Week 5: History: Design Styles

In researching different design styles for the label assignment, I found a website that gives a brief visual history of some 2oth Century styles and breaks down their characteristics. The first one it mentions is Victorian, which is symmetrical, ornamental, has type is on a curve, has romanticized floral patterns, and is idyllic. Arts and Crafts styles is a revival of Medieval craftwork with detailed wroth-iron-like design work. Art Nouveau is Asian-inspired with flat illustrations and feminine curves. Modern design lacks ornamentation, loves structured, geometric design layouts and sans-serif font. Art Deco also uses geometry but utilizes lines of force and aerodynamic shapes with tall fonts. American Kitsch is casual, using script fonts and caricatures. Swiss International is very abstract, using mostly only type with basic geometric shapes. Contemporary is simple and uses visual metaphors.

http://gds.parkland.edu/gds/!lectures/history/9000_review/review.html

Week 5: Onion Label Sketches

Week 4: History: Website

Week 4: Photoshop Logo Layouts

Craft

For these layouts I used InDesign and imported the necessary Illustrator files, most scaled down. The black bar at the top is set on a master page. The font is Myriad Pro in Regular and Bold.

Concept

Each spread is treated as a showcase of the actual Adobe Photoshop logos, ideas, revisions, and students' revisions.

Composition

Titles are at the top to organize the layouts. Each layout showcases the designs with captions underneath.

Week 3: History:

Week 3: Photoshop Logo Revisions

Craft

For these revisions I simply adjusted the color and the gradient for a lighter blue. Then I tried another revision removing the starburst from the background. The new design is a single outline traced from a sketch. It has a gradient effect to create three-dimensionality. The shine is achieved with a pair of path shapes with a transparent white solid color.

Concept

The revisions follow the same concepts of simplicity as the current Photoshop logo does. The new design is a blend between the current logo and the old logo by combining a P with an eyeball.

Composition

The new revisions are brighter, less busy, and easier to see. The new design is noticeably a P and the eyeball is a secondary aspect.

Week 2: History: Photoshop Logo

From '88 to '02 the photoshop logo has consisted of an eye. It was mainly a photo editing software and people are common photography genre. So something like a human eye was appropriate in dictating that this was photo editing software. Once Adobe launched Creative Suite, the logo drastically changed for '03-'05. It went from eyes to feathers. This move might have been done to emphasize the creative and painterly side of photoshop since the software was already well known and really becoming an industry standard. That logo quickly faded and a simple blue square with the P.S. initials took its place in '07 and on. Again, photoshop is widely known to the point where it has become a verb. An elaborate logo was unnecessary. The current simple logo is shared with other Adobe software to suggest interconnectivity. The blue color and initials are the only identifiers needed.
http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/evolution-of-photoshop/
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2010/02/20-years-of-adobe-photoshop/

Week 2: Photoshop Logos

Craft
I reproduced the old Photoshop logo by using the pen for the background to create layers of shapes and colors with varying opacities. This formed the faint background for the entire composition. The middleground consisted of the face and eye which I used a gradient mesh for. The face was a single gradient mesh and the eye ball was another separate gradient mesh. The pupil was an elipse with a gaussian blur effect. The foreground was the rim of a camera lens which I just used the pen for to make a generic ring.
Concept
This logo is designed to tell the user what the product is. It is a visual photo editing software.
Composition
The camera lens acts as a frame and the eye is the main focal point but shares the center with the background. This is to give the impression of a photograph.

Craft
For the current photoshop logo, it is a simple square with a color gradient offset and on top of a second solid color square. A quadrilateral shape with a gradient makes the left side. The letters are formed with the pen and have a solid color like the square in the background.
Concept
By this time, photoshop is well known so a descriptive logo is unnecessary and it has become much more integrated with other Adobe design software. They all share the same simple logo with different color schemes for easy recognision.
Composition
The logo puts the text in the central focus. The blue color scheme is recognized as photoshop's color scheme. The logo shape is planar to maintain a simple aesthetic.

Craft
For the future photoshop logo, I started with a rounded square with a gradient. It also has an blue inner glow effect set to overlay transparency. A second rounded square is right on top with an black inner glow set to soft light transparency. The starburst is an array of black and white lines with an soft light opacity mask. The letters are formed with the pen and have a drop shadow within them with an opacity mask. The elispe behind the letters has a gaussian blur. The elipse on top of everything on the bottom half is white with transparency.
Concept
I wanted to maintain the simple logo theme but updated almost app-like 3D design.
Composition
The composition is designed to not look flat but 3D and sleek. The inner glow effects and sunken lttering achieve this to make it look 3D.

Week 1: History: Brief History of Type

Here is a link I found through historyisdesign.com on the brief history of typeface styles.
http://ilovetypography.com/2007/11/06/type-terminology-humanist-2/

The first historically notable typeface is Blackletter and was used extensively in the Middle Ages. It copies the style of manuscript form and consists of dark, caligraphic lettering. It was ultimately too difficult to read. Humanist type was developed in Venice between 1460-1470s. It was lighter in form than Blackletter. Humanist type is characterized by sloped crossbars, such as in lowercase e's, small height, little difference in stroke width, and a dark page color. It is considered out of style now but Humanist type is the foundation for modern font.
Humanist style is based in caligraphy, but Old Style fonts depart from that. Developed in the 1500s and 1600s, Old Style fonts are more refinded, use varying stroke widths and have serifs. They stress uprightedness and they have horizontal crossbars.
Transitional types, developed in the 1700s are perpendicular to the verticle axis and have great contrast between strokes of the same letter. Serifs are more horizontal and thinner.

Week 1: Introduction

Hi, my name is Kevin Palys, and I am a prospective graphic designer and illustrator. I am attending the Saint Xavier University Art Department and have experience using Adobe design software such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. Fields that I am interested in and pursuing are Branding/Marketing, Logo design, and digital illustration for books, magazines, or other periodicals.

So far my best work is for this first assignment of the new semester compared to previous semesters where I lacked knowing the proper functions of the pen tool for example. Also, a poster for a sculptor lecture from Graphic Design I.