Testamarck_Magazine_Final

MAKERVolume 1 Issue 1 May 2014

MAGA ZINE

Stuck in the Process pg. 16

A Year in the Making pg. 7

Summer Projects pg. 24

Out in the World pg.23

Thinking & Making pg.20

02C

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MAKEREditor in Chief

Jennifer Testamarck

Executive DirectorLindsay Kinkade

Contributing EditorsCandy ChoiMilo Ciao

Neville FengWendy Ho

Dorrit Meng Joshua MenigozMegha Parashar

Haejin ParkJohn Sutton

Type as Image

A Year in the Making

Mapping the Formula

Handwritten Goals & What Ifs

Stuck in the Process

Thinking & Making

Out in the World

Summer Projects

Personal Manifesto

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24

07

26

10

12

20

16

23

03

Welcome to the first edition of MAKER Magazine.

This magazine is a platform for sharing my thesis

thinking and making for my graduate degree in

Visual Communications at Arizona State University.

In the first year of my program, I have discovered

that I enjoy brainstorming, prototyping, making

and creating as much of my work outside the

computer as much as possible. In this digital age,

I believe there is a need for the human element to

reappear in our work. This can be achieved through

handcrafted methods such as paperfolding,

photography of handmade objects, letterpress

printing, collage, etc.

There is a variety of ways that the human hand can

appear in graphic design and because of my enjoyment

in craft and working with my hands, the goal of my

thesis is to explore several of these methods.

My thesis year will begin with an internship

this summer at a letterpress studio, where I will

get to work one-on-one with the owner who is

knowledgable of five different types of printing

machines. This apprenticeship will allow me to

create my own designs and learn every machine.

I have begun a thesis blog at jenncreative.com

that will show my process during my thesis and it

will act as an open research file. Please visit and

share your thoughts and I hope you will follow my

blog as I take on this new journey in my career.

a NOTE from

Type as ImageAs a young girl, I enjoyed craft time. I enjoyed collage, cut-and-paste, illustration, and illustrating type. This is not completely unique, as many other children love crafts and play, however, my love for letterforms and numbers now has evolved me into the world of graphic design.

The sidelines of my notes in grade school

became a canvas for illustrated type. It was not

until recently, that I have studied type formally

and now I am rediscovering my fascination with

letter-form. I can play again with type with a

child-like spirit to create sophistication from the

rough and sloppy.

Sagmeister & Walsh Lettering

06

Calligrams Calligrams were first introduced in order to play with metal type and took great care when working under rigid constraints. Their structure of type implies an image in relation to its readable content. Sentence structures are formed to fit shapes that provide a surprise. Today, with type more easily movable with software and cut & paste, calligrams have become somewhat cliché. I think their is still an opportunity to play with calligrams in web and other electronic forms, where rigid constraints of laying type have once again come back into graphic design.

Metaphoric Lettering Stephan Sagmeister is associated with metaphoric lettering. Heller and Vienne share in the book:

‘Sagmeister transforms everyday natural & industrial objects into letters to convey messages in which the metaphors trigger deeper understanding of the message.’

Metaphoric lettering allows for visual puns, adds dimension to print, and helps to bring life to the written word.

Collage Under the category of collage, we can find montage, ransom notes, and basic cut & paste similar to the style of Henri Matisse. Collage may include images, texture, and sketches, but for me I really enjoy collage with typographic elements.

Deconstructed, merging, and aggregation of type turns into its own visual, and the letterforms can lose their meaning as a sound or part of a word and turn into shape, line, and image.

Guillaume Apollinaire’s Calligram “Il Pleut” (It Rains)

Sagmeister & Walsh Metaphoric Lettering

Paula Scher’s Public Theater Poster

In the book 100 Ideas That Changed Graphic Design, Steven Heller and Véronique Vienne touch on the topics of many different ways to play with type – metaphoric lettering, visual puns, paper cutouts, ransom notes, collage, and calligrams. Using type not only as a readable message, but as a visual to emphasize or create a double meaning

seems to appear over and over throughout graphic design history.

As I begin to prepare for my thesis topics, I am hoping that play with type can once again line the sidelines of my notes, perhaps even my final book, and allow me to explore type in new ways.

A Year in the Making

Stencil Workshop @ Design RePublic

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A Year in the MakingI have begun making objects by hand, rather than drawing an object in the computer. This has allowed me to learn new techniques with my hand. For this project, I made a paper flower that then became the a poster for ASU’s Advanced Computing Center.

A lot of my work starts off with brainstorming and collaging ideas in order to find connections in my work.

A local event in town offered a stencil workshop at Design RePublic’s studio. I created a phrase using basic stencils and then cut the chipboard using and Xacto blade. This large 24”x 36” stencil is then used with a

spray can of chalk paint, so that my work can be applied temporary to a variety of places.

For the string art project (seen at the right), I hand cut a pole with different levels. The strings were then tied tightly around the pole before going from one connection to the next.

In studio, we dabbled in collage and it became the medium for my poster series all about my past.

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Mapping the Formula

The project “Mapping My Present”

is an exploration into the things that

inspire my work, looking into my

own process, and beginning to

discover the kind of designer I want

to be and present to the world. The

project kicked off without knowledge of the specific

design parameters, but asked us to begin gathering

a variety of influences.

I gathered lists for the beginning stages of

this project including: my top ten movies, my top

ten magazines, and processes that I wish to

explore in my career. Some of the processes I want

to try include poster design to rubber stamping,

3D printing, string artforms, woodwork and other

techniques.

Once the lists were gathered and the project

description became known, the project kicked into

the next phase. I am very fond of mind mapping

and story boarding, so I printed out copies of all

my lists and started cutting up each individual

item. A mindmap collage took form and then I

began to categorize the different items. The

themes that came from my mind map were the

following: chaos, nature, play, independence,

nostalgia, adventure, and love. Some themes were

stronger than others, but in the end, these seven

keywords worked perfectly for describing me and

where I would like my work to go in the future.

I looked for inspiration in the library, on Pinterest,

and in books on maps, but I didn’t want the “Map

of My Present” to be a literal map. I went back to

the diagram idea. My diagram was a four-sided

line graph inspired by diagrams I use to create in

the fourth grade that studied curved forms created

from straight lines.

The diagram would be unique, but also a great

way to show the connections between the various

items from my lists. After a class critique, we came

up with the idea to make it a 3D form. I

remembered a string art project I had seen on

Pinterest and thought this would be a project I

could explore with this medium.

Photographing the resulting form was a task, but

once the right images were placed onto the

poster, I could then start laying the type to

explain what each strand meant on the diagram

and why it was placed in a specific location.

The final poster, titled ‘The Formula’ was very successful and new audiences could easily understand how this diagram was a formula for determining my future design processes.

During this project, I learned a lot about myself

and the type of processes I would like to explore

in my design career. The diagram will help me to

decide what type of designer I want to become in

the future. It was built once and helps to inform

me of my own inspirations and goals. It is also a

living piece on which strings can be moved and

adjusted, colors can change, and even the titles of

the strings can be changed, so that I may explore

even more beyond my current influences.

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12

Handwritten GoalsI often freewrite and like to sketch the ideas in my head in order to

clear my mind for my next project. Here I wanted to figure out what

my goals were for the Spring semester.

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What If(s)Establishing “What If” statements helped me realize big goals that I could

accomplish in my career. Writing them down made them feel real and

attainable. I look forward to crossing them off my to-do list in the future.

Stuck in the Process

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String art diagram is used to relate keywords that can turn into possible thesis topics. Materials:

wood, nails & embroidery threads.

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I began to shoot each story after I first created the

story line in my sketchbook, this made it easier for

setting up each image for the camera, rather than to

try figuring out placement of the objects during

the shoot. Of course, there were adjustments made

during the shoot and I also tried to take shots from

different angles, so that I could then decide the best

image on the computer later, rather than coming

back and setting up the photoshoot again to create

new images.

Overall, I thought the photoshoots went well, but

as a beginner, I was not happy with the quality of the

images I was getting in my camera. I had figured out

how to focus and take moving images with a blur effect,

but my lighting was not good and the images for

these three stories needed more adjustment in

photoshop than I had expected.

After lessons were learned and we came back

as a class to discuss issues we had with our first

photoshoot, we were assigned a final story (ten

images) to complete with a subject of one of our

thesis words, and since my first three stories could

relate to play, I decided to continue with “play” for

the final story as well. I thought bringing in the 3D

string-art diagram I created last semester for my

thesis poster would make a good object to be

photographed and since we were able to use two

characters and one object, I came up with the idea

to have two characters play among my string-art

Stuck in the Process is a photographic story made from ten images about the subject of play. The project started out with a lesson in photography. I recently became the owner of an SLR camera, so there was much to learn before I was ready to begin a professional photoshoot. The class was asked to bring

in small objects for the photoshoot and after we were familiar with our cameras, we set out to create image stories.

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diagram. I wanted the characters to be simple

and unrelatable, so that viewers could use their

own imaginations for what the personalities and

traits were for each item. A spiky rubber ball and a

small spinning top were procured and I aimed to

use similar colors to my diagram, so that the three

objects together fit well in the photo shoot.

The storyboard was created in my sketchbook

and the photoshoot was set up for outside in my

backyard where I could get lots of natural light. I

learned from my other shoots, that I needed more

lighting, rather than trying to adjust the camera or

the final image in the computer. This proved to

work out much better and the resulting images

were stunning and needed little adjustment. The

story being told is about the orange top (me), a

new designer looking into the complexity of the

design process (the string-art diagram), and

watching others in the design world (the spike ball)

move around inside the process. The orange top

observes the movement of the spike ball from different

angles, and then suddenly it becomes eager to

jump into the design process itself. The final

images are a zooming in of the orange top

sitting nestled in among the strings, enjoying its

place in the design process.

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Thinking

&Making

process

build think collaborate pause

createfailmaster

look make study approach

draw

learn explore change analyze

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I have seen, inspected, and eaten a lot of my favorite food, sushi, but if I

were to write down a recipe for how to make a beautiful sushi roll, I

could guarantee that it would fall apart, or not taste very good. I have never

made my own sushi, how can I know the process?

Bryan Lawson’s book How Designers Think, he explains how design

education has changed from studying and analyzing successful design

to actually doing design.

“One of the weaknesses of the traditional studio

is that students, in paying so much attention to

the end product of their labours, fail to reflect

sufficiently on their process.”

In our graduate design studio this year, we are thinking about our

process a lot more and our resulting designs are something we can

stand proudly beside and explain how we got the result.

Lawson further points out that different disciplines have different

processes and a successful design can result from collaboration with

others who think differently. “The danger is that each [person] may

be conditioned by their education and the design technology they

understand.” This makes me think that the more different kinds of

people I collaborate with, the more I can begin to learn different ways

of approaching the same problem. If we all begin thinking about the

design problem using different processes, then we can decide which

solution or combination of solutions will achieve the best results.

Lawson also shares the importance to remember design is a skill. Not

an ability, but a “highly complex and sophisticated skill” that we all

need to practice in order to get good at design. If we will do, make,

build, perform the skill we want to learn, we will gain much more success

in our future careers as designers, than if we were to simply observe,

analyze, and study technique. In our studio, we do a lot of hands on

“making” and I feel what will separate us as masters level designers

from others is our ability to understand our process and be well practiced

in making a hundred different designs to develop our skills.

If we really wanted to teach ourselves how to make an excellent sushi

roll, or design a successful project, we must first understand the

process, look at the approach from different perspectives, and finally

practice making design.

reflect

sketch

write

teach

repeat

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Type found around Mill Ave, Tempe, AZ Our class explored the variety of type present

on Mill Ave, down the street from our studio. As we explored the streets, we found

transitional, blackletter, modern, old style, monotype, and handwritten type.

Out in the World

24

SUMMER PROJECTS

Folding & CuttingLearning to Be Meticulous in Making , Folding, and Creating By Hand

Origami is the traditional Japanese art of paper folding, which started in the 17th century at and was popularized outside of Japan in the mid-1900s. (wikipedia.org) In order to start my thesis in hand-crafted methods, I want to start with the basic skills of cutting and folding, paying strong attention to details.

Description:For this exploration, I will learn the process and tech-niques for cutting paper and folding paper into shapes. Each shape will focus on a theme about life balance. The project will also explore a process in time-lapse photog-raphy, creative blogging, and storytelling through form.

Method:Each week, for 12 weeks, I will practice folding 3 different ob-jects for 60 minutes each ob-ject. The goal is by practicing the art of folding each object several times in one hour, I will become very familiar with the form and be able to make

it better and better each time.

Materials:

• Magazines (or other scrap

paper)

• Scrapbooking Paper

• Japanese Papers

• Bone Folder

• Paper Folding Templates

• iPad & Time-lapse App

Deliverables:

• Time-lapse of each session

posted to thesis blog

• “Things organized neatly”

poster featuring the best

folds from all 12 weeks

• Reflective writing

• List of resources (cited)

Timeline:

May 12 - July 28: Fold 3 each week

June 2 – Haejin Feedback*

July 7 – Josh Feedback*

Aug 1 – Final Poster Completed

*Reviews by all MVCD peers will happen weekly, as I will share all of my time-lapse footage through a blog where they are able to make com-ments and give solid feedback.

Leah

Thi

bode

auZi

m &

Zou

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HandletteringPerfecting Imperfections in Typography and Accepting Perfect Imperfections

Studying the form of typography very closely is a skill every graphic designer should dedicate time toward. Handletter-ing connects us with the past, before the printing press, but it is also a strong movement in today’s digital based world to make things more human again.

Description:For this exploration, I will choose three different typefaces to study and copy in order to become a master at during the summer. The three typefaces will include an informal, formal, and script. By tracing the works of others and learning to freehand their work, I will be able to later develop my own unique form of handlettering that can be used in my future work.

Method:Each week, for 12 weeks, I will practice writing the alphabet and one sentence for each typeface 3 times a week. I will begin with tracing successful handlettering that already ex-ists and then eventually move onto doing free handwriting with no guides. The goal is by practicing the art of folding each object several times in one hour, I will become very

familiar with the form and be able to make it better and bet-ter each time.

Materials:

• Trace Paper

• Lined Paper

• Pencil

• Fine Pen

Deliverables:

• Time-lapse of each session

posted to thesis blog

• Mural Designed for Tempe

First United Method-

ist Church’s brick wall

(Typography-based)

• Reflective writing

• List of resources (cited)

Timeline:

May 12 - July 28: 3 nights of

practice

June 2 – Haejin Feedback*

July 7 – Josh Feedback*

Aug 1 – Mural Completed

*Reviews by all MVCD peers will happen weekly, as I will share all of my time-lapse footage through a blog where they are able to make com-ments and give solid feedback.

Jess

ica

His

che

Kat

e B

ingh

am-B

urt

Roar.Start with gusto. Design without fear. Challenge the limits.

QUINTESSENTIAL

Activate.Tomorrow never comes, design better today.

Great things are created right now in this moment.Geek Out.Let your freak flag fly. Know more about one

thing that sets you apart. Be an expert.

Get Crazy.Dance in public. Learn to longboard at 28. Laugh at yourself. Be carefree.

Refrain.The voice of judgment kills creativity. Never stop creating.

Imagine.

What has been done is done. There is a immense exis-

tence in the mind and a responsibility to let it surface.

Create.

The best solution has not been achieved. Constant creation will always be necessary. Make impossible ideas possible.

Intend.Always do what is promised. Mean what you say. Place every dot & line exactly where you think they should go.Arouse.

Surprise the audience. Cause admiration. More importantly, inspire new generations.

Excel.Never hold back. Give your best advice to yourself. Set an inconceivable goal and seize it.Mold.

Set paths for the future. Let them change direction. Generate change for better solutions.

Lead.You already speak loud, you already step out. Say things that help others. Find your feet outside the box.

Leap.When the brain needs juice – run, hike, spring, jump. Move.

Relax.

Explore.There is always more room to grow. Read, listen, observe, think, learn.

POSTURE.

26 Roar.Start with gusto. Design without fear. Challenge the limits.

QUINTESSENTIAL






Imagine.



Create.








Relax.


POSTURE.

PERSONALMANIFESTO QUINTESSENTIAL POSTURE

Roar.Start with gusto. Design without fear. Challenge the limits.

QUINTESSENTIAL






Imagine.



Create.








Relax.


POSTURE.

27

602 653 8965

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jenncreative.com

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JENNIFER TESTAMARCKGRAPHIC DESIGNER

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