Follow me on Tumblr!

Made a Tumblr account a couple weeks ago! You can follow me there as well,

http://www.designbystevo.tumblr.com

KEEP BLOGGING EVERYONE!

Brew Meister Update

Im finally understanding this huge photoshop files layers. Im about 80 percent done and look to finish this evening. It's looking great! Can't wait for my class to see it tomorrow. This is an awesome project since the iphone is big in the world and learning how to design apps is crucial to how we end up in the job market. I look forward to trying to come up with more ideas for apps and maybe design a few more this summer. I can't wait to go to borders and get some more design books and software books to get inspired!!! In the words of the Dos Equis man, 'Stay Thristy My Friends'.

Iphone App

So I am now 100% focused on this final project for Web 2: The Iphone App. I am doing an app for all those people who love their beer. Not the Domestic beer...this is for those who like to spend a bit of money on their beer and love good taste. The title is Brew Meister. It is for all those beer enthusiasts who want to find all the microbreweries they can and soak up the beer. Options such as Find a Brewery with GPS Location and Brew Scan are equipped in this app. I hope to get this app looking good by the weeks end. So here I go!

Design-HQ.org update

DesignHQ

Well i've gotten the design pretty much layed out for this site and just finished a mock site in Dreamweaver. Click on the link to check out my progress. Im pretty happy with the turnout and look forward to working on it more and actually get the site up and running. The biggest challenge is the chat service and profile creation. Well i hope to learn over time and hopefully can find designers to contribute and help with the site.

Happy Easter!

Hey everyone Happy Easter!
i wanted to share with you guys a website i found to be very interesting. I was doing research on thedieline.com for packaging class and came across a product that had extensive branding i thought was unusual and interesting. Sunshine Enema is the product not quite sure what their selling but heres a screenshot of the landing page that is well design and attracts users.




www.blissisignorance.com

interesting use of flash and html/css looks like

Enjoy!

stevegovern.com + design-hq.org

I officially bought the domain names for my portfolio site and my web 2 project they may turn into something hopefully big. My idea, Design HQ, would be a non-profit like design community for designers and artists alike to post inspiration or talk about design itself. There will be a chat server like facebook or aim for this site called Critique. It's where designers can upload working progress for others to see and receive feedback from other designers. A store will be on the site to sell books, designers work and other goodies. Design Headquarters will receive no funds whatsoever. It is a free site for designers to create an account and network amongst others. It will team up with my classmates website to help with job postings and golden opportunities. I also want a section called Creative Brief to be a star on the site. It will be a fun activity for designers to keep their minds fresh and explore numerous projects ranging from print such as identity, packaging, or poster design to web site design layouts to flash movies. Once i hit the ground running i am going to need some help with other designers input and programmers. Hope this baby works. Just bought a name for it for 10 bucks! Keep designing well my friends!!!

Senior Review today!

I am so relieved that my portfolio and process book is done. I think I did a good job and did my best to showcase my work. I was done a week before the deadline which was a huge relief only until DCI screwed up my brochure. Couldn't even fold it, it was so thick. DCI couldn't print it double sided and to top it off, it wasn't even cellmounted together! :( . I then took it to Albert Screenprint and they did a fantastic job they were able to print it double sided and printed it with UV ink so it looked amazing. Got my process book on time from Apple and it looks amazing as well. I wish the best of luck to all of you that are in the review with me and look forward to hearing some good news...hopefully :)

Paul Sahre - Design Lecture @ Kent State

Here was my impression of Paul Sahre. Almost all of his work is dictated by grid structure. He is inspired by Josef Muller Brockmann's work. I liked his studies of a grid that has a visual impact for book covers. His book designs didn't look all too impressive but his concepts are very well thought out. I like how he experimented on almost all his work. It inspired me to start thinking outside of the box more. Start incorporating a visual grid into my work more often than I have before. He likes collecting books, its inspiration for him on future book cover commissions. His clientele is well known such as designer James Victore and the New York Times. He went back to Kent for his graduate degree in graphic design. He emphasized that thought process should be a major part in your work and that an idea sketched out before even touching the computer is probably the most imporatant thing for designers. An interesting piece that he did for a client was magazine spreads on UFOs. He started out by spending a night trying to get abducted by aliens. The spreads ended up being photo emphasis of his tools he used to be abducted. Overall I wasn't moved by his work. I felt that some his work was scribbles on a page and call it design. Kent has a totally different program than Akron's in the sense that they are more traditional. 7 out of 10

HFA Shadowing Day 2

Really interesting day today. Got to meet a group of people from the Interactive Department. I learned how they develop a site from scratch and sat in on some cool flash projects. It was interesting that some people in the department don't know programming all to well but can develop some storyboards for programmers to then assemble. I look forward to going back on Thursday!

Portfolio Site Coming Along!

Hey Guys!

Little update on my personal site. I am getting very close to finalizing my site for publishing. This is so exciting having this Web 2 class to help me with my CSS + HTML fears. I am learning about Lightbox and learning to edit my portfolio pieces for lightbox. I just have to finish my Web 2 page and Contact page! Hope everyones site is coming along as well! Good Luck!

Helbotica - Creative use of a well known typeface

Yeah i know we are all sick of hearing about Helvetica and how it is overused in all of our designs. It seems discouraging when watching the documentary and trying to overcome this inevitable sans-serif. I know at least some of us have used Helvetica in our designs (I know I have) but i recently was browsing the Internet and came across a blog that had this picture. I was amazed by it, I like this type robot. Creative usage of the letterforms to form robot parts was ingenious. It is also available for a design on a shirt for $25. Maybe I might pick up a shirt for myself. This gives me inspiration for fun projects I can do over the summer. Maybe create the arch nemesis Futura Robot. lol

Stay Tuned for more!

HFA shadowing

Hey everyone!

Just started my shadowing of Hitchcock and Fleming Associates in Akron, Ohio last Friday. Let me say it was the best decision I ever made. I got to meet a lot of cool people on the creative team. They were working on some cool projects and it was nice to sit in on a work day. I met a designer Todd from Akron U who was apart of the design team for the Veritas project. I then met Mike there other creative director and he had been working on some ads for a client. I met Nick Betro the president of HFA listened in on a critique. I met the 3d animator for HFA Scott who work on some cool commercial spots for Geauga Lake. It was a great first day for me and I continue my shadowing today. I get to meet the interactive team there and see how their work day usually is. Ill keep updating so stay tuned!

HTML+CSS Coding

Hey everyone im having a good time learning all this coding for starting up a webpage. It is going to help me in the long run with Dreamweaver when building my portfolio site. I am now more comfortable with the DIV tags and ordered and unordered lists. I have to start researching for this Hudson library project. This is gonna be fun researching other libraries and seeing how they run their navigation. I can't wait to redesign my portfolio site and learn how to code it step by step. Hope you all have a great weekend!

Matthew Carter coming to Ohio!

I'm so excited to see Matthew Carter. I have been interested in typography ever since I took my first Typography class. I remember seeing him in the Helvetica documentary which makes this lecture twice as good! He has changed they way we read text on web pages as we designed the Verdana and Georgia typefaces. It will be interesting to see how he has dealt with typography through the technological era and how he changed from drawing type to designing type on the computer. Hope to see you guys there!

Project 2- Gates & Fences

Helvetica-world's most used font in design

Helvetica is one of the most popular typefaces in the world.
Technically speaking, it’s a sans serif Grotesque typeface, inspired by and based on the Akzidenz-Grotesk typeface created by Berthold around 1898.
In practical terms, though, it’s used by designers at independent firms, big corporations, and everything in between, from all over the world.
Helvetica has been featured by MOMA in New York and has received a number of awards and worldwide recognition. There’s even a documentary and a few books about it.
But why is Helvetica so popular? What is it about this font that seemingly tries to be inconspicuous that has made it such a part of our culture and daily lives?
We see it dozens of times every day, from product logos, to websites, to packaging, and numerous other items. Read on for more information about Helvetica and why you might want to consider it in your next design project.

Helvetica was originally called Die Neue Haas Grotesk, and was closely based on Schelter-Grotesk. It was created specifically to be neutral, to not give any impression or have any meaning in itself. This neutrality was paramount, and based on the idea that type itself should give no meaning.

The original Helvetica brochure.

The marketing director at Stempel decided to change the name to Helvetica in 1960 to make the font more marketable internationally. Originally it was proposed that the typeface be called Helvetia (Latin for Switzerland), but the designers didn’t want to name it after a country, and so it was called Helvetica instead (which is Latin for Swiss).

DIV Tags

My biggest confusion from Web 1 was div tags and placement of objects in dreamweaver. I would always try to make some absolute or relative and it would change in the browser window from safari and firefox. Im not too comfortable yet about using DIV tags and using AP DIV tags. I am definitely hoping that this Web 2 class will make me more aware of tags and placement in web page design. I am really excited about learning HTML and CSS coding!