Dakota Hanson-Meier

12 Cards: Taylor Swift was a set of cards that were made to represent a public figure in abstract ways. The goal of this project was to learn how to apply a design system that can be used to encode and decode messages visually and verbally to represent my chosen figure. To be able to properly represent her, I spent time researching her life and career in order to best describe her visually. To complete this project, my ideation took many forms for each card. I played with images in terms of placement, choice, and size, trying multiple different variations. Then, I worked on the layout style by trying different sizes and card themes, until I landed on making them resemble a CD case. When it came to the color palette, I chose colors that I thought were best associated with her physical characteristics (i.e. red lips, golden-yellow hair).

Vaughan Oliver: Comfortable In The Uncomfortable was a print piece made to look like a vinyl album. The goal of this project was to make a piece that was influenced by the work of another famous designer, while still having my own personal aesthetic, emulating my chosen designer’s style. To design this project, I first started by conducting research on my chosen designer. This was to learn more about their life, what inspired them to have a career in design, and the things that gave them their unique aesthetic. I first started by deciding on a color palette which was based on colors he used often. Then, I found photographs of him and took them into Photoshop to give a similarly heavily edited style. After that, I used the photos to design a vinyl jacket for a fake record based on his life and crafted it together by hand.

Headphone: Past v Present was a digital project made to be viewed as a motion piece. This project had the goal of creating a set of posters that complement one another and communicate a concept statement. To complete this project, I first decided on the concept that the set of posters needed to convey. The next part I figured out was what imagery to use, and to find it I reused one of my own photographs and found some older models of headphones for the past side. As well as using other imagery to represent the ideas of “tuning in to others' conversations” and “blocking out the conversations of others”. Finally, I made multiple versions and tried different elements for each part until I found the best assets to use for this project.

The Laws of Simplicity was a print, perfect-bound book project that involved redesigning John Maeda’s book, The Laws of Simplicity. This project had the goal of developing a more complex type system, exploring form, and conveying meaning. For this project, I read Maeda’s book and started to think about how I could best redesign it. I made a grid to start with and input the text to get a sense of how many pages I would need to design. From there I tried multiple different fonts, kerning and leading spacing, and column sizes. Once I decided on all of these things, I made multiple paragraph styles for the different areas of hierarchy. Then, I started to input the imagery throughout the book, adjusted the text as needed, and bolded and italicized certain spots. Lastly, I worked on the non-chapter pages, deciding on how those pages should be laid out.

20 Squares: Headphones was a print project that consisted of 20 individual squares in various sizes. With this project, I had the goal of photographing a chosen object in which text could be added to make a set that describes it in denotative and connotative ways. To start this project, I first researched the history of headphones to get a better understanding of the context and the meanings associated with them, as well as how the meaning changed over time as it became something that was more common to own. Then photographed my object in multiple different placements and angles to be able to have a variety of shots to work with. After that, I used my research to make choices on what I wanted my project to convey through text. Then I decided which ones I thought were more important to be seen, and sized them accordingly.

826 Brand: Star Dust Factory was a digital project that consisted of making logo lock-ups and mock-ups of: a storefront, vehicle, and merchandising. This project had the goal of learning about the aspects that go into creating a brand. To complete this project, I first did research on St. Louis, to find an interesting aspect of the city’s history to base my store's idea on. After that, I worked on ideating logo lock-ups till I landed on the final version. Then I looked at charts and maps of the night sky and pulled ideas for the brand, landing on a night sky/star theme. I then pulled elements out to create: my color palette, icons, and patterns. Which, I then used to create all of the pieces of my brand.