Artg 135

Almost forgot to upload my resume in the style of my Brand You letterhead.

I know we didn't have to post anything for the final class, but I just wanted to make a post to thank you for bringing this class back this semester. I'm so glad I decided to take it. I felt that the class helped us all learn more about the business side of design through the video lectures and field trips. The personal branding project was perfect because it's something all of us will be able to use in the future and not just pointless busy work. Everything we learned this semester is going to be super helpful for both me and my classmates that are going into portfolio next semester. It'll be my second shot at it, but I feel a lot more solid in who I am as a designer now than I did while I was still in Portfolio B. I really appreciated how relaxed the last class was and how we were able to walk around visual asylum. I had been there once before back when Amy was teaching type 2. She had her final class there too so it was cool seeing the new stuff you guys h...

For our last field trip, we went to Hollis Brand Culture on kettner blvd. Don Hollis was our guide and talked to us about his creative lab. He gave us a brochure with their mission statement on the front that let us know a little about what they're all about. He went on to expand from what the brochure said and then took us on a tour of his business. He first showed us the cool neon sign he has up on the 2nd floor. He told us the story behind it and how it was originally meant for a client but the lights ended up being way too bright so the client didn't want it. He really liked it so he decided to keep it and put it in his business which I found funny. Leading up to the second floor there's a staircase in between the walls with art all over the right wall. There's also a cool little library full of books for research. His office is on the second floor along with one other employee's. The rest of his employees had their own space up on the third...

Today, our guest speaker was Lisel Ferguson; a law attorney that works at Procopio. Her presentation was full of the legal information that graphic designers should be aware of. She talked a lot about copyrights, trademarking, how to search for available domain names, and gave us examples of cases in which a party was infringing the copyrights/trademarks of another party. She did a really good job of explaining everything in a way that made sense  to people that didn't know much about law. We were able to ask her questions at the end of her presentation and some people were able to ask for her advice regarding design situations they or their friends were in. It was great getting to hear her response to those questions because those were all real world examples of why we as designers need to be aware of copyright/trademark laws. None of us want to end up accidentally pissing off a major party who could sue us. I appreciate that she was able to make it to class and ex...

  Our guest speaker today was Jill Dunkery; a representative employee from Neenah paper. I had first heard of Neenah paper in my packaging class with Min last fall. She said they were one of the best paper companies around for both packaging and print. She passed around some of their paper swatchbooks so we could all see and feel the quality of their paper and the different types that they make. Jill started off by showing us a presentation of the history behind Neenah paper, so I got to learn a lot about their origin and just how long they had been in business. I was very impressed when some old footage of the 1930's came up on the screen showing Neenah's workers making paper the old fashioned way. The video then stated Neenah's mission statement and I was able to get a good feel of authenticity from their brand and what they were all about. The presentation then shifted towards the types of paper they make and papeer terminology. Some of it w...

I'm glad I was there for this lecture because MaeLin talked about a lot of things that don't get covered in other design classes. She went over how to organize your digital work files and mentioned how you should always have a hard copy of said files stored somewhere just in case. She also talked about her own journey with graphic design and any mistakes she made to let us know not to do the same things she did. It was a very informative lecture that I think should be taught more often in other design classes because organization is extremely important to employers in the real world.

The final presentation I gave in class. It still needs work, but I love my final logo mark and pattern. I love the fonts I chose too. Just need to work on a better color execution and making the wave more flowy and I think it will get there :)

For my time sheet, I decided to only include things that were design related. I didn't have too much going on outside of brand you though since I had originally enrolled in portfolio B so I kept my class load light. The only other thing I worked on was getting some writing done in advance for my portfolio in the writing workshop we had in my portfolio building class. I researched portfolio writing styles for that class as well as stationery layouts for my brand. I spent some time creating different patterns too in case I wanted more options besides the one I made out of my logo.

Our guest speaker today was Lisa; a bookkeeper who was full of knowledge on accounting and what to do if you want to freelance. She laid out a lot of basic information regarding both topics and also talked about how to file your taxes and how to keep track of them. As a freelancer, you must be organized because you're self-employed and will have no one else to help you manage your clients' jobs (unless you hire someone of course). That's why she recommends hiring a bookkeeper or accountant when you're just starting out to help you keep all your invoices and taxes organized and in check for when tax season arrives. She highly recommends it if you're unorganized or just don't want to deal with numbers. You still have to have some type of organization system in place in regards to your job files. She explained that a lot of accountants prefer when the designer has one in place already as it makes their job of helping them file their taxes a whole lot easi...

Today we had our first guest speakers come to class and talk to us about how creative placement agencies work. Our guests, Amy and Melissa, shared a lot of valuable information with us. They talked about how their specific agency gets hired by different design agencies or clients to search for designers that can help them out on different projects they're working on. They went into detail about how that works, who pays who, how the designer gets paid, and the hunting process they go through to find good designers for their clients. It all sounded complicated at first, but the more they explained how it works, the more I understood the whole process. I had no idea agencies like theirs even existed in the first place before they came to our class. I had always just assumed companies and clients just had a hiring manager/department that took care of recruiting new employees. When they explained the different reasons a client might turn to them, it helped me realize that no ...

Clove st press was very small and quaint compared to some of the other places we went to. Its location is also very unusual. It's almost near the end of Morena blvd. so it's pretty easy to get lost if you don't know where you're going and don't keep going straight into the business warehouse area. Locating the business itself among the other similar looking buildings was a challenge of its own. That's why it surprised me when Daniel said he never self promoted, but always had a steady stream of clients and regulars. He said he'd obtain work mostly through word of mouth, so I was very impressed since his business is so far out and there are other printers in town to compete against.  A lot of us were wondering how he was doing so well so he explained the type of printing he does. His business uses a lot of authentic, old school presses to achieve a sort of modernized version of the old typewriter/vintage style. When he first started his busines...

This field trip was great because I had never been behind the scenes of a printing shop. We all sat at a table and got to meet Steven, who then told us some history behind the company. He also told us about how printers work, the types of color profiles there are and what they're best used for, and the different types of paper there are. He had a lot of beautiful samples in the room that he passed around for us to be able to feel the difference between different types of paper. A lot of the paper information I had heard before in other classes, so it was nice to be able to see different samples of the coated and uncoated paper in person.  Steven then gave us a tour of the facility which (in my opinion) looked smaller on the outside but was actually very big and spacious on the inside. They had so many machines and printers as well as huge stocks of paper. We even got to see one of his employees cut huge piles of paper using a paper slicing machine which was really...