process book

by xueyun cecilia findlay

graphic design 2
process book
by xueyun cecilia findlay
on photographing
for design research

PROCESS BOOK 2
In this one class workshop, we will talk about best practices for
photographing designed objects. Everyone will be given a set of im-
ages that we will collectively work on together. We will talk about the
use of photoshop and camera raw to make editing choices, and pres-
ent our work in the best light, while still maintaining design honesty.

We will turn in our edited images as .jpg files at the end of the work-
shop.

For this assignment, we spent the class period as a studio and fo-
cused on staging and photgraphing objects. From the objects we
brought, we chose to use a copy of Extra Bold: A Feminist, Inclusive,
Anti-Racist, Nonbinary Field Guide for Graphic Designers and a bot-
tle of Lagunitas Hoppy Refreshers as our object models. We used a
large piece of purple paper as our backdrop and set up the scene so
a ton of natural light hit the objects. From there, we worked on the
camera angle and focus, and we each got a turn photographing the
objects. After taking the photos, we, as a studio, picked the three that
we thought looked the best. We edited them in Photoshop to alter
some angles and colors of the photo so that they looked the most
presentable. This session taught me a lot about how to position the
camera and take pictures, and how to edit them once you have them
on your computer. At the end, we uploaded our class pictures of them
onto Pinterest for anyone to see.

3 PHOTOGRAPHING DESIGN RESEARCH

PROCESS BOOK 4
september 4th
weekend reading

PROCESS BOOK 6
7
Read one of the Weekend Readings. It must be apparent that you
actually read the content.

Respond with your thoughts on the reading, for 300 words. This
cannot be a summary, and must be as spoiler free as possible.

Respond to someone else’s thoughts, for 100 words. You must also,
even if briefly, read the article they read as well.

Weekend readings are a chance for our class to discuss virtually. We

all pick something to respond to; an essay, music video, blog article,
you name it-- but it has to come from a predetermined list of media. I
like that the media is given to us this way, because we can find things
that we normally wouldn’t have found without this curated list. I enjoy
reading other people’s entries; I try to comment on the posts from my
peers that I enjoyed the most. I’ve included my post and the replies
I received, if any.

PROCESS BOOK 8
This week the “reading” I chose was the “Friday I’m in Love” music
video by The Cure. I’ve known this song for years but I’ve never seen
the music video for it. I thought it was really fun how they chose to
record it and stylized their video. Instead of a highly produced/edited
video, you can see the set and the different pieces change throughout
the entire song, including the crew who are holding up props and
moving around to change the scenery with the lyrics. There’s an ele-
ment of chaos throughout the entire video-- bubbles, makeup, props,
costumes, and moving crew all add to this dynamic. The location also
adds to this vibe. It looks industrial, like it might even be a garage or
a basement. It helps give the video a grungy, down to earth feel which
fits the song and the band itself. Being from a theatre background
I thought it was interesting to see how the set and scenery was
changed. It seems like it was all shot within one take which is really
cool-- this could also be why there’s even more of a chaotic feel to the
whole thing, because everything had to be moved into place at the
right time and everyone is rushing around to make it happen within
the single shot.
I think it’s really cool how music videos have changed. Most of the
time they’re highly produced and edited, with green screens and other
special effects. It’s nice to see something a little bit more simple, al-
though I’m sure this video also took a lot of planning and work to make
the final product. I think because a lot of videos are produced so high
tech, people are refreshed when they see something a bit more simple.
I remember thinking that the music video for Doja Cat’s “MOO!” was
super fun because she made it herself and you can tell it didn’t have a
high production value.

9 WEEKEND READING 9/4

Hi Xueyun,

I remember back in the beginning of high school, I was obsessed with

Friday I’m in Love, and I remember one day, while mowing the lawn, I
put the song on along with the music video for it, and was kinda blown
away with it. It was one of those situations where it was so different
than the way I would have interpreted it by just listening to the song,
but seeing the charm and sort of strangeness to it, it quickly grew on me
and is now one of the first things I think of when that song comes along
with it. I feel as though sometimes I music video can wreck one’s initial
interpretation of a song, and even turn someone off to it, but this one,
like you mentioned, has a sort of more down-to-earth and sort of play-
ful feel that makes it stand out in comparison to other music videos.

Robert Sochacki

PROCESS BOOK 10
 measuring
yourself

PROCESS BOOK 12
I will ask you, as you start this course, to measure yourself. Not phys-
ically, as in your height (although you’re welcome to if you’d like) but
where are at in whatever you happen to be doing on this planet. When
doing so, measure yourself against someone you admire. You don’t
have to write directly about this, but keep it in mind. As a short essay,
I’d like you to cover the following questions:

What are you currently working on, as in the next few months or so?

What are you currently working on, as in the next few years or so?

What would you like to be able to do with design by the end of this
course?

This short writing should be between 350 & 500 words, and finished
on the first day of class.

13 MEASURING YOURSELF
Right now, I am trying to get myself into a better headspace for this
semester. I’m also already in a show, so I have to start the school year
in a balancing act, although I know this will be more helpful later in the
semester when I have less to worry about since the show will be over.
It’s also my super senior year-- this really is the last year of college (or
at least undergrad) for me, which I’ve already prolonged longer than
most people by a year. I find myself thinking increasingly about what
I want to do afterwards with my degree, and my life. So, I’m also work-
ing on myself and what that means, especially as an actor who basically
has to market myself. Who am I, what do I specialize in, what do I like
or dislike? In design and acting, and just as a person. I’m working on
making myself a sustainable, self-sufficient, and consistent person.
It’s really hard to balance two majors, especially when both demand a
lot of time, but I’m going to try to make sure that this semester I put
in a reasonable amount of time and effort into each thing I do.
By the end of the course, I’d like to feel confident in my design
work and printing abilities. A lot of my friends have told me they think
I hide my graphic design work, which is true, to be fair. I want to feel
good about the work I do, and to do so I need to give myself enough
time to work on it. I also need to learn to work smarter and not harder,
especially when I’m trying to do work for so many different classes and
aspects of my life. The biggest challenge for me this semester will be
trying to allot my time in a way that makes sure I can do it all.

PROCESS BOOK 14
september 11th
weekend reading

PROCESS BOOK 16
WEEKEND READING 9/11
Read one of the Weekend Readings. It must be apparent that you
actually read the content.

Respond with your thoughts on the reading, for 300 words. This
cannot be a summary, and must be as spoiler free as possible.

Respond to someone else’s thoughts, for 100 words. You must also,
even if briefly, read the article they read as well.

Weekend readings are a chance for our class to discuss virtually. We

all pick something to respond to; an essay, music video, blog article,
you name it-- but it has to come from a predetermined list of media. I
like that the media is given to us this way, because we can find things
that we normally wouldn’t have found without this curated list. I enjoy
reading other people’s entries; I try to comment on the posts from my
peers that I enjoyed the most. I’ve included my post and the replies
I received, if any.

PROCESS BOOK 18
This week, the reading I chose was an AIGA’s article, “New Wave
Graphics Are the Most Influential Designs You’ve Probably Ignored”
by Emily Gosling. I really appreciated this article, I had definitely
ignored new wave as it’s own form of influential design. I like that
this style of design has clear limitations that it used to its advantage,
like only being able to use two colors and visible Xeroxing, which
also speak to the limitations of technology at the time. I had never
realized how tied punk music and new wave design was. It was from
these bands and this style of music that designers really had a chance to
flex and work their design skills which I thought was super cool. You
can clearly see how the designs and the music tied together, trying to
stay away from the mainstream but also having its own popular cult
following. Even things like the colors, and staying away from primary
colors, is something that I think really speaks to how they were trying
to stay away from things that were too typical or complementary. I
think that a lot of the emphasis on designs from this era is trying to
make it look edgy or cool-- definitely not pretty. Designers specifically
chose brash and garish colors and typefaces to make the design stand
out, and it goes with the music that the designs were representing
too. I can definitely see these styles also cropping up more in con-
temporary design, like duotone color and the kind of “cut and paste”
look, which is becoming trendy again. It’s interesting to see how old
becomes new again; there was a lot of emphasis on minimalism in the
early 2010s that I think is fading away in favor of bright and bold, high
contrast designs. It definitely is a popular style on Instagram, which
is interesting since these kinds of design were not mainstream when
they were first being made.

19 WEEKEND READING 9/11

Hi Xueyun,

I can agree with a lot of what you said in your post. Personally, I used
to not like a lot of new wave or punk designs, and thought they were
like you had said, brash and garish, and in most cases didn’t really
appeal visually in any way at all. I always felt like a vast majority of
them came off as low-effort or ugly. While this still may be true that a
lot of them are not visually appealing, there is obviously more thought
that comes into it with the intention of creating such a design. It has to
capture a certain look, a certain visual mood that seeks to stand out
among traditional visual designs, and I think that is part of why it’s
influential to some extend, seeing something like one of the designs in
the article, interspersed alongside more traditional visual designs, it
would obviously catch a viewers attention for better or for worse, but
for those who are looking for those stand out walks of life, then this
visual style serves as a catalyst for said audience.

Robert Sochacki

PROCESS BOOK 20
 studio
paperwork

PROCESS BOOK 22
STUDIO PAPERWORK
In this assignment, as a studio, we will make paperwork and con-
tracts for us to complete our work. We will talk about what would
be useful for us to understand each other in a studio context, and to
hold ourselves and our future clients accountable. Things to think
about are:

How does this exist in a physical or digital world?

What are things you want to be sure when designing?

How do you want to think of your role as designer?

What are the limits of your role—what do you want to be responsible

for, and not responsible for.

We will all make sketches, and design mockups, of what we want our
contracts to look like. We will pick one final contract to work from for
the rest of the semester. To receive points for this assignment, you will
submit your sketches or design files. Upload print ready pdf versions
of your sketches, notes, mockups, etc.

During this class session, we all brought in our sketches in prepara-

tion for this assignment and got into groups. Using all our ideas, we
made a more finalized version of the studio paperwork. We had to do
this very quickly, in probably about 45 minutes. After this time, all
the groups got together and debated which version we liked the best.
In the end, we decided we liked one portion of one groups contract,
and another portion of a different groups’. Professor Schulze used
this to make our final copy of the contract which we used as our studio
paperwork.

PROCESS BOOK 24
 This is the sketch I brought in when we created our studio
paperwork. I wanted the paperwork to feel casual, so the
layout and language is very simple.

25 STUDIO PAPERWORK
This is the final version of our studio paperwork! We kept it very
clean and easy to navigate. The open square layout makes it easy
to take notes and fill up the mergins if we need.

PROCESS BOOK 26
september 18th
weekend reading

PROCESS BOOK 28
29 WEEKEND READING 9/18
Read one of the Weekend Readings. It must be apparent that you
actually read the content.

Respond with your thoughts on the reading, for 300 words. This
cannot be a summary, and must be as spoiler free as possible.

Respond to someone else’s thoughts, for 100 words. You must also,
even if briefly, read the article they read as well.

Weekend readings are a chance for our class to discuss virtually. We

all pick something to respond to; an essay, music video, blog article,
you name it-- but it has to come from a predetermined list of media. I
like that the media is given to us this way, because we can find things
that we normally wouldn’t have found without this curated list. I enjoy
reading other people’s entries; I try to comment on the posts from my
peers that I enjoyed the most. I’ve included my post and the replies
I received, if any.

PROCESS BOOK 30
This week I chose Northy Chen’s website from the list. I thought this
was a really cute and unique way for her to her design her website
and market herself, although it’s interesting that she decided to omit
everything besides a way to contact her-- there’s no other pages on
the site at all. I had to play multiple times to win and get to the end; I
thought maybe something would happen if I managed to get all the
letters at the end, but nothing did. However, it did cause me to google
her and find more about her work since I was curious! I’m not sure
it’s the best idea to have a website that’s so sparse, especially with a
designer who is not as well known, but it seems like a choice she made
really intentionally. It’s like she figured only people who are already
intrigued by her work would see this, and at this point upon going to
her website would only need her contact info.
Sometimes it’s things like this that make you stand out more in a
crowd of designers, just by having something completely different
than other people or what would be expected from you. I don’t know if
I would do something like this myself though; I still feel like including
some examples of your work on your own website would be a good
idea. Even after googling her, I wasn’t able to find out much about her,
other than her working at Apple and Squarespace. In terms of design
though, I do think her website is really sleek and clean looking, and
the whole concept in general is clever. Like I said, I did play all the
way til the end, so my attention was captured, and really, at the end of
the day that’s what counts!

31 WEEKEND READING 9/18

CC,

I agree with you. I think that they did make an intentional choice to direct the
way that people find them—and I would think this would keep a lot of people
who have limited attention spans or interest from reaching out. Reading your
writing, I had a thought:

What if all the design portfolios we see, online, are also all the people who
are not employed or trying to get a job? And the people that have a job al-
ready don’t have one, because they don’t need one. Michael Beruit does not
have a personal website, neither does Paula Scher. Neville Brody’s firm has
a website now, but for the longest time even the design firm didn’t have a
website. Just a thought.

Gerald F. Schulze

**************************

Hi Xueyun!

It was definitely interesting checking out her website. I wasn’t sure what
to expect after reading your comment but I did find it cool! Part of me does
wish we could’ve played it ourselves to make it a bit more interesting but
I’m sure coding that isn’t the easiest thing to do. I did decide to check out
her instagram and I love it! It doesn’t have a ton of her work in it but I enjoy
the vibe it had a lot. It helps give me more of an idea of who Northy Chen is,
esepcially after seeing her website. I do think having some kind of way to see
her work through her website would be nice as well. Maybe after completing
the initial thing it would slowly pop up? Or incorporating it the same way
she did her contact info? Either way her website stands out far more because
of how she created it.

Hailey Peace

PROCESS BOOK 32
 stationery

PROCESS BOOK 34
35 STATIONERY
There are few design objects as historic, sophisticated, storied, prob-
lematic, and known as stationery. We will spend the week making
stationery for ourselves by learning about the history of stationery,
how it works in a social setting, how it uses material as social repre-
sentations, and how design and marketing decisions have changed
the way stationery exists in the physical (and digital) worlds.

We will:
-research to better understand the object we are designing.
-make physical sketches and layouts for how we’d like to make
our stationery.
-use those sketches to pick appropriate sheet sizes, envelope sizes,
and re-sketch
-pick final colors, papers, envelopes, fonts, etc. and research where
to order them from.

For the final, turn in a digital file or digital representation of the statio-
nery and the research you performed. This should have your digital
and physical sketches, and be submitted as a print ready .pdf. Your
sketches should include:
-An original sketch, with your name, and the place you live, black,
in one size, in one face
-Another sketch, following the rules laid out in the cranes books
-Several iterations of these designs, making simple changes

The final sketch will be represented as a print ready .pdf also.

PROCESS BOOK 36
 Top: All my sketches for the staionery assignment. The oldest itera-
tion is the top left, while the oldest is the bottom right.
Middle: This is the first row of iterations; For this generation I was
playing with how I wanted my name represented through typeface,
focusing less on placement.
Bottom: The second round of iterations. I moved them over into the
corner where I could see them closer to the size they were going to be
when actually printed.

37 STATIONERY
PROCESS BOOK 38
 These are my final iterations for this assignment. In this version
they’re in the correct spot for printing. I was torn between using a
typeface resembling calligraphy (center) or a geometric sans serif
(right); I also played with using a font of my own making (left).

39 STATIONERY
In the end, I went with the sans serif font, which I felt represented me
best. I liked the interaaction of the letters in this typeface, which felt
playful but refined.

PROCESS BOOK 40
 why design
looks designed

PROCESS BOOK 42
43 WHY DESIGN LOOKS DESIGNED
In this two-class discussion we will talk about “Why design looks
designed” by looking at the historical record. Before Graphic Design,
printers and compositors did all of the work that now we perform a
part of. How did this work before Graphic Design, and what changed
that facilitated the need for graphic design?

We will mostly be looking through a few books for ideas and inspi-
rations. To complete this weeks work, you will:

-take images that you think are interesting to you from the
material provided in class.
-organize writing and thoughts into a text editor.
-take the “copy” and images, and put into your process book.

PROCESS BOOK 44
 These book pages show almanacs, which are similar to calendars. The
left and right are very different and I like them for different reaons.
On the left, the simple design allows for the illustration to take center
stage, as well as the grid system. The right-side almanac has really
beautiful colors as well as a unique organization of the calendar.

45 WHY DESIGN LOOKS DESIGNED

This page shows a flyer for a horse race. I like the hierarchy of text
and the wavy font they chose for their display text. The white flyer on
the left is very text heavy, but I like that it’s broken up with different
typefaces and decals to keep it interesting.

PROCESS BOOK 46
47 WHY DESIGN LOOKS DESIGNED
These pages show many different kinds of calling cards, invitations,
and banknotes. I chose these spread because I love the intricate and
swirling designs on them. I’m really inspired by this classic style and
how tradition and beautiful it looks-- embossed and engraved designs
are really lovely to me. This style is very much a style of it’s time--the
19th century.

PROCESS BOOK 48
deconstructing
a brand

PROCESS BOOK 50
For the project titled “Deconstructing a Brand”, we were split into
groups to pick apart popular brands and break down how they ad-
vertise to the public. Our group consisted of Grace Facione, Sherri
Nidiffer, and Xueyun Cecilia Findlay. Together, we chose the iconic
brand of Gucci to deconstruct.
A quick history of Gucci is important to discuss as the brand has
faced many changes through its time in the fashion industry. This
Italian brand started as “House of Gucci” and was founded by Gu-
ccio Gucci in 1921. It started as a leather shop, but Guccio’s sons
eventually joined the business and eventually headed by his grandson
Maurizio Gucci. Maurizio helped build the company to the infamous
Gucci we know today, however after Maurizio’s murder, the business
was taken over by another fashion designer, Tom Ford, and is now
currently run by Marco Bizzarri.
Our first couple days we mainly looked online to get as much re-
search from articles and their website as we could. First, we found
that the logo of Gucci, before digital type, was somewhat close to
Garamond. The digital typeface we see now that seems the closest
to their logo is in Granjon Roman. They use all capital letters in the
name,and recently they have implemented a few different versions of
the double G design in Futura. Futura is one of the main typefaces
Gucci uses on their website for the entire page other than the SVG
they use of their logo at the top.
Gucci has implemented a range of colors to promote their brand,
however, most people would constrain their main colors to the
iconic green, gold, and red they have used since 1964. Currently,
many of their logos are in a simple black and white or have a mix of
browns and beiges.

51 DECONSTRUCTING A BRAND
 Garamond
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 ! ? @ $ & *
Granjon Roman
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 ! ? @ $ & *

Futura PT
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 ! ? @ $ & *

Pantone 118C Pantone 3298C Pantone 7599C

PROCESS BOOK 52
Looking over all the products that Gucci offers both online and in
their physical stores, they seem to be pandering to a larger market of
a certain pedigree. Their brand bolsters inclu-sivity when it comes to
sizing and gender, but their high price tags set the bar at social class
and economic accessibility.
The demographic audience does have some variation. Famous
celebrities, well-off socialites, influencers, bougie pet parents - the
list goes on with the common denominator being wealth. Judging by
the marketing, they seem to target a younger generation, mostly mil-
lennials. Their photography depicts models that look young enough
to be trendy, but not old enough to be fully established. Though their
marketing seems targeted at a certain age, people of any generation
can enjoy this brand. They even offer a children’s section online.
Gucci advertises with commercials; ads in items like mag-azines,
billboards, and catalogs; social media posts and ads; promotes their
clothing through celebrities being seen with and wearing their items;
they even have been known to use “shock marketing” or “shock ad-
vertising” with using provoca-tive imagery and campaigns to catch
attention of consumers.
On their website, one of the first things we noticed is most of their
products are photographed alone; no mannequins or models. We
predict that this is to show that when you buy from Gucci you are
buying the product, not just something that can fit with certain people
or circumstances. They are shown with white backgrounds and simple
design so that the products are what stand out, not the web design.
Prod-ucts are evenly spaced, and the product squares have good break
points to give them space to not crowd on the page when minimized.

53 DECONSTRUCTING A BRAND
PROCESS BOOK 54
One interesting thing we took note of was the different symbols Gucci
uses on their belts. The original logo was created by Guccio Gucci’s
son in 1933 and made the iconic double G design of his father’s ini-
tials. While all of them consisted of either one G or the double G, they
continue to produce many different variations of the letter[s] on them.
Many of their products have a timeless look. They include their old
vintage designs in many of their products now to appeal to all sorts
of generations and tastes. Many of their design approaches seem to
fit the Romanticism era mixed with abstraction; classic designs with
modern flare. It is apparent they want to remain timeless while still
progressing as a brand.

55 DECONSTRUCTING A BRAND
PROCESS
Process Book
BOOK 56
As a group, we went to check out how their physical store is different
from their website advertising. One thing we did not know at first was
that they do not permit photos or filming at all, but after discussing
our project with the manager, she allowed us to take photos, just no
filming.
The building had a main theme of green walls and yellow shelves
with white lighting and floors. Every shelf and display case had its
own lighting above it to show their products. One difference from
the store to the website was instead of just blank white backgrounds,
more colors are used to make these products pop off the shelves to
catch your attention. Their retail store featured many mannequins
adorned head to toe with Gucci swag. Even showcasing plush dogs
wearing their pet product line. Sadly, one part of this project we could
not complete was looking at price tags. Gucci does not put price tags
on their products; or at least the ones that are put on display.

57 DECONSTRUCTING A BRAND
PROCESS BOOK 58
59 DECONSTRUCTING A BRAND
PROCESS BOOK 60
61
 reconstructing
a brand

PROCESS BOOK 62
For the project “Reconstructing A Brand,” we took time in class to start re-
constructing what we broke apart of Gucci in the previous project of “Decon-
structing a Brand.” My group-mates and I were tasked with taking Gucci’s
advertisements and turning them on their heads. We chose satire.
In class, we took time to start taking Gucci ads we found online and open-
ing them in Adobe Photoshop. We made the size 16 inches by 9 inches and
used Futura for our typeface to match Gucci’s website and many of the ads
we found. We felt it was necessary to use actual Gucci photoshoots instead
of stock images since their whole brand is showing off their iconic G logo.
Next, we got some ideas from our professor, Gerald, on how to approach
our satire of the brand. At first, we struggled a bit when trying to decide how
to effectively take this on. But, when Gerald said to dumb it down, just make
it simple, and explain the photo as plainly as can be, we got going.

63 RECONSTRUCTING A BRAND
PROCESS BOOK 64
65 RECONSTRUCTING A BRAND
PROCESS BOOK 66
67 RECONSTRUCTING A BRAND
It was very interesting to see how just slapping the Gucci logo onto
a random photo and then adding the Futura type for the description
immediately looked like an advertisement. I was worried it would look
too Photoshopped or bootlegged, but it turned out much better and
was much easier than we had originally anticipated.
Our main issue throughout this process was finding images of good
quality to size for our ads. After we worked that out, our layout and
typography was a breeze. We had a ton of fun trying to make the most
ridiculous text on the photos that looked professional and as if it was
an authentic Gucci ad.
Sometimes the jokes write themselves. Gucci is one of those brands
where it’s kind of easy to poke fun at for how outlandish some of their
products and advertisements are. For example, when we originally
were looking at their website to see exactly what kind of products
they sell and how they show them off, we ran across a cat feeding
bowl along with a metal serving top. You read that correctly. A Gucci
feeding bowl and metal serving top. For a cat. The bowl costs $565
and the top costs $895. Making fun of a brand that charges $1,460
plus tax on pet dishware just comes too easy.
With that said, Gucci was a fun brand to reconstruct in our own
way. Their advertisements read like a fever dream. Models cat walking
through a space capsule, wallpaper hanging from a tall hedge, exotic
animals placed precariously on furniture, people posed in awkward,
contorted positions. It’s nonsensical, it’s eccentric, but it’s memora-
ble. Their photoshoots were interesting enough that no matter what
we put on them, they worked, regardless of how thoughtless it looked.
In the end we made a number of compositions that we were super
happy with and that made us laugh. While they are stupid and do not
make a ton of sense, I think that we should be hearing from Gucci’s
promotion team very soon for some job offers.

PROCESS BOOK 68
69 RECONSTRUCTING A BRAND
PROCESS BOOK 70
71 RECONSTRUCTING A BRAND
PROCESS BOOK 72
 book review 1

PROCESS BOOK 74
BOOK REVIEW 1
Write, design, and print a book review for the book you purchased.
This will be the week the book review is presented. The book review
must have the following attributes:

-Printed as a booklet or book object in edition of 25.

-It must contain relevant images or graphics to the review.
-It must contain 1000 words of writing about the book or
the subject the book is on.

It must show a good grasp of typography for reading, and under-

standing of print quality.

For this assigment, I read Extra Bold: A Feminist, Inclusive, Anti-Rac-

ist, Nonbinary Field Guide for Graphic Designers. I really enjoyed the
chance to work on a longer assignment and create a book, something
I’ve never done before. I decided to print using a RISO printer, which
was also new to me! I really enjoyed the texture the riso gave the piece.
I used one sheet of paper to print this book, and used different folds
to create new space to place text and icons. Overall, I really enjoyed
this assignment and all it taught me.

PROCESS BOOK 76
The following pages contain scans of my book review in it’s entirety.
I wanted to go with bold colors, like this electric yellow-green paper
and fluorescent pink ink. The book itself is simple, which I went with
for both aesthetic and ease. I didn’t want the book to be overly com-
plicated, but rather let the colors and imagery be busy. Following the
scans of the book review, I’ve included my copy from it as well, for
easier reading.

77 BOOK REVIEW 1
PROCESS BOOK 78
79 BOOK REVIEW 1
PROCESS BOOK 80
81 BOOK REVIEW 1
PROCESS BOOK 82
BOOK REVIEW 1
Extra Bold: A Feminist, Inclusive, Anti-Racist, Nonbinary
Field Guide for Graphic Designers is exactly that: a field guide
for those working in graphic design who want to bring more
awareness and intersectionality into their work and practice.
The book starts with a multitude of essays from a wide spec-
trum of designers. The essay topics mostly cover forms of
design inaccessibility or discrimination, and focuses on the
effects of racism, ableism, and sexism, among other forms, and
how their design is affected by these biases. The second sec-
tion of the book focuses on history: who came before us and
helped us pave the way for a more inclusive future. This sec-
tion features specific designers who helped champion change.
The final section is titled “work”. This section includes mostly
interviews of people within the field; how they got there, what
they do, and how their identity is affected within their career.
The entirety of the book is full of real-world situations, with
real people describing how they were affected and how they try
to make change in their own way.

PROCESS BOOK 84
It would be easy to say, that for a long time, mostly straight,
white, cisgender, educated men printed and made designed
objects. For the most part, you’d be right, but not entirely.
Saying so implies that no woman or queer person or person of
color made design in ye olden days, which is STUPID! Al-
though a large portion of designers and printers did fall under
that umbrella, it wasn’t everyone. Every kind of person was
creating and designing, even if it wasn’t mainstream or easy to
do so. In the 1500s, widows such as Yolande Bonhomme were
running their own print shops. Ann Smith-Franklin, sister-
in-law to Benjamin Franklin, published books and sermons
in the 1700s using her own print shop as well. Sojourner
Truth had her own books published in the 1800s, advocating
for rights for Black Americans and women. Angel De Cora,
a Native American designer, was fierce in her desire to keep
her culture close to her design. In 1906, De Cora accepted a
teaching position with the condition: “I shall not be expected
to teach in the white man’s way but shall be given complete
liberty to develop the art of my own race and to apply this,
as far as possible, to various forms of industries and crafts.”
Ed Roberts in the mid-1900s helped further accessibility for
disabled people by advocating for change. Things like closed
captions, ramps, and elevators are now commonplace, things

85 BOOK REVIEW 1
that abled people wouldn’t think twice about, but can change
or completely close off disabled people from enjoying. In the
mid-1900s as well, Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, both
gender non-conforming designers, were unashamed of their
identity and made it a large part of their design work, creating
surrealist and dreamy designs including limbs and half-faces.
It’s because of people who are born under these identities that
design is more inclusive now. If all design is made for you, why
would you want to change it? But if none of the design is for
you, then you need to make it yourself. People from the past
helped champion change for the future, ensuring that those
of us today get to enjoy the fruits of their hardship without a
second thought.

PROCESS BOOK 86
Are you a designer? Maybe, maybe not. But do you consume
endless design on a daily basis, from the moment you wake
up to when you fall asleep? Yes. Design is a fixed part of our
society, as commonplace as the air you’re breathing right now
(and even then, maybe even more common). Design is on our
walls, in what we read, in the ads we see, and even how you’re
reading this right now. Nothing is ever random in the graphic
design we consume, especially for commercial use. It’s been
highly designed in fact, to sell and to appeal to people. But
how is it determined what is considered “appealing”? And
who is deciding that? Extra Bold: A Feminist, Inclusive, An-
ti-Racist, Nonbinary Field Guide for Graphic Designers takes
a look at questions like that. With essays from a wide range of
designers, who identify under a multitude of labels, like queer,
disabled, transgender, or a person of color. In terms of histo-
ry, people who identify with these labels have been excluded
from the design canon, in favor of more “typical” designers—
aka straight white cisgender men. If we only have a certain type
of person controlling design and what gets published, how are
people who don’t identify that way supposed to feel represent-
ed in the design they see? This is the crux of the problem, that
“other-ed” designers have been dealing with. Design is a hard
field to get into, just to start. You need equipment and knowl-
edge to even get a jumpstart, which can be harder for people
within marginalized groups to get to due to generational
inequality, job discrimination, or a multitude of other reasons
that makes living harder for people who don’t fall under the
norm. But it’s with these “other-ed” designers who choose
to go into this field, dominated since its inception by the
Western standard, who can help to rewrite the rules and make
design more inclusive for all people. Since we all consume it,
it may as well try to appeal to everyone! Having people from

87 BOOK REVIEW 1
different backgrounds, cultures, and identities strengthens
design; instead of the same thing over and over again from
designers who look the same, innovative and new designs
can be created from collaborating with all different types of
people. It’s ironic that graphic design is excellent for binaries.
Serif vs non-serif, bold, italic, or struck-through; things can
fit neatly into a box when graphic design is involved. This is
when artistry can get involved though—designers can choose
to look beyond the scope of Western knowledge and find
inspiration within different cultures or expressions of gender
to create something new, even within the confines of graphic
design binaries. As Judith Butler, a white non-binary lesbian,
put it, “To enter into the repetitive practices of this terrain
of signification is not a choice, for the ‘I’ that might enter is
always already inside....The task is not whether to repeat,
but how to repeat or, indeed, to repeat and, through a radical
proliferation of gender, to displace the very gender norms that
enable the repetition itself.” From Butler’s perspective, the
design that speaks to us on a personal level already exists, it
just needs to be found from what already exists.

PROCESS BOOK 88
october 23rd
weekend reading

PROCESS BOOK 90
WEEKEND READING 10/23
Read one of the Weekend Readings. It must be apparent that you
actually read the content.

Respond with your thoughts on the reading, for 300 words. This
cannot be a summary, and must be as spoiler free as possible.

Respond to someone else’s thoughts, for 100 words. You must also,
even if briefly, read the article they read as well.

Weekend readings are a chance for our class to discuss virtually. We

all pick something to respond to; an essay, music video, blog article,
you name it-- but it has to come from a predetermined list of media. I
like that the media is given to us this way, because we can find things
that we normally wouldn’t have found without this curated list. I enjoy
reading other people’s entries; I try to comment on the posts from my
peers that I enjoyed the most. I’ve included my post and the replies
I received, if any.

PROCESS BOOK 92
This week I chose to read “It’s Time to Let Classical Music Die”
written by Nebal Maysaud. I thought this was a really interesting
read honestly. It was about how classical music is rooted in white
supremacy. Maysaud also relates this relationship that people of color
have to classical music as an abusive one; where the thing you love
doesn’t take care of you. He says that participating in these insti-
tutions, as a person of color, gives them power. You’re tokenized,
and used as a facade of modernity. Sometimes, in a lot of different
settings, it definitely does feel like this. Like you were only invited to
the table because the white people in charge wanted to seem diverse
and inclusive. However, Maysaud writes, “White gatekeepers still
control funding. And we are fortunate enough to have a few allies in
these positions. We will need to cooperate in order to stay afloat. It is
possible to engage without inflicting cultural harm. Simply knowing
when you’re being tokenized is a major step in the direction towards
decolonization,” which I thought was a great point. It’s easier to make
change if you have someone in power helping you, and a lot of times
this comes in the form of a white ally. You can even use this to your
advantage; even if you are just invited to the table because of your
ethnicity, it doesn’t mean you can’t manipulate the situation to your
advantage. It’s difficult because it feels like a lot of changes that need
to happen are rooted in capitalism. Almost everything is. And that
can feel very defeating at times, because the system is so huge and

93 WEEKEND READING 10/23

encompasses every aspect of life. But Maysaud maintains that group
effort can be the key here to change. Having allies and friends who
are all rooting for the same thing, that’s what helps things to change,
and although it’s very difficult, it’s not impossible. Another part of
this article that was interesting to me was the concept of art vs artist,
which has been a long held debate. I think in some instances you can
separate them from each other; like enjoying classical music while still
acknowledging that historically and contemporarily, this system helps
white people and hurts people of color. I think the biggest thing is the
acknowledgment of this, which is something not a lot of people will
do. It sucks because a lot of things have been made by shitty people--
think JK Rowling with Harry Potter. Sometimes it’s not possible to
separate these things, especially with capitalism/commercialism and
how the artist can profit from your enjoyment of these things. I think
the best thing we can do moving forward is just look into the people
we’re supporting, and try our best to make conscious decisions on
what we spend our money on.

PROCESS BOOK 94
 out your
front door

PROCESS BOOK 96
When I leave my front door in the future, I hope that I am happy. This is the
most important thing, so I feel that I should mention it first. I also hope that
whatever I’m doing, wherever I’m going- -I’m not rushing to get there. It’s
one of my pet peeves to be late, although oftentimes now I do find myself
rushing to get everywhere. Class, work, meetings, appointments, even just
meeting friends. I hope that in the future, I can have a lifestyle where I have
plenty of time in my day to do whatever I please. This goes especially for work
and assignment deadlines. I often find myself rushing every bit of work that I
do. It doesn’t matter if it’s theatre or design or even a personal matter. It feels
like I never have enough time to fully flesh out what I want to do and how to
do it, to find the joy in the long, stretched out process. No, it always ends up
being me doing whatever it is I can do at the bare minimum the moment before
it should be done. So, I hope future-me either has better time management
or less things on her plate (both could most definitely be improved upon). I
think a lot of my work could be greatly improved if I felt like I didn’t have to
cram everything I want to do in my limited timespan.
It might be helpful to think about my age at this moment in time as well. Let’s
say, for the sake of this assignment, that when I think about this particular mo-
ment of leaving my front door I’m 26 years old. Right now I’m 22. Which, in
itself, feels super weird. I remember at 16 thinking that 22 was old; I thought
I’d be totally established as a person and an artist. Now that I’m a bit older
I see that this was a silly assumption to make, and I’m really just at the very
beginning of my journey into becoming “established”. However, by 26 I hope
that I will feel more secure both in what I’m doing and in my art. So, when I
think about myself and my career in the future, I hope by 26 I have a job that
is related to both theatre and design. I’m not sure what this would look like
exactly but I hope to find a job that can incorporate both of my degrees. When I
walk out my front door at 26, I’m walking to whatever that job is. Hopefully it’s
not too early in the morning. I think I’ll leave around 8:30 and get to my space
by 9am. I leave my apartment and I walk down the stairs to the lobby and out
my other front door, the door to my building. I definitely live in a city, at least
when I’m 26. If I’m being honest, and I know it’s cliche, I live in somewhere
in New York. A lot of my friends have moved to New York, especially since
most of them are actors like me, and they want to perform there. However,
even besides the theatre scene there, I feel like I could gain a lot of inspiration

97 OUT YOUR FRONT DOOR

from city living. I feel like it would be really cool to see all the different people
and cultures within the city; growing up and living in Michigan has definitely
made me feel more sheltered as a human, from all things. Which I guess can
be a good thing. But, so many artists call New York their home and I want to
be surrounded like that. I feel like I would be very inspired to be around so
many people who value art so highly in their life and love to create their own
art, in any form.
But, back to my walk to work. I think in the future I definitely live outside of
New York City, in more of a suburban area. I recently traveled to Chicago
and stayed at a friend’s apartment that was just north of downtown. I really
loved the commute onto the L-train and into the city, especially the sights
from the train. Although my commute on the train twice during my vacation
would might become less fun if I lived there, I still think it would be one of my
favorite parts of the daay. And besides that, I still think I’d prefer living and
sleeping in the suburbs of the city rather than NYC, and I definitely think I’d
be able to better afford it too. I’d want it to still be somewhat lively though;
in Chicago the suburb still had lots of coffee shops and stores around. But
back to my walk. On my morning commute to work, I would walk down the
streets of my neighborhood until I’m able to get on some sort of public trans-
portation, probably a subway station but maybe a bus if I’m that far out of the
city. I expect my commute to be 20 or so minutes long. I want to be the kind
of person that reads or draws on public transportation, so I’ll probably bring
a bag with notebooks and reading books in it. My laptop will also definitely
be in my bag! Hopefully my commute will be scenic, unless it’s all under the
subway. From whatever ride I take to the next stop, I’ll walk the rest of the way
to work, wherever that is, unwil I get there and start my shift.
I have a lot of hopes for the future, all of which are about as solid as Jell-O. I
don’t think about the future that much though, I try not to. It just seems easier
that way, to think about things in smaller chunks. But, it was nice to have a
reason to try and think about things more concretely. I think wherever I walk
out my door when I’m 26, I will be surrounded by art, and design and theater
will still be enormous parts of my life.

PROCESS BOOK 98
 book review 2

PROCESS BOOK 100

BOOK REVIEW 2
Trade books with one of your studio mates. Read through the book
thoroughly, or if reading a section, read that section thoroughly. Begin
to write about the book. Talk to us about your thoughts, and what the
book made you think of. Write in a way that we would be convinced
to also read the book if we align with your writing, or dissuaded if we
do not. There is no right way to write about the book, but there are
many things you should avoid. They are:
-Do not summarize, or give spoilers. You can reference things, but
this should be a minor part of the writing.
-Do not write academically. Write as if you were talking to a friend,
your Grandmother.
-Do not cram the writing into one session. Write a little bit every
day, even if ten minutes. Write as you read.

For extra credit, you can have this made into a booklet. It needs to
be well printed and designed, and made in an edition of 10. You will
receive a maximum of 4 points of extra credit for this effort. The Extra
Credit can be due, whenever, books or newspaper.

PROCESS BOOK 102

BOOK REVIEW 2
This was actually one of my most favorite assignments we did in this
class. I think it was really just because of the book I chose to read.
Instead of trading with a classmate, I decided to read a book that my
professor, Gerald, lent to me. It’s called Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott.
I just ended up falling in love with this book for how comforting and
simplistically everything was written. Writing my full book review
was very easy. I also enjoyed myself when I was creating the physical
book! I printed in the graphic design lab at school this time, using an
inkjet printer instead of RISO, like I did for the first book. I started
by making a physical demo of the book, playing with the dimensions
and how I wanted to bind the book together. Then in pencil I wrote
what I wanted on each page, which also helped me when I was trying
to figure out what content went on which page, when I was working on
InDesign. Overall, I wanted the book to have a very simple and “made
with love” type feeling, which I think was encapsulated.
The following pages contain scans of my book and the written copy
of my book review.

PROCESS BOOK 104

105 BOOK REVIEW 2
PROCESS BOOK 106
107 BOOK REVIEW 2
PROCESS BOOK 108
109 BOOK REVIEW 2
PROCESS BOOK 110
 With both humor and gentleness, Anne Lamott holds your hand
and guides you through her process of writing. Lamott has a way with
words that is familiar and kind, weaving together anecdotes from her
personal life with philosophical wisdom that made me put her book
down a few times just so I could chew and ponder on her words a little
while longer.
I have always been an admirer of people who could write beautifully,
put into words a feeling or moment so fleeting and universal that it
made me stop and sit with myself for a moment. Bird by Bird is full
of those moments. And in fact, she’d probably argue that that’s what
writing, and life, are all about. Those little moments that make you
think. The writing is tender, it could be mistaken as holistic or sap-
py, but she hooked me in the beginning. Everyone wants to see the
beauty in the world, to feel held and seen by something larger so that
all of this makes sense. While this book is about writing, it’s about so
much more. I’ve been moved by her, I feel touched and seen through
her words. Maybe I’m just a sentimental person who feels lost by the
wrenching experience of living in my twenties, but something about
how kind and coaxing her words are made me feel safer. As an artist,
most of the time you want to crawl in a hole and die. There’s so much
self doubt. You hate your work, you make garbage, and no one wants
to see what you do. But the truth is that we all have so much to offer.
Something I was told recently in a voice lesson was that when you’re
auditioning, you’re trying to make them see the character. But really,
you’re showing them you. What can you do? What can you bring to
this character that gives it life, meaning, drive? It’s the same in writing.
Your personal experience is necessary and beautiful. So many people
are afraid to expose this, themselves, to the world. There’s so much
fear and vulnerability that comes with creating art and sharing it with
other people, and a lot of times we end up scrapping what we’ve done
or shoving it aside or just keeping it to ourselves, locked away forever
like a shameful secret. It feels like the worst thing in the world would

111 BOOK REVIEW 2

be to create something and have someone tell you it’s meaningless.
And in some ways it is. But it’s so much worse to just hide yourself.
It’s something we’ve learned since we were children, to hide. Social
expectations and rules can squash expression and individuality. As
adults, how do we let go of these things so we can see clearly? When
you’ve been told since childhood not to pick up bugs, how do you
expect to find beauty in sitting and watching the bees fly from flower
to flower? So much innocence is lost in the development from ad-
olescence to adulthood, when natural curiosity is stamped out and
replaced by hard facts and rules. A big part of being an artist is ob-
serving the world, the importance of which most people have lost
by the time they’re older and can work. The never ending cycle of
productivity and things to do and rushing around makes sitting down
and watching the way the leaves fall feel like wasting time. But really,
life is all about watching the leaves fall. If all you’re worried about is
when your next deadline is, you don’t get to appreciate the beauty of
the passing world around you.
Lamott can also skillfully cajole at the feelings she has, no matter how
dark or slimy they seem. Anything and everything can be inspiration
for what you write, including jealousy or self pity or anger. This is
part of the truth we try to tuck away. It’s not kind to feel that way– but
we’re all only human. We can feel these things. The whole spectrum of
feelings is at our disposal, and it’s not our job to judge these feelings
but to experience them, and set them free. This consciousness we
have is at its best when it’s neutral, nonjudgmental. Easier said than
done. But you don’t get a reward for feeling jealous and then mentally
scolding yourself for feeling that way. Now you just feel jealous and
guilty. It helps no one, especially yourself, to lament on these feelings
you have; just use them as fuel for what you do. As an artist, you have
the unique position to use these for something bigger than yourself;
maybe what you write, or however you express these feelings, can help
someone else who is also feeling them.

PROCESS BOOK 112

The hardest thing about any of this is doing the work. No one wants
to do it. The work is hard, mostly unfruitful in the usual sense people
would take for success. But the reward in all of it is the work. There it
is, you did it. You’ve written the piece, or acted that scene out beau-
tifully, or designed something that speaks. And you’ve done it. You
don’t need the fanfare or the roses, although it would be nice. But
knowing that it is done, and it’s been done by you can be one of the
most fulfilling sensations. It is hard. No one doubts that. No one,
except for maybe someone who has absolutely no knowledge of what
you do or how to do it, would say that it is easy. Any form of expres-
sion can be paralyzing, especially with the phantoms of your parents
breathing down your neck, or your own self-doubts screaming in your
ear. But once it’s done, you can sit at peace knowing that you made it.
It doesn’t have to be best. In most cases, it won’t be. But that doesn’t
mean that it isn’t worth creating, especially if it comes from a place of
truth. Create for yourself and share it whenever you can; you never
know who might need it.

113 BOOK REVIEW 2

PROCESS BOOK
115 BOOK REVIEW 2
PROCESS BOOK 116
hosting &
designing lectures

PROCESS BOOK 118

HOSTING & DESIGNING LECTURES
For this group of up to 5 people, you will be hosting and designing for
a lecture. Candidates for the lecture will be provided by the instructor.
As the organizers for the event, you will have to:
-Create a inspiration board using Pinterest or [Link]
-Create copy for the event(s)
-Identify how many people should attend the event(s), and where
it should be held
-Make mock-ups of the event(s) advertisements for web and print
-Approve final information by a vote of the entire studio
-Finish printed and web media
-Publish the information about the Lecture(s)

The printed media for this event will be silk screened, or printed on
the Risograph. If you aren’t sure of what that means for setup, be sure
to ask early.

This project was among four other final project options: design-
ing a dinner, creating & maintaining a salon, and designing two
books for print. I decided to be in this group because the thought
of working with other designer who were farther along in their
career was appealing to me, as was the organization aspect of
coordinating with a different group to make the events work.
My groupmates were Jen Mortensen, Grace Facione, and Antionio
Keka. The first thing we had to decide was who we wanted to ask to be
our guest lecturers. From the list we were given, we first chose a local
print shop and community press called Signal Return, located right
next to Eastern Market. The other lecturer we decided on was Amos
Paul Kennedy Jr, known to the print world as a master of his craft; he
specializes in letterpressed materials, usually focusing on political
themes, or themes dealing with social justice.

PROCESS BOOK 120

After choosing our two lecturers, we got to work. We decided that
we wanted to go with Signal Return first; knowing that they have a
physical space, we decided to make it a field trip to their shop. We
coordinated with them via email to decide on a date and time that
worked that was long enough away that we could give two weeks notice
with posters about our event.
Since Signal Return is a print shop, we figured we should print
our flyers using letterpress. There are no letterpress printers at the
university, but our professor graciously allowed to use his personal
equipment at his own shop, Small Works. Before we got to his shop,
Grace made sketches of possible poster ideas so that we could lead
with that when we went to Small Works.

121 HOSTING & DESIGNING LECTURES

PROCESS BOOK 122
123 HOSTING & DESIGNING LECTURES
PROCESS BOOK 124
None of us had ever printed using a letterpress printer before, so we
weren’t entirely sure what to expect. However, none of the process
was super intimidating, especially since we were with our professor
who showed us how to use all the equipment. To begin the process,
we had to map out exactly what we wanted to say, for two reasons:
1. So that we could guesstimate if the text could be evenly justified
2. So that we knew what letters we needed to pull to spell our copy
Once we had what we wanted to say, we had to pull individual metal
type to spell it out. This means that all individual letters have their
own piece of metal that is shaped into whatever specific typeface was
chosen, in this case, Clarendon. It was a tedious process, one that is a
far cry from clicking keys on a keyboard. We also had to manually add
leading into our letters-- if one line was too short to be justified with
the rest of the text, we added blank pieces that increased the distance
between the individual letters. Line spacing was also manual, as well
as any decals we added to the print.

125 HOSTING & DESIGNING LECTURES

The textured item in the center of the photograph is the metal type
laid out all together. This is how it will be input onto the letterpress
and printed on the posters.

PROCESS BOOK 126

127 HOSTING & DESIGNING LECTURES
PROCESS BOOK 128
129 HOSTING & DESIGNING LECTURES
 Once we had our type set up and all put together, we added it to the
press. From there, we decided on ink and paper color (red and insu-
lation pink), inked up the press, and started printing. As a group, we
all took turns printing posters, with Gerald’s help as well, since he
was much faster at it. It was a tedious process to print the posters--
we had to stop every so often to re-ink the plate, and we had to be
careful not to get our hand caught in the machine, which would be
quite damaging.
After we were finished printing about 350 posters, we cleaned
up the press and metal type with an oil based cleaner. The ink was
quite a mess, but we enjoyed the physical quality of the press rather
than printing digitally! We posted our posters inside Old Main and
all over campus.

Left: A scan of our finished poster..

Above: The letterpress while it has ink on it; The plate on top deposits
ink onto the metal type below it.

PROCESS BOOK 130

On the day of the lecture, the group arrived early to Signal Return.
We met with Lynne, who helps to run Signal Return. She told us a
little bit more about the shop before everyone arrived and allowed us
to wander around and see things. The space was impressive-- we had
loved Gerald’s shop, but Signal Return left us dumbfounded. There
were rows and rows of metal type as well as presses, not to mention
the huge number of beautiful prints they had hanging up and for sale
that had all been printed right there.

131 HOSTING & DESIGNING LECTURES

PROCESS BOOK 132
133 HOSTING & DESIGNING LECTURES
PROCESS BOOK 134
Once the event officially commenced, Lynne began speaking to the
group about Signal Return; who they are and what they do. We began
on the side of the shop, where you can buy prints from artists who use
their space or for events Signal Return has made posters for. After
looking around at all the prints, we moved onto the studio space.
In here, Lynne explained how letterpress printing is accomplished,
briefly. We looked at different tools you can use to print, metal type,
and even more prints. There were endless styles of printing that we
saw, from calligraphic invitations to screenprinted seaside flyers.

135 HOSTING & DESIGNING LECTURES

PROCESS BOOK 136
137 HOSTING & DESIGNING LECTURES
PROCESS BOOK 138
The end of our session at Signal Return was a chance to use one of
their presses they had set up for us. This press was different from the
one we used at Geral’ds shop. Instead of a metal plate being pressed
directly on the paper, the paper was rolled under a cylinder where
it got inked. We each got to print our own poster and take it home
with us!
After we all took our turn, we were free to ask questions, walk
around and buy prints. A small group of us, including three group
members who put on the event, went out to eat afterwards at a local
taco joint for Taco Tuesday, and to celebrate a successful event!

139 HOSTING & DESIGNING LECTURES

PROCESS BOOK 140
141 HOSTING & DESIGNING LECTURES
Imagery made entirely from metal type.

PROCESS BOOK 142

143 HOSTING & DESIGNING LECTURES
Thanks to Chloe Lange for snapping this pic of me printing!

PROCESS BOOK 144

 The girls of our lecture group! We took a picture in the window after
a job well done.

145 HOSTING & DESIGNING LECTURES

We all went out to eat afterwards, at a restaurant nearby! Pictured
here is my friend Josie Curtis.

PROCESS BOOK 146

Once our visit to Signal Return was over, we quickly had to turn
around and get started on our event with Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. It
ended up that coordinating the four of us to get to Small Works to
print became harder as the semester went on, as we all had busy lives
outside of class. Because of this, Grace and Jen ventured alone to
Small Works this time, and printed small flyers on chip board, which
is a signature move of Amos, and on pieces of a map of Detroit and
some of the surrounding suburbs.
Chip board is a cardboard like material, but thinner. We printed
the posters to be a little cryptic, using military time (as Amos uses) and
the number of the room we were gonna be in, but we didn’t explicitly
specify what the numbers meant. We wanted this visit to be smaller
and more intimate than the Signal Return field trip was, which ended
up being quite a lot of people!

147 HOSTING & DESIGNING LECTURES

The original idea for our Amos poster. We wanted to focus on
simplicity, something that wasn’t so in your face, but still had some of
Amos’ signature moves.

PROCESS BOOK 148

 New variations for the poster that Jen and Grace came up with while
in the shop.

149 HOSTING & DESIGNING LECTURES

PROCESS BOOK 150
 This is one of the tools that we used to keep the text evenly justified.

151 HOSTING & DESIGNING LECTURES

PROCESS BOOK 152
153 HOSTING & DESIGNING LECTURES
A scan of the final poster design.

PROCESS BOOK 154

Once we had the posters printed, we put them up. Since Jen and Grace
printed, Antonio and I hung them up. We kept the radius of posters
smaller than with Signal Return, since we wanted a more specific au-
dience of graphic design or printmaking people at the event. We tried
to find fun or strange places to put the posters, like placing it in your
eyeline as you ascend stairs, or on the back of the glass on a door.

155 HOSTING & DESIGNING LECTURES

PROCESS BOOK 156
157 HOSTING & DESIGNING LECTURES
PROCESS BOOK 158
159 HOSTING & DESIGNING LECTURES
Finally, we got to our lecture date with Amos! We all weren’t really
sure to expect, but he did arrive in his iconic pink button up and jean
overalls. We showed him work and asked questions, and he had a lot
to say. I’d say most of us were super intimidated by him, but we also
loved the fresh perspective he brought about life and school. In the
end, we all got up to look at the work everyone brought in.

PROCESS BOOK 160

161 HOSTING & DESIGNING LECTURES
PROCESS BOOK 162
163 HOSTING & DESIGNING LECTURES
PROCESS BOOK 164
165 HOSTING & DESIGNING LECTURES
PROCESS BOOK 166
HOSTING & DESIGNING LECTURES
Overall, I learned a lot from this assignment. I really enjoyed working
with my group towards our common goal. It was nice that we were able
to split up work when we needed to, and I think the work was pretty
evenly split. It was also a lot of fun listening to our guest speakers and
the advice they had to give, and learning more about the community
in general--plus, making connections!
Community is such a huge thing, and having these group events
really helped me strengthen my belief in that.

PROCESS BOOK 168

 personal
exploration
project

PROCESS BOOK 170

The personal exploration project is exactly as it sounds-- a project
of our own design that focuses our attention on learning something
new. The parameters of the assignment were extremely loose. We
could pick anything we wanted, although it did have to get approved
by our professor. I decided to learn how to riso print, alongside
two of my other classmates, Antonio Keka and Sumaia Alhaidar.
Although we had a similar end goal, we each had to make our own
posters and do the work ourselves. Individually, we wrote our personal
exploration submissions and timelines. However, we did find some
problems with coordinating all of us going to Gerald’s shop, and our
timeline in general. Because of this, Gerald introduced an altered
schedule that we could all complete, and that didn’t require all of us
to be together to print.

PROCESS BOOK 172

 STUDIO CONTRACT
PERSONAL PROJECT PROPOSAL & SCHEDULE

XUEYUN CECILIA FINDLAY

3 PRINTS USING A RISOGRAPH PRINTER

PROPOSAL

I would like to learn how to print using a risograph printer. This style of printing is
really appealing to me, I really like the way prints look when they’re printed using this
method. I really like how things looks when they’re printed this way, and how there can
sometimes be imperfections. To learn how more about this printing style, I’m going
to make a total of three prints, in edition of 35 each; one illustration, one typographic
poster, and one that includes both illustration and type. I’ll also be making test and
demo prints to learn before I make the final prints. Some artists that have inspired me
with risograph printing are Em Niwa, Sarah Hingley, and Crocodile Jackson. I really like
how their prints are fun and whimsical, sometimes dreamy. I think riso adds to this
print style because it can sometimes be fuzzy, especially with lots of colors. I want to
learn more about their art and how they work to help inform me as I work on this. This
project will also help me get acquainted with buying paper, setting up a document
for print, and going into a print shop and working there. I’d like to spend 2-3 hours
on this per week. By the end of October I’d like to be done with demos and starting
to work on the final posters.

SUMMARY

-I want to learn risograph printing, including how to set up the document for print,
buying paper, going to the shop, etc

-I want to make 3 final prints, 35 copies each

-one with type only, one with illustration only, one combining both

-I would like to work on this project for about 2-3 hours per week, around 40 hours

-I would like to research more about this print method and artists who specialize in
riso printing

SCHEDULE

WEEKS 3–4 Research riso printing, including history and how

production has changed recently.

WEEKS 5–8 Make 50 possible sketches/drawings/digital doodles

for the final prints. Research paper.

WEEK 9 Test print first prints.

WEEKS 10–12 Using results from test prints, make adjustments

and complete 3 images, print ready.

WEEKS 12–14 Print 3 runs of 35 prints over the course of two

weeks.

My original plan for the personal exploration project.

173 PERSONAL EXPLORATION PROJECT

 Studio Contract
Personal Project Alternate Proposal & Schedule

1 PRINT IN SPOT COLOR PROCESS

PROPOSAL

This proposal is an alternate Personal Project for the fall 2022 Graphic Design II
class. This project is approximately 15 hours of work, and is given to represent and
replace the full score of the previous personal project.

SUMMARY

To finish this personal project, you will conduct research pertaining to your inter-
ests, performs sketches, ideate potential posters, and create one poster for spot color
process, color separated and print ready.

SCHEDULE

NOV 7–13TH Perform research according to original proposal. Gather

5 images of works pertaining to the designers, artists, or
1.5/5pts process you are researching. Write a small amount on
what you find, around 250 words. This will later serve
as the introduction to your project in your process book.
This serves as one third of the grade.

NOV 14–27TH Make 50 sketches/drawings/digital doodles representing

your research. They need not be complex, I would only
1.5/5pts take a minute or two for each sketch. This does not have
to be accurate, but it does need to show your thinking—
what are you sketching out, how are you breaking down
what you are looking at.

Once finished, begin to make your own sketches, by hand

or digitally. Make 50 total sketches of these also. Again,
this should be a quick process. Sketching rough in digitally
or on pencil, you should be able to make around 50 an
hour. This serves as one third of the grade.

NOV 28TH– Make one finished spot color process design file, with the
DEC 4TH intention of being a poster. This poster must be for a real
event, that is happening in the future on campus, preferably
2/5pts for something in the departments you’re involved in.

Make sure you have sketches leading up the final poster,

at least ten. The final poster must be color separated, and
print ready. This means each color of the poster will be
a seperate file and in greyscale, along with a full color
digital representation. This will be a .PDF file. This serves
as one third of the grade.

The revised plan for the personal exploration project.

PROCESS BOOK 174

week one,
research

175 PERSONAL EXPLORATION PROJECT

I’ve only recently heard of a risograph printer in the past two years
or so; although the machine has been around for almost 40 years, its
popularity as an art medium has only recently exploded, in part due to
its unpredictability and retro look. A humble creation, the risograph
printer was invented in Japan in 1986 by Noboru Hayama, who origi-
nally marketed it as a cheaper and faster way for schools and offices to
print. Risograph printers are beasts when it comes to cost and speed;
it can make up to 10,000 prints in minutes, all for dirt cheap. The way
it works is a little bit like screen printing and photocopying in one.
The machine receives the file digitally and burns tiny dots to create the
shape of the image; the master is then put around a color drum so only
the specific color can seep through to ink the paper. Only one color
can be done at a time, unless you have a newer model, but another
part of the fun with riso prints is messing with the registration. In
printmaking, registration refers to the alignment of different pieces
within the print, usually with color. Because the machine is printing
them, you can only affect the registration so much from the outside,
but a lot of artists find joy in seeing the little mistakes from the ways
the registration was off. It adds to the charm of riso printing. Not
much has changed in terms of technological development within the
riso machine, but that doesn’t stop artists from experimenting with
different ways to print with it as it is. Manipulating the colors and
registration can produce wildly different and fun results.
The two artists I decided to focus on were Em Niwa and Crocodile
Jackson. They are multidisciplinary artists, but their work is what in-
troduced me to risograph printing. Niwa produces beautifully colored
prints with vivid scenery and people; they are illustrious and dreamy. I
really enjoy the way she uses color within her work to articulate mood.
Crocodile Jackson’s work is more surreal and pop. His colors bleed
into one another less and the linework is much more stable. His work
is very fun though, with many zany characters. Risograph adds to his
prints with the texture they impress onto the prints.

PROCESS BOOK 176

 “Beachcomber” part 1 by Em Niwa

177 PERSONAL EXPLORATION PROJECT

“Beachcomber” part 2 by Em Niwa

PROCESS BOOK 178

 “Messy Treasure” by Em Niwaa

179 PERSONAL EXPLORATION PROJECT

“Strawberry” by Em Niwa

PROCESS BOOK 180

 “In Bloom” by Crocodile Jackson

181 PERSONAL EXPLORATION PROJECT

“Weirdo” by Crocodile Jackson

PROCESS BOOK 182

week two,
sketches

183 PERSONAL EXPLORATION PROJECT

In preparation for the final poster, I made 100 sketches to try out
ideas and see what I liked. The event I chose to make a poster for was
a production of She Kills Monsters, which Wayne State will be produc-
ing in the upcoming spring. The first 50 sketches were studies of Em
Niwa aand Crocodile Jackson’s work, which I copied in an effort to try
and see the moes they make when creating. I ended up really liking
Niwaa’s sketchy style, which felt more familiar to me than Jackson’s
perfect lines. The second 50 sketches are of the event poster; I tried
lots of different things and tried to keep in mind what I thought the
artists I studied would use.

PROCESS BOOK 184

 50 thumbnail sketches, inspired by Em Niwa and Crocodile Jackson.

185 PERSONAL EXPLORATION PROJECT

PROCESS BOOK 186
 50 thumbnail sketches for She Kills Monsters.

187 PERSONAL EXPLORATION PROJECT

PROCESS BOOK 188
week three,
final developments

189 PERSONAL EXPLORATION PROJECT

For the last stretch of this assignment, I made 10 final sketches to
refine what I wanted for the final poster. Most of them feature the main
character, Agnes, swords, and a three-headed dragon, so I decided to
include those in my final design. I ended up going with a mix between
the first and second design, with her back to the viewer as she faces
the dragon.
I decided to use Procreate to make my poster design. I started with
a basic sketch and from there blocked in color and added details.
Sketching and refining took the most amount of time, but was the
most important in ensuring a final design that I liked. The final thing
I added was the copy, including the show title and dates performed. I
tried to limit the color palette as best I could, since it will be printed
on risograph and colors are more limited.
I had a lot of fun with this aassignment and it was really exciting
creating a poster and illustration from scratch.

191 PERSONAL EXPLORATION PROJECT

Final 10 sketches leading up to the final poster design.

PROCESS BOOK 192

 Rough base sketch.

193 PERSONAL EXPLORATION PROJECT

Added a reference and a better guide for the title.

PROCESS BOOK 194

 Refined the sketch and outlined everything.

195 PERSONAL EXPLORATION PROJECT

Added color to the outlines I had.

PROCESS BOOK 196

 Decided to move the girl in the foreground. Sketched in plants and
blocked in color for them.

197 PERSONAL EXPLORATION PROJECT

Added more background color (the sky, ground) and refined the
details on the plants.

PROCESS BOOK 198

 Added the show title and dates. For the title, I drew them one-by-one
and used a guide to keep them all the same size. For the date, I wrote
it in by hand with a baseline to keep the line even.

199 PERSONAL EXPLORATION PROJECT

Here is the linework without any of the color. I want to print this as
well, maybe for use as a coloring page!

PROCESS BOOK 200

PERSONAL EXPLORATION PROJECT
To get the file ready to print on the risograh, I had to color separate
the layers. While I had colors in mind while I was drawing, when it
got time to color separate and see how the colors worked together,
I noticed I had made a mistake. I believed the risograph had higher
sensitivity when placing ink, but because of all the blue in the dragon
and in the sky, I had to change the color of the dragon to red. I also
changed the girl’s hair to pink. Overall, I still had 6 colors I was using,
which is quite a few, but due to the complexity of the illustration, I
needed all of them. Here are all my color separated files!

PROCESS BOOK 202

203 PERSONAL EXPLORATION PROJECT
PROCESS BOOK 204
205 PERSONAL EXPLORATION PROJECT
PROCESS BOOK 206
207 PERSONAL EXPLORATION PROJECT
PROCESS BOOK 208
209
PROCESS BOOK 210
 This book was made in the final month of 2022 by
Xueyun Cecilia Findlay. It was created for Graphic
Design 2 at Wayne State University, taught by Gerald
F. Schulze. This book uses Bodoni 72 Book and Ital-
ic, in 10, 11, and 40 pt font. The cover uses Dunbar-
BETA Low in 40 and 100 pt font.

G
D