Design Production Team Layout, as the name suggests, is a class about almost everything… but it’s most distinctive feature is the Team element. The work you’re about to see would not have been possible without my teammates, Jeremy Steiner, Cayce Cunningham, and Tasha Bannon.

Our class was fortunate to get to work on a real-life project. Our school wants to design an area on campus that will promote the schoool-sponsored housing program. As prospective students are given tours of the school, the admissions staff would be able to use this space to talk about the benefits of housing.

The area the school envisions for this exhibit of sorts is currently two blank walls at one end of an oft-frequented corridor. We took the measurements of these walls, and divided into to teams. There were four teams competing to create a design that the school administrators will want to make a reality.

From the beginning, our team was interested in pursuing a ‘bird’s eye view’ concept, featuring a huge map of the area surrounding campus. We figured it could be extremely useful both to prospective and current students (and parents!) to see what all was within walking distance of campus.

We continued the bird’s eye view theme with a blueprint style graphic of the apartment layout, again a useful tool for planning ahead. The avian theme also grew to encompass a string-and-nails installation reminiscent of a nest, and symbolic of the valuable relational and professional network that students can weave in the student housing program.

One week, we took a field trip to a local graphics and signage company to see how much our ideas might cost to build, and to get professional insight about different materials and processes. We later supplied them with technical drawings in order to get rough quotes.

The final deliverables to our client were a scale model of our space and a book that explains our plan and concept. We also made an oral presentation. Their decision has yet to be made.

I have learned how much I really like designing as part of a team. I always feel that the outcome is stronger, even though there are differences to be overcome. This project is evidence of a lot of overcoming!

We humbly endorse the free file-sharing site, ge.tt. It served us well, as did Facebook’s ability to create private groups. Between these two platforms, we had no trouble communicating and swapping our files back and forth.

Here are the major iterations of our design, in backwards chronological order. You can follow how certain ideas were born and evolved, and how others met a quiet demise over the course of eleven weeks.

Wonder what he saw that made him flip out?

Having lived in the US as an adult for three years now, I have noticed the huge difference between the way I feel and the way many other people seem to feel about interacting with foreign call centers. I think it’s exciting to talk with someone who has an accent and learned my language to be able to help me with a problem. I tend to feel less threatened than I might otherwise. And yet I hear so much from others about how frustrating and unamerican it is to outsource these services.  I decided to research American perspectives on international business service outsourcing and see if I could cut through the divisiveness and learn anything. I did!

Read the Paper

I also made a little visual aid. Now that I’m in an Illustration class, I would completely redo this by hand. But cheap and dirty got the point across at the time. I perceive that some Americans seem to view the rest of the world as an economic black hole — anything we send out is lost forever. I propose that we recognize a sowing and reaping principle at work. The more that nations freely give, the more there will be to harvest.

A basic walk cycle for the pink panther. The first frame was given to me to start it off. The reason his arms and tail flash in and out is because I didn’t finish drawing every frame. And if I hadn’t run out of time, I definitely would have attempted a more dramatic, snooty glide.

A walk cycle is created in a certain order. A single step typically takes place over 12 frames. The position where the foot hits the ground for the next step is called the contact position. These are drawn first.

Then, we draw the passing positions. These are where it is possible to put the most character and personality into the walk.

Walking is basically a process of falling and catching yourself, so we also have down and up positions.

After these drawings are established, all that is left is to draw the inbetweens — the rest of the frames that ensure the animation looks smooth. These is where I ran out time and didn’t get to the arms and the tail, and why professional animators at Disney have underlings to do all the inbetween drawings!

I made this ball, and made it bounce across the screen. Hardest part? Balancing the rotation value with the horizontal position at the end of the bounces, so the ball looks like it’s rolling, not sliding. It involved a lot of back and forth, trial and error. The handy thing about animation is that your eye will immediately tell you if something is wrong!

Animation lesson of the day

This screen shot shows all the frames of this animation at once. You will notice:

In animation, the illusion of speed is created with greater spacing.

Things that bounce always slow down when they are approaching the peak, about to descend.

Gravity squashes things upon impact, and an equal and opposite reaction makes them stretch vertically immediately following. The volume of the object never changes, however. Exaggerating the squash and stretch makes things look more ‘cartooney.’

This is my very first attempt at animation in Flash. I went for rough and loose, hoping that the expressiveness would make up for these being only stick figures. I was also interested to see if I could suggest sound through movement and color alone. The Flash timeline is organized by frames, so putting my changes at equal intervals is how I kept them all on ‘tempo.’

I had to google walk cycles to figure out how to make my characters convincingly walk onto the stage. The movements of the musicians, however, were super easy for me to figure out from memory. I found it ironic that I know what my arms have to do when I play violin, but apparently not what my legs need to do to walk.

Adobe Flash never made any sense to me in the past, but as I begin to understand the needs and processes of animators (so very different from graphic designers), I start to see why the software works the way it does. I just have to adjust my thinking and my processes too. In this class, we’ll be animating traditional walks, bounces, and character takes, as well as watching documentaries about Disney and video tutorials from animators. It’s going to be a fun glimpse into a new field!

As our final project in Publication Design, we each chose a social issue to be the topic of a 28-page magazine. I went with globalization, choosing stories that I feel give respect to the internationally responsible worldview I want to promote.

None of writing is mine, but all of the illustrations are. And of course I designed it — made all the choices about the type, page numbers, table of contents, etc. etc. I recommend reading the whole thing! But in the event that you’re short on time, check out at least the editor’s letter, reproduced below.

Over the past two decades, a popular article on world demographics has circulated that begins, “if the world was a village of 100 people…”

Author Donella Meadows brought new dimension to dry statistics, startling many. But more and more are finding her interpretation to be a reflection of the way they already think: the world certainly is their village, and every culture is like a person with a distinct personality.

Satellite is written for those of you who think of the entire world as your own. But unlike the exploitative empires of old, you regard international affairs with curiosity that trumps timidity, compassion sans guilt, and insight that cuts through perplexity. Here, we celebrate your bird’s-eye view and aim to stimulate your open minds with things you might not know about your village.

A word about the graphics: we chose Satellite’s look and feel to suggest the spacious outlook of a mind free from nationalistic attitudes and artificial boundaries. If you are like us, you have been inundated with travel photography, much of which has become cliché and reinforces unhelpful generalizations. Satellite hopes its simple line drawings will inform in a way that allows room for readers’ individual perceptions of the nations and issues being discussed. Your own experiences are what give meaning to this publication, and we probably don’t have photographs of those.

Welcome to Satellite: What’s new with us. We invite you to engage with your world in a fresh way as you travel our pages.

Rachel Leigh
Editor & Creative Director

In addition to packaging, 3D Design is also a class about endowing public spaces with the same graphic consideration that we bestow upon two-dimensional surfaces, sometimes known as environmental graphic design.

All quarter long, each of us in the class developed a trade show booth design for a local company. I chose the William Baker Co., a manufacturer’s representative for the commercial construction industry. Their job is to promote certain products to architects and contractors who specify the materials for building projects.

I learned from them that one of the events they regularly work is the AIA | CSI Trade Fair. Currently, most companies that exhibit never go beyond the skirted table and poster board display. I wanted to design something for the William Baker Co. that would stand out in a huge hall full of… skirted tables and poster board displays.

The important thing is to promote first and foremost the products that William Baker Co. represents, yet also helping people remember them as the reps. I decided to use the materials themselves in the construction of the booths, while featuring William Baker Co.’s lovely logo as often as possible.

Two product lines that they typically feature at a show like this are Lumicor and Accel-E. Lumicor makes resin panels that can be used for countertops, light fixtures, dividers , etc. and come in an endless variety of colors, textures, and inlays. Lots of fun to show off. Accel-E are energy-efficient wall panels that combine steel framing with expanded polystyrene. Less attractive, but still a great idea and very useful.

I created each brand to have its own little structure. These could be put together and rearranged in different configurations, but would together fit easily in a 10×10′ exhibit area.

Our instructor, Scott Chenoweth, worked hard to get a group of graphic designers excited about creating scale models. I discovered the world of styrene, Krylon brand spray paint, superglue, and the many properties of foam core board.

To top it off, I made a document with the floor plans and elevations.

… also known as Chinese Lantern Plants.

… also known as my last assignment in Oil Painting class. From life.

Somehow, I got through three years of graphic design courses before ever having to attempt a cylindrical package design. I’m not sure how that happened, but I know how awkward it felt trying to determine how much of the design was going to be visible from a given angle!

My goal was to update Creamette’s feel and move the design forward from its original cardboard box. This repackaging assignment was part of a class called 3D Design.

AND, by using a cylinder (a Pringles can made a perfect prototype), I could implement a new kind of dispenser lid ( which I am not showing in case I decide to patent it one day. Really.)