In other news, I finally added the Print page to my portfolio. The only pieces on there at the moment are two posters I did for local concerts. It displays my skills for layout out text so I’m happy. I will eventually be putting up labels I designed for products during my work on Naturally Free’s identity.
I’ve been working out ideas for a personal project and I hope to reveal it soon.
~Jeremiah~
As for the freelance work that I have been doing, I did some web building for High Power Sports working with KidzMatter‘s Graphic Designer Cody Bridenbaugh. The job had a small window for turn around and came out pretty well.
I’m also currently in the process of redesigning Waterline Church‘s website. With the redesign I’m simplifying, making the site easier to navigate and am incorporating Facebook, Twitter and Google Apps into the site to make it easier for viewers to get plugged in immediately with the church through social networks and calendar. The church’s conviction is to love God and love others. By being apart of the social networks and other online sources, they are making is just as easy to interact with as your everyday friends. I think it’s a smart approach on their part and I’m glad to be able to lend a hand in helping this 14 week old church reach out to more people.
After being fairly persistant for 2+ months, I’m going to be shadowing the fine folks at MILESDESIGN for a day or so in the month of June. I find their work to be fantastic and I’m excited to get a look behind the scenes and observe their process.
Of course I’m always doing work on likedity. We’re presenting at VERGE Indy on the 25th and I’m pretty nervous and excited. Not only are there going to be over 200 people present but they’re all going to be looking and my design work while the presentation is being given. Some of these people attending are graphic designers and owners of graphic design studios and firms. This is kind of a big deal for me. A guy a month out of college having his work presented live to over 200 people in the city that I want to work in. *gulp* It’ll be awesome. likedity is coming along well and I’m also excited to see it’s release.
In the grand scheme of things, I have a lot going for me and it’s not a terrible start right out of college. It is however bringing in very little money and things are starting to get tight. Sure, I could go ahead and get a job in retail but I fear that would suck enough energy out of me at the end of the day that I would lose my motivation to create. I might have to go ahead and do that if I end up in Columbus, OH for some reason but until I get to that point, I’m sticking it out and I’m going to keep having meetings and sitting here in my dad’s recliner pounding out design until something happens.
That’s all I have to say for the moment. I have a little reflecting I’d like to do but I need to get back to work and get to bed for tomorrow’s meeting, so that will have to wait for another day.
~Jeremiah~
I’m going to go ahead and call Senior Show a success. I received a good amount of feedback from those who viewed it. The concept grew and changed some as I continued to work everything out and went from 3 pieces to 2. Here they are: Take This Cup & My God My God
Presented as a motion graphic poster highlighting the two most human moments in the Christ’s life. What I consider the struggle inside the man who was considered both Son of man and Son of God. In highlighting, I wanted to impress the emotion that is derived through struggle, abandonment and despair. I definitely got the response I was looking for from the audience.
The AIGA Student Portfolio Review went splendidly. I was the first and only student representing my university there, and it was a bit nerve racking being an introvert but I managed to pull through. I received some great feedback and some good critique. Along with several other projects I have, I’m going to be making tweaks and adjustments and improve my portfolio that much more. On top of the assessment of my work I was also informed that I had one of the best looking displays at the review. So yeah, that made me pretty happy.
Now I’m hunting down internships in Indianapolis. If nothing comes up in there, I’ll probably head over to Columbus, OH for a bit and see what I can find there. I do have high hopes though for finding something great in Indy.
In other good news, I am also starting to pick up a little freelance work here and there. Looks like I’ll be doing more web design than I originally thought, but I’m pretty pleased either way.
As graduation approaches I am excited and a little nervous. This is a new step into unfamiliar territory but with this new step come new opportunities. I’m ready for something new.
~Jeremiah~
1. Wireframes and finishing layouts for a new start-up company called Likedity. The best description I can give you is quoted from their site.
“Likedity takes the hassle out of discovering events you’ll find relevant, whether you’re relocating, new to the area, traveling or simply wanting to become further involved in your own community.”
I am currently the acting creative director there. This is my first real experience in getting something of a large scale done, and I’m doing it mostly on my own. Intimidating? Yeah. Time consuming? Oh yeah. Difficult to balance with the last semester of Senior year? Look at what else I have to get done and you be the judge. heh
2. Senior show. I re-presented my senior show concept to the committee and they were pretty supportive of it. They are going to be 3 motion graphic posters. Concept is to print background and some textures on a poster size canvas of sorts and mount them to the wall. Then inspired be motion comics, I’m projecting the content of the posters and moving them in certain directions and at certain speeds based on the plane the reside on. Pretty excited to see it all come together in the end. I just need to be sure I manage my time well.
3. The Indianapolis AIGA Student Portfolio Review. A place where all students that are apart of the Indy AIGA group will go and set up their portfolio in a “trade-show” fashion and have their work critiqued by local graphic design professionals. A very cool opportunity and definitely something I want to be at. I think I’m was the 4th person registered for the event. It will be a great place to learn and network. Maybe even get leads on jobs in the area.
As you can probably tell by now, I live in Indianapolis, Indiana. It’s not a big city but it’s big enough. It’s nice because you can be anywhere city wise within 15 minutes or if you need to get away, in the middle of nowhere in 30. Anywho, I grew up in Indy and it’s a place where I can stay if I can. I am a family kind of person so ideally it would be nice to stay near. I’m not opposed to moving if that’s where work leads, but I’m going to do my best to check with all local and near by firms first.
So there’s some insite of what my next month looks like. I have a lot to do and a short amount of time to do it. Light is at the end of the tunnel. I’m ready to see what’s outside.
~Jeremiah~
Something major happened that pretty much rocked my world and I’m still in recovery mode. It has changed my attitude towards things and I’m working to get my motivation back.
I’ve decided to re-present my Senior Show plan to the committee and I’m pretty excited for it all things considering. The goal is to design motion graphic posters. Once I get thumbs and reference images in place, perhaps I’ll show the beginnings of something that still no graduating senior has done yet at this school.
Pray for me or wish me luck!
~Jeremiah~
2. Likedity
3. ambiception.com (I know this one isn’t as big of a deal since you’re already here.)
~Jeremiah~
Most senior Graphic Designers will either present a case study for branding or re-branding an identity. They will display the process and the final concept with application. Others will present a package design project. I of all people definitely know that what these seniors have done takes time, problem solving and creative thinking. The thing is, I’ve completed those kind of projects before in my classes leading up to this show. Why would I want to do just another project?
Growing up, I drew all the time. I was the kid who borrowed all of the drawing books from the library and received drawing pads for Christmas that I would burn through before the next Christmas. I loved art in general and always enjoyed the art classes in my homeschool group, no matter what medium is was. Graphic Design was something I came across after learning HTML from being bored. I didn’t want my website to look like crap so I messed around with this program called Photoshop 7 someone gave me. I started looking up tutorials trying to figure out this weird program that had this thing called a lens flare. Before I knew it, after making many different styles of the same website, I began to really get into what determined a good looking verses a bad looking website. I began to fall deeper and deeper into the idea of studying Graphic Design. It involved problem solving, it involved creative thought. It was a way to visually communicate and to in a sense, put ideas into peoples minds.
Now I have come full circle. As much as I enjoy the calculating creative style of Graphic Design, as much as I enjoy developing an identity, typography, page layouts, etc. I desire to to now venture back into the fine art and approach design from a more conceptual stand point. This is a chance for me to experiment and play for the sake of art. What’s funny is that all of this has turned into another problem solving project, which in the end I’m quite happy with.
My conceptual idea involves abstract imagery by design. When you look at an abstract or random image, that might be all you see. If you look at the bigger picture though, there are many factors that determine how the image looks. We know this thanks to the laws of physics. If you ever watch Dexter, he figures out a crime scene by observing the blood splatters, figuring out the point of origin and what would have to happen for the blood to land that way. The same can go for splatter paintings. The same goes with random digital images. Algorithms can determine the randomness of an image, and of course the algorithms would first have to be designed by a programmer.
Now for the problem to solve as mentioned two paragraphs ago: Application. As a Graphic Designer I still need to present something that falls more in-line with what I’ve studied. The current solution: Take identities that I’ve either created or refreshed and bring new life to them with moving abstract imagery. The abstract images would be determined by algorithms that I’ve created using data captured from a camera. The main idea is to capture the color from the environment and to display the abstract images with either the same color or compliment colors making it relevant to the space. For example, if someone with a blue shirt would walk in front of the camera, the camera would capture that color and display the abstract image with the color blue and the complimentary color orange. This is the basic idea that I will apply to the XS Energy logo I re-branded two years ago.
This is what I have at the moment in terms of concept. I’m still sorting some things out but I’m pretty happy with the current concept. The challenge now is to learn Quartz Composer within two weeks so I can begin to develop these images.
I’m excited to try something new and fairly innovative, at least for this campus. I intend to keep updates on here about my senior show as I continue to develop and strengthen the concept into an actual presentation. It will be interesting for me to look back at the documented growth.
~Jeremiah~
As you can see if you’re reading this on my site, I’ve revamped the appearance of ambiception and I now have a new purpose for ambiception:
ambiception will now solely be my design blog where I will write about my remaining time in college and my senior show, current projects, experiments and ideas as well as observations, inspirations and learning opportunities that I’ve come across. I’ve decided not to be such a critical writer and more of a writer that learns and shares with those who care to read.
I hope that you will find my writings of interest to you and that you would be willing to comment and share along with me.
Here’s to a new start,
Jeremiah
Currently, I’m working on a site that’s only purpose is to act as an online portfolio of my work. The site is very minimal and clean in design to make my work the focus. After that’s done, ambiception is getting an overhaul design wise. I’ve cooked up some ideas and I’m really excited about where this is going.
I know that’s not a lot of detail. I just wanted to inform you the viewer that this site is not dead and will flourish within the next two months. I’m excited.
~Jeremiah~