Shape

What I Discovered
Washington D.C. was a really interesting experience from the perspective of my IP project. At museums like Ford's Theater, the Newseum, and the National Portrait Gallery, I was able to see a variety of successful—and unsuccessful—ways to convey a space visually and then Monday I visited the Kelsey Museum with a class.

Unfortunately, I didn't take a camera because I thought a lot of museums would forbid it, but I can at least talk a bit about it. Ford's Theater, where Lincoln was assassinated, had a lot of really interesting and engaging information—particularly for a history dork like myself. Yet, it was entirely overwhelming, there weren't any levels of access. You weren't certain where to start first.

Similarly, the Kelsey Museum here in Ann Arbor had great academic information about their pieces, but a total lack of consistent color palette made it impossible to tell where one section, say Greek, Roman, Far East, Pre-Historic, began and where another started.

Both made me consider both levels of access and entry points a lot more, combined with consistency of material (e.g., printed maps, labels, and walls at least have some similarity). I'm not sure it directly relates to the logo I'm working with now, but it certainly will be influential in working with the larger visual system I hope to create later.

I'm going to shift gears a bit and talk about this survey I created for the group and talk about the results. I used a website called eSurvey, which was great because it's free and allowed me to ask as many questions as I wanted. The downside is it doesn't allow me to export information into a PDF unless I pay, so I just took some screenshots of questions I found notable. It wasn't mandatory, but it looks like the response rate I got was around 70% of known active members in the group—pretty high by survey standards.





So what are we looking at when we think of the group? A small advantage of women over men, something that has become typical at most Universities, but there is a skew toward older, heavily involved students. A huge part of the group is networking, over 90% of them are involved in at least some other student organization. There's probably a cross-pollination of interest. They also skew toward older, more advanced students. The vast majority are juniors and seniors or beyond.

What about where they live? We can see from above a lot live off-campus now, but what about where they came from?


No surprise here, most students spend at least a year in the dorm, some two.


This breakdown is more interesting. You're see a lot of South Quad and East Quad members, most East Quad members are probably from the Residential College. I'm surprised Markley had a high percentage (comparatively), but it also is one of the larger housing complexes.


Here, too, is a selection of majors. History, public policy, urban planning. Very humanities driven. There's a few interesting ones in there, geology, civil engineering, mathematics.


Where do people usually go to class? It seems like we're all doomed to exist in Angell/Mason Hall unless you're doomed to be on North Campus.

I'm not completely sure this information will be entirely useful, but it helped to give me a better idea of who I'm working with. Certainly, when I get to the point of discussing strategy—how The Roosevelt Institute should advertise and where—this will be influential in the decision making process. You can see either where the group comes from and focus there, or work on areas where we have little coverage.

Speaking of which, continuing the imagery from around campus. I took some snaps from the Dude the other day, one side was the school sponsored bulletin board:





It's quite different from what you see in the Architecture Corner, smaller format, not as design conscious. Not everything is color. Across from it is the student bulletin board:


How can you separate yourself from that? Yikes.

So, looping back; work on the logo. It felt like last week I was getting a lot of great comments about the direction I was heading and was trying to get a variety of feedback before I moved forward, so these past few days I went back to sketching.

I've started working with trace a lot, which is something that had been suggested to me a lot by Jan-Henrik and Hannah in previous years, but I've tried taking more to heart. I like it because I can quickly spit stuff out, I also find that tracing a decent idea I have and reworking it is a bit easier.







Anyhow, I'm trying to dump the letter for a little while and take it in some more abstract directions. I was playing around here with lines and points, notions of connectivity. It's actually making me think a lot about Malevich and Russian Suprematism, here's a bit of that work:




And also the sort of ideas around the Bauhaus. Taking really rational, geometric forms, and combining them to do radical, new things. It's really intriguing. I'd like to try and find a book or two about Suprematism. I'll be the first to admit my basis in art history is a bit shaky.

I'm not certain the visual direction I'm taking this week is really working per se, but it's making me think about an abstract concept (connections, pragmatism) in rather… Well, abstract and new ways. This common point, overlap, or divergence of ideas is key though. Visualizing it has become such a task though.

I will say, I'm learning a great deal about my own creative process—something that has been an unexpected consequence of this project—and my ability to work through my own ideas.

What Next
This weekend I'm going to Detroit to attend a conference for The Roosevelt Institute. My reasoning is two-fold. Part is that, I really do think the group does great work and I want to stay in tune with them over the year still. Though my project may have zoomed out a bit and is gearing more toward a legacy production, working with them is really informative, it lets me know what their needs air, their expectations, their budget, the realities they work in. That's not to say I should or by any means have to heed those concerns, but it's good to keep in mind.

The second is that people from the national organization will be coming into town. Luckily, a few of them are former U of M students that I vaguely know, so there is potential to float the idea of my project in the hopes for a broader adoption. In my mind, the more eyes from the group I can get to see the work, the better.

That's kind of long term though, keeping with the next few weeks, I want to keep working on this logo, getting more advice, and working again. If I've allowed myself the luxury of time, then it's important I do it right.

I also want to connect with Hannah and Dwayne again to talk about what comprise visual identities. I can look through a lot of books and make a lot of judgements about what does, but I have firsthand resources who've done that kind of work I should take advantage of. The outcome will probably be some combination of the groups needs and what commonly comprises identity.

Unfortunately, I ran into a kind of crazy week this between an exam I have tomorrow (which I should be currently studying for) and work to make-up after traveling to D.C., but I'm trying to clear more things out of the way so I can focus better.

How I Spent My Time
I spent a few more hours with a roll of trace plotting out ideas, I went to the Dude to take some images of bulletin boards, I compiled demographic information, I started looking a bit more into Russian Suprematism, and spent time in D.C. looking at visual systems of museums.

Overlap

Discovery
This past week and a half may not have been exactly enjoyable, but necessary. I'll say this, I'm glad it happened in November and not March though.

I took a step back and realized for two months I jumped feet first into my project, but didn't give myself any time to breathe. Working with an organization is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it gives you drive and focus, but on the other I felt subject to their deadline whims. It didn't allow me enough time to think about my design work or get substantive critique from other people. I felt overwhelmed and it threw me off track.

As Hannah pointed out, I'd been operating as an in-house designer for them. Meeting their needs from day-to-day. What I want to be is their "high price consultant," someone who is able to work elaborately and freely over the course of the year to create a compelling visual system and present it to be adopted for the following year, a legacy work.

I think initially I had reservations about this. My design work could be enlightening, but if it only existed in the confines of my studio space and the Art School, it didn't really have an impact. That's probably why I was compelled to try and hit the ground running. However, I'd rather do a few things over the course of this year well than a gamut of poor work I'm not happy with.

So what does that mean for December?

Well, it's not so much that I'm changing my project, more than I'm reframing it. I first approached it head on, and it didn't work. Now, my goal is to approach it free of the group. I'll still work with them over the year to retain a sense of who they are and the needs they encounter, I may even pluck an event or two of theirs to incorporate into my project. Ultimately, this will give me more time to get the feedback I need to create a thoughtful project.

From here to December then is the development of a system. What that entails, I'm not entirely sure. Certainly, fantastic keywords, a logo and colors that emphasize what the group does are a component. I'll have to break down what the group needs regularly and compare it with other successful visual identities. It will mean some more focused research, as previous design standards manuals dealt mainly with logo usage.

Earlier in the semester, Jesse Kidwell gave me a few original Paul Rand design manuals about the IBM logo that were quite helpful. I contacted him again a few days ago to see if he has anything else that may be of use and he's bringing a few things in. I'm also going to try and contact Annette Haines. She gave me a lot of information and book recommendations for creating a survey to study the group's demographics. Further, I should use some of the in school resources that have worked on identity projects, Dwayne, Hannah and Frank. Looking toward next semester, I can refine this information further and then use it to create advertisements for the group itself—free of events and speakers—then produce a design standards manual for them to hold on to and utilize in the future.

I had a meeting with Dwayne Overmyer on Tuesday this week as well to talk about the logo and get some feedback. We also talked a bit about strategy. Posters are obviously a big part of the student group, so how—as part of my visual identity—can I create a consistent visual image with changing content (i.e., take the masthead off the New York Times and the Detroit Free Press and from across the room you can still tell which one is which).

For example, below is the 'Architecture Corner' of the School of Art & Design. Every work here is made by someone very conscious of design and visual choices. You notice mainly large format work, multiple colors, suggestive typography with a smaller use of imagery.











Yet, next week when I go to the School of Public Health, East Quad and the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy to take similar pictures of their bulletin boards, I'm willing to bet I will not find the same visual litmus. In evaluating what is currently in these places, I can make decisions about what format and color schemes can then help the group to separate itself.

So let's back up to the work I'm doing now a bit. I'm still dealing with this logo. I got some interesting and fresh comments last Thursday and I, as said, setup a meeting with Dwayne and we talked for about an hour. He pointed out it seemed like I tried a few approaches already.

1. Facial recognition (The Roosevelt's image)
2. Historical (the glasses, the bull moose imagery)
3. Letterform (the R)

He said he felt some of my decisions were successful, basically eliminating the first two, and said the letterform seemed to be half-working. He suggested maybe I back up a bit and consider what forms can be representative of this group. So I backed up a bit and started to explore what images currently existed for 'think-tank' groups.









Some are better than others. I was sitting after studio hours with Anna talking and she pointed out a lot of these advocacy organizations blobs of multi-colored people dancing in circles, the world, or images of a brain, but that imagery wasn't successful, it felt very generic.

There was a moment I was going to use an exercise from the Karl Gerstner book Designing Programmes, which you run through a series of options and see if any have an effect you're looking for.



Just before I started, I remember Dwayne mentioned looking over the groups mission statement. He actually joked a bit about how everyone seemed to have one, and some of them say very little, but sometimes there are good bits on information inside them. So I printed out a copy and started highlighting.


I got hooked on this idea of pragmatism and conversation. I kept seeing it throughout the mission statement and in being familiar with The Roosevelt Institute. I was browsing the website ffffound when I came across this posting.


At first, I had to laugh because I thought it was funny, but later in the day I started thinking more and more about this Venn Diagram shape and my keywords.




Connection… Pragmatism? There's a relationship between these words. Pragmatism is a compromise, it's the space between two (or more) ideologies. In a Venn Diagram, A+B=C, and that's where groups like The Roosevelt Institute operate—in this space formed between. Through research, it finds the good parts of multiple ideologies and drives to create something new.

I also started to think of what shape could be indicative of a larger whole that the individuals comprise. In geometry, more complex shapes are built up of smaller triangles. So, a square is actually two triangles joined. A pentagon is three triangles. Could two shapes overlap to focus on an individual triangle?

I then started moving back toward the letterform, introducing something Dwayne and I talked about briefly. I focused on the R because it is, arguably, the most important part of The Roosevelt Institute. Roosevelt is somewhat descriptive, whereas Institute is a generic term. However, I could introduce the letterform I to create more variability of shape, but just visually make it secondary with a foreground-background relationship. Between this and the shapes, I sat around for about four hours with a roll of trace trying to come up with new combinations.

It reminded me a bit of a suggestion by Amanda last week, that when working with a letterform, I may need to draw or alter them myself to find exactly what I'm looking for.





I feel like I travelled down the path of a letterform and it sort of worked on its own, I moved down a path of shape and it also sort of worked. Perhaps the combination of the two is what can create something really interesting. Maybe at the intersection of these two letterforms, I can create a recognizable shape as well.

I'm kind of eager to get feedback on these ideas, it feels like this could be something much larger. What if there was an entire system devoted to this visual overlap that identified the group? I think it could be quite unique. There are a lot of ideas swirling in my head right now on this topic, but I can't quite pin them down.

What Next
This coming weekend I'm going to Washington D.C. with Hannah's Designing Exhibitions class. Part of me was torn about this, because I felt like this weekend I really needed to work on things for IP. However, while the trip is informative for her class, I think it might actually be more so for my IP project. We're visiting museums, which are huge systems of information tied together by consistency, visual style, and an objective. It may not be the paper replication of what I'm doing, but it will be a great visual sample.

In the coming week, I want to get some good feedback about this overlap idea and see where it is pushing my logo. I'd also like to try and make a transition to think about color, but not before I get the form working. It's important that the logo work in black and white—especially for an underfunded student group—and that the statement is enhanced by color, not entirely reliant upon it.

I'm also going to travel to a couple of different parts of campus to take photographs of their department bulletin boards to compare them. I'll also finally post up the demographic information up here I collected in the first two months. I was hoping to design it, but I just don't have time. It doesn't matter if it looks pretty, the content is useful, so I'll just take some screenshots of the eSurvey website and post them.

Beyond that, picking up some research on design guidelines and taking photographs in D.C. is important. It will expand my visual precedence for this kind of work.

How I Spent My Time
I'm actually a bit miffed, I felt like I had a lot more visually for spending four hours with a roll of trace, but I'm actually excited about what I'm generating. Meetings with Hannah and Dwayne helped the macro and micro visions of my projects respectively. I sat down and tried to have a conversation again with my keywords, to see what directions it could take me. I've also been walking into more people's studios and asking for them to look at work. Anna and Jesse have both been really good sounding boards.