Viscom: Haiku and Words

 For our new iconographic and symbolic assignment in Visual Communications:

Hard the Beggar’s Bed…

But Sociable and Busy

With Insect Talking.

By Chiyo-Ni

1.     Uncomfortable

2.     Hard

3.     Discomfort

4.     Hostile

5.     Poor

6.     Makeshift

7.     Temporary

8.     Painful

9.     Rough

10. Grievous

11. Crowded

12. Hectic

13. Loud

14. Bustling

15. Traffic

16. Chatter

17. Industrious

18. Cordially

19. Warm

20. Engaged

21. Clicking

22. Droning

23.  Waves

24. Buzz

25. Vibrate

26. Data

27. Ringing

28. Whir

29. Resonate

30. Echo

Type: Hafnium Logotype

After all the iterations, I've finalized on my logotype for the element Hafnium.

VisCom: Scher Video Response

This video brought to my attention just how much we are affected by our surroundings.  The small things around us are really what shape us, and influence our creative decision making.  However, I believe that the exact opposite can be just as true.  I grew up in a smaller town that is growing due to the strong presence of corporations.  There wasn't much around and it was rather dull for a kid, so I turned to the big cities, and their modern and bustling atmosphere.  Living in Kansas City now, enforces these inspirations, as I have access to the real deal.  Photography and other live actions are possible, though the grass is always greener somewhere else.  I hope to develop my own artistic persona and to reflect upon my settings and way of life. 

VisCom: Final Statement - Line Book

Lines in Hiding: Plaza to River Market was an effort through the use juxtaposition of digital image and line studies to show linear qualities in Kansas City's Plaza, the River Market, and in between. Keeping to the back roads, I attempted to find images that most people wouldn't take notice of, and the lines within them.  Stairs become zigzags, and water becomes curves. The physical act of photography created a narrative of my journey through a portion of the city. An attempt was made to show both modern and older styled imagery to stimulate visual and temporal interest.

Black and white help us in the line studies to focus on background and foreground.  The lines end up taking the form of architecture and nature, becoming less like a line and more like an object in space. Composition and the link between all the images became a main goal in the books creation. Finding similarities between images, and the selective process of narrowing down the final spreads was a difficult process.

The accordion style melded well with our subject matter and purpose. The ability to flip pages is retained, but the book can be expanded as a line to show the narrative as a whole and to take it all in.  Making the book created learning experiences in craft and function. We also got up close and personal with black and white printing through multiple programs.

The sequential process was by far may favorite aspect of this project. It gives a whole new meaning to multimedia, and really pushes the envelope for what can be possible with certain materials. The hands on experience melding with technology was a great example for modern processes and how the designer should keep his abilities varied and to keep any possibilities open to interpretation.

These books employ many aspects a designer should employ.  It shows information, and pleasing aesthetics, as well as an interactive display method.  I thoroughly enjoyed this project, and hope to employ line in future work.

VisCom: Sequential Process

Basic Line

Horizontal/ Vertical

Raw Manipulation

Hand Edited

 Final Vector

Juxtaposition with Photo

Personal Interest: Awesome Form

I was just browsing www.popularscience.com, and ran across this image. Formally, I love this structure! To bad it wasn't high resolution enough to us in my type animation.

I also found this image of an electric meter.  Same website.  A lot of interesting numbering and type along the sides of this guy.  Might have to use this scientific approach to some of my informative work later.

VisCom: Project 2 Reading Response

The reading was a very smooth transition into what we've been working on. The figure ground relationships we form when looking at the image and line study brings positive and negative to our attention, giving us twice the room for making similarities between line and image.  Figure ground helps us to find balance, and create interesting compositions as well, to create a sense of depth in our line studies. 

The framing and cropping is essential to our relating our lines studies to our digital images, and creating our simple narratives in the juxtapositions. Resizing our lines and images allows us to create similarities and find new meaning and explore new parts in our pieces.  As a result, the frames created by these crops help to eliminate the rest of the image and help us focus on whats in front of us.  I think that that's originally how the frame came about.  That way we aren't distracted by other things that we might add into the content we are looking at. 

The Figure ground relationships are imperative to our logotypes in Type class as well, relying heavily on legibility, and the space of and around the letter forms.

Framing and Cropping is in wide use in our Color, Drawing, and Form class as well.  The way we zoom into the images of our letters help provide interesting compositions, and convey the words we want.  A stationary object can, through the use of cropping and framing, be active in the space around it.

Type: Hafnium Slogan and Image

"Nuclear command, light demand."

CDF: Blog Update Oct. 18th

The introduction of the contrast photos has been a great process.  Learning to take completely opposite outlooks on one form will be a necessary skill in any field in design.  Though it was difficult with the angled extrusion of my letter form, most of my photos turned out fine, although I will have to do a few adjustments to cropping since mine weren't the right size format.

I should have the new documentation photos for the 6" and 12" letters done this afternoon.  Interestingly enough, we are bringing back a little of the orthographic process to our 3d letters.  This alteration of process and dimension takes me back to my explorations of Tom's class in Freshman Year.  All so relevant and informative. Processes that I am very interested in.

Chapters I-IV were a great read too. Color hasn't been something that I've dived into much, and putting this into a period when we are using mostly black and white helps to break our curriculum up a bit. A breath of fresh air.  It's also more hands on process in cutting and placing, which I loved in doing the large and small letter forms.  Feels a little more personal rather than using programs.  There was however a section I didn't agree on.  The author mentions that letters aren't taken in by themselves, but in words.  This is true, since our language relies on groups of characters to communicate. However, they go on to say that modern typographers are wrong to think that sanserif is more legible, and that serifs are a much easier read.  I can agree with this on certain occasions, their examples being some of them, but I can't agree with the arguement as a whole.  Sanserif text simplifies the letter form and creates less clutter to sort through when reading.  Over a longer periods of reading, such as a book, serifs would be the way to go, since it leads more into the next word.  However, when it comes to speed and conveying information, such as signs, sanserif is much more practical.  I've even noticed police have been using sanserif on their cars.  Minimalism by nature, simplifies and increases practicality and reduces waste.  Sanserif in those respects will always stand as the more practical form of type in my opinion.

CDF: 3 Possible Themes

1.Transparency: Glass, Light, and Shadow

Transparency will be explored through the use of light, glass, and the shadows produced by them, in isolation, and together.  Range of huge and image can be as a result widely ranged in subject, and create a wide “spectrum” of media.  Transparency will also allow for multiple colors and hues mixing to create other colors.

2. Structure: Foundation, Scaffolding, and Architecture

Structure will explore the foundation, scaffolding, and architecture of a city, and it’s color.  I’d like to try and use photography and selection to choose an architectural aspect that matches up with it’s respective color shown.  Red might be powerful and strong, and purple might lean toward a more delicate form.

3. Organic: Plants, People, and Shape

Organic will explore the plants, people, and shape of our community.  The form and color of both living and mock living things.  Behavior might come into play, as well as culture and personality.

Type: Logotype Iterations

After some limiting down, I'm left with these groups of 6 or 5.

Simply Conjoined

Mixing Typefaces

Positive and Negative

VisCom: Text Chosen

Titles:  Lines in Hiding: Plaza to River Market

Paragraph update:

1. From sidewalk to skyscraper, the world is made of lines.  My mad hunt through uptown and downtown Kansas City exposed the scaffolding of the city from the ground up.  Through a series of juxtapositions, I was introduced to both image and their linear elements.

CDF: 12" Letterform Contrast Photos

Static and Depth

Rhythm and Trasnparency

 Neutrality and Focal Point

 Stability and Instability

Type: e Flash Animation Final.

My type animation with the crit change ideas.



Bernhard to Futura Transformation Type Animation from Brandon Lyon on Vimeo.

Another Blog Banner

Just a blog banner I did in my spare time for my girlfriend,
Casey, a member of the fibers department.  I started with the background image that she provided, and appropriated some images of spools, that I created shapes from.  Layering and transparency were my primary tools in this piece, with some fun in the text placement (Bodoni was the typeface used).  The "client" was pleased.

VisCom: Text Options

Title ideas for my line study book:

1. Uptown to Downtown
2. Everywhere in Between
3. Plaza to River Market
4. Lines in Hiding
5. Between Points
6. Kansas City, 1-2D


Paragraph ideas:

1. This book documents my linear journey from the Kansas City Plaza to downtown River Market, in a mad hunt for lines in space. From object to organic, I've grouped image and line in a series of urban juxtaposition.

2. Blazing a path from Plaza to River Market, I snagged line and form in a series of photographs. This series is a juxtaposition between line study and image to create a narrative of travel.

3. From grass to sky, the world is made of lines. My book "title" depicts my journey from downtown River Market, to the Plaza, and many places in between. The juxtapositions to follow, comparisons to 3d and 2d form in space through the use of photography and digital studies.

Type: e Flash Animation

The finished product:

Bernhard Std to Futura Std Flash Animation from Brandon Lyon on Vimeo.

Type: Sequences

The key frame sequences for the animation (I chose the top row): 

Type: Cropping with Imagery

Adding Imagery to the cropping to form a narrative:

Type: Cropping Excersizes

Here are my beginning cropping exorcises for the Type animation:

CDF: Kabel W Documentation

Here are some finished photos of both the 6" tall Kabel Std W, and the 12".


The 6"

 The 12"

VisCom: In Class Progress

Just some documentation of my juxtaposition's progress in class. 
There are still quite a few changes I'll need to make though.

VisCom: In Class Group Critique

The group brought the following to my attention for improvements on my line studies:



Escalator Juxtaposition
-  Align Image and Line Study:  I'll go back and retake the escalator image to get a more head on shot.


Staple Juxtaposition
-  Mess around with the justification.  Down, up, left, right?:   I'll make some more iterations.

Tabletop Juxtaposition
-  Remove the black corner in the line study, and smooth out the lines:   Already done with hand drawn corrections.  When vectorized, the problem will be gone.

Farmer's Market Buildings Juxtaposition
-  Might try cropping both line study and image to clip out the sky:  I'll do some zooming and maybe mess with hand drawn editing.  Might try to mirror the skyline rather than omitting it.
-  Maybe try a different line study:  I'll check my projections collection and see if any of the diagonal's match up well with the image.

Stairs Juxtaposition
-  Add some smaller white lines in the line composition to match up with the stairs:  Might attempt this with the hand drawn line compositions.
-OR raise the contrast in the image:   I'll probably opt for this option since I wouldn't be editing the line study, and the tonal qualities might match more seamlessly.


Window Juxtaposition
-   Increase visual interest in the composition:  I think they work well the way they are, but I think I might mess with contrast in the image.

 Brick Road Juxtaposition
-  Maybe use a line study with more verticals?:  I'll make a combined line study by simply rotating the lines vertically to keep the same tones.  But I rather like the vertical to horizontal composition.

Train Track Juxtaposition
 -  Align the image with the line study better:  I might mess with the size of the image and see what happens with the alignment.

Sign Light Bulb Juxtaposition
-  Find a better matching line study:  I'll browse through my collection to see if I can't match the light bulbs exactly through use of cropping.

Rounded Rooftop Juxtaposition
-  Find a different line study:   I'll try and crop in on a different area of the chosen line study to better follow the curves of the rooftop image.


Piano Juxtaposition
-Leave as is, unless you want the white and black fields to match up exactly:   I think I'll leave it how it is for now, might change it later, or mess with it in hand drawn versions.

VisCom: F+S Line Study

I thought the poster below was an excellent example of line studies, incorporating both color, shape, and stroke to represent a lined image we all are familiar with.  This could easily be translated into any of our combined line studies, and the fact that it's masked with a circle brings curved lines into the straight composition.

VisCom: NY Times Article Response

In this article by Laura Fields, I found the juxtapositions to be a great concept and daily routine.  It's finding these by chance that makes it all the better.  Gives you an "I figured it out!" sort of moment.  But I think that narratives formed by chance and narratives formed on purpose are genuine. different.  In our dot book projects, I found that if you just let things go, some things will inevitably play off each others composition or content.  However, when they were purposely edited/altered to fit with each other, the feeling just wasn't the same.  They were to perfect, and I think the feeling you get when running across narrative in juxtapositions by chances is ruined when it is created purposefully.  It feels stagnant in a way.  It's the same with our line exercises.  When two images line up too much, or are too similar, they don't bounce off each other well.  It's the slight differences that make a better composition, unless you want a strict and tightly regimented piece. Laura Fields has discovered the same viewer's reaction.  It's interesting to find them, but it's the chance that these might be accidents that make them far more interesting.   The use of these narrative juxtapositions however, can greatly enhance a piece in how it portrays its information to the viewer, so I'm definitely a fan of these newspaper pieces.  I look forward to using juxtaposition in my work as well.