Speed Design | Vikram Seth

I've been learning lots of coding stuff this month--not exactly pretty or blog-able! I've also had 

less energy to challenge myself on design projects. I made this poster for an upcoming event in 

record time to make a printing deadline. Improvements could be made, but I think it will do! 

Save the Date/25th Anniversary

You may remember some of my other save the dates here and here! This one was especially fun to make because its our 25th anniversary, and I used this vintage photo of our terrace, where the party will be held. This building used to be the student union and part of our facilities was the tap room. We need to re-create this photo, adding some ladies to bring it to the modern world!

Be Inspired (But Don't Copy)

While reviewing many of my pins on Pinterest the other day, I noticed a few resounding patterns:
1. Triangles/Mountains 2. Collage/blocky feel created by literal collage of patterns and or the use of lots of shapes 3. Overlays (colored objects with transparencies that allow for the overlaps to create new colors). Here's a sampling of the images I pinned, which clearly had an influence on one of my recent projects (pictured below the inspiration board). To see more of the designs I find inspiring, feel free to check out my Design Envy pinboard!

Fredric Jameson Poster (Drafts)

I'm not quite done with this poster for literary theorist and cultural critic Fredric Jameson, who will lecture at Berkeley in February, but I thought it would be fun to share some work-in-process! I've basically decided on the format on the far right, but am still working on refining colors. If you know Jameson's famous book, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, you will see that the image here is a play on that book cover (which uses Any Warhol's Diamond Dust Shoes), relating it to the title of the lecture: "The Aesthetics of Singularity." This visual reference will *hopefully* be recognized by more than one academic walking around campus. Either way, I'm sure the name Jameson (conveniently HUGE, if you didn't notice) will catch their eye, so hopefully we'll get a good turnout. :)

Logo Land: Townsend 25th Anniversary

I've had the opportunity to make a few logos lately. Here's one I did for my Center, which will be used on almost all our materials during the year of our 25th anniversary. Woo!

Logos can be a challenge, but I like practicing making something simple that can be really small. Its also a good exercise to work in B&W only (even if the logo uses colors later) so you aren't distracted by colors or fancy effects.

I just finished a freelance project involving a logo as well, and hope to share all of the stuff I created for that with you too!

Another Day, Another Poster

Here's a poster I just sent out to the printer.  I'm not in love with it as a whole, but I do love how the three images in black and white look in a row. Also it is an important lesson about design: sometimes you just have to give your client what theywant, and sometimes you may not love the outcome. That's all I'll say about that.  :)

And moving on, this is going to be an awesome event! Desdemona is a collaboration between Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison, singer/songwriter Rokia Traoré, and Director Peter Sellars, in response to Sellars's 2009 Othello. The play is supposed to be "an intimate and profound conversation from beyond the grave between Shakespeare's Desdemona and Barbary, the woman Shakespeare identifies as the African nurse who raised her." I got to talk about it with Peter while they were still working on it, and I can guarantee it will be amazing!

Toni Morrison doesn't travel much, but we did get her to agree to skype in for a panel discussion. I wish I could have told my freshman in college self (reading Beloved in a lit. class) that I would one day receive an email from Toni Morrison...so cool! 

Quick and Simple Flier Design

I had to create a flier very quickly today, and I am actually pretty happy with how this turned out with only 1 hour of work. Simple and effective, I think. This is a good reminder that not everything you make has to incorporate a new skill or design trick: though I like using each new project as a learning opportunity to try something new, sometimes you just gotta make something!  And sometimes, you'll get something you kinda a like when you do.

Work for Work: Lecture Series Poster

I finally sent our series poster for the "Forum on the Humanities & the Public World" to the printer, so thought I'd share here!  For this design I had fun creating the speech bubbles and using some layering & clipping mask techniques to add the texture and different colors within them.  Took longer to do than you might think!  Now I've got the process down though, so it will go quicker in the future!

Work for Work: Depth of Field

Well, I've been pretty silent on here for awhile...part of that is the intensity of everything going on at work right now as we prepare for the start of the semester! I've been designing like crazy in my 9-5... sometimes in more of a rush than I'd prefer, but still coming out with some stuff I like. Here's the postcard for our film series, which I just sent to the printer... I can't wait to see some of these films!

Save the Dates (again)

Remember my Save the Dates for our annual fall reception at work last year?  Well,
since we have the word annual in there it means we are having another one in the fall and its time to tell people to mark their calendars! Here's this year's version...

Ivory Tower

Wanted to share with you the front of a  postcard I just finished, for promoting the Townsend Humanities Lab (a collaborative humanities research website created by my employer).  The challenge here was to create something compelling with lots of images from the site, which were all super small and low resolution (and thus could not be very large on the card). We also wanted the postcard to be "fresh."  I thought this solution was a bit more fun than just a collage of square images or something like that.  Can't wait to get it back from the printer and start seeing it head out into the world!

I'm Enjoying...

We recently got an espresso machine at work.  Now, almost every morning my boss has prepared everything we need for delicious cappuccinos! The office is still quiet, and we sit taking small sips and checking our email. A lovely way to start a day.

Joyce Carol Oates, Pt. 2

And the winner is...

What do you think??

Photo Work, revisited

 Remember my post about taking photos for a local non-profit a few weeks ago?  I just saw that they posted some of my photos on their site, so I wanted to share.  I always get a little joy from seeing something I've worked on "out in the real world." Click here and you can view the photos.

New work

I've been designing like crazy at work.  Here are a few new pieces; first a postcard for our film series, and 2nd a flier for the Course Threads Program for undergrads at UC Berkeley. 

Garrick Ohlsson Video

Someone recently told me that she believes that if you can say you like 80% of your job, you've got it made.  She really thinks (and I think I agree) that every job is going to have some element that you could do without. 

Today I thought I'd share one of the many great things about my job!  Its a video of a recent lecture we hosted, by the renowned pianist Garrick Ohlsson. Let me tell you: It was such a headache to arrange the rental and moving of a grand piano for this lecture, but when he started to play all that went out of my head!  Ohlsson does an amazing job of deconstructing this piece, which is really interesting, but if you'd just like to hear him play, skip ahead to minute 54 for the beautiful Chopin's Nocturne in D-flat Op.27 No.2.  I really do recommend taking the few minutes to listen!!



And then right when he gets done playing, you can see the back of my head!  ;)

Dai Jinhua Poster

Just thought I'd share a poster I've been working on today.  I'm kind of copying the style of the Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive flyers, if you've ever seen those.  Sometimes it is challenging including lots of event information on a small little flyer!  But I loved working with this image from the film Lust, Caution-- its just so rich.  The blurriness added by the rain is exquisite, don't you think?

Be well and do good work.

One thing I love about my job is that I get to experiment with new design ideas!  Sometimes its stressful, but mostly its just a great chance to be creative and improve my skills.  Here's one I made recently, using one of the great textures I mentioned in a previous post!

Another thing I love about my job is the quality of speakers we bring to campus.  This is a pretty good lineup!

New Designs

Here are some of my latest poster design projects.  Looking at them all together, I am seeing quite a few similarities in style.  Stay tuned--Next project I am breaking out from this look!