What is Networking?

It is important to really understand the meaning of networking. As many current designers in or out of school may realize, there is pressure from the friendships that you formulate in college. Many of these people may expect for you to help them or connect them to the world in some way.

To build a network, you need to know that person’s work.  

Friendships or how you feel about a person should never enter the picture. The reality is that if you refer someone to one of your colleagues or clients, and their work is not up to par: YOUR name suffers. If you do not take the time to familiarize yourself with someone’s attitude, work demeanor and actual work itself, then it is your bad judgment to include that person in your network.

Ways to get to know the work?

• Do some work with that person
• Review their portfolio
• Study their habits
• Listen to their stories

In order to refer someone, you should know why you’re referring them. And the answer should not be “They’re my friend.”

As a designer, this is my list of people I feel I need to have in my network:

• Photographers (All types: Commercial, Event, Fashion, Product, etc.)
• Publishers
• Printing Companies
• Paper Reps / Companies
• Event Planners
• Other Designers!

Of course this list will forever grow with different kinds of people, all of whom will be qualified.

If we as designers want to show the highest quality of work and professionalism, then those we refer and include in our network must reflect nothing less than equal the quality and effort as ourselves.

the xtrovert 

As it Comes to an End

Last night was the reception for our Senior Design Show. It was a very emotional night as it reminded me of all the years of hard work, tears, lessons learned and friendships made. It is my last semester of my undergraduate career and it looked beautiful.

Our design show theme was called “Design du Jour” and we used restaurant centered decor and black and white as our color scheme. We outfitted our book shelves to look like restaurant tables and it was a great success. I will post pictures from the show itself as I receive them from people who came.

I am very proud of myself and of everything I have pushed myself to accomplish in my five years of attending college. I have learned lessons that pertain to much more than just my career.

the xtrovert

Helvetica’s 50th Anniversary

As many of my fellow typeface loving geekoids may know, this is the 50th year of Helvetica’s existence.

In 1957 it was released as Neue Haas Grotesk (changed to Helvetica in 1960) and has proven to be a wonderfully neutral typeface which makes it lend to many different applications. As my professor has said “If Helvetica was a person, it would have no personality.” While one may think that this is an insult, it is in actuality quite possibly the reason why Helvetica has the level of success that it does in 2007.

Being neutral means that it’s not frilly, girly, manly, rough, or textured. It’s not demanding, intrusive, frightening or happy. It stands as it is: a sans serif typeface. Its neutrality demands the talents and skills of the designer to bring out a personality for whatever the current project.

To commemorate this important 50th anniversary, a documentary has been released:

Helvetica: A Documentary Film by Gary Hustwit

I would recommend to watch it, I have been unable to do so as of yet but I hear that it’s amazing. Not everyone may like typography or typefaces, but in the least you will notice how Helvetica surrounds us in our day to day lives!

If you’re lucky enough to live in New York or be traveling up there before March of 2008, I suggest visiting this exhibit, which features much more than just an excerpt of the film:

50 Years of Helvetica
April 6, 2007–March 31, 2008

The Leonard Dobbs Architecture and Design Gallery, third floor

Museum of Modern Art
(212) 708-9400
11 West 53 Street,
between Fifth and Sixth avenues
New York, NY 10019-5497

 

I plan to make my trip there sometime between January and March. I hope you all find yourselves entertained!

 

the xtrovert

The Wonders of DC

It’s very interesting to me how we can live so close to fabulous citis and places and never really explore them. I went into DC with a friend of mine and decided to post just some random pictures.. some art, some buildings, some animals, some sky.. some city! Inspiration can come from anywhere, no matter how long you’ve been around it. Go and be inspired!

the xtrovert

Back to Basics

When I took one of the beginner graphic design courses at my school, my professor chose an excellent book for the class. This book proved to be truly helpful in different areas of what we were studying. For a beginner graphic design student it is perfect, for others who are more advanced, it may be just another nice design handbook to have.

Thinking with Type

A critical guide for designers,
writers, editors and students

by Ellen Lupton

The book is extremely easy to read and understand and it comes jam packed with vivid examples of almost everything that is written within it. (Typography, Posters, Etc..)

From this book I started to learn some of the vocabulary that I was speaking of in my previous post. I will post some here, but I strongly recommend this book, I still own it and it still comes in handy for when I forget the terms and draw blanks (nobody’s perfect )

 

DESIGN VOCABULARY:

x-height: the height of the main body of a lowercase letter excluding the ascenders and descenders; (basically the height of the “x” is the easiest way to determine this since it has no ascenders or descenders)

(Source: Thinking with Type, Ellen Lupton)

ascenders: element of a letter that extends higher than the main body of a letter

descenders: element of a letter that extends lower than the main body of a letter

baseline: where all the letters sit, some of the curves of the letters may extend slightly below this but it serves to make the type look stable

(Source: Thinking with Type, Ellen Lupton)

cap height: the distance from the baseline to the top of a capital letter, the cap height determines the point size

(Source: Thinking with Type, Ellen Lupton)

serif: the little tails that stem out from the main body of a letter

sans serif: a kind of type which has no serifs

counter: an enclosed space within a letter (i.e: o, a, e, p, etc..)

rule: technical name for a line

kerning: the act of moving characters closer or further apart

leading: the act of moving lines of text closer or further apart

 

That’s all I’ll post in order to encourage you to go out and pick up the book It has a lot of other valuable information in it as well, including a great section on the grid. Hope you find it as useful as I did!

the xtrovert

The Art of Critiques

Throughout the past five years I’ve sat in on countless critique sessions. As any current or past art student knows, these can be some of the most uncomfortable and daunting situations as they pull our judgments into question. What has made these experiences unpleasant for me in the past is plain and simply the fact that so many people do not know how to give good critique. By good critique I don’t mean that they sit there and say “That is pretty.” I mean that as adults we should know how to defend our opinions and state them in a way that does not belittle the person who’s work is on display.

The other day in my senior level design class it was time for a critique. A good amount of our class was not in attendance and about 40% of the ones who did come did not have any work to show. So the four of us who were ready went, and since no one wanted to go first, I figured I’d take the first line of bullets. As confident as I was about my designs before I went into class I definitely left feeling depressed. It took me a couple of days to realize that only a couple of people gave me real criticisms, and most of those came from my professor. I had to sift through all the comments to find the ones that were worthy of keeping.

What really upset me was not my critique though, at the end of the class another girl in my class went. Quite possibly in one of the rudest gestures ever, one of our classmates looked at her spacing, pushed the girls hand off of her mouse on her own laptop, clicked on it and then exclaimed “EW spaces, you know you can do tabs right? You do know that right?” The look on the girls’ face was really just upsetting, it looked like she was going to explode from humiliation.

The point of this blog is to give some tips as to how to properly critique something, I say something because most jobs use critiques in one way or another, whether it’s art related or not. This is also something that you will (hopefully) find useful whether you’re in school or in the professional world.

I’ll use a book cover for this example, the book is “The DaVinci Code” by Dan Brown.

1.) Unsubstantiated opinions do not matter.

An opinion is something we truly can’t change since they involve a persons’ unique experiences and taste levels.

Examples of this are:

“I don’t like it”
“It’s ugly”
“I love it”

These phrases are usually not welcomed in critiques because they’re very elementary, however if you must use one of these phrases, do not leave them hanging out there. First off it’s rude, but more importantly these kind of phrases take away from what we’re supposed to get out of critiques, which is valuable input. How do you avoid leaving them hanging? You..

2.) Back it up.

What is it about the piece that you like or dislike? In any piece of work there’s a million things that we can dissect. To list just a few:

Color
Balance
Symmetry / Asymmetry
Contrast
Typography
Hierarchy
Treatments
Artwork
Juxtapositioning
Size
Type of paper
Type of binding
Etc…etc…

Therefore “I love it” can turn into the following:

The chosen shades of red and yellow work well together to create a sense of urgency.

The hierarchy between the title, author’s name and other lines of text in the cover work well, the most prominent things in yellow and the backup text in white.

The typeface chosen, while simple, works because of its weight. It makes it stand out more than a lighter font face would.

It then becomes a substantiated opinion, that being that it is supported by concrete items. We can like or dislike something, but we cannot just say so. What is it that works and doesn’t work? When we commit to backing up what we say, we help the person with the current project, as well as with any future projects.

3.) Learn the jargon.

If you’re a design student, you should know better than to say that the font is “cute” or “spaced out.” Like every other specialization in the world, there is vocabulary that goes along with the design field. So in a critique, it is important to use the right terminology. (i.e: kerning, leading, serifs, etc..)

Not only does it help you not look foolish, but it encourages the correct type of dialogs. I will post a list of vocabulary in my next blog because that deserves a section all of its own.

4.) Come prepared.

It is difficult to critique something when it’s not in front of you as it would be in its final format. This means that if it’s going to be printed double sided on letter sized paper with bleeds, then your rough draft that comes to the critique needs to be printed double sided on letter sized paper with bleeds. It’s hard to critique design work on a computer screen because the colors don’t come out the same. Also in order to gauge how the typography is working, we need to see it as it is, not blown up to whatever the computer says.

If you don’t come prepared to show work, at least be prepared to actively engage in critiques. People go through arduous amounts of work in order to present something on critique days. Who knows, you may be surprised at how some of the comments for other people could affect you and your project as well.

5.) Show respect.

Not everybody likes critiques, I think we all know that. However, there are people that genuinely benefit from it. Some of the things to not do:

Roll your eyes
Sleep
Make jokes at someone’s expense
Talk during a critique to a friend
Consistently look at the time
Look completely uninterested

I’ve noticed that these kinds of behaviors make the people presenting more nervous and pressured for time which is unfair, they are entitled to your time, thoughts and comments just as you are entitled to theirs.

Though these are only a few tips written in the most vague of ways, I hope that they serve in at least making you aware of how you could better critique something. The worst feeling is leaving a critique feeling like you were attacked since the point is to help before the final phase of the project.

the xtrovert