Handout
Poster
Shirt
My word for this project was bleeds. I decided to go with a humorous approach on my poster, handout, t-shirt, and presentation, and use the image of a person literally bleeding off of the page. I liked the idea of using the margins, page edges, and bleeds as they are represented in InDesign, but I wanted to give them a little more character, so I drew them with a brush in Illustrator. I also wanted to use many of them in my poster to create an interesting pattern.
For my Zen Garden site, I decided to design everything around firecrackers. I couldn’t find any good stock photos of firecrackers, so I bought a few different types and took some photos of them myself. When looking through the other Zen Garden submissions, I was really drawn to the ones that had the body copy pushed to one side of the screen so I put my content on the right and the trail of fire crackers to the left. My colors were pulled directly from the images, and they have a good amount of contrast so that it will be easy to read. I chose the font Herrliches Script because it resembles a fuse.
The Clumsy Chupacabra is a children’s book about a chupacabra named Eduardo who is too clumsy to catch and eat goats, a chupacabra’s favorite food. He gets a lot of teasing for this from his friends, and even the goats are laughing at him. One day, just when he’s had enough of his friends teasing, someone happens to catch him on camera trying (and failing) to catch another goat, and it becomes an overnight Internet sensation.
I decided that the images should be a bit sketchy because it felt right for the character of the story. Since this book is mostly for children, I will write it in a straightforward, easy to follow style. At the same time, I wanted it to be funny and entertaining enough that even adults will enjoy reading it to their kids. It could also appeal to children younger than the age of the main target audience since the pictures will be vibrant and, like the text, funny.
First walking into Paper Plus was actually really overwhelming. There were so many different types of paper to choose from, I really don’t know how I would go about choosing the right kind of paper if I needed any at this point. Just like the actual printing process, there’s just so much that you have to take into consideration when picking out the right type of paper.
Alex, who talked to us some about the different types of paper, told us that they usually do business with print shops like Allegra and Williams Visual Solutions. He also talked to us about the grain of the paper, which is important to take into consideration with thicker papers if you want to fold it, since if it’s folded against the grain, it will be a rougher looking fold. Also, we were told that it’s cheaper to buy paper directly from the paper company and give it to the printer to print on instead of buying the paper through the printing company; plus, they are open to the public, which is rare among paper stores.
I think everyone was really surprised about how many print samples we were all aloud to take home with us. They deserve a big thank you for that since I think we almost cleared them out completely.
For my logo, I wanted to use a shape that had to do with “the wild”, but not something that was too overused. I finally came to this tree shape. It’s an organic shape, but at the same time, it has a technical look to it with its squared off branches and roots. I think one of the things that really works for it is that it also looks like other things like speech bubbles or a sort of nervous system. It’s an interesting shape that should be fun to experiment with and might be used for many elements in the website.
The image came fairly easily to me, but the typography was where I had a lot of trouble. I had a hard time finding a typeface that complimented the image well. I wanted to find one that was similar enough to the quality of the image that it looked cohesive, but at the same time, I wanted it to have some contrast so that it didn’t look flat. Not only was the right typeface hard to find, but the actual title Web in the Wild was difficult to work with. I tried at first just making it sit beside the image on one line, but since the image is so vertically oriented, the horizontally oriented text looked awkward. I finally settled on stacking the text and letting it drop below the bottom of the image, so it sort of mirrors it and balances it out.
For the color pallet, I decided to use browns and greens. I’ll probably make the browns and the light, mint green as the main colors and use the greens sparingly, since the brighter greens tend to be overused.
I thought this map was interesting because by simply flipping the continent of Europe, it becomes almost unrecognizable.
This is a map of the different routes of the Mississippi River over time. The colors in this are beautiful, and I love the motion the different streams create.
This is a map of the number of suicides committed on the Golden Gate Bridge by location according to the nearest light pole. Just the behavioral patterns are interesting to see and raise a lot of questions, like why the majority chose one side of the bridge as opposed to the other.
This “map to success”"seemed really relevant to our project since it comments on social status with regard to places in a town.
It’s really interesting to see in this map the amount of time it takes for a broadcast to travel, and the concept of it still being out there in space after close to a century is really strange.
Alex Ogle, Josiah Roe, and Stephen Bush were able to come again today to answer any questions we had. A lot of the discussion was about maintaining good relationships with your clients, other companies you’re working with, and other departments within your own company. Like any other workplace, personalities can often clash, especially when people within different areas of work tend to be wired differently and think in a different way than someone from another department might be. You really have to have respect for other people’s opinions and remember that they have something relevant to bring to the table just like you do. And when working with a client, you have to realize that they may not have very much experience at all with computers or the Internet in general, so it’s important to be patient if they don’t understand some things that you’re trying to get across.
They also went over a lot of the types of things they want to hear and see in interviews and resumes. For instance, it would make more since if you’re applying for a job in web development to include experience having to do with web development specifically instead of making them have to sift through things that really have nothing to do with skills required for the job. And most importantly, you should ask questions if you aren’t sure of the best way to do something. You aren’t expected to know everything, and employers want to see that you have a desire to learn new things.
So once again, thanks to all the people at Tubatomic and Medium who gave their time to give us a little peek into the “real world” of web media. I think I can speak for everyone when I say that we learned a LOT and really appreciate your time.
Yesterday, we were able to visit Williams Visual Solutions. Bubba Williams, the grandson of the founder of Williams Visual solutions, Levi Williams, showed us around to the different departments of the shop. Levi Williams founded the business in 1947 beginning with a simple linotype just like the one we saw at the Chattanooga Times Free Press, and soon evolved into a full service printer.
They have six designers in their creative department who set up files and make adjustments using Adobe Creative Suite. Like the design department at Allegra, they prefer work to be submitted as a PDF file.
Their digital press is an HP Indigo Press 5000, and unlike other large printers like the Epson, this machine is actually considered a “press” instead of just a huge printer. This printer is capable of outputting much more vibrant colors than the offset press, using a total of six colors and up to 818 dpi. It can print on vinyl, polyester, and teflon since the temperatures inside the printer are relatively low. It’s a slower printer, but it’s more economical since it requires no plates, and it allows for more control of the output. The offset press prints one less color than the digital, but it can print on a much larger sheet.
After the tour, the business development director, David Smith, explained a bit about the business side of their work. Some of their biggest clients are Sears, Ringling Bros. Circus, and Disney On Ice.
I think we were all really impressed with this place, and I want to thank them for letting us see what they’re all about (and for the pizza!)
*pictures to be added
Our speakers yesterday were Stephen Bush and Noah Burney from Medium and Jason Fritz from Tubatomic who talked about and demonstrated some of the basics of html. I had actually had a bit of experience with programming and javascript, and I had honestly found it extremely confusing. I was surprised, however, to find what we did much more straightforward and less complicated than what I had worked with in my previous computer science class. After explaining a bit about the basics of coding, we were able to actually play around with putting together a webpage.
Since we hadn’t had much experience in class at all with actually writing code, it was interesting to see exactly how it all worked and to see exactly what each line did and how it looked if it was changed. A really helpful program we were given was firebug, which allowed you to go to any page, see the code that makes it up and even change it if you wanted to. It made me feel a lot better about having to write code for our Web in the Wild project, and I feel like I could have a lot of fun testing out exactly what I can do with it.
I think out of all of the speakers so far, I learned the most from Stephen, Noah, and Jason simply because we hadn’t really gotten into coding yet and we were able to actually work with it instead of just see it written in a book.
Chattanooga Times Free Press
Last Thursday, our Process and Materials class was able to take a tour of the Chattanooga Times Free Press building. First, we started at the “Newseum” where they had several example of old printing equipment including a Washington Press, Linotype, Associated Press, and a Platen Press. There was also a collection of glass negatives thought to be from a fifty year anniversary/reenactment of the civil war.
Linotype
We then went upstairs to the newsroom where editors and graphic artists worked where each editor writes for a specific section of the paper. We were told that they had changed to using a semi-darkroom where photographers make sure the colors translate well from computer to print. Since the paper can only print in 2000 colors, there is no way to predict how they will turn out just by looking at them on the computer screen.
Newsroom
Negative and printing plate
The printer in the press room was amazing to see. It measures ten feet wide, one hundred feet long, and thirty seven feet tall, and each unit runs independently. The entire press is about three hundred tons of dead weight (not counting the vibrations it makes when it’s running), so it’s all built on its own foundation. Each unit is a one million dollar investment and the press spends about forty to forty-two million dollars a year to print their papers.
Paper in press
We were all very impressed with everything we were able to see, and I want to thank the Vice President of Operations, Frank Anthony, who took us on the tour for taking the time to let us see how everything works and for answering our questions.
*All pictures taken by Austin Reed.
