Salvador Dali

Spanish painter, sculptor, graphic artist and graphic designer, Salvador Dali was one of the most celebrated and influential figures in the twentieth century avant-garde art. Dali is best known for is surrealist art of the 1930's. 

Salvador Dali was born on May 11, 1904 in Figueras, Spain. He was born the third Salvador Dali after his father and brother, who died 9 months before Dali's own birth. Dali lived in the shadow of his brother all of his life. This had a great impact on his artwork.  

In 1928, Dali first obtained true international exposure when his oil painting, "Basket of Bread", was shown at Carnegie International Exposition in Pittsburgh, PA. This was one example of his mastery. Dali was determined to become one of the world's greatest painters. Salvador Dali died January 23, 1989 but will still remain one of the greatest artists and whose paintings will always remain.

Dali was the graphic designer behind Chupa Chups! Chupa Chups are sweet lollipops that are an eye catching rendition of a daisy. The name of the brand comes from the Spanish verb chupar, meaning "to suck".

Favorite Album Cover.

There are many different album covers, that strike the eye or pass. From the fonts, to the colors and overall design, many different elements. I have quite a few favorite album covers such as, Calvin Harris' 18 Months, Lana Del Rey's 'Born to Die: Paradise Edition and last Tegan and Sara's 'Heartthrob'.

But there is one that really caught my eye. As I said in the past, I am a big fan of different fonts. Also I love the edgy side of people, such as Rihanna herself and other women in the singing business. The album cover above is Rihanna's album Unapologetic. The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 238,000 copies, becoming Rihanna's first number one album on the chart and best-selling debut week.

On this cover there has to be about two to three different fonts. The use of white space is well used, Rihanna is directly in the middle of the album cover. When I first looked at this cover, I was attracted to the album title behind the color black. The white on black lets you know that this is the album title. Other than that, I love the way everything is positioned. I do wish that maybe the album title would have been somewhat centered over the breast area, but that is about it. 

There are a few fonts that kind of model the font on the album cover here: DaFont

Project #2

Overall this project was something new for me. Never thought I would do something like this and how it turned out.

I had a bunch of ideas going in my head, but tried different things. BUT, the reason why nothing was working was because I kind of messed up in the beginning. I wanted to add more pictures and try to do a gradient effect.

After I got everything together, I told myself to just keep it simple at that point since the due date was coming up and I had a lot of other things to focus on. I wanted to make everything clean and make it a little different. I am a fan of three columns and different fonts. I like a font that will jump or make people say, "I like that font, what is the name of it?"

Next project I will try to pace myself and to actually express my ideas and able to feel more confident about it.

Initials Project

The Initials project was fun. I wish I would have planned it out just a little bit more. I had a couple ideas in my head but was not too sure. Improving a bit and just experimenting just to get used to Design. I have never used it before so it was really new to me. The gradient feather tool was my favorite to use in this project. Just the way the color flowed from one side to the other. I placed my initials at the corners to draw attention to them instead of placing them in the middle. I don't think they would have made sense in the middle anyway if I had done so. Next project I will take my time and try to do things neater and focus more on positioning and colors.

//TroLLing

Just the thought of internet trolling bothers me, barf. Why? What is the satisfaction behind it? I don't understand and would never want to get to that level to understand. They post hateful questions and answers just for the sake of pissing people off to making up lies about other people just to hurt their reputations. Trolls are fixated on the idea that people who disagree with them or use common sense that is incompatible with what they say about something in particular, are trying to force their ways on them. 

In the online article "Unmasking Reddit’s Violentacrez, The Biggest Troll on the Web", by Adrian Chen goes into detail about the troll Michael Brustch (Violentacrez). Brutsch is a 49 year old military father and a lover of cats. He currently resides with his wife in Arlington, Texas.

Violentacrez is known for distributing images of scantily-clad underage girls, racism posts, porn, gore, misogyny, incest, and exotic abominations. In my opinion this is absolutely unacceptable. It is funny because further in the reading, Brustch is unapologetic about what he has done. He has received coverage about what he has done via CNN (Anderson Cooper). 

"My wife is disabled. I got a home and a mortgage, and if this hits the fan, I believe this will affect negatively on my employment," he said. "I do my job, go home watch TV, and go on the internet. I just like riling people up in my spare time." -Brustch

It is sick to even think people would do such a thing. The best thing we can do is just to ignore it, or as forum moderators, make sure to stay on your "toes" in case a situation pops up on a forum.  

//American Airlines Logo

As we observed in class, American Airlines has merged with United. With that they created a new logo.

The new logo has a more futuristic look to it. Now we are all used to the original America Airlines logo. When you see it, you definitely know which airline it is. I do, but I don't like it at the same time if that makes sense. The symbol looks like the tail of a plane, which is pretty interesting. Another thing is the colors and how they fade it from light to a darker shade.

Now I am not the kind of person to stay with the past, but the past logo was enough for me. It was simple and appealing. The eagle in the middle, with initials and the colors. Yes the colors are pretty dull, but you remembered. When you seen AA, you knew what it stood for. Nice and simple. Not too much, because, well in my opinion that too much can lose attention.

to

But who really judges an airline by its logo to fly?

//Michael Bierut

I was not as busy as I expected today, so I decided to do some research on graphics designers over the time. One that stood out to me was Michael Bierut. I have no clue why, but I decided to do some light research.  Bierut was born in Cleveland, Ohio (1957). He moved on to study at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning. Michael Bierut's actual career as a designer for Massimo Vignelli started in the 1980s. 

For 10 years from there he ended up becoming a partner at Pentagram in 1990.

Bierut is also an advocate for writing books on design, and as a co-founder of Design Observer as well as a teacher and lecturer all over the world. 

According to his Pentagram online biography: Bierut "is responsible for leading a team of graphic designers who create identity design, environmental graphic design and editorial design solutions".

He prides himself not on being creative, but on being a problem solver and suggests to other designers to remember who and what they are creating their artwork for. The works of Bierut are in permanent collections of museums all over the world in several countries including: the United States, Germany and Switzerland. Some of his clients consists of: Walt Disney, United Airlines, Motorola, the New York Jets, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.