Who am I?

So for my Graphic Design 3 class we were given a assignment to design a logo, letter head, business card, and envelope. This may seem like it would be fairly easy given the right client however, the client was ourselves and we have to create an identity for ourselves which is quite hard to do. The first thing I did was brainstorm who am I, what is important to me, what do I like etc. Then I started sketching ideas with shapes, I like smooth shapes no hard edges so I went with this idea. I tried a couple of marks that had hard edges but I didn't like them as much. I also decided that I wasn't going to use my full name I am just going to use Tonya Lee, Lee is my middle name. After I made the decision about my name usage I decided to play with my initials and came to the conclusion that I would rather have a mark to represent who I am. The one image that I kept coming back to was a silhouette of my face, then I was going to do regular hair using the silhouette style. After playing with the image for awhile I decided to use swirls as hair to show that I look like a regular person on the outside, but inside I am filled with creativity just waiting to be unleashed. The logo that I came up with is very girly, so am I. But I can't decide whether to use pink, one of my favorite colors inside of the face or just leave it white. Or should I change the shadows to a fun color like purple and have the hair a crazy color too, maybe there should be something in the background? Let me know what you think, after critique today my image might change completely but, I would like to know what you guys think.

Facebook vs. NoBook

Alright so I know everyone has been long awaiting my next blog post since I am so extremely exciting. So here goes nothing. This weeks question was how can Facebook be used to forward your profession in graphic design, how can it be used to market yourself? Well personally I am obsessed with Facebook, I check it at least more than once a day. Because it is so popular I can see how you could totally promote yourself on it. The thing I enjoy the most about Facebook is that it more secure than MySpace. On MySpace anyone can view your profile even if they don't have a MySpace account. On Facebook you have to be friends or have the same network in order to view others profiles. However, if you start a group like Otis and James for example anyone can view the page. But only people that the group creator wants can join the actual group and recieve updates. The more friends you have, the more people will view your group. The only downfall of Facebook is that it states in its rules that if you post any pictures they become the property of Facebook. So this raises the question, if they own your pictures once you post them, do you own your designs anymore? A lady I know from back home has her own photography studio and she posts all her photo sessions on Facebook (Imagin Photography), so are the rights to these photo's now owned by Facebook. If Facebook does own the rights to your designs after you post something I don't know if I want my art on Facebook. But I guess that is the chance you take when you want your work to be known and shown. Another obstacle that your might face is the fact that people can steal pictures off of Facebook but, any good designer knows how to eliminate this from happening. That's right use lower resolution so that they can't enlarge your piece and if they print it out it will be pixelated. So now I am curious, what would you do Facebook or NoBook?

Obama Campaign

For my web design class we were asked to blog about the Obama campaign and how it was different from previous years campaigns. Since I am Canadian I never followed the presidential election before. But this year I was really interested since, I am living in the United States, and because it was so controversial. I went to Obama's site today, and before you can even enter the site you have to sign up with your e-mail address and zip code, a very clever way to get people's information.
Obama is also appearing to cater to the younger population with his website he features free downloads of wall papers and music.
He even uses a blog that includes You Tube videos (which the younger population are drawn to) to talk about his campaign.
He even used text messages during campaigning which has never been done before. Basically with the use of text messaging he was able to reach "new voters and persuadable voters." Some of the things the campaign can now do with the phone numbers are:

• Conduct non-intrusive surveys (e.g. are you registered to vote yet? what zip code are you in?)
• On a state-by-state basis, send reminder messages about the cutoff dates for voter registration and link to registration forms
• On a state-by-state basis, tell people to mail in their ballots to vote absentee
• Invite people to campaign events in their area code
• Remind people to get out and vote on Election Day (believe it or not, some people forget, although you’d need to be hiding in a cave to miss this one)
• Promote down-ballot candidates on a zipcode-by-zipcode basis

Pretty amazing huh if you would like to read more visit:
http://gigaom.com/2008/08/24/what-obamas-text-message-campaign-reveals/
read more there is some pretty interesting stuff on here so check it out.
And I hope you voted!!!

The Red & Green

For those of you who don't know what the Red & Green is, it is Minot State Universities campus newspaper. And for those of you who don't know already it sucks!! For example here is the title of one of the stories that was featured in last weeks newspaper "Atrium TV greets visitors." Yawn. I don't care that there is a tv in the atrium, and another question where the 'F' is the atrium anyway. I used to be a photographer for the Red & Green. I did it all of last year and I quite enjoyed it and it paid well. However, this semester we got a new editor. He actually gave me a photo assignment and then went and took the picture for me. Then I was told that my pictures couldn't be used because they basically suck, I guess my artistic approach to taking pictures isn't valued here. Then I thought about this for about a day and decided it was time for me to quit. Why should I waste my time going to events when I have better things to do, like homework, or something fun. Especially when they end up using mostly submitted photos to fill up the paper. Personally I have seen a lot better campus newspapers in my day. I used to attend the University of Saskatchewan and their newspaper The Sheaf was the bomb. Everyone picked it up and some weeks you could not even find an issue they were all gone. Take a look at the newspaper racks on campus and see how many newspapers there still are its almost been a week since the last issue came out. Some of the racks are still full. What do university students want to read about? Personally I would like to read about the girl who got arrested at the football game this weekend. Or how Art Club did face painting and for the first time ever hair painting in support of the Beavers. I want to hear about our students and what we have to say, not some person who thinks they know everything about everyone. I want to hear the real deal.

To Blog or Not To Blog?

Today we had a guest speaker in our website design class. His name is Scott Wild from Inet Technologies in North Dakota. He was a great speaker and informed us how influential a Blog can be success. A Blog can get you news recognition, or give someone access to your own personal website. As long as you know 10 keywords or phrases that should be in your site/blog, that describe what it is about then you've got it cased. When you Google your name or any of those 10 words/phrases your page should be one of the first things that pops up on a search engine. If you want to know more about how influencial blogs can be check out what Scott is doing on his website www.scottwild.com