I Don't Smell.

Playing around with promotional posters for a show on Paul Rand. Final some point soon.

Playing around with the typeface.

The work continues on my first ever typeface. Its been a long time coming, it might be done by May! haha

There were one or two other things I left out, either because I forgot them, or didn’t scan them in, but for the most part, that was everything I made for Visual Literacy with Richard Wilde last semester. I didn’t re-post my visual diary project, because that was already on here, and the print out wasn’t that great, but I got an A/A- on that. While I was scanning all my stuff in today, some random kid tapped me on the shoulder though, and pointed at it and just said “Good job. Great feel to it.” and walked away. I figure he had to go though the same assignment too. It’s like a traumatic event or something.

But anyways, I had a lot of fun in the class, even though I wasn’t always getting enough sleep due to poor time management (having a social life). It’s a class I would certainly consider taking again, if I was a little bit crazier or had a more open schedule. The cool part though, was that the students who received an A+ for their overall grade for the class were automatically considered for scholarships and other wonderful things for junior year. I missed a couple assignments and never re-did my “Zen project” dur to bitterness, so I figured I would miss it, but on the day of getting all our work back I was pleasantly surprised with this letter. I was so happy.

For this assignment, we had to make two postcards with some sort of message on them, and actually send them through the mail, so they would not only be seen by the recipient (Richard Wilde) but also by any postal worker that handled them. I totally copped out on this one, but there was some cool stuff that got sent, disposable cameras attached to instructions telling anyone that handled it to take some pictures, humorously over-sized envelopes, etc. I ran out of time on this one and had to do something quick so I recycled my ever-so-loved (personally, at least) color wheel. I added the message for a little extra oomph, even though it might be a little bit of an overstatement (I needed the right amount of text to justify! I still love you guys!) and all went well.

A/A

Good Riddance. Seeing this project is just a reminder of how bat-shit-insane America gets at times. For this project we were given a sheet with five targets printed on it, and we were told to make a “personal, political, or purely graphic statement” in whatever way we saw fit, I noticed that I could butcher up the assignment sheet a bit, and use the top two most for eyes, the middle for a mouth and the bottom for GASP breasts. This assignment was given in the height of the election season, well before it was known what our next four years would look like, and I did the only thing I saw fit in this situation, take the easy shot at Palin. Not too much of the original sheet can be seen through the layers of paint, but I was pleased with how it came out. On my walk from the east side to the west side after class while carrying this, I had two people litterally cheer, and one stopped me to take a photo of my artwork so he could “send it to all his friends”. I was pretty proud of this little art-baby, but looking back now, all I can say is that I am happy it doesn’t still hold the impact it did when the idea that she could be “a heartbeat away from our presidency” was still a legit concern.

Richard saved this image for last during his weekly sideshow and hyped it up before actually showing it. On the back he wrote “One of best in class!” Ego boost! especially since it was right next to the following grade:

A++/A++

For this project, we were told to illustrate the sum of our parts (ourselves) by filling in the blanks in a series of equations. I skipped this project straight up. Just didn’t want to do it because I couldn’t think of what to do. I had a list of 20 things that I thought made up myself, and thought they were all dumb, or too hard to fit into the equations. I saw the solutions that the rest of the class provided the following week and realized I had been over thinking it, so I went back and just had fun with it. It was kinda crazy, a lot of my fellow sophomores depicted that in five years they would be married or have kids. I don’t normally feel old, but I did some serious life evaluation that day, and came to the conclusion that they were all crazy Korean kids or something and told myself to quit worrying about it.

But whatever, I mean my body + my head = me, right? And also, the only difference between me now and me in five years is a tie.

Even though I wear those a lot now, for no reason.

A-/A-

For this assignment Richard gave us two or three sheets of icons and wingdings and other various clip art type things, and told us that we had to illustrate a series of nursery rhymes using only the provided art. We were free to manipulate or duplicate what was given in any way we saw fit, but we could not add outside things, and we were limited to black and white. I busted my ass for this assignment trying to come up with some stuff I knew no one else would attempt, and it payed off. I was particularly proud of making a laughing dog out of the head of a duck, a target, and some leaf shapes for ears. Also in the same panel, that curved shape that makes up the “HAHAHAHAHAH” was made entirely out of the shape that is seen two panels below it. My dish running away with the spoon and the woman who lived in the shoe were both featured on screen.

A/A

One of my favorite projects for this class, we were instructed to come up with an object or concept that could be seen from many different points of view. It was a very fun project to see in class because everyone did surprisingly different work from each other, even if some ideas overlapped. We had to make an initial list of 18 different points of view for our selected object, and then illustrate our 6 favorite. My selection was “Mirror” and I was pretty happy with my solutions. The acne one still grosses me out, even though I made it, and I consider the Pervert one to be one of my better puns to date but I don’t think he agreed, as it wasn’t featured on screen. The Muslim woman, Acne, and Vampire all were though, as well as the overall piece, so I was happy anyway.

A+/A+

Ps. Special thanks to Henry for his help on panel #2

Another early project, this one was a bit of a curve-ball. Given some words and concepts, we were visually describe how they sound. This one straight fucked me up. Seriously, so ridiculously frustrating, because really there is no right or wrong answer. I racked my brain for a good amount of time on many of the concepts, before I eventually broke down towards the end and just got crazy. You’ll notice on the “School Bus Filled With Children” panel, I got a little frustrated in trying to think of how to describe such a thing and just went my own way on it. I think its about the cutest damned child eating school bus I’ve ever seen though, so I was quite happy with it. The text that is hard to read under the music note reads “singing off key”.

A/A

This assignment came fairly early in the year, when we were still getting used to the conceptual work we had to do for this class, and I think it kinda shows. For this assignment we had to describe certain issues prevalent in New York City by using only what can be seen on a taxi cab. Anything included in that was fair game, from the license plate to the air freshener hanging from the rear view. The solutions are not overwhelmingly creative, but I was proud of some of them. The over crowded group of people hailing taxi’s was featured on the screen, so I was happy about that.

A/A

You’ve already seen this one before, but here is some more detail on it. The assignment was to illustrate several given facets of ourselves which were provided by Richard (I do not claim to be Picasso) and illustrate them using only typographical forms. While I felt that some of the solutions I provided were cop-outs and overly simple, I had a lot of fun with some of them, the conveyer belt in the first one is the letters of NICHOLAS just flowing one into the other, the frosting on the cake is made of tiny letters, etc. etc.

Easter Egg: Since this project was all about us, I wanted to do my best to not reach outside of my own work. When I was working on the postal worker solution I knew that I wanted to go with the details found on an envelope to express who I am. The mailing address is barely seen, but was addressed to myself, the cancellation is my actual birthday, and the stamp that is included can be found on this very website, in a project from last year where I had to make my own stamps.

He was very happy with this, and therefore so was I. Received A+/A+

I am fairly certain this was our first assignment of the school year. We were instructed to make a list of the sort of average personalities you would find in the students in a grade school classroom, as well as the teacher. We then had to visually apply these personalities to a piece of notebook paper. Richard normally wasn’t a fan of computer generated work when the end result could have been achieved by hand, but he took time in his lecture to point out that I had used the computer as a tool do do certain things that would have just taken too long if done by hand. Woo computers. I had a lot of fun with this one, making these little tiny sheets of paper and then fucking with them in my own ways. I think I ended up making 25 in total, and then cutting some, which just goes to show I got into it a little bit.

My favorites in this one are most definitely the subtle solutions. The exchange student happens to be the only sheet with holes punched into it, and the smelly kid is simply just offset a bit, because no one wants to sit close to him. Some concepts were repeated in the class, but I was very happy with how mine stacked up visually compared to others.

A+/A

Starting off with the worst. Our assignment this week was pretty much to go with the flow, to draw whatever we wanted based on the series of grids provided on the homework sheet. Emphasis was made on the fact that the assignment should not be over thought, but I guess I took that too far to the extreme. This work was quick and rushed, and by no means am I especially proud of it, and the grade also shows it. I recieved two C-’s for this assignment (concept/execution) which is the lowest grade possible.

I am only posting this because I am still bitter about it. People made crazy self portraits and stuff, entirely not spur of the moment in the least, so whatever. Disregard.

C-/C-