December 2, 2009

Time passes so fast, today was the second class to the last. Jimmy outlined what we learned during this semester on the board, including how to analyze a project, how to initiate a research, how to develop sources, how to articulate visual concepts with informative and accurate sketches, how to generate different ideas and how to apply those concepts. Wow, I didn’t realize that I had learned that much if without the review. Jimmy also asked us to review the goals we wrote down on a card at the first day of the class, and ask ourselves, did I reach my goals? My goal was to understand the way creating a good idea, and evaluating the ideas. Maybe I’m still a neophyte with immature skills in the field of concept development, but this class gave me a chance to take my first step. As what Jimmy described, this class was a course of creative process, self analyzes, structure, and divergent thinking, I believed it would serve as a foundation for my design career in the future.


Adjectives:
terrific
sabbatical
sacrificial

November 30, 2009

We were required to present three things about ourselves in front of the class in today’s class, two of which should be true, another should be lie. We needed to try our best to fool the class so that no one could tell the truth. It sounded like a game, but actually not too easy for me. I would be nervous even telling the truth in public; how nervous could you imagine if I was lying? The three things I picked were about my background, my job and my family. Maybe my sentences were too short, each of them was believed by half and half of our classmates. The point of this game was confidence. As what Jimmy said, if we were not honest in our presentation, we had to be convincing. If we were not confident for our presentation, how could we convince our audience? Afterward, we were asked to tell a short story about our past weekend. Even though Thanksgivings is a traditional holiday in the US for the families get together, my family is too far away. I didn’t have too much to do except enjoying the after-thanksgivings shopping.

Adjectives:
humanistic
consensual
confidential

November 23

We always had something new in the class, which might be what Jimmy tried to tell us, concept development should not be restricted within a certain frame, just like his class. After we evaluated our posters with the creative briefs by each other, Jimmy asked us to close our eyes, listen to his story and imagine the scene following his story. Jimmy said, we were inside of a cave, then we saw a door with our name, then we opened it…. He stopped right there and asked us to draw down what we saw…. What I saw? Interesting… um… I saw a goddess from the moon! It’s so holy and peaceful, strongly contrary to the dark cave. At the end of the class, we were told that our final project was a visual map describing our creative process. I thought I would need more research about it.

Adjectives:
consecutive
phenomenal
precious

Creative Brief - November 18

Today’s topic was creative brief and design research. Creative briefs generally include project background, objectives and strategies to target audience, which can be reached from a series of simple questions in connection with location, budgets, time frame, etc. In order to make it more interesting, we used lesbian night club as an example for discussion in the class. Obviously, everybody had some general idea about the lesbian night club, but when we were asked to use one single message to catch the attention, we hesitated. Eventually, we came out an idea to iconize a hat, which was used to deliver some message like “women only”, “dress neutral”, “mysterious”, etc. A good single icon is better than multiple ones because it is easy to impress the public and differentiate our client from other clubs.

Creative brief serves as a guideline for the graphic design, under which our creative idea will be more organized.

Adjectives:
iconic
tough
realistic

Monday, November 16, 2009

As usual, I sat at the back, and waited for the class started. But when Jimmy got in, he asked us to sit in alphabetic order by our names. He also required us to sit in different seat every time. It sounded like just a little adjustment, but it actually tried to change our accustomed behaviors. When we got used to certain surroundings, we normally would go back to the same place, either consciously or unconsciously. Such accustomed behaviors were the barriers in creation. Because of the custom, we lost our curiosity about the surroundings; because of the custom, we were afraid of changes; because of the custom, we had no idea how to respond to any unexpectation. However, one of the basic conditions for a good graphic designer is to explore different areas of artwork, to meet new people, to appreciate new ideas, and so on.

Then we started to share what we remembered or what we felt interested in Kim Baer. All of us had different highlight about Kim Baer. I was impressive with her passion for design and her persistence in her career. As what she said, “It's important to renew my job once I have engaged in a career that I plan on staying in.” I believed her success should be attributable to her persistence.

The next subject in the class was to evaluate our sketches by each other. We were required to present our sketches, and pick one for discussion, such as the idea or concept of the sketch, which was graded by the whole class from excellent, good or bad. Even though it was not restricted grading, it was still kind of motivation for me to try my best.

Adjectives:
conscious
intellective
intelligent

Kim Baer

It was nice experience to attend Kim Baer's presentation,
Which was so inspiring to the greener like us in the field
of design. Baer is a well-known designer in Los Angeles
and the founder of a design. Baer is a well-known designer
in Los Angeles and the founder of a design studio called
"KBDA", located in the city of Pasadena. The topic of Baer's
Presentation was "A Lif of Graphic Design: 30 Years of
Fantastic Fourth-Grade Field Trips", during which Baer
shared her knowledge and experience with us, such as
how she reached her goal via hard working, what was
her attitude when encountering the difficulty. It was no
doubt that her success resulted from her passion for
design and her persistence in her career. "It's important
to renew my job once I have engaged ina career that I
plan on staying in."
Similar to most of the designers, Baer's road to success
is not even. But she never gave up in front of the barrier.
As what she said, she never felt regretful about what she
did; she still would make the same decision if she had a
chance to go back into time and made some changes.
During the presentation, Baer used the real cases she had
worked on to bring up 4tips to the future designers: 1.Intensive
Curious; 2. Hard Working; 3. Drawing; and 4.Focus on
Typography. It sounds easy, but how many we can apply
persistently during our whole career?

Adjectives:

fabulous
brilliant
competent

On Wednesday class was movie day, Jimmy had a bunch of
clips from TED and other events for us to watch today. Most
of the speakers were graphic designers that were highly
involved in the field. The first speaker we saw was Scott
McCloud. His explanations of comics and how they are read.
was very enthusiastic. The second speaker was John Maeda.
He also was very entertaining to watch. The free-flowing of his
presentation was smooth. Milton Glaser was the third video
we watched. Milton has been a huge part of the design world
and it was pleasant to hear his opinions on things. The last
speaker we saw was paula scher. She explained her history
and techniques and why she did things certain ways. She has
been such an icon in the design world it was also entertaining
to hear her presentation.

Adjectives:
Enthusiastic: Belief in special revelation of the holy spirit.
Technicolored:
eligible

The Game Of Life

On monday class, the whole class time we played games in

groups. It was interesting to see all the different games that

pelple brought to play. Our group played two games, the first

one was the game of life. I never played before. The game

simulates a person's travels through his life. Go to college,

choose a career, get married, start a family, buya house, and

retire; the player with the highest worth at the end of the

game is the winner. I first time to played this game, but I won.

I think based on luck. The game of life is a fun, engaging game

that can be played by the whole family. Our homework for

wednesday is to map out the game that we played .what is the

experience of the game? What was your experience playing

the game?

Adjectives:

amused

anabolic

neutral