Blog 21 Mentorship

Literal

• Done
• Ron Martinez - His House (Covina, CA)
• Mimi Orth - Yearbook Elective (Strand's Room)

Interpretive

The most important thing I gained from my mentorship experience was knowledge of how to improve a design. With Mimi constantly coming to help me and the other designers, we got constant feedback on our spreads and kept consistency and a good design template. This was the most important thing I gained because it has helped me work better with others and allowed me to take a leadership role as head design editor and making sure that designs are kept consistent.

Applied

What I have done has helped me answer my EQ by giving me answers and hands on experience that can support those answers. I got my answer 1 from Mimi, answer 2 from Ron, and answer 3 partially from Mimi. I received a lot of mentorship experience that support all three of the answers as well as a possibility for more answers, but they did not apply to yearbook very well.

April: Catching up

So now, I have to catch up on filling in my mentorship log. I've kept up, mostly.. I still have some things I have to add and some old things that I forgot, but I remember the dates and time. THIS IS WHY I NEED TO ORGANIZE BETTER!

Blog 20: Exit Interview

1. What is your EQ and answers? What is your best answer and why?
My EQ is "What is the best way graphic design can be used to augment a yearbook?"
My answers are:

1. White space can be used to augment yearbooks by giving elements on a spread room to breathe.
2. Color theory can be used to augment yearbooks by making the theme of the book stand out with an appropriate color palette.
3. Typography can be used to augment yearbooks by giving the book a personality through its use in headlines and copy.

My best answer is my first answer because it is the most important part of making a yearbook. White space is an integral part of making a yearbook. It is what makes a spread unique and what gives it its form. Without white space, most of graphic design would be useless. Typography would be worthless if you couldn't read it clearly. Colors would be difficult to distinguish if they were all clumped together without space in between.

2. What process did you take to arrive at this answer? 

I arrived at this answer while talking to my first mentor, Mimi Orth about some of our spreads. She talked about our white space issues and how they can make or break a yearbook. At first, I did not believe her. I thought white space was important, but I did not believe that having some errors in white space would quintessentially destroy our yearbook. After some research into the matter, I realized how wrong I was and how utterly important white space is in the creation of a yearbook. 

3. What problems did you face? How did you resolve them?

I did not face many problems in this project, but the few problems I did face plagued me greatly. The biggest issue that stood out to me was finding research. Well not research, but different research. Typically when I look for articles about my three answers, they tend to be the same thing over and over and over again. There is some new information in every single one, but small snippets of useful information are not worth writing an entire cornell note paper on. I solved this issue by expanding my search to ProQuest and finding scholarly text rather than Google search articles. 

4. What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

The two most significant sources I used to answer my EQ were my mentorship and Cameron Chapman's article series, Color Theory for Designers. Mentorship was huge to me because I was able to receive so much information from both Mimi Orth and Ron Martinez, especially with the interviews. Without their help, I would probably be lost. Although color theory was not my best answer, Chapman's series of articles helped me understand color in a way I would never be able to by myself. I was able to understand the deeper meaning of each and every color and I was able to comprehend how colors work together.

Blog 19: Independent Component 2

LITERAL
a. I, Nathan Mira, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.
b. Ron Martinez, my mentor, helped me with my independent component.
c. Done.
d. I chose 5 color palettes and made different graphical pieces using those schemes. They aren't terrible complex because of time constraints, but they aren't absolutely terrible. Except those chips. Man those things are ugly.

INTERPRETIVE
I defend my work with the fact that it took a long time to do all that stuff and I did not fake any of it and the fact that I have pictures of the completed products with their layers here (below) and the actual files on my laptop. Sadly, this time I do not have any 'in progress' photos as I did with my first independent component.

Here are the five pieces with their color palettes either to the right or below the item.

Lava Lamp (1)

Cloak (2)

Xbox 360 Remote (3)

Sad Chips (4)

Patatap (5)

APPLIED

My component helped me answer my EQ because it gave me examples as to how color palette can affect a final product. Originally, some of these post cards had different color palettes, but after cycling through so many , I stuck with the ones I got because they worked the best. Imagine Chill Waters chips (gross, I know) with a red color scheme. It wouldn't work. With things like that to look at while working on this independent component, I got a better understanding of color theory, my second answer to my EQ, but sadly not the most important answer.

Finalizing that third answer

So I just realized I forgot to post this before the third answer blog post, but this post was dedicated to the possible answers competing for the 3rd answer. So yea.

So for my third answer, I have two possible answers and about two more that just suck. The two semi good ones are Visuals and Typography. The two ehh ones that I have are Design Flow and Consistency. Visuals are just images and typography is type, the two main components of a yearbook. I'm leaning towards visuals, but the answer seems too broad, so I might go with typography. I think I might just drop the ehh answers. They could work, but with research so hard to find in those two, there is no point in trying it.

Blog 18: Third Answer

What is the best way graphic design can be used to augment a yearbook?

Typography, the use of type in a creative manner, can augment yearbooks by giving personality to the headlines and copy throughout the book.

Typography can make legal documents less of a pain to read. One typographer turned lawyer implements it in his legal paperwork so that it is less of a hassle to sort through and the judge actually enjoys reading it. (ARTL 14)

Typography is an art; another element to implement correctly. You have to go through a long checklist before you have your type looking the way you want it. (ARTL 30)

Typography can make the main point even more apparent. By using the right type of font, you can solidify an idea. Such as using a cursive font for "Wedding Day" versus a death metal band style font. (ARTL 35)

Typography, an important aspect of yearbook today, is a cornerstone of modern graphic design that is currently heavily focused on in yearbooks today.

Blog 17: Fourth Interview Questions

1. What are some traits that you believe are necessary in a graphic designer?
2. Does type ever play a role in your designs? Why?
3. What importance do you place on type in designs? Or do you believe it changes based on what you are designing?
4. When working on posters, do you ever come up with your own hand drawn font design, or do you stick to already existing fonts?
5. What importance would you place on photos in your designs? Why?
6. In some of your designs, are pictures ever the determining factor in how you make a design work?
7. Have you ever had to work with a design where only bad photos were available? If so, how did you deal with it? If not, how would you deal with it?
8. White space is pretty key in making almost everything graphical. Have you ever had to completely remake a design because some parts of your design just didn't fit?
9. What importance do you place on white space?
10. How do white space and typography work together on your posters? (How do you make typography work with all of the elements present on the poster?)
11. Does color play an important role in your designs?
12. Do you ever use color for its meaning (red for valentine's) or do you simply use it for being a nice color?
13. How important is color in your designs and why?
14. Have you ever had to make or work with a color palette? If so, how was the experience?
15. How many different graphic styles have you worked with? (Such as Minimalism)
16. Do you believe that a cleaner, emptier look is better for designs or should you have a nice amount of content?
17. What design style do you tend to stick with? Or do you mix it up/not stay constant?
18. When you look at [iPoly's 2013] yearbook, what are some graphical issues you see?
19. How would you have dealt with these issues?
20. Other than Typography, photos, white space and color theory, what are some other important elements in your designs?