Bradbury Thompson.

The designer I chose for my layout & book binding project is Bradbury Thompson (1911-1995). He was a graphic designer who brought many new innovative ideas to design in the twentieth century such as magazine layouts, a redesign of the Bible, and even a new alphabet that he called "Alphabet 26". But the best part? He's from Topeka, KS! My home state. I knew I'd love him as soon as I found this out, and especially when I found out he is known as the father of modern magazine design, as I have an interest in the field.

Next goal was to create three different two page layout spreads for our book about our designer, that included the 400 word essay we wrote on our designer.

Those are my three layouts pinned up for critique in class. I liked some elements of them and the first layout idea was my strongest design - but a lot of editing also needed to be done. I've already changed quite a bit about the first one trying to implement more of his work into the spreads. More progress to come on those.

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Another project I'm excited to share is my screen printing from ART 133. While I had a love/hate relationship with the project, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I had many mistakes but during the process I realized that was bound to happen as it was 2 whole yards of fabric and it was my first print ever. We used a leapfrog technique to print it and the dye mixed methods that we had already learned about in class. Check out some pictures of my hand designed and printed fabric below.

A project. Or two or three.

Life is flyin' by and I actually finished my chair a couple weeks ago, but am just now having a chance to post pictures. Check out how the final chair turned out below.

The meaning behind it: As stated in a previous blog post, my first goal was to create a strong base structure. That is where the grid idea came from. After making some larger models than you saw in the previous post, I decided to link the grid with two horizontal pieces at the top and bottom across the length of the seat. The other idea I wanted to stick with throughout was the symbolism of my sister's chair being a "mini-me" version of my chair. So that's exactly how I made them: identical but one big and one small. The back of the chairs form a circle when placed right next to each other, but in the sense that if the smaller chair grows to be the same size as the bigger chair it would form a perfect circle. Finally, I was trying to decide if I wanted to hook the chairs together but when thinking about the chairs based on the relationship I realized they should be able to be back to back, side by side, far away, etc. because my sister and I's relationship is ever changing too. Sometime she's in Wichita and I'm in Lawrence and sometimes we visit eachother. Sometimes she's mad at me cause I won't let her jump on my bed and sometimes I'm mad at her for throwing my shoes everywhere. Our relationship right now is just ever changing, and I wanted the chairs to reflect that.

// Art 133:
I am also enrolled in another studio this semester, Art 133, and which is the intro to textiles. A couple weeks ago we finished one of our biggest projects of the semester which was making a quilt. We had to make our quilts out of the fabrics that we had hand dyed in the class previously in the semester using various dyeing techniques. I was so happy to get back into sewing and it was really helpful having previous experience quilting.

The quilt, which is approx. 44" x 44" in size, was made all out of hand dyed fabric. Some of the block designs were assigned to us and some we were allowed free to choose a quilt block from the internet, or even make our own design as on the applique block. I ended up really enjoying paper piecing, which a couple of the blocks were made from.

Last but not least...

Our next project for BDS 102 is very graphics related and I couldn't be more excited. The project is to choose a designer in your field and make a two page book spread including an essay about your chosen designer. Then, our teacher will assign groups of approx. 5 people per group and we will use all of our layouts to each individually make a book. We will be hand making these books and each have our own to turn in for our final project. My designer is Bradbury Thompson. Our first assignment was to make a presentation for class about our designer. Check out my Prezi about Bradbury Thompson below. 

That Cardboard Life.

Before spring break we started on our latest design challenge: making a cardboard chair. Not just for decoration, though... this cardboard chair has to hold the weight of a person. More specifically, my chair has to hold my weight. 

Challenge #1: make a chair out of 4' x 4' of cardboard that is JUST folded and not cut. No adhesives (tape, glue, etc.) may be used in the building process. It was suppose to hold our weight. I found this challenge to be SO FRUSTRATING. Mostly because I attempting making mine at midnight the night before when I was very sleep deprived, so I all I wanted was to figure out some way to make this work. Mine ended up just being a box that held your weight sort of... if you sat on the edge of it.

 






A lot of my fellow students had solutions like mine that ended up looking like a box. I attempted a back of the chair, thats what the floppy cardboard sticking out of the top of the back is suppose to be. At least there was a hint of design on the seat, which was made with tabs to hold the card board together.

Challenge #2: Make a cardboard chair to hold your weight based on a relationship. This chair is allowed to be cut, not just folded, but still no glue or tape can be used to hold it together. Our next steps were to write an essay on the relationship we were basing our chair off of and then make three mini models out of thick paper or cardboard demonstrating our three best ideas.

The relationship I decided to base by chair off of was my relationship with my little sister. Lauren Kay Welch, who is six years old. She's the cutest thing ever, and getting a little sister when I was fourteen years old was the biggest and best surprise of my life to date.

Lauren & I. She is in kindergarten and some of her favorite things are
singing, dancing, spongebob squarepants, and birthday cake pops from Starbucks.

I knew from the beginning that I wanted to make my chair a two-part chair kind of thing. I wanted to make a chair on its own, that also had a mini version of itself next to it. I wanted them to look good together or apart, since my sister and I don't live in the same town. I decided to make her side of the chair the same thing as mine but miniature because all of my friends say she is a mini-me. Since I did not have a lot of ideas on the design, and I had such a problem with structure holding me on the first design problem (chair from above) I decided to focus my three mini models on the structure.

Chair idea #1: a grid structure on the bottom for support. The back of the chair would be a half of a circle, that would be a complete circle when the two parts are together (the mini chair would be a smaller circle though but the illusion that when it grew bigger it would fit with the bigger circle would be there).

Chair idea #2: a triangle formed base for structure. The chair backs would allow my sister and I to sit back to back, but her chair back appears the same as mine just smaller.

Chair idea #3: again, playing with a grid like structure because I thought this would be the most successful in holding weight.

In class, the idea of the chair back continuing to the side was formed in order to create a stronger back.

I'm going to be a cardboard queen by the end of this project. Also, I'm probably going to never want to see another piece of cardboard again.

Spring Break Style

Spring break was just last week and I headed west with my friend Kaitlyn to the great state of California. While our trip started out colder than expected, that beautiful Cali weather finally showed up about three days in and I was able to break out some of my favorite spring and summer attire. Check out some of my favorite current trends below.

// High waisted & distressed shorts.
You can see the ones I'm  wearing in the picture
below too, but I loved wearing all of my DIY shorts in Cali.
(I made those shorts from $4 shorts from Goodwill!
Distressing shorts is so easy, I'll probably make a million pairs for the summer.
I even added my own studs on the front pockets.)

// Rounded sunglass frames.
I ordered these from FreePeople.com for spring break.

// Hair wraps.
Kaitlyn and I both have these hair wraps from Free People.
I was so excited to rock mine over spring break!

// white Converse.
One of my recent trend obsessions is white low top Converse.
They seem to be more popular these days in Kansas and Kaitlyn
let me borrow her pair in Cali. I have got to order some of my own soon.

// crocheted shorts.
I bought the cream crochet shorts seen here while shopping in Cali.
They go with so many things - I'm so glad the weather is finally warming
up here in Kansas so I can wear my new shorts ASAP. (Also pictured here,
the sunglasses and hair wrap from above).

California is my new favorite place to be and I can't wait until I go back!

// Musical Musings.

While in Cali, Kaitlyn and I went to the Imagine Dragons concert. They were absolutely amazing live, so you should check out their tour schedule and see if they're coming to a city near you! If you've never heard their music I'd recommend the songs Demons, Tip Toe, and On Top of the World. Those are three of my favorites. 

// Imagine Dragons.

A Logo low-down: Fly N High Productions

I recently had the privilege to design the logo for a local music video production company called Fly N High productions. A KU student started the company and was looking to have a logo designed for it. I've slowly but surely been working on it for about a month now, and I'm really excited with how it turned out and it to share it with you. This logo was so much fun to design and while it went through many brainstorming periods, the client ended up just as happy with the logo and I am.

My client was very open to color combinations and options, so a lot of the sketches and beginning ideas I made included a lot of color. With the final logo he chose, I gave him for different options. He ended up liking them all and wanting to use them all in various things throughout the company. Below you can see the four different variations of the logo.

Design & Etc.

I realized after getting back from spring break that I never posted about my final box. The two weeks before spring break were a total whirlwind, without much sleep, so it must have just slipped by me. Here are some photos of the completed wooden box:

As I mentioned before, this box was created to hold KU jewelry my grandma had given me that she didn't want anymore. It was fun creating a box that had so much meaning to me, just because it holds items that my grandmother gave to me. I love that.

One of my more recent designs for Chi Omega was for a poster promoting our spring philanthropy for Make A Wish. We are hosting a sand volleyball tournament called "Hoot Set Spike".

I based the poster off of the tank top design I made, which includes the owl volley ball on it that you see top right of the poster. I'll post pictures of the tanks once they are ready to order. 

Another design I'm really excited about is my v-neck shirt design for mom's weekend for Chi Omega:

Spring break went by way too fast, as I was in California, and coming back to the snow seemed way too harsh. I'm ready to finish the semester strong, and excited about design opportunities this summer. Stay tuned for more design and inspiration.

Back to the Drawing Board

Yesterday was one of those great days where I realized I had to re-do most of my project. Maybe wood shop isn't really my thing, because when I first cut out my box the top and bottom did not match up because I cut it wrong. I've learned a lot about the wood shop and the band saw, as I have no previous experience. So I'm looking at all of it as a learning opportunity. Because if there's one thing I've learned in BDS this year it's that failing isn't always a bad thing and I'll probably end up with a better result because of it. The photos below document my process of cutting out the foam core model with the band saw as well as some wood practice.

I used some extra wood to practice using the bandsaw.

Practicing using the band saw with my foam core model.

Finished foam core model. Cut with the band saw & glued with spray glue.

The beginning of attempt #1: after gluing the wood together I cut it in half and
 then spray glued the "pattern" of my box on the wood to cut with the band saw.

After figuring out that the wave of the bottom half was too dramatic to perfectly cut
with the band saw, I tried to save it by cutting a piece from the top section and
 re-gluing it to the bottom. It ended up not working out, but it was worth a shot.

This wooden box is due next Tuesday, so tomorrow studio will consist of me attempting to finish cutting out the box and then I can sand my life away this weekend. Spring break can't come soon enough. :)