&paintbrush

My graphic design class is learning about logos, making logos, drawing logos…and the whole lot. So, I was noticing logos lately, distinguishing them between the poorly designed and the excellent. I came across inspiredology.com,
a site designed to ‘inspire’ other designers. Here are some logos that I found particularly appeasing (source: Chad in inspiredology.com) :

All of these logos are simple, clean, and express their company/sites well. Looking at “Biomondego“, the leaf suggests something in the nature. Whatever this company is, it surely has to do something with biology, hence “Biomondego”. Also, the logo shape is a “B“, suggesting its first letter of the company. Not only that, the green color and the simplicity of the logo adds on to a company that you can trust. Now, take a look at the font. “Bio” is emphasized by making it a lighter green color and bolded, meaning they take whatever they do seriously. The font is rounded and friendly looking, as if they are saying, “It’s okay, we are safe“. Likewise, all the other logos here have its distinct personality and character.

At first when I enrolled in the graphic design class, I thought it was going to be a piece of cake. I mean, the drawings didn’t have to realistic, so how hard can it get? But no. Making a logo takes a long time and effort, with an occasional scream of frustration. Here are the rough steps for what I had to do to make my logo (still in the making):

1. Think of an object that you want to represent.
(At this time in class, I was so bored and uninterested in this topic that I picked whatever in sight, which was a pair of speakers….a huge mistake)

2. Research everything and anything about your object, including history, companies, logos, designs, etc. to make sure you do not make the same logo.
(We had to present this in front of the class with 20 visual imitations of our objects. I had such a hard time coming up with different speakers, that at the end I made a speaker out of spray cans. Our graphic design teacher told us that in real life situations, we had to present our logos to companies. Meaning, speaking skill is a must.)

3. Based on your research, declare your company name, with a specific personality (i.e. ‘fun’, ‘exciting’), age group, goals, visions, etc.
(My company name, after a long, agonizing 10 minutes, was Cleareal. It is an unique, amiable speaker designing company targeted to ages between 12~19. We aim to design quality speakers with an interesting shape and color. It is small at powerful enough to fill a whole room, and there are various designs to chose from.)

4. Sketch 20 drawings of your company’s logo, keeping in mind its personality and goals.
(We had to draw with a single black 0.5 tip marker. Tedious, as well as annoying. Then we came together as a class and voted for each person’s best three, with feedbacks and criticisms.)

5. Choose your best three logos, and elaborate more on each of them. Sketch 20 more variations for each logos.
(Meaning, 60. With the same marker. All in order to find the perfect logo.)

6.When you have chosen your BEST logo, and it’s BEST moderation, move on to sketching this in the computer.
And this is where I am right now, and we are not even half way done. Excruciatingly painful, considering I am a newbie at Adobe Illustrator. The people on my table, who are all seniors and suffering from senioritis, scream occasionally in frustration. Once, my friend next to me decided to make weird turkey sounds. When I asked what’s up, she said she couldn’t do such work that takes so much concentration. Anyway, this class made me realize my future life in college: computers, screams, weird sounds, dark circles, extra strong coffee, and patience.

Maybe I should start learning yoga.

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Bulimia

Pencil

15″x20″

© Cindy Oh

© Cindy Oh,
Adobe Illustrator

I found this great site where you can draw like Picasso.

It’s great to just get your mind off of things

Try it! Mr. Picassohead

There’s a group of people in my school. We are wild, we can be crazy, and we love music.

But the one thing that makes us serious is art. Creating art, criticizing art, observing art…anything involving art and its form.

We are easy to identify because often times we have paint stuck between our nails and hair, and sometimes on clothes. We usually have hard time concentrating during class, especially math classes. But we usually pour most of the lost concentration on drawing a piece of art.

We laugh at the weirdest jokes, we love unique styles of clothing, and we get lazy really easily.

Deadlines are the hardest thing to keep up to, we love and hate charcoal, and we love the smell of a fresh new paper.

We have lots of mood swings, which we can control but we decide not to. We can get as high as singing “Put Your Hands Up in the Air!” in the cafeteria and as low as staying in bed and sulking about how sucky our life is.

We are over flowing with emotions, and can be quite spontaneous.
But this is where our source of inspiration comes from, so don’t stop us from being too sentimental.

We are students,
Teenagers,

& Artists.

Welcome to our world.

Photo credited to: bo_gazi, anna.hawaii

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Two Faces, Two minds
March 2007.
Acrylics

I drew this around March 2007. I was working on my AP Art pieces, and my theme was my life itself–and this piece really spoke to me after I finished it.

I don’t want to explain everything in the piece because that is not the point of a painting. I hope you get something out of this, the message that I am trying to tell you, without words or sounds.

Technorati Tags: kisaplit, aplit07, drawing, painting, AP, Art

I was looking through few blogs and came across .

This site had a new line of blankets which had traditional bedtime stories on it,
like this:

This supposedly will help you go to sleep by reading the giant letters which turns out to be your bed sheet. I thought this was a clever idea, a unique design that might interest mothers of young children.

Likewise, designers will always have to come up with new ideas, something that nobody had ever tried before. Something unique, and intriguing, that people might find useful. This bedtime ‘blanket’, honestly, doesn’t seem very practically to me. Who would actually strain their eyes to read the end of the bedsheet, and, how do you finish the story? When you get to the end of the “page”, you are supposed to change your bedsheet (there’s a series). But I would be too darn lazy to do all that. If I had the ability to design a multitasking bedtime blanket, I would have one that would warm up to my body level when I climb into bed at night. And then whenever I’m bored, I can sit up on my bed and watch digital TV (somehow) that plays on the blanket.

But then again, there’s always the plasma T.V.

Photo credited to: http://www.platform10.co.uk

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General’s Family

Sunlight’s Kiss

Family of Birds

Lady in the Field of Lillies

–

Octave Ocampo. This artist caught my eyes for his optical illusionary arts. I love how the small details create bigger pieces, and once you step back and look at the art work as a whole, you see a pleasant surprise, like the “Sunlight’s Kiss”.

On Wikipedia, it says:

Ocampo is known for several works in his sometimes wryly sardonic, sometimes evocative paintings in which detailed images are intricately woven together to create larger images - the optical illusions fading back and stepping forward as you study the pieces, notice the details, and finally recognize the large scale intention.^[3]

To learn more about Octavo Ocampo, visit his official site: www.octavioocampo.com

As the days go by, I’m getting more and more interested in advertising, and how it influences people and their lives.

I was ‘blog surfing’ just recently, and found this great article called :

Design and Advertising Influences Every Part of Our Lives

by Tara, a freelance designer.

She went through step by step, starting from waking up with a clock that you chose to buy for various reasons to riding your car that definitely was influenced by advertisement.

Likewise, our lives are always bombarded by advertisements and designs. You cannot escape it, you cannot deny it…it’s ubiquitous. Like Tara, I will add on to the list of things that influences us every day.

You come back home from work…
and you see buildings with its company logos, all trying to grab your eye’s attention.
You pass numerous billboards advertising their product, either with a woman or with
a witty remark that makes you smile. You see stores with their red lights glaring back at you,
as you park your car in the parking lot of a supermarket. Of course, you chose this
convenience store because their ads bombard you in the morning on TV, newspapers, internet,
about how fresh and new their products are.

You go in to the supermarket….
and it’s an advertising heaven. You see logos, SALE signs, “20% off” signs everywhere.

From the ground to the top of the ceiling, you see canned soups from 15 different brands
all competing to be in your grocery basket. You move on to the cereal section, and see more

brands. There’s a tiger, a monkey, a leprechaun, all holding their spoons and beaming back
at you. However you chose the one that says “LOW-SUGAR, LOW-FAT” because you believe
that that will actually prevent you from obesity.

You go back home…
and set your groceries on the kitchen table, and throw your jacket on the sofa. You turn on the T.V.,
exhausted, from work and from all the positive “buy me! buy me!” words all over the place. But when
you turn on the T.V., you are instantly mesmerized in the pizza commercial that slowly lures you to the
telephone. You order a pan of large pizza, with extra cheese, and sit back to flip more channels and see
more advertisements.
——-

Wow, that was fun. If we look at all the advertisements that influence our lives, and take notice of each one of them, it would take years. All the logos that flash across our eyes, all the phrases and mottos…it’s countless. It’s amazing how advertisements has gotten so prominent in our lives.

photo credited to: roadsidepictures, dreamer7112

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