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Midwest Express, founded in 1984, was originally conceived by Kimberly-Clark with the aim of providing exceptional passenger service in the Midwest, and over time expanded its operations nationwide. Despite the company’s original commitment to delivering the "Best Care in the Air" through amenities such as generous legroom, delicious on flight meals, and their signature freshly baked cookies, the company encountered managerial difficulties and produced a track record of flight incidents, which resulted in a loss of interest from consumers, resulting in the company eventually ceasing operations in 2010. My objective is to rebrand Midwest Express into an airline that prioritizes comfort and reliability for passengers. With the negative connotations that surrounds the flying experience, I believe that it is important for the airline to show friendliness, an airline that cares about the passenger and their experience both on the plane and at the gate. My rebrand seeks to reinforce the previously held standards of the airline and restore its reputation with a modern take on its previous design. Through the redesign of the airline, my goal is to create an inviting atmosphere designed for middle-class families, with a flying experience that is efficient for passengers traveling for business and friendly for casual or first time fliers. This revitalized Midwest Airlines will symbolize a fresh beginning and an the company’s strong dedication to ensuring passenger satisfaction, rectifying past mistakes while embracing the future with enthusiasm and modernity.
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This chapter focused on hierarchy. I was really excited to read this chapter because visual hierarchy is really important stuff to know and it is applicable to our current project. The main purpose of visual hierarchy is to help readers navigate reading by drawing focus towards and away from certain areas, creating entrances and exits as the chapter describes. This is done through cues, which can be spacial or graphic. The beginning of the chapter also talks about redundancy and how it can be practical in design, although we are taught to avoid it in writing. I have a bad habit of being a redundant writer, so hopefully I wont have any trouble here! The chapter also talks about how visual hierarchy applies to the digital realm, noting the differences between websites and printed documents. This is something I have never previously thought about, but looking back, the hierarchy in web design is much more involved. The interactive aspect of a website also adds a new dimension to consider when creating hierarchy. The chapter then leads into web accessibility, something that is very important to me. A family friend of ours has trouble seeing and has to use a special software when viewing websites and applications, and she has complained about the software not working with some websites because accessibility was not considered. I think a good designer should always keep accessibility in mind.
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This chapter introduced several new concepts, starting with type classification. This is something that I had never heard of before. Apparently a system for classifying typefaces was created in the 19th century. Humanistic, modern, and transitional are the main three covered (though I believe there were seven in total). Humanistic have characteristics of calligraphy and strokes made by hand, while modern and transitional are not nearly as organic. The chapter showed several examples of font families, detailing their characteristics and use cases. The chapter emphasizes the large amount of work that goes into creating a typeface. I cant wait until I am asked to do that! Im sure the day is coming. We are also introduced to Logotypes, a word I had literally never heard before in my life. Logotypes consist of typography or lettering that represents a brand or organization. Examples that come to mind are the “GE” for General Electric or the Disney logo. They’re everywhere, I just never knew that they had a name. Bitmap fonts are also something I had never heard of. They are fonts built out of pixels and they have specific use cases, usually related to screen resolution. The chapter even provided an exercise in which we can use to create our own bitmap fonts, along with some tips and tricks, which I thought was pretty neat.
Over the past few weeks, the universe has made it difficult to attend class, so I am a bit behind. These are the letter designs I have come up with so far. I don’t hate them, but I feel like they are missing something. Part of me wants to just go ahead and submit them so that I can continue forward with the project, but part of me wants to push them further. Time is just not my friend right now. I plan on finalizing my letters tomorrow night, and I am going to take time this weekend to hammer out the remainder of my project.
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This weeks reading expands upon the concepts of kerning, spacing, and alignment. I found out about kerning a few years ago when I stumbled upon a random YouTube video, and I have found it interesting ever since. I am someone who has an eye for detail, and I am always cognizant of tiny mistakes. Properly kerning letters satisfies a weird little itch in my brain. The chapter talks about how digital type is kerned using kerning pairs where the space between different letters is determined by specific letter combinations. It’s almost like a shortcut for optical kerning, in which each letter is spaced individually. The chapter als do talks about how different types of tracking can give your text a different feel. For example using positive tracking (more space) between letters can give your text a more light and airy feel, while using negative tracking (less space) between letters can give your text a more tight and condensed feel. This chapter also help expand my knowledge of alignment. From using Microsoft word since I was a child, Ive grown up with a basic understanding of alignment, though it was mostly limited to the little bar symbols. This section discussed the different types of alignment in much greater detail. This section also showed an exmple of stacked type and explained why it was problematic. I felt that the explanation made sense because I have always been told that stacking type vertically is a big no-no when designing. The chapter recommends instead opting for a vertical baseline, which keeps the spacing and readability in tact.
For project 4 I have chosen Merriweather as my serif type and Raleway as my sans-serif type.
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This textbook describes text in a very beautiful way, which I think is interesting because many people would likely view text as a boring topic of discussion. It was clear that the author is very passionate about text. No disrespect to the reading, but I felt like this section had a lot of fluff. Although there was some helpful and interesting tidbits here and there, this section was stuffed with so much imagery that I sometimes had a hard time understanding the point that the author was trying to get across. Ill give this section another read through at a later time, maybe I’m just not in the right headspace.
However, I did enjoy many of the works showcased in this section. Especially the Telephone Book on page 66! I have never seen text purposefully spaced in that way. The text as a whole was very visually interesting to look at while also adding a somewhat poetic pause throughout its reading. I was lost on the visual thesaurus web charts though. I finally started to enjoy the reading a bit more towards the end when the author began talking about kerning and tracking. The information was relevant to what we covered in the recent lecture.
Overall, I am happy with how my design for project 4 turned out. However, after critique, there are definitely some things I would change! When viewed from a distance, there is definitely too much negative space in the flower. I think it might read as more of a backwards C than as an O. The petals need a bit more detail. I would also alter their shape a bit as well, the flower may also be reading more as a lily than as an orchid. Although I like the simplicity and cleanness of my design, but I feel like I lost a bit of the organic feel of the flower. But still, not bad!
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In this section, the book introduces a the concept of the golden ratio, a formula which has been used in western art for over 2000 years. I was a bit shocked when I heard this! I had always thought the golden ratio was a more relatively modern formula, I had no idea that it dated back that far! I had also never really considered applying the golden ratio in grid layouts!
I liked reading this section because it gave me applicable knowledge on grids, explaining what grids work well in certain situations. For example, single column grids may work best for simple documents while multi column grids may work best for publication. The more columns and elements added to a grid, the more flexible it becomes, which I think is a great way to look at it!
This section also talks about modular grids, which I have a bit of experience using from making my process journal from the portfolio review! Having a modular grid overlay was extremely helpful in keeping elements consistent and precise.
I had a lot of fun with project 2! It was an enjoyable challenge constructing grid designs from a collage of existing grids. I had a bit of trouble getting my pieces to align perfectly, and there were a few tiny gaps, but overall I am happy with the results of my work. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get my hands on any foam-core for the backing! I went to two different places and they didn’t have any in stock. I used two layers of construction paper in order to try and compensate, which I think worked out alright!
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Throughout this reading I found it interesting how different art movements have had their own interpretations of grid structures. It would seem that many of the common grid structures we see today align with the ideology associated with futurism and constructivism. Looking around, I see many structures that focus heavily on the usage of grids, such as the brutalist architecture used in Gambrell and the humanities building here on campus. Before this reading, I had only really though of grids being limited to two-dimensions. I suppose that grids can be as simple or as complex as we want them to be, so long as they help bring order and structure in some way. I am really excited to get better at grid constructing layouts, as it will be an essential skill for a designer to have. I have tons of respect for designers who are good at creating interesting grid layouts, especially in editorial works.
After completing the first project, I can say that overall I am happy with the work I produced. There were a few mishaps, I had some trouble with the glue separating during transport to class, but it wasn’t anything catastrophic. My biggest struggle was finding an appropriate amount of detail to include in the cutouts. There wasn’t as much detail in my final cutouts as I would have liked, but I had to compromise due to time constraints.
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Delving into the world of type, I found the exploration of this chapter remarkably enlightening! I had never really though about certain fonts being created for specific purposes under certain conditions. Typefaces have evolved over time to suit the needs of a changing world, and the way we view certain fonts continues to change as well. I think that it is awesome that font creation has become so much more accessible over time, and with that a plethora of artistic expression through type. In this chapter, I personally found the fonts from the 1900's to be more visually appealing than examples shown from the past. My favorite was the logo Vilmos Huszár designed for De Stijl magazine in 1917. I think the ability to create unique, almost abstract, type that is still clearly legible to the reader is skill that deserves appreciation.
Throughout my process of this project so far, I have struggled to break away from the computer. Obvious steps in the artistic process have become obstacles that require me to exercise my creative problem solving skills. Finding suitable photos of a celebrity figure that I had any amount of knowledge of was particularly difficult. Finding craft materials with limited resources has also been challenging.
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