KCTV Tower Sketch Book

Over the Christmas break, my girlfriend and I agreed to make eachother presents.  The budget was under $10, so it seriously narrowed my options.  As a member of the fibers department, she constantly sketches ideas from dreams and inspiration for clothing ideas.  So I decided to make her a sketchbook.

Since our first arrival in Kansas City, the first thing to greet us was the enormous KCTV tower, lit up in the night. It was very beautiful and has served as a beacon for us to get home when lost. So it's a special monument to us.  So the theme for this sketchbook was the tower.  The color choices were based on her favorite colors, the tower color, and the value changes that come with lighting at night time.  I even included a page with a brief back story of the tower.  I'll post some pictures when it gets unwrapped on Christmas. 

The materials will be a thick matte cardstock for the front, back, and 2 inside pages.  The sketching paper will be a bright, thick laser paper to help bring down the cost, and up the number of pages for sketching. Binding meathod has yet to be determined. I will likely do a stab bind with some sort of ribbon.  But if there is a place locally that provides wire-O binding services, I might check into that instead.


The order will be Title page, Merry Christmas page, sketching pages, history page, back cover.

Here are the screen grabs:

CDF: Pre-Christmas Break Update

This week was a rather productive week.  We had the color book, the calenders, the process binder, a documentation cd, and a trip to a local color printing firm called "Color Mark" to do.  The work was pretty tedious, but was a pretty good follow up for our semester.  I'll be glad I have that cd down the road. 

On another note, Color Mark was pretty fantastic.  the assembly line aspect was a bit of a downer, but the ending products were impressive.  Doing such large and numerous prints for Sprint and other major companies is something to look forward to when I make my way into the corporate world.  In the mean time, I'll just hope the world of cubicles phases out a bit, and I'll continue with my studies on color, drawing, and form.

CDF: Update (with new photos too!)

This color book project has been an interesting tie into our delineation work. The calenders are almost ready for completion, and the color schemes are similar color schemes to our photos. My entry for August will be simultaneous contrast. Shouldn't be too difficult since my delineated letter form is flat planes in a close vicinity of each other. I'll be going with brighter and more summery colors, but not quite as vibrant as the earlier summer months. These color activities have proven to weasel their way into my work little by little, and I think it's helping my work and the aesthetics of my projects greatly. I'm also weighing the use of color in diagrams and informational aids. Organization is a key element to conveying information to anyone, and color certainly helps at least half the brain. I hope there will be more color in the future, and I'm definitely psyched for the upcoming field trip.

Here are the new photos in this order:

Contrast of Value and Saturation
Three Dimensional Through Psychological Space
Contrast of Extension
Helical
Horizontal Cross Section

VisCom: Roughly Finished Haiku Animation

Here's my nearly finished animation. Still got to add sound and such.

Haiku Animation from Brandon Lyon on Vimeo.

CDF: Pantone Delineation

Here are the colorized versions of the delineations recently posted:

CDF: Color Book 15 Photos

These are my possible picks for my pics so far in the color book.  The pictures are as follows:

3 Becomes 4
4 Becomes 3
Acromatic
Circular
Complimentary
Diagonal
Diagonal
Gradation
Helix
Horizontal
Hue
Monochromatic
Three Dimensional Through Psychological Space
Triadic
Triadic
Verticle
Vibration

VisCom: Type Placement Decisions

Type: Skylab Letterpress

Today's trip to Skylab was amazing. Loved every second of it.  It has always been in the back of my mind to pursue skill in printmaking to meld with my design.  I feel that printmaking and graphic design run the same road, only in different ways.  I'll definitely consider a possible internship with Skylab in the future.

Here's a screen grab of their website for anyone interested:

Skylab Letterpress's Website


The machines in their workspace were a dream come true. They combined that mechanistic analog love of mine into professional  and modern processes. Not to far off from my love for older cameras.  Their process was very much assembly line and trial and error, which is quite similar to my style of work, and if I ever have the workspace to house such a monster, I might consider finding a letterpress myself to mess with in my spare time.  It undoubtedly has room for experimental process and many possibilities in materials.  The leather samples they showed us were quite impressive, and I only wish I could have done more than pull a lever. Maybe in the near future I'll get more chances to handle these archaic machines.

I'll be sure to put in a few of their misprint samples into my soon to come business card and graphic inspiration pocket books.  Though I have gained a considerable amount of content, so I might have to make a series since I'm not sure if there is wire O with a large enough diameter.  

VisCom: F + S Prj. 3

This poster uses the analog shape to really hint at the grimy, slightly primitive,  and competitive world of sports. 

Type: Web Layout Iterations

Some of the ones for the previous class + a few changes.  One of them has been altered considerably though.

CDF: Black and White Delineations

Here are my delineations for Black and white, Tone, Texture, and Contour.  I wanted to really emphasize the spotlights and architectural lighting of the tall buildings of the 1920's.