Thursday, December 15, 2011

History poster write up

              With this design i first decided on the style in which I would attempt to do this poster is that of Art Nouveau. To accomplish this I crated the design using fluid organic shapes with in Adobe Illustrator as well as the use of fluid lines that made up the free spirited woman. With the style chosen and the method in which i would accomplish it, I then decided to make the poster about the history of beer. The problem i ran into when creating the informational bullets was the amount of information. To allow the information to fit with in the space provided I had to summaries the information into its basic elements. To allow the information to flow evenly I added bullets to note each section of information about the history of beer.
When deciding which program to use to create the poster itself, I focused solely on illustrator for the fact that it to me was easier  t o use over photoshop and wasn't as limited in what one could do. For example each time you altered the design to created a new layer automatically and could adjust the positioning of the layer points to create new shapes much like what i did with the dress. To ensure that  i finished this poster in the time allotted i came in early to class ever day and even stayed after for some of the lab hours to modify and improve my design. I even used others comments to help improve my design like Derricks idea to off set the bottle cap and have it come off the page, as well as making the HIstory of Beer larger and readable by placing it above the spirited woman as well as using a font that represents the movement i was working in. Then there was the suggestion of mixing the colors of dress into the bottle and the colors of the bottle into the figure. To d this I changed the color of the strokes of the figure to match that of the writing as well as using the color of the dress to create the accents of the bottle. In regards to the meeting the requirements of this project I do feel that i meet them almost completely in aspects to being on task with the project and in the method I approached it. The one thing i did fall behind one was posting all my rough drafts up on to my blog to show where i was coming from and how I came to where I am now.

final history design part two

Saturday, November 26, 2011

History poster step one

The facts below were collected for various websites in regards to the history of beer sating back to its earliest recorded history as well when it was first believed to have been created by accident. The exact information i will be using for the poster will derive from the information posted below in a more generalized manner in order for proper spacing and flow with in the poster design.   

Historians speculate that prehistoric nomads may have made beer from grain & water before learning to make bread.
Beer became ingrained in the culture of civilizations with no significant viticulture.
Noah's provisions included beer on the Ark.
4300 BC, Babylonian clay tablets detail recipes for beer.
Beer was a vital part of civilization and the Babylonian, Assyrian, Egyptian, Hebrew, Chinese, and Inca cultures.
Babylonians produced beer in large quantities with around 20 varieties.
Beer at this time was so valued that it was sometimes used to pay workers as part of their daily wages.
Early cultures often drank beer through straws to avoid grain hulls left in the beverage.
Egyptians brewed beer commercially for use by royalty served in gold goblets, medical purposes, and as a necessity to be included in burial provisions for the journey to the hereafter.
Different grains were used in different cultures:
a) Africa used millet, maize and cassava.
b) North America used persimmon although agave was used in Mexico.
c) South America used corn although sweet potatoes were used in Brazil.
d) Japan used rice to make sake.
e) China used wheat to make samshu.
f) Other Asian cultures used sorghum.
g) Russians used rye to make quass or kvass.
h) Egyptians used barley and may have cultivated it strictly for brewing as it made poor bread.
1600 BC Egyptian texts contain 100 medical prescriptions calling for beer.
If an Egyptian gentleman offered a lady a sip of his beer they were betrothed.
Early brewers used herbals like balsam, hay, dandelion, mint, and wormwood seeds, horehound juice, and even crab claws & oyster shells for flavorings.
Romans brewed "cerevisia" (Ceres the goddess of agriculture & vis meaning strength in Latin).
55 BC Roman legions introduce beer to Northern Europe.
49 BC Caesar toasted his troops after crossing the Rubicon, which began the Roman Civil War.
Before the Middle Ages brewing was left to women to make since it was considered a food as well as celebration drink.
23 BC Chinese brewed beer called "kiu"
500-1000 AD the first half of the Middle Ages, brewing begins to be practiced in Europe, shifting from family tradition to centralized production in monasteries and convents (hospitality for traveling pilgrims).
During Medieval times beer was used for tithing, trading, payment and taxing.
1000 AD hops begins to be used in the brewing process.
1200 AD beer making is firmly established as a commercial enterprise in Germany, Austria, and England.
a) German's preferred cold temperature lagers (bottom-fermentation) stored in caves in the Alps.
b) English preferred mild temperature ales (top-fermentation) stored in cellars.
1295 King Wenceslas grants Pilsen Bohemia brewing rights (formerly Czechoslovakia, now Slovakia & Czech Republic).
1420 German brewers develop the lager method of brewing.
1489 Germany's first brewing guild, Brauerei Beck, was established.
1490's Columbus found Indians making beer from corn and black birch sap.
Renaissance History 1516 Bavarian brewing guilds push for the Reinheitsgeobot purity laws make it illegal to use any ingredients but water, barley, and hops in the brewing of beer (they didn't know yeast existed).
1553 Beck's Brewery founded & still brewing today.
Late 1500's Queen Elizabeth I of England drank strong ale for breakfast.
1587 the first beer brewed in New World at Sir Walter Raleigh's colony in Virginia--but the colonists sent requests to England for better beer.
1602 Dr. Alexander Nowell discovers that ale can be stored longer in cork sealed, glass bottles.
1612 the first commercial brewery opened in New Amsterdam (NYC, Manhattan) after colonists advertised in London newspapers for experienced brewers.
1620 Pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock because the beer supplies were running low.
1674 Harvard College has its own brewhouse.
1680 William Penn (founder of Pennsylvania) operated commercial brewery.
1757 Washington wrote his personal recipe "To Make Small Beer."
1786 Molson brewery is founded in what is today Canada.
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson had their own private brewhouses.
Samuel Adams operated commercial brewery.
Soldiers in the revolutionary army received rations of a quart of beer a day.
1789 James Madison proposes that Congress levy a low 8-cent duty per barrel on malt liquors to encourage "the manufacture of beer in every State in the Union."
Beer and bread were the mainstays of the ordinary person's diet for centuries.
Yeasts during this time were exactly the same as those used in bread.
Modern History Before the 1800's most beer was really "Ale."
1810 Munich establishes Oktoberfest as an official celebration.
1830's Bavarians Gabriel Sedlmayr of Munich and Anton Dreher of Vienna developed the lager method of beer production.
1842 the first golden lager is produced in Pilsen, Bohemia.
In the mid-19th Century (1850's) German immigrant brewers introduced cold maturation lagers to the US (Anheuser-Busch, Miller, Coors, Stroh, Schlitz, and Pabst roots begin here).
The modern era of brewing in the US began in the late 1800's with commercial refrigeration (1860), automatic bottling, pasteurization (1876), and railroad distribution.
1870's Adolphus Busch pioneers the use of double-walled railcars, a network of icehouses to make Budweiser the first national brand.
1876 Pasteur unraveled the secrets of yeast in the fermentation process, and he also developed pasteurization to stabilize beers 22 years before the process was applied to milk.
1880 there are approximately 2,300 breweries in the US.
1890s Pabst is the first US brewer to sell over 1 million barrels in a year.
1909 Teddy Roosevelt brought over 500 gal. of beer on safari in Africa.
1914 commercial competition drives the number of operating breweries down to 1,400.
1933 Prohibition ends for beer (April 7).
1935 only 160 breweries survive Prohibition.
1935 the beer can is introduced (American Can Co. & Kreuger Brewing).
1938 Elise Miller John heads Miller Brewing for 8 years as the first and only woman ever to run a major brewing company.
1965 Fritz Maytag purchases Anchor Brewing Co.
1966 Budweiser is the first brand to sell 10 million barrels in a year.
1976 New Albion is the first in the rebirth of brewpubs and microbreweries in the US opening in California.
1988 Asahi Super Dry (Japan) introduces new beer category (soon to follow is Michelob Dry).
1991 the US produces 20% of the world beer volume (world's largest).
1992: 1) The US beer industry produced & sold 2.62 billion cases of beer.
2) Estimated per capita consumption was 22.7 gallons (ranked 13th worldwide).
3) Beer drinkers consumed 5.89 Billion gallons, enough to fill the Houston Astrodome over 12 times or 330 oil tankers.
4) Five brewers produced 89.4% of domestic product:
a) Anheuser-Busch (A-B), 44.5%
b) Miller Brewing, 21.8%
c) Coors, 10.4%
d) Stroh, 7.4%
e) G. Heileman, 5.3%
5) The world's largest combined-site brewer was A-B, at 1.166 Billion cases.
6) The world's largest single-site brewery was Coors Brewing, Golden, Colorado, at 272 Million cases.
1993 US retail beer sales exceed $45 Billion.
First half of the 1900's beer was associated with men, blue-collar workers, college students, and mainstream sports enthusiasts.
Late 1900's beer had a different image and cultural function, with growth in popularity among a more diverse share of the population.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

final stamp design process

Here are the concepts I have developed as i work to create and work towards my final stamp design. The bottom stamp image is starting point that developed into the top stamp image in the design process.





Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Step 4-6




I am listing step 4-6 together to show the development that is leading to my final stamp design commemorating mental illness as i work towards my final stamp design. 

step 3 historic modern/post-modern stamps

I've found when researching modern and post-modern design that the two movement often are interchangeable and or can be confused with one another. For that I have combined the two movements into one grouping for this step.

step 2 3 stamps

These 3 stamps are the ones that I have found to be interesting.
The top stamp invokes an emotional response through the use of dramatic imagery to commerate past wars in which many young lives were lost. It is done in the modern to post-modern design movement.
The second stamp is a more traditional style very simlar to silk screen painting and drawings. Furthermore it is repersentive of art nouvea with out it being of french orign.
The thrid stamp is post-modern and possibly of modern design. It uses abstract surealism to display a futureistic image.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

final design for project one two views grayscale and color



Project one
In project one we were given the directions to create a visually appealing designing using six words; emphasis, balance, contrast, repetition, alignment and flow. Out of these six words we had to give priority to emphasis, balance and contrast, so that the eye to flow from one to the other in that order. To achieve this I had to learn a completely new technology that is Photoshop. I will admit I am still in the process of learning this technology, especially when it comes to the differences between Mac and windows. Now in order to create the order in which the eye travels I played around with the scale and texture of emphasis and balance. With each I placed them in a forty-five degree angle with emphasis from the upper left hand corner to the bottom right hand corner. Balance is placed in the bottom right hand corner pointing towards the upper left hand corner till it meets contrast. Contrast itself is actually made up of the repetition of repetition which was typed along rendered paths. Which is in turn is placed at another forty-five degree angle but this time moving from the bottom left to the upper right to carry the flow. Flow which has been distorted, flip and reversed to direct the eye from the upper right corner to the bottom left corner where alignment was placed. Alignment is vertically typed and is aligned with the E in emphasis. With A from alignment pointing to the E in emphasis to bring the eye back to the main focus of the design. To accomplish this I tried to use the rule of thirds along with implied lines in order to create this design.
                The problems in which I came across when working upon this project was getting my head around using Photoshop to create the design from the original hand rendered sketches that were produced throughout the design process. The second issue I had was learning how to use the tools with in Photoshop, which I owe thanks to Josh for his tutelage on how the tools in Photoshop work. Thanks to his help and that of the professor I was able to create design that has potential to more as I further play and learn what Photoshop is able to do.