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Introducing Our Newest Featured Writer: Elisha-Rio Apilado

About school, school will forever keep me busy, and I like that. I put school first more than anything or anybody. I put art first, so yeah, I’ve been slacking in my Geometry class, but I’m back on ground with it. The projects in my art class are just more important to me because they are the building blocks of my portfolio. I find the critiques we do in class so helpful, even if the comments are nit-picky or harsh, they help out greatly. You’ve got to learn how to handle critiques, even if you don’t agree with them. You’ve got to be open-minded and take in all suggestions to its fullest and take it into consideration, because it’ll help you not only in your creative process, but also as a person.

I think I’ve found my calling when it comes to graphic design. We just recently finished a book design cover project in my Digital Illustration class. I’ve grown so fond of that class, working on Illustrator with the pen tool (although I need to work on my color/mesh/gradient skills). I have never been so excited to do a project like this before. The whole process of creating a design that’ll ‘sell’ to people and make them want to hear the music or read the book. I like to analyze the meaning of words, lyrics and such so this is why I loved doing this project. I’m a fanatic when it comes to typefaces as well and messing around with the kerning and leading (yeah I know, art terms, I’m being an art nerd right now).

I made a cover to one of my favorite books, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I wanted to incorporate the Roaring 20’s flappers and have it show off the glamour and wealth and party scenes of that time. I stuck to just 3 colors, white black and green. Green was significant in the book for it’s symbolism of wealth as well as longing and promise for Jay Gatsby everytime he looked at the green light shining from Daisy’s dock. You should really get onto reading that book if you haven’t. We had our critique today and everybody liked it. “I like it better than the original cover.” Wow, what a compliment. Of course there were some nit-picking, and I know I’ve got some things to work on, but I appreciated everybody’s feedback. I even sent my drafts to my Typography professor (knowing that she is a book designer) to get some feedback as well as sending it to fellow classmates and posting it on ArtBistro to get feedback from other artists. Feedback is the greatest thing ever. I loved how we not only mounted the design on blackboard, but also got to place it onto the actual book so that we could have a feel for the actual space it’d be in. Everybody did a pretty good job. So much creativity. A lot of them totally sold the novel to me and now I’ve got a list of new books I want to read!

Here are my results. The first three images are the drafts, and the rest are the final results.

I have also registered for my Winter 2009 classes, which is pretty exciting. I’ll be going to school Monday-Thursday (yes, no more Saturday classes!!) It is pretty much the same time schedule that I have now. The classes I will be taking are Digital Photography for Designers, Form & Space and Type & Image. I’m excited for all three. I’ll finally be done with all my general education classes after this quarter, so now I can put all my focus onto ART.

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