Chattanooga Times Free Press

Our second field trip was to Chattanooga Times Free Press. I found this to be a very interesting experience. I have never gotten a tour of a newspaper before, so it was fun to see how it all operates. I learned a lot and I got to see how important it is for everyone to work together.

Frank Anthony was our tour guide. He knew the process very well and was very excited to take us around. We started by looking at the original printing machines and how they have evolved. It is amazing to see the progression over time and how much times have changed. After that, we moved on to see where the reporters work. So many computers! All the reporters worked in this wide open room with amazing wood floors. There really wasn’t too many people working all at once. He told us the reporters work at all hours, day and night, just depending of when their deadline is. I think the most exciting part of the tour was to actually see the massive printing press they use today. It is an amazing machine! I learned a lot from this field trip about the whole printing process. He took us through every step. We got to see the plates being made, the printing press in action, the huge rolls of paper, the folding machines…so much to take in! It truely is an amazing process.

Thank you Frank Anthony!

Tastebuds Update

We’ve been working on the TasteBuds initiative for awhile now…Our group has been incharge of the event. This includes the press releases, t-shirts, posters, childrens activity sheets, and the press kit. Everything is coming along nicely. All of us have been designing different t-shirts, bags, buttons, and posters for the event. We have been working on the press kit as well. For the press kit, we had to write several inserts giving background information on Crabtree Farms, Leadership Chattanooga, a Farmers Bio, and the UTC Graphic Design students. We’ve had a pretty easy time getting everything done, everyone in the group works well together. Thank you to Angela Lee McClister, she’s been a lot of help with the press releases and getting us a media list. Angela and a few others from Leadership Chattanooga have taken a lot time out of their work days to come sit in with us during class. They have been a major help! As for now, we will continue to work and edit our designs together. This has definitely been a learning experience.

PR workshop

The PR workshop we attended was very informative. I am in the event group for the TasteBuds initiative, and we are in charge of writing and sending out the press releases. The speaker was very helpful by giving us suggestions on how to make a successful release and what we need to do to get noticed. At the beginning of our class project, I had no idea what a press release was supposed to include. A successful press release should have contact information, a catchy title, and an interesting story. When doing the PR for a client, you should send out two releases- a news release and a feature release.

The workshop we attended was at CreateHere and the speaker was Janis Hashe. She works for Chattanooga’s newspaper, the Pulse. She was a good speaker, and I appreciate her coming out to talk to us. One thing I learned at the workshop, was that it is a good idea to include a picture in your email attachments when sending out a press release. If it is a good picture, and they decide to run your story, they will include it in their article. It was a very helpful workshop, and I learned a lot that will help me in my future career.

Special thanks to Janis Hashe.

Paper Plus

Our first field trip was to Paper Plus of Chattanooga. It is a printing and paper company. One of the very nice employees, Alex Brock, took time out of his work day to talk to us. I had no idea there was so many types of paper! When we walked in the door, we all saw the paper samples and immediately got excited. It was really nice of them to allow us to take all the samples that we did. Overall, it was a very informative trip, and I learned a lot about paper. He talked about the different companies that make paper, different grains, different textures, and the different paper colors. It was so much information and you could see everyone trying to soak it all up. It was very helpful to see and talk to Alex, because as students, it’s hard for us to know what really goes into the whole process. It gave us a better understanding of the printing process. I think it was great of Leslie to take us on a field trip because it helps us make connections with printers, and that will definitely come in handy. Networking is a must in the Graphic Design field.

Thank you to Leslie, Alex Brock, and Paper Plus!

Client Presentations

The client presentation went well. We had several logo designs to show them. It was the first time the clients actually got to see what we had come up with. Tara, Casey, and Elizabeth all had logos to pitch to the clients. This is all a very good experience because it’s giving us an idea of what it will be like after college. In the end, they were very pleased with the designs, but weren’t sure which one was right for the initiative.

Presentations are very important. How you dress, how you carry yourself, and what you say about your designs are all very important elements in making a successful presentation. Clients can tell if you’re nervous or if you don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s best to come well prepared and dressed for success. Also, know what you’re going to say before hand. Presentation is key.

Print Production

There are a lot of different printing techniques that have developed in today’s print companies.  I had no idea such things could be done, and it is really interesting learning about them all.  It seems like the possibilities are endless. I find thermography, embossing, and silk screen printing to be very interesting. They are all finishing design elements that are seen quite frequently today. It’s very fun to see printers that actually do that kind of stuff. Being a student in the arts, I have been learning a lot about these processes and I hope to continue learning. Thermography interests me the most because it is ink sitting ontop the paper. I have no idea how it’s done, and I would like to see the process in person sometime. There are all sorts of printing processes and a lot of printers that do different things.

What makes a good logo?

Logos are a very important part in branding. In our Professional Practices class, everyone was supposed to design logos for the TasteBuds initiative. There are a lot of things that need to go into consideration for a logo. You need to find out what the clients are looking for. A logo needs to be memorable and unique. Creating logos can be very tricky. One false move can ruin your logo. A logo must be legible, if there are words. It has to be taken into consideration that the final logo is representing you and your product, and it must be perfect. A customer may pick your product over another one because they trust that branding. Words aren’t required, it could simply be a symbol. It’s a very time consuming process, requiring minor and/or major adjustments. The logos for my class have been very different. The final decision is not up to us though. The clients will be coming in, and it is up to us to present our ideas. Creating logos was a surprisingly hard process.

Color

We were assigned a project where color plays a major part in creating a mood. Everyone was given two words and it was our job to take pictures and edit them in a specific order. My words are quiet and loud. I took a picture of a baby doll with and without a pacifier to demostrate my words. When editing the photos, I took into consideration what different colors represent and how I wanted to use them in this assignment. Part of the assignment was following each step to alter the photo. The colors I chose were blue and pink. I wanted to play with the idea of gender. I enjoyed doing this assignment because there was a lot of elements that needed to be considered. Although we were told each step to do, we still had limited freedom when it came to colors and half-tones. I liked seeing everyone else’s images. Its interesting to see what other people come up with and how they went about the assignment. Color really did have an important role in setting the mood for each picture. It can completely change people’s perceptions of your images.

Working with images 2

The farther I get in the list of images, the more complicated the assignment gets. There are a lot of steps and most the time I don’t know where they come from. I really am learning a lot, because in the beginning, I really didn’t know how to develop images in Photoshop. It has taken a long time to even make a dent in the list of steps. The Production Manual helps a lot. It’s a great book if you’re wanting to learn indepth ways to photo edit. It has pictures to illustrate what your image should look like. This assignment will help in my future designs because it opens up the amount of editing I know how to do. Although it is a tedious assignment, it will help all of us in our future projects.

Finishing Design Elements

Emboss/Deboss

I brought in a credit card and my Livestrong bracelet. I decided on a credit card because of the numbers on the front. They are embossed, raised above the surface. I thought this would be a good example, because it is something you see/feel everyday and don’t consider it as a design element. My second example was my Livestrong bracelet. I chose this because the letters on the surface are debossed, pushed down in the surface. This is a very effective design element because ink has a tendency to rub off, and by doing it this way, it will hold its design forever.

Perforation/Scoring

My first example I have is a Starbucks coffee sleeve. The two edges are perforated. This design element is used to help the sleeve fold flat and to keep the crease along the same line. I selected this as an example because it is a good use of perforating to enable the card to be folded where intended. My second example is a binder with several scoring marks allowing it to close shut, but also to adjust size depending on the amount of papers inside. I brought in this binder to demonstrate the design element because it doesn’t just use one score to close, but it allows for flexibility by using several score marks.

Binding

My first example is a saddle-stitched calendar. I picked this example because saddle-stitch is a very common stitch used to bind a smaller amount of pages. It works for the calendar because if it was bound any other way, it wouldn’t hang on the wall right. My second example is a spiral-bound school planner. This is a very common binding as well. It’s used on most notebooks and creates an easy to flip-through book.

Varnish

There are two different types of varnish, and I tried to bring in an example of each. The first thing I brought in was a baseball card. The top side of the baseball card has a shiny layer, which is an example of flood varnish. I chose this because it has a visible varnish layer on the top side, but not on the under-side. In that example, the varnish is used as a protective layer. My second example is the movie case for  Se7en. On the cover, they used spot varnishing to give the name an eerie tone. It is used to create a visual effect, rather than a protective layer. I brought this in to show the versatility of the varnish finishing design element.

Thermography

Thermography was really hard for me to find examples for because it isn’t used on too many things. All I could think of were business cards. So, my first example is a business card. I brought in several different business cards, all that use thermography. I chose these because they are a good example of what thermography is commonly used for. My second example is a piece of mail that has my name and address typed and printed with thermography. I brought in this example because it is something different, but still using the same design element. Thermography is a good idea that should be considered more often because it does not smear, as ink is more likely to.

Die-cut

For my first example, I brought in a card I received for Christmas that is cut into a non-traditional shape. The images on the card are snowmen, and the card is cut to their shape. I chose this card because it is an awkward shape that shows this finishing design element well. My second example is a tip card I received from my apartment complex. It’s the same size as a business card, but the edges are cut and rounded. This is a good example for die-cut because its not a regular rectangle. It has cut, rounded corners. When going through a printing company, this is just an added step that will probably cost money, depending on where you go.

Folds

I brought in a pamphlet and a magazine. The pamphlet I brought in isn’t a regular 2 or 3-fold. It has 5 pages, 2 sides. I chose this pamphlet because I honestly find it annoying. I dislike the amount of folds it has. The pages are hard to follow because there are so many. My next example is a magazine. I brought in a magazine because it has fold-out advertisements. When flipping through a magazine, there are a lot of fold out pages. The ones I am using for my example are the cologne advertisements with the 1-2 inch flap and the full page pull-outs. They come standard in most magazines, but I’ve never taken time to think of it as a finishing design element.

Packaging

I brought in two different boxes to use as my examples for packaging. The first box is a Victoria’s Secret perfume box that is very decorated and has an interesting design. The outside of the box has words that are debossed with a golden script font. Running vertical down the sides of the lid are two ribbons. The box closes by a magnetic pull between the final flap and the actual container. I chose this box because it is an overall creative design. The outside decoration was very well considered and the 3-fold packaging varies from the norm. The second box I chose to use as an example is based purely on function and not outside appearance. It is a smaller box, but when you open it, there are several places to put things. It is a good use of packaging design because it unfolds outwards revealing more storage, and it is a very versatile style box.

Foil Stamps

For my foil stamp examples, I brought in an envelope and a paper shopping bag. The envelope has a gold foil stamp on the entire inside. I chose this because I have never seen or noticed it used for that purpose before. This example shows that foil stamps can be used for things other than pictures and writing. My other example is a green paper bag with a blue foil stamp on both sides. The name, location, and contact information of the company are stamped on the side of the bag. I didn’t realize at first it was a foil stamp until I really looked at it. I chose this example because it’s a different color foil stamp than gold or silver.

Duotone

I have two examples for duotone, and they are both from magazines. The first example is a picture of a man in purple and black. Duotone is almost always black and another color. I had a hard time finding examples for this design element, but I found out it is most commonly used on pictures and advertisments. My second example is a picture of Johnny Cash that I found in a magazine. The two colors used in this advertisment are black and yellow. They used the same yellow in the text around the photo. These are both examples of duotone as a finishing design element.