Would I do Pro Bono Work?

Doing free work could depend in different situations. For myself doing free work is not an issue when doing work for people such as close friends and for the church for it is my service to the church and a gift to my friends for special occasions. But there is certainly a limit when agreeing to do a free work. A limit for friends because doing design work does take time. In the end I am not obligated to do any free work but I would do free work to for some people.

If its not free then the price would be cut down a lot depending who I am doing it for, family, or friend. One example is, recently I have been asked to do an invitation for a friends 18^th birthday. I was asked if I wanted to get paid and I thought right away that making an invitation could just replace a gift that I could give for her. So it really depends in the situation weather I would do pro bono work.

AIGA Competition & Design Trends

Watching the overall AIGA competition was quite intriguing for me because I was curious who and what solutions the competitors would come up with during the presentation/critique. In the end I was surprise by the overall solutions that the competitors came up with. As I had mentioned before from my part 1 reflection about the competition I question if they are still the best student design from all the choice since I am surrounded by great designers in my class.

I was a bit disappointed by how the judges critiqued the work of the students since I was expecting more of a constructive criticism rather than helpless humour that they seem to do in each work that are up.

Overall I am intrigued by the overall competition and look forward to see other related competitions.

The design trends that I noticed through ot the competition was humour. Many designs seem to come up with humourous solutions; This for me only works because it does have a longer impact than having a great design, if it is the main goal of a product or service. But for me I believe that designs should not be judged based on humour but the concept and how well

Another trend is offering experience. I have noticed that many of the work that they have done seem to offer experience that made an emotional experience to the audience that made the work a lot more effective, which is probably one of the reasons that Michelle Narcisi had won because she had made an emotional connection.

Is Writing Design? AIGIA response

Is writing really design? In my opinion I believe that writing is a starting point of a design but necessarily design itself. When I say writing I am talking about an essay written on a word document with default Times New Roman Type, set on a 12 point font. Basing on the AIGA command X competition, The reason Michelle had won the competition is because the writing contained a powerful meaning at the same time arranging her text perfectly that the word “Except you”. Also I believe that writing is design once it is written creatively. An example are creatively written writing are poetry, music lyrics and or strategically written writing just like Matthew has done with design piece for the competition. Overall I believe that writing is only becomes a design if it is made with an artistic intent.

Subliminal Messaging

I’ve had this video for a while and I thought that it fits well in graphic design field and also advertising. This video is about a British Magician/Physiological Illusionist named Derren Brown who does experiments with people, playing with their physiological thinking.

In this episode Derren Brown holds an experiment about subliminal advertising. How messages sticks to our minds consciously and subconsciously. In this episode he hires two advertisers to do a adverting job for him, after driving the two across the city. Before Darren brown has asked them to do a job he does his own rendition and predicted how their final designs would look at the end. The result was shocking to me for the result was almost completely alike design wise and concept wise. But what the two didn’t know that in the he explains to them in the end of their job is that he had carefully placed different signifiers and objects that he knows will affect their concept and design piece.

This is a great example of how we as designers are affected by messages such as advertising, logos, objects and more on how we design. How we design is pretty much a collection of messages we take in each day. This sets a trend that carries across for years until a new trend comes along that we designers transition into.

Design Works That I Refuse To Do.

This has always been on my mind when thinking about working in the field of graphic design. If I were asked I would refuse design work that go against my moral beliefs. These are basic things such as, promotion of sexuality, drug use such as cigarettes, discrimination, and homosexuality. Though I am not totally against some of the issue, I believe that it is just right not to promote such things when I do not agree with it.

Being a Christian, I believe that those are some issues I hope not to tackle or encounter in the future, but if I do, I will have no second thoughts of accepting such jobs. Even huge amount of money is involve. In doing this, I know I will earn self respect for being able to stand for what I believe in. I will stand up for my own moral beliefs as a Christian no matter what.

Source: Cap.org

Delivering Experience: In-Class

Looking at ads and designs that are out there, it is evident that advertisements and graphic design is moving to delivering an experience. Everyday we are targeted by ads and products that promise us that we will feel good or better if we try what the advertisement has to offer. I will have to say that this is the best way to hit the target because people want to see the outcome for using the promoted product.

A great example in my opinion is the IPod ads that ran few months ago. Why is this good example and effective? It’s because it offered an experience that listening to IPod brings. This is probably one of the reasons why I purchase one myself. Watching the commercial ads made me feel that owning an IPod is the best decision I could make when deciding to purchase a quality product.

Let’s face it, as graphic designer I believe that the best way to hit a target’s interest is to find out the most appealing experience they would like to have. This is also why in my opinion music videos today are successful to younger teens because they offer sexuality that seem to be successful although the lyrics do not make any sense at all.

Overall, I believe that in the end ad graphics and graphic design will lead to a total experience delivery. Because people likes to feel good and see the experience they will get when using a product.

Source: Apple Ads

The Future of the Church

The future of the church? amazing structural design that shocked me. This could verywell be the future look of a church. Certainly would make people to want to go to church. At first I thought that it was a office building untill I read what the article is about Chinest largest christian church designed by Architect GMP. But the church design is not all looks, all the vertical lines are to reprsents reaching the heavens and the open concept is to show the openess and enlightenment.

Great concept! certainly make sense to me. I just wonder if this will be carried out in the future. But I am certainly happy to a church that looks like this.

I wonder how much this church cost to build?

Designed by: Architect GMP
Source: Yanko Designs

Genealogy Ad

I was browsing ads of the world and I saw this ad about a show doing a special about genealogy. At first I thought that this ad was an ordinary ad until I carefuly examined it and find that the photo is made out of nude models of every race. I was shocked when I discovered this and I realized the great concept behind this ad piece. The message comes across strong and at the same time it is fascinating how this ad piece have been made.

The only problem with the ad is that it is not distinctive enough to realize that the face is made out of nude models since they are very small. Otherwise, it still works

Advertising Agency: RazorJunior, Sydney, Australia
Creative Director / Art Director: Josh Moore
Copywriter: Nigel Clark
Photographer: Andreas Smetana
Agency Producer: Danielle Solden
Retoucher: Electric Art

Source: Ads of the World

Steve Jobs Mosaic

I found this just not and I thought that it was interesting. It is a mosaic of Steve Jobs face using all apple products. Il l keep this short, amazing.

Photos taken from "Sea of Garbage" article by Maxy

So I saw this a while back and I saved it on my bookmarks and I thought id share it since we have talked about the environmental responsibility of a designer. This place is found in Indonesia and is the most polluted river in the world. Now, in the future we will probably be designing packages that are not recyclable and could harm nature. This photo comes to a shock to me because I came from a country that also suffers to a similar problem but not as chaotic as this. I also look to the future and thought that many of this garbage are garbage that a designer has designed. These photos are definitely and eye opener.

AIGI Student Competition Episode 1 Reflection

Watching the AIGI student competition episode 1 was very entertaining and also quite disappointing at some areas. It was entertaining because I was able to draw myself into the competition and imagine being in the competition myself. Plus, It was really entertaining for me because the students talk they way I do when explaining a design rationale. I was quite disappointed because some of the designs were not as I would expect, being in front of 2000 of people. But I do understand that they are under some time constraints and I know how stressing it could be, especially when hitting a designer’s block.

Some of the students approach to the design brief was interesting to see. All of them gave a different solution and approaches when designing the Broncos logo. But I will admit that some are disappointing. That makes me wonder why they were even chosen. But there was one presentation that I was specifically impressed with, even though the design itself was not great, made me realize that presentation could also mean a lot when pitching an idea or a concept. But id also have to agree with a comment made by Andrew Clanahan that I have seen much better work in our Graphic Design class, so hands down to Humber Graphic Design students.

The way the judges critiqued was quite fun and laid back but at the same time disappointing. I thought that their judging could have been more constructive and what they could have done to make it better. I could almost imagine myself being in front of them and wondering “is that it?” I felt as if they needed to mention more helpful criticism. Also disappointed because they have chosen some logos that in my opinion are worst than the ones who got eliminated.

Overall I enjoyed the first episode of the show and learned that presentation counts as a big part of the power of your design and concept.

Traveling!!

I have always wanted to travel around the world, but the financial crisis holds me down in doing so. In the future I think traveling will always be on my list, there are just so many places that I want to see and visit just before are die. These photos defenitely would be on my lists if I were asked.St. Andrew's Cathedral, Singapore by Chrisptoher Chan

Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco by Christopher Chan

Cherry Blossom Viewing, Japan by Jeff Epp

Click here to see more amazing photographs.

Combat Global Warming!

Early morning for me and nothing to do, so I decided to browse around and found this pretty cool flow chart drawn by someone from Australia. This is about ways to combat globalwarming. With all the times we have tackled issue (lots of times for me anyways) in globalization, art direction and watching the inconvenient truth. I thought that this chart was pretty interesting to see and some that we could definitely do even though we might think that we don't make much of a difference.

Original 6: Book Set

Recently, We handed a big project for  Mrs. Dawn Lamberts class for editorial design class. I just wanted to share my experiences with process of this project. The experiences were a mix of bad and good. So I will start of with bad.

This project was a very expensive project that cost many people in-class to spend at least 50 dollars, from printing many pages of roughs and the finals that needed  to be printed on a cover stock. I find this very frustrating since as a student we are all are short in money. The other bad thing is the project is very time consuming over all taking at least 10 hours just assembling the project. Third thing is being exposed with the smell of glue for a long period of time caused massive headaches.

For good experiences, the project turned out really well. The topic were entrely up to us. Having to experience long hours of assembly was good I guess. And lastly the project could be used as one of my portfolio piece.

What makes you happy?

There are many things that make me happy but there are a few that I can come up with at the moment.

Having faith in God

Friends and family time (spending time and bonding)

Being surrounded by technology (i.e Internet, Camera, my Mac)

Playing my guitar and our band

Reading the bible specially reading verses that encourages and cheers me up

Helping others and seeing them smile and happy

Being loved by my best friend

Seeing wonderful designs that inspire me(natural or unnatural)

The environment itself

Being home, it is where I am most comfortable and safe in.