Great Week!

Students have been doing a great job learning Photoshop and demonstrating their skills and techniques to me.  I can't wait until next week when we get back to our business logos and create them on the computer!  Friday we will have a design challenge where students will be a making a bulldog logo that will be used for a fundraiser.  This will be a great opportunity to demonstrate where we are as young graphic designers and will also give some fun competition, which will provide for a real-life design situation.

Photoshop Week!

Yesterday we did a practice run through the design process, and used it to design a logo using our initials. The last step we need to complete for our logo is production. Before we can do that, we will be taking a break as we learn how to use some of our digital tools. This week we will be learning how to use Adobe Photoshop cs5.5. Students throughout the term will use Photoshop to complete their projects, and will also demonstrate skills with the program to earn points towards their Photoshop competency grade. Students will be recognized as they earn various amount amount of points in what I call the Photoshop Ninja Program. Here are the badges that the students will be earning this term:

Hong-Kong Phooey Badge (2 points) Michaelangelo Badge (6 points) Steven Seagal Badge (10 points) Bruce Lee Badge (12 points) Chuck Norris Badge (16 points) Yoda Badge (20 points)

What is Graphic Design?

Graphic design is getting right to work by doing a short research project on what graphic design is. Students will answer the following information on their paper: Students will research and write a paper over the following information: What is your definition of graphic design? A brief history or timeline of graphic design. Where can we see graphic design today? Examples of fields or disciplines of study in graphic design. Careers that involve graphic design. Why did you decide to take a course in graphic design? The assignment listed above is due Monday when they walk in the door. Students will also need to bring their notebooks Monday as we will start our first design in class.

Welcome back!

Welcome back to school, and to graphic design class! I am Mr. Petersen, your graphic design instructor, and am excited for this 2015/2016 school year! Graphic design class has new computers to use this school year (yeah!!), and will also at some point be updating to the new adobe creative cloud. This will give students the opportunity to use cutting-edge, industry driven tools that are used in graphic design and digital design! I will use this blog to communicate important course information, as well as to post student work. I also stay active on twitter, so be sure to follow at @np_techbiz. I will also send home a syllabus with students on Wednesday. Other exciting news is that we now have advanced graphic design as both an independent study and as a full class. This will be perfect for those who are looking to further sharpen their skills, and learn how to apply their knowledge to industry-related projects. I'm looking forward to seeing all the creative work that this new class of young graphic designers will make, and to seeing everyone back to school!

End of the Year, First Things First

Next week is the last week of the term, and of school for the year.  We are finishing up our photo manipulations today.  Monday - Wednesday students will work on their final exam.  I will give the details for it down below.  Thursday we will clean shop, make sure images are all on our google drives and off the computers.  We will also clean out our folders and reset passwords.

Final Exam Details:

The First Things First Manifesto is a document that was created by a group of graphic designers in 1964. The purpose of it was to be a proud proclamation about the intent of graphic design being a way to express creativity and feeling in stead of as only a way to make money through advertisements.

You need to go to the following link http://www.designishistory.com/images/publications/manifesto.jpg and read this document. After you read the statement you will open up a word document and complete each of the following:

1. Make sure your name is at the top in the header section.

2. Type a 5-7 sentence paragraph explaining what the First Things First Manifesto means to you as a young graphic designer.

3. Type a 5-7 sentence paragraph explaining to me how you have grown as a graphic designer this quarter.

4. Type a 5-7 sentence paragraph explaining what grade you feel you have earned this quarter, and why.

5. Copy the picture of the document from the link, paste it into photoshop. You will then create a graphic using only that picture (cutting and moving around letters into a shape would be an example.

6. Shrink the picture to fit on your word document and place it above your paragraphs.

7. Spell check, make sure it all fits to one page, and make sure your name is on it.

8. Print to printer 1537, hand it in to me.

9. Place the paragraphs AND THE PICTURE on your blog.

10. All of this needs to be done in order for it to get any grade at all.

It has been a good term, and a very fast school year.  Each year seems to go quicker than the one before.  It's always tough to see terms end and say good-bye to our seniors, but it's just as exciting to know that we will be welcoming a new batch of students next fall.  Have a great summer!

Recent Student Work

Here are some projects that have been recently turned in that I thought were well-done.
These first two projects are environmental design experiments where students re-designed an area of our school.  I thought both ideas brought creativity to an area of our school in unique ways.

This next project is where students made a Saul Bass or a minimalist movie poster for a movie that they liked.  I thought that this poster turned out really well.

Congratulations to these students for their quality work!  We're nearing the end of the term and it's amazing to see how far some of these students have grown.

Photo Manipulation

I think the best thing about any kind of digital media is how it allows us to create anything we can see in our imagination.  The last major project we will be working on in graphic design class involves creating a photo manipulation.  We will watch a TED talk from Erik Johansson where he explains where he gets his inspiration, and how he creates his work.  We will also watch a few speed-art demonstrations from Alexander Koshelkov who creates very dynamic and detailed work.

Students will then come up with an idea, sketch it out, then use photoshop to make a photo manipulation of their own.  This comes near the end of the term, so students should really show off the extent of their photoshop skills they have learned during this class.