Design project
The explorations unit for elective classes is almost a mini version of the xenith project, where we get the chance to ‘explore’ any part of our elective that we want. Because “design” is so broad and extends to basically everything, we had a lot of options. At first, I considered doing some sort of traditional art/craft such as quilling but in the end I decided to do something digital that i’ve always wanted to try; branding.
My plan was to create branding for my cat sitting business including fonts, colors, and a logo. My final products would be a branding style guide, as well as a business card with information such as pricing and contact information. I wanted to be able to use these to advertise my business around where I live, especially because summer break is coming up and many people will be going away from home. This project would allow me to explore brand design, something that I am very interested in.
My first step was to create my logo. My original idea was to have a cat resting in a position that created a heart shape. I ended up not liking any of my sketches so I shifted to my second idea, which was having a cat sitting with its tail curling into the “c” of catsitting
Sketches of my logo
My final logo
Next, I wanted to develop my branding. This meant I would have to choose fonts, colors, and graphic design elements. I also created variations of my logo to use in different situations. My goal for this step was to create a style guide, which is essentially a reference that shows all the parts of a specific brand
Moodboard I created
My final branding guide
For my poster, I started off with a layout plan on paper. I ended up deviating from this completely because I found more success in preparing all of the elements and then moving them around until I liked the layout. The most important factor I considered when making my poster was something called visual hierarchy. Visual hierarchy is essentially how a designer can emphasize the elements that they want the viewer to see first. For my poster, I wanted people to see my logo first, because it explains what my business (and the poster) are all about)
My final poster
The process of creating my business card was very simple, since I already had the components, and the canvas was very small. The work I had to do was essentially just fitting the parts together to fill the space effectively while reflecting my branding.
My business card
This project let me explore branding, which I’ve always wanted to try. I’m super grateful for the opportunity I had to get support while doing a project of my choice. In the end, this was a super valuable experience for me, and I got to get hand-on experience trying out visual hiearchy.
Music Recording
For this project, we got to get together with a group and essentially mess around in the recording studio. I teamed up with my friends Griffin, AJ, Josheline, and Kailie to sing a cover of Let it go from Frozen. We had a lot of fun, and it was cool to use such an advanced recording studio.
Collaborative artist statement
For our music recording project, we sang a cover of “Let it go” from Frozen, Hannah, Griffin, Josheline, and Kylie. AJ played drums. We got to use the recording studio, which we hadn’t gotten a chance to do before. The process involved setting up the microphones, headphone, and the drum recording. After that was done, we had to mix the audio and create the album cover
Mr. Flo assisted us in the process of getting everything set up. First, he worked with AJ to get the drums ready to record. AJ did a few practice runs of the recording while we all got ready. Then, we moved onto setting up the audio. Mr. Flo taught us how to adjust the headphones on the microphone, so we could set the correct volumes of backing track, drums, and our own vocals. We did two takes of the singing, and focused on having fun. We tried to move past our mistakes.
Once it was done, he gave us a chance to listen to the recording. It wasn’t perfect, but we had a great time sitting together and hearing each other sing. Then, we went back to the studio so we could get photos taken.
After we had the recording finished, Griffin worked to mix the audio in Pro tools. Joseline created the album art with our input and we all worked on this artist statement together.
Poetry
During our time in the poetry unit, we had the poet {name} come in. Along with getting to view a lot of different poems, we got to do a few exercises and write a few different types of poems. For example, we wrote an Ars Poetica (poem about poetry), a cento poem (poem using lines of poetry from other works), and two types of poems that involved putting different, random words together. My favorite poem was the cento poem, which I ended up developing into my final poem. My poem is called “Reflection”
