I’ve worked the hardest I’ve ever worked this past year to remove that three lettered prefix—and I couldn’t be happier.

These are my latest versions of my wasp symbol. The problem statement is to communicate frantic and sluggish. This process was quite a tedious one. One of the most challenging aspect was abstracting something all the while communicating, maintaining elegant form, and be simple enough so even pedestrians will get it in <5 seconds. I’m quite happy with it and even happier that it’s done. Excited now to learn about color, an area where I’m just a neophyte.

It’s already 4 weeks into the semester and so much has happened so far. Some bad things, but for the most part, some really great and exciting things. During the winter break, one of my goals was to get an internship for the summer/fall, but just a couple weeks ago I was pleasantly surprised by an offer to start immediately. It’s an internship with the CSUS Union. They are the in-house design staff for anything related to the student union and more. It’ll be my first design position so it’s really exciting yet a little scary at the same time. All the designs they produce are very creative and professional looking, and I know it’ll push me to design at the same level.

The only class I’m worried about this semester is GPHD 30. It’s equivalent to last semester’s GPHD 25. Same professor and everything, so high expectations and brutal process. We’re currently working on symbol and it’s very frustrating. It’s such a balancing act between simplicity and ambiguity. I’m learning to not only write down my thinking, but also draw them as well; to express my ideas in form. Our first project is to design a symbols of an ant or wasp, one communicating frantic and the other sluggish. It’s not as easy as simply tracing a silhouette of the insect, but intentionally interrupting the black space with white space to convey form, message, function and simplicity all in one. The form is in recognition, message in expressing the emotion, function in still being readable at 1/2″, and simplicity in instant recognition. Lately I’ve been wasting a lot more time than I can afford. I still have a couple drawings and photographs to submit for the portfolio review in May and I was asked to put some of my work in a gallery in April. Some of my mini goals are to draw and learning Adobe software everyday. This is a recent drawing I finished as a part of my goals as well as to put in the gallery.

experimental side lighting drawing based on photo
4H-8B graphite on 11″ x 14″ paper

Winter break’s over! It felt short yet at the same time when I think back it feels like it’s been a while. Around 4 weeks ago, I set some goals for myself. How did I do?…Not too bad. I predicted that I would fall short, which I did, but I also didn’t anticipate how much work just a couple of my goals were. I am glad to have finished my top two priorities: my GPHD 25 Final Book and crazy drawing of a Japanese Factory. Little over halfway, I added my GPHD 25 process manual to the list as well, so technically finished three things. I also got a good start on contacting local design studios about possible internships for the summer/fall of ’10. Currently that’s on hiatus because I need to talk to one of my professors more about it. Questions I need to ask before I put myself out there are: What area do I want to focus on? What kind of responsibilities would I like to have? Not have? What do I want to get out of the internship experience?

I didn’t finish a design/drawing book nor did I keep up the routine of 1 drawing a day. Most of my time was spent working on my GPHD 25 final book/process manual. This is the class that never ends. I am very happy with my revision of my series 2 – Gestalt. Basically I have to pick six pictures, each showing one of six Gestalts: similarity, proximity, equilibrium, continuation, closure, & figure/ground. All six pictures have to be work together as a Gestalt itself. Gestalt is rooted in the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Looking at the whole will reveal new meaning than looking at just the individual elements. To me, Gestalt is all about relationships. It’s those relationships that form in an entire composition that creates the Gestalt. This reminds me of an entry where I talked about a book I read: Paul Rand: Conversations with Students. One of the quotes I remember is, “Design is a relationship between form and content.”

I was fortunate enough to receive some nice Christmas money as well as be able to work some more hours so I could afford my two new loves: a rotary trimmer (Rotatrim M18) and a large format printer (Canon Pixma Pro Mark II), both of which I got really good deals for. I seriously don’t know how I was working all semester without these tools. I’m trying to focus less of my energy in the craft and more in the intellectual/creative aspect of design. Both are important, but craft to me is mostly a matter of care and patience. Design on the other hand, I don’t think you can ever stop learning.

Here is a visual summary of my winter break.

]]> http://www.teknikaldesign.com/blog/2010/01/26/winter-break-update-2/feed/ 0 http://www.teknikaldesign.com/blog/2010/01/12/winter-break-update/ http://www.teknikaldesign.com/blog/2010/01/12/winter-break-update/#comments Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:42:46 +0000 Peter http://www.teknikaldesign.com/blog/?p=465

Don’t you hate it when you start doubting? I sometimes doubt if design is something I can do. It’s not that I doubt whether or not I really love design or not, but if I can survive? Will I be good enough? Can I handle the responsibility that comes along with the title? I remember reading in a book about some famous designer who was asked what he feared. To my surprise he answered he was insecure all the time; that he wasn’t going to be relevant anymore or jokingly that the world will discover that he’s really just a hoax. That was encouraging in an odd way.

So I set some goals for this winter break. It’s a little over the halfway point and I’ve checked off zero of my goals listed. The first couple weeks were really busy as I was working full time and spending time with family. But now the holidays are over; my out of town family have gone back home and there’s much less hours for me at work. I’m back at it working on my final book from GPHD 25 which is one of the pieces required for the portfolio submission. This class never ends! I had some edits to do on Series 5 (point line plane) and had to redo part of Series 3.3 (stacked interval). I just finished the vellum overlays for Series 3 and 5, which take forever by the way. I’ll post a picture to show you what I mean. Other things I’ve been working on: finally created a cool little email signature when I start emailing studios for potential internship, doing some drawing, and some reading.

On a side note, the day I hoped would never come happened one night when I was cutting out 4×4 squares out of bristol. In one quick motion, the x-acto blade went up and over my t-square, across both my index and thumb. It was so fast I didn’t realize I had cut myself until I saw blood, which luckily did not get on the bristol. The cut looked pretty deep to me, but found out later it wasn’t deep enough to get stitches. It’s been really frustrating because of the time and money I had to waste. Not having a fully functional thumb also makes simple things so much harder to do. I’ll spare you the macro picture. A good thing that came out of this humbling experience was that it pushed me over the edge to invest in a quality rotary trimmer. I was always too cheap to get one, but the experience is way too much of a hassle.

It’s been a long semester. I worked harder in this one semester than any other quarter or year at UCLA. There’s many things I can go into detail about as far as assignments and other design related topics, but I’ll save that for a later entry. I’m unofficially on my winter break right now because I have one exam + 1 paper left. It’s GPHD 05 which is basically my easiest class this semester. As a pre-graphic design student, the work never really stops. Actually, designers in general never really have time to stop learning and moving forward. It’s a constant fight with competition; with staying relevant.

So this winter break, I’m setting some goals for myself to hopefully keep me ahead of the competition. Whenever I set goals though, I’m always overly ambitious, and as a result fail to reach my goals. Well, this time around, nothing’s really changed, but I’m still optimistic about meeting my goals! Here they are in no order of importance:

• maintain a habit my art 20a teacher tried to instill in our class: 1 drawing a day, either from imagination and/or reality
• complete my huge drawing of a Japanese factory (potential portfolio piece)
• complete my GPHD 25 book, spiral bounded and all
• finish my personal promo pieces to send out to potential employers (ex. business card, portfolio take away material, cd)
• contact all the design studios about possible summer/fall internship
• finish one of those books that have been accumulating faster than I can read them

That’s quite a list on top of work work and play as well. I’ll let you know in a month how I do.

I mounted my last photo of the 12 required for my photo 40 class. Luckily I was able to avoid the madness that is going to ensue in the dark room lab in the final week before portfolio submission. I kind of gave up on the last photo due to lack of time and basically compromised for a mediocre photo, but it’s only so that I can put all my effort into GPHD 25. This class takes up so much time. Two weeks never seemed so far away…How should I celebrate the end of the semester? Oh wait, portfolio’s due finals week of next semester, then summer, which means……yep, 1 month to work on my portfolio and start inquiring about internships.

WordPress didn’t make a mistake. I am currently writing this entry at exactly 5:11 am PST. Surprisingly, I’m not up because of school work. I ran into a blog before I was about to doze off and it really got me thinking. About many things in general, much of which I won’t get into, but what really interested me was the honesty and amount of self this person put into their entries. One of the things I couldn’t help but feel was sympathy and empathy for the person. I am so abundantly blessed. So many privileges are given to me, none of which I really deserve.

I have a shelter and a bed to stay warm in. I have clothes to choose from. I don’t have to worry about getting food, I just eat it. I have a means and ability to make money. I am so rich in so many ways. And finally, I get to study what I love: design. Before I started attending Sacramento State, I had actually crossed it off as the last school I’d ever attend for graphic design.

Being away four years in LA gave me that desire to be independent and explore beyond the 97 square mile radius of a city called Sacramento. Ironically as I began applying, each state school shut its doors to second bachelors and I saw my options one by one dwindling. This left about three schools, one of which was Sacramento State. I took this as a message from God telling me I was purposed to go to Sac State. It’s been over a year since then, and I could not be any more grateful than where I am right now. (I recently found out that Sacramento State will stop accepting second bachelors for Fall 2010.)

With all this in mind I need to have an unwavering focus and absolute resolve in school. I am currently working on my portfolio to submit in the Spring to determine my acceptance into the graphic design program. I’ve been working harder now than I have been in my entire four years at UCLA and I feel I’m only at about 70% of what I could be doing. I’m shooting for 110.5%. I hate it when coaches say that because mathematically it’s impossible, but you get the expression.

I am so grateful for the opportunity and putting in everything I have is the least I can do to show for it.

So it’s been about 11 weeks since I’ve had a real post here, which correlates directly with the start of school. It’s a love/hate kind of feeling right now. I love the subject matter I’m learning right now, but hate how much time, energy, and money it takes.

Currently I’m taking a beginning drawing class, art 20a. I enjoy this class because I’m learning so much. Everything from making gesture drawings, to cast shadows, and creating form through just simple shading. It forces me to practice my drawing skills which I feel is my weak point. I’m also taking intro to graphic design, GPHD 05. A very chill class with a funny professor. It balances out the other extreme opposite course, visual basics or GPHD 25. This class probably takes up about 70% of my school work time. It’s based on 5 series: Balance/Tension, Gestalt, Interval, Composition/Communication, and Plane/Line/Dot. Each series requires intense time devoted to the process. The design I’m talking about isn’t the posters you see on the streets, but abstract dots and squares on a 4×4 square format. The process also isn’t what you might think it is either. Process means lots and lots of thumbnails and trying to figure out as many solutions as possible. From the few good thumbs, I then refine those even more. After you decided on one final one, start all over from a different approach.

My last class is intro to black/white photography. Lecture isn’t always engaging because they cover very basic stuff like aperture and dark room protocol, but the dark room lab is always fun. Going out to take photos is also a nice way to relax as well as train my eye. I love to explore and this just gives me an excuse to do that all over Sacramento. Usually I’ll go out in 2-4 hour blocks and looking for any opportunity to capture something interesting. It’s so draining and time consuming, but if I was able to capture at least one great shot then it’s worth it. That’s usually what I strive for. For those of you that have done dark room stuff before, you know that it takes forever just to get one good print. The most fascinating part about it to me is the organic process of developing your own film to enlarging your own prints from a negative. The black and white series I’ve been posting up the last few weeks are some of my photographs from this class.

Graphite on acid free paper, 5 1/2 x 8.
This is my latest assignment from my intro to drawing, art 20a class. We were told to pick a master artist and replicate a drawing of theirs. I chose M.C. Escher, whose style is actually more graphic than fine art. That’s probably why I gravitated towards him for this project.