Monday, May 30, 2011

Chicago, and some.

With my first week of my internship done with, I'm excited to really start experiencing the city. I've officially gotten used to the train/bus CTA system and it's really nice to not have to use my car to go everywhere.
Anyway, Gensler is great. Everyone is really nice. I'm surrounded by architects and it's definitely a different experience compared to being surrounded by Graphic Designers day in and day out. I'm the only graphics intern and I'm in a very diverse studio, which is how they separate their different groups of projects out; it's strategy, graphics, and I think the rest may be architects and interior designers? (I'm obviously still getting acclimated, so excuse me if I sound crazy/wrong or whatever else haha)
Getting used to the lingo and the idea of design as a whole versus just graphic design is interesting. I hear the word "design" and I automatically think of graphic design, but in actuality it's EVERYTHING, literally. We always say that in school, but I am definitely thinking of it as a even more holistic concept.

We, as interns get to work on a research project about trends and what young people are doing. We each got assigned a "umbrella" topic, and mine is "travel". With that in mind I definitely feel a little "ahead of the curve" due to all the research we did this past semester. We also got assigned to a mentor to help us along the road and mine is really great.

Studying for LEED certification is also kind of exciting, because it's something I have interest in, but have no idea about either, so I know there will be a lot of learning going on there. I'm not sure if it's necessarily going to benefit me in any way, but I can't see it going against me either.

Anyway, I'm blabbering...


Some goals I'm setting for myself are:

-Take more freaking pictures, I need to get back into the habit of loving photography.
-Do more things by myself...not knowing anyone in Chicago that well, has kind of hindered me in what I do so far, and I definitely don't want that to happen anymore.
-Take advantage of this opportunity to the fullest. (Now, I'm sounding cheesy) But, talking to Sarah (my mentor) about what I could do this summer she suggested going on information interviews to firms I have interest in potentially working at when I graduate. I hadn't thought about that before, and I think that is definitely a great opportunity to get an idea of how it may be here in Chicago.
-That's all I can think of.
-Oh yeah, buy a pair of spanks.

I'll have to post some pictures of where I work!

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

type 4: a little stop motion.


Untitled from Taylor Pruitt on Vimeo.

Here I wanted to have a playful stop motion piece to show some sort of process with out having a person actual doing the motions. Overall, my favorite is the third one because of the interaction between the two.

type 4: final objectives




Through the process of the second half of the semester I feel that over all my experiments have evolved in the way I think about them, and the way I could move forward with them as well. When I first started I concentrated on how many different materials I could use to make letterforms. I felt I of course started out a little ambitious thinking about processes I didn't even know how to do, but I did learn many different new ways of making things. Needle Felting has been something I've been wanting to do for quite sometime now, and I got the advantage of a friend teaching me how to do it. Also, knitting letters has been something I knew I could do, but never had experimented with. Which I really enjoyed doing because I get to make my own letterform, but making the grid first then just following that through. I feel since I didn't know these processes it helped me make formal decisions about the letterforms, and I feel in an interesting way as well. Using the materials I did use, it lended it self to an already experimental feel, also having the actual feeling, and textures and objects used within a graphic design was fun to see as well. 

Moving forward with this skill and knowledge I gained this semester I think it really helped me see how I could bring in more hand made processes than I do already. I've noticed in my actual graphic design projects I have here, if I have an option of experimenting with materials, I can never really get out of the vector flat graphics. I think in the future I definitely want to be more open with experimenting with objects, photography, and other great things, because I enjoy it, and why not do something you enjoy?


type 4: presentation



For my finished product I decided to make a book with an image of the final piece I experimented with, while then on the other side, having the actual material I used to make that final piece.

The text explains the process behind making the piece, while also talking about the material on the left.







Sunday, May 1, 2011

type4: final approach

Trying to draw up some ideas about how I am going to finalize and present my ideas "on paper". Going back to my initial question which was:


How can different materials manipulate one letterform. Such as an A or an F?


I started this this question thinking about a control group, and how I could compare my experiments to one another. I could still play with the size, and the approach, but focusing on the form and how the material manipulates it was what I was interested in. I used  a lot of different materials, a couple of main ones were tool, and wool. I used the tool to see how the translucent nature of the material would work with the letterform, while the wool, I needle felted either by free form, or by a stencil. The wool was interesting because of how not precise it turned out, even when I specifically used a stencil to have a clarendon T come out of it. The T turned out to still have a rounded corner, and while it seemed to have a bit more personality than a regular clarendon T due to the manipulation. 


For rapping up my project I have two ideas. 


ONE: Having a nontraditional swatch book, where there would be an image of the experiment I did in context, or an unusual context, or somewhat way of it being used in either the environment, or some sort of setting. This image would sit next to a 3"x3" square of the material I used to create that experiment, so the audience would be able to actually touch the material, to make the person feel apart of the process. 


TWO: Creating little stop motion pieces that surround the process I did, by adding the sound effects of the process of how each piece was made. I noticed that each one had a little significant sound that encompassed the tool used. I thought about this after talking to Tyler about showing the process of how each one was made, due to how my initial question was asked, it really focused on the process, so having my final piece surround that would be good. That's why I think having the stop motion be the final way is the way to go, although...I'm not so sure about producing this in the amount of time I have, that's why I need to keep it simple, and if I do that, I think it can definitely be done.