Getting Closer

How I Spent My Time
We'll forgive that I failed to post before break, but work has been proceeding at a steady pace. I'll first show stuff I did the week of break.





I created a few new iterations of the general advertisement and a specific advertisement. To my count, these are the fifth iterations. I tried to incorporate comments I got before break and that Stephanie gave me. I'm actually very pleased with the general advertisement. I tried to pair down the number of bubbles, but I still think it's visually engaging.

As for the individual advertisement, I think I'm close—but not quite there. I can't figure out how to integrate the name "the roosevelt institute" fully with the bubbles, and if I need the other text.




I also printed to a scale of sizes, Hannah mentioned before break I need to not just default to 11x17. In my head, I wanted 24x36 since January, so now it's time to see if it works at that size. Here's an image of their relative size:


The other two things I've been working on over this last week is the website and book. Unfortunately, I feel like I'm at a point in the year where the closer it comes to April, the more difficult it is to change these. Books and websites require time to code, setup, publish, print, etc. I'm looking to create thumbnails of both for critique next Thursday. This way, I can get advice about the overall feel of both without having to do any coding or setup, and ideally any changes I need to do in the next few weeks would just be minor tweaks.

I was going to create the thumbnails for the blog, but that's my weekend goal, so I just took a photo of my sketchbook.


Basically, the websites first page is the tagline. You click that, and it moves to the lower left corner, and the policy center names and word bubbles grow from the dot at the end of the tagline. When you 'rollover' each policy center, the color changes from gray and the other word bubbles—except those associated with the policy center your mouse is over—dim out.

Click that policy center and the other word bubbles contract and disappear into the dot. Information about the specific policy center comes up, including meeting time, and contact information for that policy center's director.

I'll also have an about section, and if I do this in flash I'll have back and forward buttons. The technical side of things isn't threshed out, and while this all seems simple in thumbnail, it's pretty complicated on the web.

The book I don't have down quite as concretely. I know for the format I want the pages to be a little longer than wider, I've started outlining what needs to be in it. I know I want to photograph my work for the book. It will look a lot more professional to see it in realistic situations, rather than just a bunch of Adobe Illustrator exports.




As far as content, I know I need to talk about the advertisements (size, placement, color v. black & white, hierarchy), the web presence, and also some of the broader applications of the work (t-shirts, envelopes, letterhead, their yearly publication, buttons, mugs) to showcase its flexibility. Most of these things will be mocked up. I also need to outlinethe typefaces I chose, but more importantly I need to talk about why I chose this tagline, why I chose word bubbles, what tone was I trying to achieve for the organization?

I'm hoping to take this book and present it to the group at the end of the year and also have it sent to the national organization (who have apparently taken keen interest in the work I'm doing). Really, that's my goal. To have this adopted, to have this on campus next year, to have this used nationally.

How I Spent My Time
I'll admit, I was one of those who did not take the advice to spend break working. I went somewhere warm. It was beautiful and reinvigorating.

However, just because I was out of town didn't mean my project was out of mind. I started sketching ideas for the book and website. This week I began to solidify them more, I also made the new poster revisions this week, and printed them off already and have been trying to get advice from people on them. I started to explore whether I should use flash or html for the website.

What's Next
So I've been starring at these advertisements for two months now. I'm ready to get them to a finished stage, so I can print them out on really nice paper. I've been using crappy bond paper for the drafts. It's hard to work on the website or book when the advertisements change, but I am really excited to work on the book.

I really like the idea of condensing all I've done this year into something finite, presentable, and intelligible that I can use not only to persuade the Roosevelt Institute to use my ideas, but also to show others.