final website

progress on the website

so far my progress is very little because i am having some trouble remembering how to do things in dreamweaver.  But this is what i have so far...The first page is a splash page with his names, the homepage you enter into by clicking on his name is based off his way finding designs that he does.  I am still to put the information on the page but this is what i have so far.

Michael Bierut

Born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1957 he atteneded The University of Cincinnati's College of Design.  There he studied graphic design, which was not very popular at this time.  In June of 1980 Michael graduated and started searching for a job.  He Went to Vignelli Associates for an interview and soon enough they offered him a job.  There he spent the first 10 years of his career.  He started his work with graphics but soon found a love for typography.  He is now the president of the New York chapter of AIGA.  He has had many famous clients like; Walt Disney, United Airlines, Motorola, the New York Jets, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and The New York Times, to name a few.  He has a few sayings that i think are really important to his work;

• "Part of maturing as a designer is discovering what you're good at." 
• "Not everything is design. But design is about everything. So do yourself a favor: be ready for anything." 
• "Graphic design is the purposeful combination of words, pictures and other visual elements to support the communication of an explicit or implicit message."

Here is my research and the sites i found them on.  I am very excited to make a website for him, but i am very nervous because all of his work is very elegant, beautiful and amazing, and i hope i can make it reflect him, his work and his personality.

·         Bierut has built his career on making himself, his work, his personality, his opinions, available. It has worked to great effect. He graciously jets to speaking engagements tucked into tiny towns in corners of the country. He makes a point to advise design students. But this should be of no surprise. After all, Michael Bierut is a Midwestern-raised, impeccably-mannered person-who happens to be one of the most famous graphic designers today

·         Bierut was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1957. Graphic design as a career aspiration was not heavily promoted to the young adults of Ohio at the time. Yet his loves of fine art, music and drawing—all converging, to him, in the form of album covers

·         study graphic design at the University of Cincinnati's College of Design

·         In 1980 Bierut landed his first job at one of the most important design firms in the world, working for Massimo and Lella Vignelli in New York City. Working alongside legends for 10 years at Vignelli Associates, eventually as vice president of design, gave Bierut serious industry clout. But it also instilled a keystone tenet of his career. “Probably the most interesting thing I learned is that a lot of the things about design that tend to get designers really interested aren't that important,”

·         Bierut strives to not only make things that people are able to read, he makes people want to read them. “He has a quality that I have much respect for in the kind of work that we do,” says Pullman. “He's a person who's very easy to understand, both when you talk to him and when he's doing his work. He's accessible, humane, funny when it's appropriate, and witty almost all of the time. And that's a very important quality for someone who wants to be a communicator.”

·         It is this “democratization of design” that Bierut has championed while a partner at Pentagram, where he's been since 1990; the act of making things digestible is where he excels.

·         His list of clients consists of massive corporations that need to be embraced by the masses: Walt Disney, United Airlines, Motorola, the New York Jets, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

·         Or he lends a voice to complex, intellectual entities that need emotional authenticity: Yale and Princeton Universities, Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York magazine. This aesthetic also informs his work as an author, co-editing the design essay series of Looking Closer and co-writing and designing the monograph Tibor Kalman, Perverse Optimist.

·         Like Kalman, Bierut has not only made a profound mark on design, but embedded himself in the cultural concrete of New York City. Bierut is a director of the Architectural League of New York and a member of New Yorkers for Parks. He created wayfinding signage for the Alliance for Downtown New York, assisting millions of tourists navigating the streets of Lower Manhattan. Bierut's pieces can be seen at two New York museums, the Museum of Modern Art and the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, and more around the world. It was also in New York that he became involved with AIGA, initially drawn into the fold when asked to DJ chapter events. Bierut was president of AIGA's AIGA's New York chapter from 1988 to 1990 and president of AIGA from 1998 to 2001; he has since been named to the Art Directors Hall of Fame and the Alliance Graphique Internationale.

·         But it is as a “design observer,” more specifically as a founder of the online design journal Design Observer, which has garnered him a different kind of design audience

·         He seamlessly, coherently, weaves references from Pulp Fiction to Napoleon Dynamite into the very fabric of design debate, somehow making the whole thing more relevant, more accessible—more fun.

·         “Michael has a brain that is a giant compendium,” Scher says. “He absorbs and retains everything and pulls it out at the appropriate moment and uses it to its maximal effect. Mention a movie and he quotes from it, maybe he enacts a little scene. Mention a book and he recites a passage and relates it to three other books that have the same spirit, that you haven't read, but you will now. Mention a designer or architect and he knows the most recent project they've completed and their first project, how they've changed, how they haven't, who influenced them, who they influence, and he sometimes will make a little sketch or diagram of their work. There isn't a day that goes by when I haven't asked Michael what he knows about anything and what he thinks about everything. If knowledge is power, then Michael Bierut is the most powerful person in the entire design community.”

·         “Not everything is design,” he writes. “But design is about everything. So do yourself a favor: be ready for anything.”

o   http://www.aiga.org/medalist-michaelbierut/

·         Since 1990 he has been a partner in the New York office of Pentagram.

·         He has won hundreds of design awards and his work is represented in several permanent collections including: the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York; the Library of Congress in Washington, DC; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA); the Denver Art Museum; the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, Germany; and the Museum für Gestaltung in Zürich, Switzerland."^[2]

·         Bierut served as the national president of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) from 1998 to 2001.

·         Bierut is a senior critic in graphic design at the Yale School of Art.

·         Bierut is also the co-editor of three Looking Closer graphic design anthologies. He is also a founding writer of the Design Observer blog with Rick Poynor, William Drenttel and Jessica Helfand.^[3]

·         Bierut is also known for his involvement in the film Helvetica

• "Part of maturing as a designer is discovering what you're good at."

• "Not everything is design. But design is about everything. So do yourself a favor: be ready for anything."

• "Graphic design is the purposeful combination of words, pictures and other visual elements to support the communication of an explicit or implicit message."

o   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Bierut

·         Observers room- blogs done by Michael and projects he has done with students  VERY COOL

o   http://designobserver.com/author.html?author=1047

·         Lecture by Micheal about his 86 notebooks and some of his works.

o   http://the99percent.com/videos/6056/Michael-Bierut-5-Secrets-from-86-Notebooks

·         In the fall of 1979, prior to my last year of design school, on a trip to New York City, I went job hunting. I visited about six design firms. One of them, Vignelli Associates, eventually made me a job offer, and that's where I started my career one week after graduating from the University of Cincinnati's College of Design, Architecture and Art in June 1980. I didn't know it then, but that would be the last time I would look for a job.

o   http://observatory.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=5807

o   (his portfolio he took to vignelli)





HERE IS MY SKETCH FOR MY WEBSITE

cssbasics

Chapter 1 went over how to set up the 3 different types of HTML. You can combine selectors to make them all the same. You cannot reuse the same ID in the same HTML. These are used to style a piece of that page only once.  Classes are used to make the same style on many things instead of just one thing like an ID does.  The ID selector starts with a # instead on a . like a class does.

Resume

file:///C:/Users/amilla/Documents/resume.html

This is the link when i opened my resume on the web.

Below is the type i actually put into notepad.


<html>
<head>
    <h1>Resume</h1>
    <h2>Amanda Miller</h2>
        <p>214 Carriage Dr.</p>
        <p>Wernersville Pa 19565</p>
        <p>610-781-5882</p>
        <p>armiller28@yahoo.com</p>
</head>
<body>
    <h2>Objective</h2>
        <p> I am a college undergraduate looking to bring my
        newly learned skills in graphic design and art education
        into a proffesional feild of work.</p>
    <h2>Work experience</h2>
        <li>Bayer Aspirin Myerstown Pennsylvania- May 2010-Aug. 2010 and May 2011-Aug. 2011
            Superviser- Mike Greenawalt</li>
        <li>Humane League of Lancaster County- January 2011-May 2011
            Superviser- Becki Meiss</li>
    <H2>Education</h2>
        <li>Millersville University, Pennsylvania
            Major- BSE Art Education, BFA Graphic Design Concentration</li>
    <h2>Skills</h2>
        <li>Email</li>
        <li>Word </li>
        <li>Photoshop</li>
        <li>Illustrator</li>
        <li>InDesign</li>
        <li>Digital and Film Camera</li>
        <li>Drawing</li>
        <li>Child Psychology</li>
        <li>Screen Print</li>

    <p><strong>References available apon request</strong></p>
   
       
       

</body>

</html>

html

We learned how to use HTML in class today and created small trial websites.  We used tutorials on HTMLdog.com and W3schools.com. i liked HTMLdog better, it was more straight forward and easy to follow.  Here are the two websites i created.  The second one is just an updated version of the first one.

HOUSE

This is the picture of the house i chose to do.  As you can see i did a lot of work to make it work into the background picture i placed it on top of.  I first had to reversed it, then i adjusted the levels.  I then had to use the stamp tool to get rid of the shadow of the chimney, the electrical wires, and the leaves at the chimney.

final magazine

this is my final magazine cover.  The only problem i ran into was what colors the stories should be in. I went with an off white.  Since it was the fall edition i chose a fall background landscape and fall colors for the type.  I thought it made the point without blending in with the background.  I think i did a good job at blending the house into the photo, i did a lot of work on it.  The photo of the house i had was too bright and had shadows and trees in the way. i used the stamp tool to get rid of that stuff.  Also i took a low opacity brush of black over the roof where the sun was hitting it to make it look like it belongs in the landscape.  My illustration of PA and the Eastern state penitentiary turned out very well, it is simple but gets the point across that i wanted.  My masshead background shape, i tried to make it look old like the house, i think i could have done a little more work on that, but i love the typeface i chose for the masshead.  Overall, I am happy with the way my magazine turned out.

mag cover trail and error

This was my first trial and error with composition of my magazine cover.  i tried having the PA illustration at that bottom of the magazine, i am unsure if it works.  So i tried putting it on the top, which i like better because it have the issue's date on it, which i can put somewhere else but i think i like it where it is. i have to experiment today with the placement of things.  This is also not the actual house i am going to use, i just put this in here for composition.  I cropped the fence out of the photo and placed it over top of the house, which worked out well.

magazine ideas and sketches

here are the two ideas i came up with for my magazine cover.  The first one will be a house that is broken down and looks haunted with a tree and foliage landscape picture scanned in behind the house.  The second idea is having a person hold a tool that helps track ghosts.

In our group critique we have decided to combine these two ideas.  I am going to have a haunted looking house in the background and then in the foreground i will have the tool being held up by someone, sou will see the hands on the side.

Here are my ideas for the masshead.  I am thinking of going with either the 1st, 5th, 13th, 14th, 16th.  i am unsure at this point.

I also am unsure about the illustration i am going to put onto the cover.  i was thinking maybe a certain state with a pop out like illustration showing the haunted place i want to talk about in that state.

Magazine

 this is my mind map and mood board.  I had a lot of different ways i could go but i decided to go with a magazine for haunted places in the North East of the US.  I want to concentrate more on history than fake scary (BOO!) stuff.

 Who is the target audience?  My Target audience is people who are interested in talking to the dead and investigating historic places.

What is the name of your magazine? Why? Connotations?  North Eastern Hauntings, I decided to go with only NE US because the whole US is pretty large and i feel like people would be more likely to visit things in their own general area.  So there will be different magazines for different zones.  There are no connotations its pretty general and gets the point across.

What will your masthead look like? Do you have any ideas for fonts? It will be at the top and stand out.  i am thinking of a historic type of font, but creepy at the same time, like what you would see in and old book.

What images will be on the cover and why?  I will put a picture of an old abandoned home or place that is said to be haunted.  it will get the point across to what the magazine is about if the title didn't already.

What will be your sell lines to entice your target audience?  True stories of local hauntings.  Most Haunted place in the US right in your backyard.  New equipment the pros are using to track spirits.  I will chose things like that, that will get the people that want to experience hauntings to look inside for information on where and how to.

Picture in picture

I portrayed myself to be the "other woman".  The other girlfriend found out about me and threw him and his stuff out.  I am there looking down on him ashamed because i followed him to his other girlfriends house because i was suspecting him of cheating.  So when i saw him go into an apartment i didn't recognize i went to find out who he was there with, and he was busted! Now she threw him out and i am there ashamed of his actions but at the same time happy because he is now only with me, the even more psycho girlfriend.  

Types of Images

This is my chart of all different ways to edit photo color and display in Photoshop.  The Vector Art was done is Illustrator.  This was a fun and easy project to do, I liked changing the colors the most.

Sketchup

This is my house that i created sketch up.  i wish i would have had more time to work on it and perfect it.  At first i had a hard time getting things to go my way in the program.  But one i kept going i got the hang of it.

front

back

Seed packets

I had a really hard time coming up with an idea for the seed packets.  I originally had an alice in wonderland theme, and realized that i didn't have enough to create three seeds.  So instead i had a concept for peter pan.  I went with this idea, and then on the 2nd one, we realized that mushrooms do not really have anything to do with peter pan, but more with alice in wonderland.  So from there i went into a fairytale story theme.  The concept didn't come all together until i created the third packet.  So the concept i came to was a series of Disney movie ideas.  The series of seeds is called Disney Gardens.  The three packets were; Wendy's Garden, playing off of peter pan, Ariel's Garden, from the little mermaid, and Alice's Garden, from Alice in Wonderland.

The mesh tool was the hardest thing about these packets.  I could not get it to work in my favor.  I did some practice and talked to the professor, and finally i got a good understanding of the tool and was able to use it well.

I did not do any sketches for this project i just went right into the illustrations.  Because i did not have a solid concept until i created the last packet, i didn't have much ideas written down, but i did do some research on the first concepts i had.

Wendy's garden.  I chose to go with the Tinker Bell.  The flower resembles a bell shape, and has fairy dust falling out of its petals.  The fairy dust will help you to fly when sprinkled on you, just like in the movie. I first created the big flower in the middle and that was all i had.  I then revised it and put a small bud next to it, and added the one coming in from the top right side.  I think adding these really pulled things together.

Alice's Garden, this was taking from alice and wonderland.  I decided to have mushrooms as the plant, and they are magic.  The mushrooms are found in the movie, and the movie is about the way a child looks at the world with innocence and imagination, which is exactly what these mushrooms allow you to do.  This one just happened so easily, i had the idea and i did it.  The only thing i revised is adding a little bit of the red color to the underside of the mushrooms, and the bigger ones gradually got redder.

The Final seed packet i did was Ariel's Garden, from the little mermaid.  This movie takes place under the sea, and i know when i was little i always wished i could live with ariel under the sea.  So i decided to create these orb type plants that retain oxygen in their bottom orb, and the top part of the plant sucks onto your face while you are under the water.  

This is the backside of the mushroom packet.  I chose to do the back of this packet because the mushroom one i feel is my strongest one. I included a general description about the Disney Gardens brand, and then a more in depth description about the mushrooms themselves.  

This is the final product mounted.  I chose to put it in the order that i did them in for two reasons.  1 because it was the order i did them in i wanted people to see the progression i went through.  2 because the colors got lighter and more red as they went on, and i thought that showed a good progression in color.

mood board

Mood board for the seed project.  My theme is the Peter Pan story.

Mind Maping!!

This is my mind map.  I was trying to think of ideas for a seed packet.  I came up with many.  For example i came up with plants that grow in the Arctic and at the equator, cartoon plants, flowers that talk, plants from outer space, plants that look like animals, plants that create paint, plants that grow for specific animals like bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, dogs cats, squirrels.  A lot of far out ideas and some good ones.

Purple Mushroom

Logos

These are the four logos that i had to recreate.  The WWF one was the hardest one, there was so many curvilinear lines and it was the first one i did.  The second one with the T was the easiest.

Perfect back circles

I decided to do this type of design because i wanted to show a type of movement.  The movement i tried to capture was the waves of the beach.  The larger circles on the left are the rocks or shore.  The smaller circles to the right show the waves breaking and when you go farther to the right the water recollects itself and comes back together.

Intro to Computer Design

Laptop vs Desktop Computers
This short video talked about the different type of Mac computers.  They talked about laptops, or otherwise known as a notebooks, and they talked about desktop Macs and the ipad.  The notebook is usually around 6 or 7 lbs. and portable.  The desktop Mac comps with a tower and a monitor.  The Desktop has more power then the notebooks on average but if you want a more powerful notebook then you will be paying a lot more for the same power you can get on a desktop.  The desktop has other pros as well, such as you can connect other monitors into the tower at the same time.  Also the desktop is easier to upgrade then the notebook.  The ipad is introduced as a total leisure computer and is not a good option to do professional work on.


Five things that work in all applications
This video talked about the five things that you can find on Macs or PC in almost every application.  The first thing was the file menu, you can almost always find it in the same spot in every application.  Also in each application the options you can choose from under file are almost always the same.  Something i did not know is that the close option will close your file put leave the program running.  Number two was the edit menu.  Not only is there always an edit menu but in the edit menu you can always find cut, copy and paste.  Three, undo and redo can always be found in the edit menu.  The preference settings or options can always be found as well but the location differs from Mac to PC. PC it is usually found under the tool or edit menu, and in Mac it id found under the application name menu.