Indicia

Use Illustrator to create two stationery templates (one landscape, one portrait) for your course binder. Include your full name, a place for the project name when applicable, the date, the class and the meeting time. The stationery must fit letter-sized paper (no bleeds) , be greyscale, and have an unobtrusive but polished appearance. Choose fonts that you will be able to use consistently.This indicia should appear on all prints of artwork in your design binder to be turned in at midterm.

Composition Studies Group I

Use Illustrator to create non-objective greyscale graphic representations of the adjectives listed.
Enclose each within a 2.5” square format. Arrange the final graphics in a labeled grid and print on
letter-sized paper with your indicia.

rippling
coarse

dense
atmospheric

rotating
scintillating

Color Mixing

CMYK Color mixing
Color Wheel and Color Bars

Use Illustrator’s cmyk palette and mixers to create a traditional color wheel with primaries, secondaries and tertiaries. Create an organized design which establishes a hierarchy among the colors. Letter-sized document with your indicia.

Color blocks

Exercise examining color relativity, also called "simultaneous contrast" in the format described in Johannes Itten's Elements of Color. 9 pairs demonstrating your ability to manipulate color perception.

Bezier Exercise

Use Adobe Illustrator to create two scalable weighted-contour line illustrations of thereference image supplied.

Reading: Online Adobe Help Center file topics Drawing Tool Gallery, Stroke, Create & Modify Gradient.

Version 1: All objects and lines in the file must have a white fill or no fill, and must have a black stroke. The line weights will vary and will contribute as much information as possible about the nature of the object depicted. For instance, considered use of line can convey textures, structure, transparency, among other qualities. Do not create any background or environmental elements. The illustration may also have variable-weight contours.

Version 2: The same subject, but using greyscale fills and gradients, with or without strokes.

Place the two illustrations in one file with your indecia.

Didactic Sequence

Must have at least 5 panels, and must utilize weighted contour lines that function in at least two ways: both symbolic/heiroglyphic and as visual description.

Any photo or drawing references used for this project must be your original work; be prepared to turn in or show all preliminary artwork and
photography. Keep a suitable archive or hardcopies.

Initial storyboard drawings

Bring complete reference material to class

Final storyboard and sample panel showing chosen technique applied due 2/13 for in-progress discussion.

Final artwork due .... Present it for critique mounted neatly; its total longest overall dimension is to be at least 24."

Optional: color, fills, gradients, text

Compositional Studies Group II

Have computer files ready to turn in at this time, letter-sized documents with your indecia. You will be printing the final versions of these and putting them in plastic sleeves as part of your binder to be turned in at midterm.

Reading: Design Basics Index
Pages 10-89

Grouping
Create your own versions of the grouping compositional studies on the bottom of page 42.
Using square formats and a palette of the same objects, create three greyscale compositions examining
balance, disorder, and pleasing asymmetry. These may be non-objective, as in the book’s example, or they may contain photos and type elements.

Hierarchy
Using the same elements, rescale each and create inverted hierarchy studies; see pgs. 66 & 67 for an example.
Utilize type elements paired with an image element, which may be photography or illustration. In one composition, make the type elements strongly dominant, in the second composition, make the image element dominant.

Self Portrait Photo Editing

Create two versions of photographic self-portraits using photoshop:

1. Transparent editing; Photoshop as a darkroom. Improve and correct photo.

2. Overt Editing; Photoshop as an illustration and collage application. Transmogrify yourself according to the approach of Nevada Day (Halloween).

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Book cover design
Due November 4

Design a cover for a published book. The book may be a textbook or reference, nonfiction or fiction. It may be a children's book or a graphic novel. You may design a (slip)cover that would be a design for a hard bound book, or the cover for a paperback version. It is required that you have read the book; be prepared to discuss the way your design supports the text.
Your design will utilize only the copy content of the existing cover design(s). All visual elemants are to be created by you. The design is to executed primarily in Photoshop, however, the typographic design may be built in Adobe Illustrator.

For Tuesday,10/28
have ready for class three concept mock ups, either as computer files or as hand drawn sketches (or combination) showing three different viable cover concepts. Have in class any material (photography, references, etc) you need to execute the chosen cover design., as well as the copy needed for the front, back, spine, inside flaps.
Work up the files at 300 dpi at full size. Make certain any source material that you may be using in the design is at a suitably high resolution for a production-quality file. Save your work in native format (psd) and edit in rgb mode.

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In-Class Pathfinder Exercise

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AfterEffects Sampler

As a preparatory In-class technical exercise, create a basic "sampler" sequence with the following required technical components: keyframe edits of scale, position, opacity, and rotation.

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Kineticon=Kinetic Icon Due 11/27

Concept sketches or digital rough comps are due on Monday. Have source files ready to work during class this day.

This project may be a symbol graphic, a logo-like graphic, or an artwork image that moves or has moving elements. Unlike the sampler project described above, this project is to demonstrate considered and effective use of movement and/or a sequence of changes over time. The kineticon must seamlessly loop. You may determine the pixel dimension and the nature of the source imagery. The kineticon may be concieved of as serving a particular purpose, for instance it may be an animating logo that would be a television station or show identifier (or similar), or part of a flash webpage, or an "attract " for an informational kiosk or game. As another possibility, the kineticon may be a singular stand-alone piece of artwork that could be displayed or projected.

Consider ways in which traditional forms and elements of visual-arts (composition, color, contrast, etc.) are altered and enhanced by changing over time.
In thinking about visual artwork that is time-based, many traditionally musical terms and concepts have relevance. Successful time-based visual artworks will make effective use of tempo and rhythm, for instance. What might "dynamics" which is lifted from music's vocabulary, look like? For your presentation of your work, be prepared to talk about your asthetic decisions that take change over time into account.

Final Project ART 156

Preparatory reading: pp 40-97 Design Basics Index.

A Motion Graphics sequence to be executed in After Effects (Or Flash if you prefer). Source files may include video footage, still artwork from Photoshop or Illustrator, still photography, scanned drawing, direct-scanned found material, 3D renderings and animations. The project may (but is not required to) include sound. The sound may be in the form of sampled, downloaded,or fabricated sound, sound effects, or music, or multilayered tracks and combinations of these.