purely from the talent of an individual, but also from someone that understands the important components as well.

I needed to understand all concepts in the class to really push myself in the right direction. What I mean is that I needed to actually understand the relationship between a document’s desired effects on people and what concepts could help you achieve those affects, like proximity, repetition, alignment, and so forth. From gathering and “gleaning,” as Dr. Rice would say, I realized that the components of design fit into a greater scheme- culture. I had never fully understood that design choices represented culture. I knew that architecture and paintings designed by glorified artists were culture, but I didn’t realize the way common artifacts could be designed contributed to culture as well.

In my redesigns, I tried to effectively create components that would relate to specific sub-cultures. My movie cover was for movie buffs, my redesign of the 742-Ride service was aimed at drunk college kids, I could even say that redesign of Anthony Bourdain’s book cover for The Nasty Bits was aimed at readers and foodies alike; consequently, those are all cultures that I was pandering to. I realize now that every product is a derivative of culture but the design is what truly displays its culture relevance in the public. For example, Texas Tech designed all of its buildings in a Spanish style, which means it is trying to convey an international and academic culture to people.  

                                                            

Naturally, culture cannot go without rhetoric, whether written or even physically constructed. Therefore, my lesson in culture was subsequently also a lesson in rhetoric. I realized that for every culture I was redesigning artifacts for (movie buffs, college kids, readers), I was also inserting graphics, designs, or words that would attract their attentions. I was using rhetoric. I realize now that effectively using rhetoric means you analyzed your target audiences well, which is something I can say I have become better at after this course.

Knowledge of culture and rhetoric will be an effective tool at my disposal. I can enter the workforce and develop content for websites, software companies, or whatever, and realize that culture and rhetoric might be the first concepts I need to consider. I need to think about what I create and its use of proper rhetoric, whether my prospective project or idea actually speaks to the audience and culture that I want it to. Also, I now know that rhetoric isn’t just the written word. In my opinion, regarding design, rhetoric is just how you use something to attract the attention of your target audience within a culture.  It’s almost cyclical: culture affects rhetoric and that chosen rhetoric can represent and tell about a culture.  

Final Redesign: Tech Pamphlet

So this is my last redesign. It is a pamphlet for the Safe Ride service at Tech that is still being utilized today. I have to admit, with all of the resources bestowed upon Tech that this is flat out embarrassing.  Its problems are copious and obvious. For starters, it looks like a colored-in coloring book. Hell, in the QnA section they, for some odd and inappropriate reason, chose to capitalize every letter "o" like this, "what dO yOu mean by 'shuttle'?" If that's not the most unbecoming of a Tech pamphlet I have seen then I'll be darned. 

So this process began difficultly because I knew I would have to start completely from scratch. The colors are bad, the contrast is just overwhelming, and there are distracting elements everywhere.
So where I started was with my own layout. So I eliminated the cheesy graphics and chose red and black as my primary colors because of our university. To utilize the powerzone, which I have chosen to abuse this semester because it really is an easy way to make things look nice, I made a top bar and chose a picture where the focus (the seal) is on the left. (So the seal in the photo and the top bar makes up the powerzone)

Inside the top bar, I displayed some contrast by putting the main points of the document, each phone number, in different colors: one in white and one in red. I knew that most students knew the numbers, so seeing them displayed on a pamphlet would be an instant attraction for information-seekers. Also, I knew that there should be something to even more helpful to attract the students to use the service, and being a college student, I know that the word "free" is magnetic to our eyes. So I created somewhat of an eye-capturing award type shape and put "free taxi." Not only did the symbol attract eyes because it was bright yellow, but it was also an exercise of rhetoric. It was almost like I wanted to say "dont forget about this service you pay for" but without those exact words.

The sequence of information that was put into the original document was also very distracting. It gives these snake like arrows that take your eyes to the right or the left rather than simply down, where the information lies. I made sure to trash that concept. What I thought was most conducive to attracting college students was putting as little distractions as I can and only including graphics that were relative, so for each informative page I put two columns worth of information with a graphic above for some extra rhetoric and symbolization.

Lastly, my emphasis was on creating a decent amount of white space and grouping(proximity) so that there was no straying of the eyes from the focal points of my revised document. All relative information is under relative questions with plenty of white around so that all of the information does not look overbearing to read. The simplicity and short quality of my writing was also aligned perfectly for both pages thanks to inDesign.

In the end, the only real thing I recycled from the original was the entirety of the last page. I realized that it actually looked like a solo graphic so when I placed it on the page it looked like a suitable logo that was representative of the document's goal.

The Redesign

Photo Credits:

From freedigitalphotos.net,

Andy Newson-confused girl, page 1

Exsodus- moon, page 2

Redesign #4- Message Board interface

Before:

It is already an established part of our American culture to be obsessed with the internet. People are going as far as speaking in acronyms like "lol" and "omg." A common accelerant for this kind of communication is social networking, including message board indexes. My fourth redesign is the interface of a message board, which are now things that should be really eye pleasing because of growing traffic to online messageboards, especially sports messageboards.

The specific website I chose was Raiderpower.com. I am not  a subscriber to this site, nor a frequent visitor, but I saw potential to make it better. For starters, there is a lot of gray. Gray is not a bad color but there is too much to where it looks old, I would even say dusty for some reason. Most messageboards that I have visited in the past are of mostly white and black because when posting and reading comments it's best to stay simple, even in color scheme. So I made sure to enhance areas where I believe white would have looked better.

Another problem that I noticed was empty space. At the very top black heading bar, on the very left, "raiderpower.com" is emblazened in hot red but the rest of the black bar is not being utilized. The power zone theory will tell you that not using at least a little more of that black bar is a waste of valuable space that viewers' eyes usually gravitate towards. So to enhance it I put a few relative football pictures on the bar to accompany the logo. I made sure not to use the entire bar because I did not want to do so much as distract the viewer from the website's logo.

Also, more space isn't used right under that black heading bar. On the right of the army advertisement, the one with the guy that is screaming (I think?), is an empty lot of a space that could be valuable to advertising sales as well as balance on the page. Without filling that space there is glaring asymmetry. I simply made a homemade, rudimentary ad for that spot.

The problems I had were being able to alter enough of the interface. Using photoshop was very difficult for a novice to try and cut things and add things to the interface design. I think overall the website is no longer what I call "dusty" looking, if not bright now. On a few bars, I changed the color of gray to black because black contrasts well with white as well as matching well with the heading bar. Also, directly under the advertisement I made, I filled in the two retangles with black to match their counterparts below to enhance repetition.

Redesign #3- DVD Cover

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

This latest undertaking was definitely difficult. The original DVD cover to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind is actually pretty immaculate, which adds on to the difficulty because no one wants to redesign something  to be worse. (By the way, the photo above is actually a movie poster but the dvd looks identical, minus a few things).

What I wanted to fix was the normalcy of the DVD cover. When you see this cover you do not imagine the movie to be one with many twists, turns, and surprises. Instead, if you haven't heard of the movie, you just see a happy couple, romantically laying side-by-side, gazing at something, and Jim Carrey's eyes wandering. The real plot is really abstract, though. I thought what this cover lacked was a forecast into what their relationship is actually like in the film. Eventually, after days of searching for screenshots of the film i could use--which was a huge concern by the way, because it's hard to find a picture with adequate pixels--I feel like I have found the right ones to combine and make a cover of my own.

Contrast: The original cover had more than adequate contrast. There was the white ice at the top and a dark blue, spacey looking color at the bottom half. The title Eternal Sunshine... is yellow and black and even Jim Carrey's face color contrasted nicely with the blue it was up against. Because of the proper use of contrast in the original, I had to make sure mine contrasted well. The most noticeable contrast is Jim Carrey's face extending through two different photos. The top of his head extends into the photo of the couple and his lower half contrasts with the blue sky in the photo below. I also decided to use the original cover's idea of internal title contrast by making "Eternal Sunshine" yellow, like the original, but I used white for the rest of the title because it contrasted well with his suit. I also did not want to plaster a huge quote from a critic because I have always kind of thought those ruined movie covers, which I think are things that should be valued, but at the same time I couldn't just leave an empty blue area on the cover. So, to avoid putting some obnoxious quote, I put four stars to display the credibility of the movie while not tattooing someone else's thoughts on the cover. The black stars contrasts nicely with the blue. 


PowerZone- This redesign I prided myself for utilizing the powerzone described in the text. The powerzone extends from the top of the cover through the left side of the cover. If you notice, I put a very strong photo on the upper half of the power zone and let Jim Carrey's figure run through the left side of the powerzone. Using the powerzone helps attract the attention of passer-byes. Even the title of the film is at the very bottom of what is considered the power zone. 


Proximity- There is a lot of proximity in my new cover as well. I kept the title of the film within Jim Carrey's figure and put the names of Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey directly beside their characters in the top photo, a very common trait in some DVD covers that I looked at. Most noticeable is the overlapping images, but less noticeable is the little image of Winslet and Carrey in the same bed on the beach on the lower right hand corner. I put it directly beside Carrey because I realized I had some room there and also it kind of helps forecast the style of the film, which is to say unconventional. People will look at that little image and immediately be intrigued at how those two in a bed could have possibly ended up there.  

I had to try and make this DVD cover many different times. It put me through a real fit. But in the end I do feel proud of it and think it could serve equally as well as the original. I think it helps forecast into the story a little better than the original by displaying Winslet's discontented look, a key theme, and the beach and bed screen shot that helps the viewer wonder what is going on because the film is a labyrinth of story. I also didnt give in to something I hate, DVD cover quotes. The only quotes that belong on a DVD cover are quotes from the movie itself, an idea I almost acted on.

My weekend

The weekend consisted of wine and happiness. Although, I did go to spring football practice as well. 

Page Design and my prior re-design

Page Design is the process of placing design objects, such as text, headings, and images, consistently and effectively on the page, taking account the information you are trying to convey, actual visual field, characteristics of the design object, and relationships implied among them. The definition I have chosen to improvise slightly on is long but, considering page design is not a one note process, necessary.

Kimball and Hawkins write a lot about the concepts that are involved and interplayed within page design, and it's impossible to truly hit on all of them because certain designs call for certain strategies but not all. One main concept mentioned by Kimball and Hawkins I took into consideration was culture. Culture is the relativity of objects and their location within a page design. In my redesign of Anthony Bourdain's book The Nasty Bits I had to remind myself of the conventional ideas of where components of a book cover belong.

Unlike Asian culture, American culture insists we read from left to right, and our book covers act on that. In my design above, I decided to use a picture where Anthony Bourdain is depicted as walking but the original photo I found depicted Anthony walking the opposite way, away from the book entry. In American literature, I figured that almost symbolized him walking away from the entry of his own book-- a bad way to start off someone's reading experience. So the first thing i did was make sure that he faced the direction of the book's material, not away.

Another component of page design is sequence. Sequence revolves around what order your page design objects are presented to the reader. It played a large role in my design as in the original, published design as well because for certain writers and celebrities the first component of a cover presented is their name. Anthony Bourdain is a very recognizable American figure and it needed to be represented well and atop of the pecking order, so to start off my sequence of components I put his entire name first. It allows people to see the book and immediately become curious whether they knew of the book's existence or not because Bourdain is a celebrity. Following his name was the title as well as his figure beside that with a bar code and quote from the times last because they are less recognizable or culturally revered as a title and last name is.

Another affect of my design was the use of power zone. Power zone is depicted in the book as the left side of the page as well as the top. It's as if you were to create a capital L and turn it upside down on the page. The use of power zone is used by having Anthony Bourdain's figure exist on the left side of the cover in the power zone. His figure is what I consider to be a "mission critical" object because he is the proprietor of everything written in the book and as well as the person selling his personality in the book. Putting Anthony in the power zone is to put him in an area of the cover that people naturally gravitate towards with their eyes.

Also, a large contributing idea to my design was of balance. I didn't want Anthony's body to be penetrated by any letters of his title because I knew, given the photo I chose, there would be room next to him to place it. With Anthony on one side of the cover it allows a dearth of space to the right of him of which I was able to fill with content.

Redesign #2- Book Cover

My latest redesign is of the book The Nasty Bits by Anthony Bourdain. Upon first glances, I think this is a relatively sad cover for a guy as cool as Anthony Bourdain. He is a guy/critic that demands respect with highly articulated, and fiendishly hyperbolic, criticisms and opinions. His fake grin with the senstive looking face-resting-on-palm look just doesn't do his persona, or great writing, adequate justice. I used photoshop to recreate the true style he emits, which is to say confident and take-no-bullshit.  

Firstly, I had to choose a new picture to use. The one above didn't suffice, so here is what I chose:

Although I it, this picture has inherent problems. For example, when your eyes read this cover they want to go  from right to left, which is an unwanted characteristic of something you read left to right. It's almost like, symbolically, Bourdain is walking away from the opening of his book. To recreate a feeling of "follow my direction towards my story", I naturally turned the picture around. I wanted Bourdain to face the opening of his book, not seem to be walking away. Aesthetically, it's more pleasing. Here it is:

Contrast: In the first book cover, I'll admit, there is plenty contrast. The original has dark colors with a piercing red, but I don't feel the red and dark colors meld with each other very well. In this redesign, I made sure to go with probably the most classic contrast known to man: the black and white photo. But I didn't stop at the black and white. As you can see in the original photo, the photo is filled with color, from the sky to the graffiti, but in the redesign I chose to leave Bourdain as the sole personification of color against the black and white. He is a well known figure amongst a multitude of different communities and to have him brighten up what is to be a dark, black and white, cover is eye catching. Also, there are slightly different fonts and font sizes. The top where it says Anthony Bourdain is in Times New Roman, a conventional font, while the title Nasty Bits is in a font where every limb of each letter is the same thickness. Then the obvious quote from the New York Times below is in a more plain, smaller text. 

Repetition: The repetition is most represented in the colors. Other than Anthony Bourdain, the entire cover is in black and white. 

Alignment: Alignment is a key ingredient to all professional documents or covers. To help fulfill my alignment needs I made sure to use the grid system provided by photoshop. In the original book cover, when looking from the front, there is a quote on the top left corner and on the opposite side there is a red circle. I saw that there wasn't any particular alignment that they followed so I completely avoided putting anything in those two corners. The corners in which I sealed the title with the center of is completely aligned with the black rectangle's left side below it. The corners that I created to contain the title are aligned as well, which was something that I did take from the first cover. 

Proximity: The use of proximity is useful in the design of a book cover because, like this book, there sometimes a second title. In this case, besides The Nasty Bits, there is the title Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones. To imply relationship, which is the purpose of proximity, I contained the second title within a rectangle and placed it directly under the primary title. Also, instead of placing the title directly on Anthony Bourdain's body, I placed the title right beside him so that it seems like an  accompaniment. 

Stylistic Choices:  As I introduced earlier, I dont believe the first cover represents Anthony Bourdain, or, more notably, his book title. The book is called The Nasty Bits yet he seemed to do his best to smile but in a truly happy manner; he looks more exhausted than happy. In true form, Anthony Bourdain is actually energetic despite his frail look but also, given the title, he should look more serious. So find what it really means to be him, I chose the photo of him walking along a graffitied wall with a more serious (more nasty) demeanor. Aside from changing the photo altogether I placed a barcode on the front of the cover to imply something nasty and eye-catching that doesn't belong on the cover despite its practicality.