Week 13

We turned in our calendars this week. I am happy with the end result.
Now it is time to focus our attention on the design manual. I have the idea of the double helix cheerio being the basis of the cheerio, I just have to work on my refinements for how I am going to edit the whole semester down into a book. I also want the book to have a scientific feel to it so I feel like that is going to be my challenge over the weekend. I scanned all of my greyscale, color studies and contrasts in today as well.

Calendar Final

What began as 8 images for the seasons has turned into an academic calendar. The process has been taxing but it is well worth it. All of the modular and off image designs narrowed down to one was a difficult task but was able to help me grow as a designer to be able to edit and make corrections from those edits. My final calendar I am pleased with although I wish I could have more time to edit it. I guess you are never happy with your own design. I designed my calendar with all of the white space relating to other parts of the calendar and it is designed off grid. The numbers fit within the columns of text and the colors were taken out of the images. I am pleased with the calendar logo and years and how they are incorporated into the design. It is playful like the pictures yet graphic, just like the pictures.

Week 12

This week we further developed our calendars and how we might envision the end result. We narrowed our calendars down to our favorite one. I like the "bubble" number concept that I have for the calendars because I feel that it matches the graphic look of my images. I am having a difficult time concepting how I will add my calendar logo and the years to my calendar by making it connect to my calendar design. I have a lot of variations of this calendar as I sought to make it as visually stable as possible. 

I thought that I would like my design better in black because there is a lot of black in my images. After designing, I actually prefer the white background. It feels so much more clean. 
The final calendar is on it's way, as well as the manual. The attempted die cutting will begin over the weekend!

Week 11

Every week that we design calendar, it becomes more clear as to what we should be striving for our designs. As I took my sketches and refined them, I became attached to certain concepts and ideas.I took elements from different sketches and evolved them into different concepts. I have had the hardest time with my off image concepts. My images have circles and diagonals and I feel like I am stuck with either or. Trying to marry the two has been challenging. I ended up with one circular design and one diagonal design off image. I feel like my success lies in my modular designs, but time will tell how I decide which design to choose for my final. The process that I have gone through has not only been engaging my knowledge of design and growth of it but it has also been enjoyable.
My manual concept is a double helix cheerio. I plan to make it like a scientific diagram like what is in a science textbook. I am happy with this choice and can't wait to begin design over the weekend.

cheerio= building blocks of design
DNA (double helix)= building blocks of life
design=life

Week 10

I began to think of ideas for my manual this last week. While trying to think of how I can explain just how much the cheerio has helped my thinking this semester, I got overwhelmed and thumbed through a magazine. I feel like I may have gone insane for a brief moment. I saw cheerios everywhere in the design. The cheerio was in the text in the page layout and in the images. Everywhere Cheerios. I couldn't escape it because a cheerio is a circle. A circle has no beginning and no end. When you get to the end you are back at the beginning. In the same way with our projects when we complete a project we must relate it back to the cheerio. It is the simplest answer and yet it contains all of the design elements. I never realized just how important a little cheerio is. 

While working on the calendar this week I took a look back at the greyscale compositions to see how I could try and incorporate it into my calendar. The ideas that I have are rough but hopefully at the end of week 11 I will have a more concise idea for my final.
I like the calendars with the black background because they make my pictures pop when I put them on the wall. I also like the abbreviated months instead of the whole words.