June 2010
1 post
Long time no see...
There’s lots of different ways to learn things. There’s lots of different ways to teach things. There’s lots of different ways to do things. The more ways that one knows the better. But there is one way to act towards each other and that is with respect. Unfortunately some instructors, design aside, are just shit people. For whatever reason they think their way of doing things is...
April 2010
1 post
existential crises suck.
seriously though. they suck…
From “the wealth of human knowledge” (A.K.A. Wikipedia) available on the web:
An existential crisis may result from:
The sense of being alone and isolated in the world;
A new-found grasp or appreciation of one’s mortality;
Believing that one’s life has no purpose or external meaning;
Awareness of one’s freedom and the...
August 2009
2 posts
The meaning of "Death by Design"
I’m at a pivotal point in my design student career. I’m done with my first two years and am now seriously looking at what it’s going to take to make a career happen with design…
Up until this point every post I’ve done has been of projects that have been completed long before the time of writing the article. So since I have written about every project I have done so...
Design/Illustration Tech 2: Project 4
For the final project in d/i 2 we didn’t have much time left in the semester. I was relieved because life was extrememly hectic at this point and I didn’t have much time to work on this project.
The assignment was simple. We had to pick a theme from garden, coffee shop, or kitchen and create a greeting card-like illustration using a technique that Andy Warhol apparently came up with...
July 2009
2 posts
Design/Illustration Tech 2: Problem 3
Bugs and Birds
The third problem in d/i 2 was similar to the second except this time our subject matter was a bug and a bird. We got to choose the bug and bird, but we were required to do a little research and bring in examples of images that we found in books from outside sources.
We were allowed to use pretty much any technique that we could think up for this project when it came time to put...
Design/Illustration Tech 2: Project 2
Fruit Spot Illustrations
The second problem in d/i 2 had me running to the grocery store and keeping pieces of unwanted food in my fridge for weeks. The assignment was to obtain several different pieces of fruit and other produce section foodstuffs to paint still life using watercolors. The final product had to be on 8 x 8 pieces of bristol or watercolor paper and be flapped with the standard...
June 2009
7 posts
Design/Illustration Tech 2: Project 1
Collage Series
Design/Illustration Tech 2 (d/i 2) continued with concepts explored in d/i 1, but added elements such as color and more abstract thinking behind projects. The first few weeks were spent going over color theory and making water color swatches to get us warmed up for what was ahead in the class. Once that was out of the way, we made a series of collages out of scraps of pretty much...
3D Graphic Design: Project 4
Eames Cards
The final project in 3D Graphic Design was more of an exercise than a full-blown project. The class I was in moved at a faster pace than the other sections and by the time we got to the end of the semester our professor gave us a break. Our assignment was to take a template (provided as an InDesign file by our professor) for a set of cards with six slots cut into them like the ones...
3D Graphic Design: Project 3
Pop-Up
Project three in this class was the most trying project I worked on in my student career so far. It was mostly my fault again by not giving myself enough time, but one thing that was different was that instead of not having enough motivation at the right time or not having interesting subject matter to work with I tried to make what I was working on too big and ended up with a failing...
3D Graphic Design: Project 2
Bauhaus Sculpture
For Project 2 in 3DGD we made a model sculpture that could potentially go in a museum exhibit displaying information on something to do with the Bauhaus. We could pick anything that had to do with the Bauhaus and choose photography and type as well. Before I go on with how the assignment went together, I should explain about this “sculpture” because it’s...
3D Graphic Design: Project 1
Vitamin Boxes
In 3D Graphic Design we studied how the skills we learned from VCD II and Intro To Typography apply to 3D forms such as rectangular structures, pop ups, and product boxes etc. The class consisted of 3 bigger projects and one exercise.
The first assignment in 3D Graphic Design was to create a series of vitamin boxes that might be seen on the shelves of stores. We had to make two...
Steven Heller article on Ladislav Sutnar →
This is what I used for my body content in the Sutnar book.
Intro To Typography: Project 5
Designer Type Book
The final project in Intro to Typography was a type book that we had to put together with subject matter about a well known designer. Basically this project was like the Typographic Series, except we had to make a book out of the layouts and none of the subject matter was provided for us. The book had to be 8 x 8 with 6 pages not including the front and back covers. We could...
Intro To Typography: Project 4
Typographic Series Project four was one of the more repetitive projects in the class, but it was where I really got some good practice with using grids. All the confusion about how they really work seemed to be gone after this project too. Basically it was a souped-up version of the page layouts that we did in VCD II. There were four sections to this project with the constraints on what we were...
Intro To Typography: Project 3
Typogrpahic Metaphor
The third project in Typoography was more of an exercise. We spent like 5 mintues talking about it and didn’t even have a critique on it. The assignment was to find an intersting word and then somehow make the letters in the word do what the word is. An example might be the word leaning in all italics. The letters are leaning over becaue they are in italics. But...
May 2009
14 posts
Intro To Typography: Project 2
Type Composition Book
I’ll call it right now: this was by far the toughest project in this class. It was a number of things that made it so difficult. For one, it was just really involved and I wasn’t prepared for how much work was going to be thrown at me. For two, we had to do everything by hand, but then we didn’t and I still did everything by hand (this will make sense...
Intro To Typography: Project 1
Typeface Tracing
Intro To Typography was a class that built on the skills that we learned about in VCD II. I loved this class because it cleared up so much confusion about questions about the grids, how we should use the grids, and how to really use white space effectively to get that certain “feel” with page layouts. That certain “feel” I think is still something...
Design/Illustration Tech 1: Project 4
Art Building Ink Wash
For the final project in d/i 1 we had to do another ink wash. I wasn’t very excited to hear this, but the subject matter was a least a little easier than the godforsaken cloth. All we had to do was find a place in the art building and sketch it and then ink wash it. Not much was discussed about this project and class wasn’t really in the classroom because...
Design/Illustration Tech 1: Project 3
Cloth Ink Wash
This one was a challenge for me. Our subject matter was cloth draped over an object in a composition and the medium we had to use was ink wash. I had never done any kind of ink wash prior to this assignment, so I wasn’t crazy about having to learn how to work with a new medium on top of rendering something that I wasn’t used to looking at to draw. This whole thing was...
Design/Illustration Tech 1: Project 2
Breakfast Composition
This project was pretty straightforward. Basically the requirements were the same for the last project, but this time we had to add value and shading to all the objects in the composition. The theme of the piece was a breakfast table, so the objects that we chose were limited this time to silverware, plates, glasses of orange juice and milk, eggs, doughnuts, newspapers, and...
Design/Illustration Tech 1: Project 1
Outline Composition Design/Illustration Tech 1 (d/i1) was basically a drawing class where we had projects that implemented the elements of design that we learned about in VCD II. I had taken drawing classes in the past at the University I went to before Kent and learned a lot about techniques, different mediums, and how to look at subjects in a way that helps with rendering in a realistic way. I...
VCD II: Project 4
Brochure
After getting a poor grade on the last project, I knew that I had to pull something crazy to get an A on this next one so that I could get an average that would let me go on in the program. I should explain real quick:
Even if you get passing grades between your VCD I class and VCD II classes like C’s it’s not good enough. You have to have at least a B average between the...
VCD II: Project 3
Page Design Series
This project was basically the same thing as the last one with the black squares except this time we used images and text instead black squares. We had to design these page layouts on 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper on set grids. The images and text were given to us in a packet. Well they weren’t given to us, we were given the .pdf and then we had to go print them out (at this...
VCD II: Project 2
Grid Systems This project was an introduction to using grids as templates for our designs. We worked with the basic elements of point, line, and plane again, but this time in an even simpler form by just using squares. This project was so mind bogglingly simple, it was probably one of the most difficult projects if that makes sense. It just got so abstract it made my brain hurt in critiques…...
VCD II: Project 1
VCD 2 is this class where we learned about the basic elements of design through four different projects. The projects dealt with elemets such as:
Point, line, and plane
Hierarchy
Dynamic use of white space
Contrast
Balance
Harmony
Positive and negative form etc.
The list goes on and on. In the syllabus, there were like three pages of words that supposedly are the elements of design. But...
Finally... Done with sophomore year!
Back when I started this blog (like several other things in life at the time) I had the intentsion that I would keep it up to date right along with what I would be working on in school. Unfortunately, this was not the case because of just how busy I was this past semester with the few General Education classes that I enrolled in and all this other stuff that was going on in life…
I always...
January 2009
2 posts
The story so far...
Discovering Design
I started college in the fall of 2006 at Youngstown State University as a Mechanical Engineering major. After a semester of that, I realized that it wasn’t going to be for me. I started doing some research online, and stumbled across Kent State University’s Visual Communication Design page. I was pretty impressed, and just like that decided to transfer schools and...
First Post
Hello, my name is Corey Svoboda and I am a design student at Kent State University. With this blog I plan on keeping track of my progress as a design student by posting pictures of my work, writing about the thought processes that I go through while attempting to solve the problems that my design projects bring up, and discussing the concepts and ideas behind design that I pick up from classes.
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