My interest in your course stems directly from my desire to one day center my design career around motion design. Currently my skills with various programs are marginal at best and I find this extremely frustrating because I am unable to realize on screen the vision I have in my mind. Basically every time I watch television or see a movie I pay attention to the graphics and make a mental note of colors, movements, type and other aspects that make an impact.

During my internship at Red Hat, I was involved in the audio production for a flash demo for a particular product. I found the Flash demo that a studio here in Raleigh had created to be very much less than satisfactory. The movements are not fluid, the images are completely uninspired and the timing of everything makes no sense whatsoever. It's frustrating that I do not have the skills in Flash so that I could have said to my boss, "I can do a MUCH better job and save you $8000."

It has become obvious that in order to be competitive as a graphic designer, skills in motion work are essential. My hopes for your course are that I will learn these skills as well as an aesthetic that I can use in my projects and future endeavors.

I want to know is there room for the immaterial, the "flimsy", the inbetween, the translucent whimsy of fleeting whispered nuance in what I currently consider to be, the precise, the purposeful, the contained abstraction that qualifies as TYPOGRAPHY?

You see, the timber of the human voice is rich and mutable depending on sickness, outrage, earnestness, fear...(you get the idea, insert more adjectives ad infinitm). And, likewise, I'd say there are enough typefaces out there to abstractedly "stand for" this range...but...I'd like to explore the magic art of this suggestive representation as accurately/expressively/emotionally as possible - thru TYPOGRAPHY in shimmering motion, of couse.

hahahahahahaahahah. So there.

New Media is like a new dish of food that I just recently tried at a restaurant that keeps me coming back for more. The endless array of possibilities that the web world offers and synthesizes and evolves into proves its validity. I have been exposed to a good amount of print work throughout this university and my previous education. Interactivity on the other hand has lingered on the periphery and continues to give me a slightly discomforting and at the same time exciting feel. I like that. The field is so vast, motion going hand in hand with sound and moveable type and narratives and all that we talked about today in class.
This semester, I want to bring to the screen what i think of in motion when creating static work, i want to be able to animate and extend my story, make it richer, create a more interactive experience. I want to surprise an audience and myself. I want people to make a bookmark of my site.
I want to convert my current fear of Flash into a Flash Gordon a la carolin.

Miles put it quite nicely today when he stated that if you "look around yourself you will find a story and the answer."

I believe strongly that everything we need and should ever want is all around us - the people we interact with, our environment, objects in the trash, and so on. This, I also believe, extends to this "new media" we are preparing to embark upon. Motion is fairly new as it exists to us in the form of Flash and After Effects, but it is not new at all in this world. Transitions are everywhere, form and composition are limitless in our eyes if we choose to open them. We must choose to look.

To wrap up this comment, my goal is to take what I am given in day-to-day living and find a way to use these stories, transitions, compositions, etc. in my work in studio. Lev Manovich points out that parallels can be drawn between what is happening today in terms of new media and other happenings throughout history (ex: cinema). How can we take these precendents and draw on them? Make new conventions? New systems?

GD 517 is going to force me to experiment with type...that seems broad but let me explain what I mean...already with project 1, this is forcing me to think about process and continuous learning that will be instigated my questions of typography and the uncomfortable or unknown to find a solution for a project each Wednesday. It will reflect a process and sense of experimentation that I am excited about . I hope to incoorporate several types of ways to execute the project by dealing with New Media and screen-based type as well as print based type. I think it is awsome being in a class that is so "vertical" as Tony would said because I know I will learn from my peers and we all have different experiences and classes. Also, designing a bitmap typeface is new to me so I am unsure which is good, but Im willing to explore and learn.

Now that I am finished with volleyball and ready to go full force with design and not have that as a limitation anymore. I have never been more excited to just be a student and really focus on design. A goal of mine is to try and exceed the limits of 'newness' and enter an unknown territory that will bring a sort of freshness to my work,variety, and uniqueness.

There is nothing like the charge that I get when something goes from being static to becoming animated. Even if that something is a square that rotates 90 degrees contrerclockwise once, there is suddenly something else happening—change over time. Movement. Transition. Sometimes unpredictalbe movement and transition. Don't get me wrong, I still hold print media in high regaurds, but new media allows us to take what is beautiful and give it a whole nother dimension. I catch myself sometimes passing by a poster on the street and imagining the elements in that poster dancing on screen in harmony with music that would really lift the piece to its utmost potential. Then it hits me—I can't get away from wanting to take something static and animate it to life. Right now, however, I feel like I am hindered by the software that could make this possible. With this class my hopes are to be able to gain the knowledge of these programs in order to better realize these ideas in my mind that can't quite come out yet.

Oh, the thought of being a master at all things new media. That's what I hope to get out of this class. But considering I have never even opened this so-called Flash program, I'm pretty sure its gonna be a long and bumpy road. But what better way to learn then from experimentation and making mistakes. I am also very excited to know that this class will include narrative skills, for being a horrible writer is another characteristic I admit to claim (as well as a horrible speller). So for me, this class is some what like a design group therapy, I will expose my weaknesses in Graphic Design and then with the help of others, learn to make them stronger. Let the healing begin!

One of my goals this semester, and just in general, is to move towards making not just conceptual work but also beautiful work. I think a lot of my stuff from the past lacks that beauty that lets it really capture people. I don't know what it is or how/where to find it. Do you?

I'm starting by trying to make everything that I make look good. I mean everything from my dinner to class notes. This is where hand writing comes in, which I think is really important as it represents me as an individual. I'm going to leave my shitty handwriting behind (except the parts that i like).

I think this translates to the digital in an interesting way. How can something made out of ones and zeros be beautiful? And have the mark of an individual behind it?

When i write a letter to a friend (by hand... yes, people still do that), my handwriting changes from the span of the beginning of the correspondence to the end. I think it's some combination of laziness/attention focused on other things and the idea that the reader becomes accustomed to my hand writing style and essentially learns how to read it, so it can become less 'standard' or precise as the letter goes on. It also probably gets a little more personal, which is reflected in the writing style as well. [This is a lot like what happens to people's dialects when they talk...a person's accent changes depending on who she's talking to, what she's saying, where she is. ]

So going back to screen-based type, i'm interested in seeing how it can reflect this sort of change in behavior within a document. Maybe a typeface sort of deteriorates towards the end of a long letter; maybe it's coded so that it looks different if it detects more emotional or personal words/phrases? Maybe a pile of pixels can be as emotionally telling as a letter crafted with luv and a nice, inky pen. Maybe... ?

s.w.a.d.k.

cheryl

well, this will be my second time taking the interactive studio. i've always had an extreme interest in the web & interactivity. but, i must admit, my adventures in australia have left me a bit dry. so this semester, i really want to dive back into making, exploring & loving. i am still interested in some of the topics i was covering last semester, such as dynamic content and how ever changing variables can affect the user's experience. ie. how does the weather change the color of a website? how can someone's experience with content completely change based upon the day, the time, location, the flavor of gum they're chewing. who knows? but i'm interested. i also am interested in online community spaces and how personal interactivity changes/alters/develops. oh and finally, i want to smile while doing all of it (right tbrock?)

p.s. systems are yummy, don't you think?

: )

Well, it's about time that I decided to tackle the whole "new media" thing. I've been trying to avoid it for about a semester and a half. Not on purpose per say, but because I don't know what I'm doing. I lack transition skills as well as technical skills. I feel so weak in the field that I fell that I am a very (in/un)(e/a)ffective designer on the whole. Hopefully I will solve this problem.

aiight.
i'm so excited about this typography class. probably the most excited i've been since learning that adrienne can ride a unicycle. like cheryl above, i really want to figure out how to make beautiful things--most things i make are pretty derivitave and that frustrates me. i also want to figure out how "form can be political" as denise g.c. told me earlier. how can a typeface be political? how can it assert a sense of honesty and humanity? who knows what that might look like. i hope to move toward it though.

i also hope to learn the fundamental aspects of type in motion very very well. i have some head knowledge of what it CAN be, but haven't made it happen very successfully. my motion still looks like an extension of the print world.

thirdly i hope to think more deeply and creatively about all of this stuff. raise good, deep, meaningful questions. whole wheat, not wonder bread.

i want to tie all of this stuff up onto a package that represents my perspective on design and design's role in the world. i want the form to communicate how i see the world.

okay, i guess that's enough goals for one lifetime. good night.

Hey Tyler,
Do you think that if you top off the "I" in IBM with a big ol' star, that Mr. Rand's timeless mark becomes political? Stars & Stripes, man... and big corporation conglomerates sleeping with government... and, oh yeah, capitalism and moolah. All represented in one stars & stripes mark. I say this partly tongue in cheek so if I sound garbled, excuse me.

And to also jump on Cheryl's caravan...
I'm also very intrigued by handwriting. Years ago, a painter friend of mine saw a letter addressed to me from my mother. He wanted to paint "something" inspired by her writing (it is quite gorgeous, and completely inimitable--TRUST me, for I had a couple of occasions in high school where i really wished i had a mother with forgeable writing...). I'm now looking at my writing, my mother's, her mother's, and *her* mother's. not sure quite where it will lead yet, but i'm intrigued by tracing lineage in something so public and yet so personal. Cheryl--do you also notice that your handwriting changes with the implement you use? I hate ball point pens; i feel like they don't capture the personality of my writing the way fine line ink, gel, or even pencil does. Not to mention the factors like mood, time of day, state of--um--'coherence' (i've written a couple of drunken journal entries now and again). How do these all get translated into typefaces? idunno. yet.

oh yeah. and i want to design beautifully too.

I want Matt Checkowski's job. I want Gabe Rubin's skills. And nunchuck skills, computer hacking skills...

I want to be able to oooh and aaah and tell a good story and have that awesome Transition that Tony keeps wanting us to all give birth to, and then end my phrases in prepositions.

Seriously, though...

I want to enjoy graphic design and my last semester of "freedom" in design. I hope to get some kickass portfolio piece and enjoy doing what I want with what I can. And tackle some action-scripting in the middle.

And learn 3D. So Wes isn't the only one ****-smacking us in the cheeks with his skills in motion.

A few people have already mentioned that they want to be able to take their great ideas and materialize them into a designed reality for all to see. And I fall into this category as well.

Stories (whether they are big or small, serious or humorous, straight or quirky) exist in our surroundings and day-to-day lives. Some people can recognize this more readily than others but in the end the power and understanding of the narrative is within anyones grasp.

I want to be able to take stories that I recognize and bring them into my design for others to see. And I want other people to be able to see what I see and feel what I feel. And I want to understand how to make this happen with the materials and software that I have.

In the end I want to be able to share my perspective of observation through the work I do in this studio. If I can do that then this will have been a successful semester.

hello from the uk.

i was in a lecture today and thought of you guys. i knew i could probably tap into tony's system and read all of your personal testimonies and debates. so i decided to give it a try, and here i am. i wanted to see what you guys were into this semester and vice versa. i am enrolled in graphic design//typography pathway at lcc (formerly lcp). i just finished my first week of classes, and it is a whole new experience. the facilities are great here, and you can tack on additional classes (i.e. bookbinding) as well. i am so motivated and inspired by the different cultures/surroundings that make this city so great. the graphic design program here is research/theory based (2 lectures a week on different studies), but they are very hands on too. it is more self initiated, with an independent study day of working in the labs/shops/library etc. but one thing i miss is the 24 hr access you guys have there, so i will work heavily through the week. well i have a bus to catch, but i will continuously check in to see what you guys are up to.

cheers.

oh yeah...tyler i didnt know you were so amazed by my unicycle skills.

This semester seems to be a closing not of education because we are always learning but of professional experiment. What I mean is that our explorations in our college projects will be cut down by the client or employer as our professional careers develop. Of course we will still be able to challenge ideas and modes in our projects, otherwise we would become bored, but it is limited in the spectrum of radical ideas. My thought about goals of the semester is to produce something that is new to my ways of looking at design, especially type and also become better at understanding how to use it. As discussed in Type the other day, I plan to use the topics of Will's enivornmental design studio, and explore type in this view. Because I am interested in the ways city and urban areas change, both good and bad, I hope to find an unique way of seeing these topics.

New Media. I love it. I fear it. Despite my fears and insecurties, I would love to learn more about new media and motion work. My goals for this semester is to learn the motion and interactive programs and use them to bring life to the many creative stories I wish to tell the world. I also have hopes that this course will make me a stronger and more confident designer.

to inject some counterpoint to the debate: i hate beautiful things. i hate new media. i hate puppies and snow. my goals for the semester are to focus this facilely contrarian, gratuitously antigonistic malevolence into the purest manifestation of sinister form ever created.

s.w.a.

cat, don't be so bleak! : ) maybe this is its own thread, but i think that often design students (grads included) have a too-limited view of what design practice is, or can be. keep in mind there are lots of places you can apply your skills outside of restrictive corporate/marketing settings. public media, educational institutions, art collectives, non-profits. even select advertising-oriented studios will welcome creative exploration, sometimes moreso than other venues (due to larger budgets). if the employer is a worthwhile place to work (i.e. they do good work), it's probable that those seeking to hire you value creativity and recognize that it should be encouraged rather than closed down. also, remember that this is an emerging profession, and each of us have a say in the culture of its practice--especially as you move beyond recent grad and into positions of power.

ok, back on topic. my goal for the semester are fairly narrow:
to create an unfamiliar (at minimum, to me) form of typographic expression. i hedge to use the word 'experimental'--this refers to a scientific practice in which empirical observation is measured against a known control to answer a specific question. as someone who is already too rational, too literal, i'm interested more in the 'experiential type'--"putting marks on paper" to quote tony--and seeing how they can evolve. i'm somewhat inspired by the recent stuff sagmeister was doing in his "limits" piece, constructing type of real objects in the real world. i'm at least thinking about the real objects part. i don't want to close myself off with too many proclamations at this point. plenty of time for those later. right now i'm along for the ride.

Last semester, I took Denise’s resume workshop and the most interesting aspect of her workshop was the field trip. Our visits to various design firms ranging from small to large size with the design team consisting of two to hundred plus people gave me an overview of the real world design setup. From these trips, I came out with renewed thoughts on graphic design. Observing the kind of work each firm does made me realize my misconceptions about design in particular about interactive media. Previously, I used to think that print knowledge is sufficient to become a succeful designer but it is not true anymore. The design world is moving towards interactive and Web media at a rapid pace. I know I am so much behind but this semester is going to help me catch up with that race.

My goal for this class is to make myself well verse with the software Flash and Dreamweaver. I would also like to develop on my narrative skills and learn new ways of generating ideas and designing in general. Basically be more playful and loose with my design.
My way to accomplishing these goals would be to work on a series of small projects to understand the concepts better. Thanks to Tony for designing Project 1 that does the same. I would also like to implement this learnt knowledge to my other projects project 3 and project 4 to demonstrate my skills in the same.

All this is possible with a organized approach. So this is where my weekly plans come into play. Managing time is something that I am trying to work on from the day I landed here. In India, it is norm to be late half hour to an hour. That’s why ISD stands for Indian Stretchable time!
I usually start of my semester with a planner but towards the middle of the semester everything goes in wind. Then I end up fire fighting till the end of the semester. This semester, I want to break that pattern and be on schedule with all my stuff...

My Goals this semester include working my butt off in a timely and structured manner. Learn and understand flash(including lots of action scripting!). Create a fantastic flash piece that has a narrative thread. Plan out what I want to make on paper before diving into the program(and actually having multiple iterations!). And be just a wee-bit more cognitive; in general.

This looks so much nicer than our previous discussion boards. I feel I have to be really careful about what i say, and not be sarcastic either. I hope I don't spell anything wrong. My goal for this semester is to have fun with type. I think typography can be really tedious at times. Motion is a way to break out of previous attitudes and look at forms differently. This pixel stuff we're doing is good too. My specific goals are to discover the built in behaviors of a few specific faces, generate some novel typographic forms, and make motion type that doesn't look boringly familiar. I don't want to state any overblown objectives, because I don't think that necessarily makes me do better work. I'm looking to further develop my own, unique relationship to type. When I feel as confident with type as I do with verbal communication, I'll be a much stronger designer. Look forward to this semester…

Hi guys- wow like you are talking a bit- though it would appear to be dropping off as the semester wanes. If anyone is out there- the grads were doing a lev manovich reading last friday and we talked about the move from streams of info i.e. like video or film which is a complete frame by frame whole- and new formats that are more object based- where different data is broken up and functions modularly- more like the way flash works.

These new formats like MPEG 7 and even newer quicktime just don't seem to be tapped into (they are more modular carrying all kinds of weird data- but they are being used just like film stock). And flash is still pretty much looped and in betweened like any cartoon-

I dare you guys to right some action script to see how it can be different! or steal it-(the code that is- I know you guys are good at grabbing java- I can see it in your work : ) .

Hi Adrienne- hope you are having a good time. I saved your work and Cat's and Katie's from 301 so it's safe in my office.