Journal 2- The Incomplete Manifesto for Growth

Bruce Mau is a Canadian environmental designer who has also done work in branding. Bruce Mau was creative director of Bruce Mau Design. He has had the title of many things including: designer, professor, and advisor. He founded Institute without Boundaries and established "The Massive Change Network" in Chicago. Giving a physical and emotional experience to the viewers is how Mau connects design with the environment. 

I picked #2 of Bruce Mau's Manifesto...
Forget about good. Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you'll never have real growth. 

I picked #2 because being a student, particularly a graphic design student, growth is what makes you a good designer. If I were to stick to what was good from my freshman year in design school, I would still be doing freshman work. The best way to grow as a designer is to learn from the mistakes you have made from a project that was done poorly. Growing is also a form of changing, and as most of us know, designing is the process of making something new. 

Journal 1- Jessica Hische

Jessica Hische is a illustrator and letterer known for projects that have more of a silly nature. She grew up in Pennsylvania and attended art school. She declared her major as Graphic Design her sophomore year. At the beginning of her career, Jessica was a freelance designer in Philadelphia where she helped design books. She then worked for people such as Wes Anderson and companies such as Penguin Books. Jessica has set up a synergetic studio and workshop in San Francisco, CA.

 In her video, An Evening With Jessica Hische, she explains how she started designing hand lettering and talks about some of her projects. She also talks about the importance of creating new things every time you’re working on a new project. This is because ideas from previous work may not work very well with new projects. Hische says in her video that new lettering has to come with every new project.

Hische also refers to the project that she says changed her career. This project was the Daily Drop Cap. She created this project to keep her motivated and inspired. She began by designing one letter per day and eventually the site was posted on hundreds of design blogs. This project helped launch Jessica's design career.

Some of Jessica Hische's work that inspires me is shown below.

Expressive Typography in Print and in Motion

The speech I chose for this expressive typography project was John F. Kennedy's speech addressing the issue of the Cuban Missile Crisis. My book shows the emphasis the speaker puts on certain words, from pauses within the speech to the way Kennedy's voice changes throughout the speech. It also shows the movement that the words express. It was easier to animate the speech rather than showing the speech in print form. You can express more of the meaning that the word shows easier in animation rather than just in print.

You may view my animation of John F. Kennedy's speech at http://youtu.be/iNVe7ZL7MZc

 

Basic Placement Plan for Speech

The speech text is simply broken down by spread.

Expressive and Kinetic Speech Visualization: Speech Research

The speech I have chosen for project 1 is John F. Kennedy's speech about the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Who is speaking?
      John F. Kennedy

Why was/is the speech important to society?
     While the nation was in panic mode, this speech was JFK's address to the nation to gain America's confidence, support, and trust. 
 
Why do you feel it is important or interesting?
      The speech gave an explanation to the country about the crisis and expressed the importance of the nation coming together and standing strong.

What is the emotion, mood, tone, personality, feeling of the speech?
      The feeling of the speech gives a very patriotic and "nobody is going to mess with my America" kind of vibe. It is full of strength and dignity.  
     
What do you FEEL should be loud or soft, long pause or rushed?
      Whenever JFK talks about destruction or how swift ballistic missiles are, those are the statements that should be emphasized loudly. Whenever he talks about peace, that is when his words should be strong but still have a soft effect. Whenever he makes a valid point about our country or states what could be a threat to our country, that is when long pauses should be used.  

Is there a call to action? When listening to it what are key/emphasized words?
      I don't know that there is a "call to action", but there is definitely a suggested need for support in JFK's voice. The emphasized words is in the speech are the words of destruction, and the long pauses come after a paragraph in a way that allows each and every word to sink in with the audience. 


How does it make you feel?
      This speech makes me wish I was present in the audience at the time of delivery. To experience the words of that speech and the delivery that JFK gives would be amazing. 


How do imagine that the audience felt?
      I'm sure the audience felt a sense of patriotism.  They probably felt like they owed their support to our nation and I imagine they felt a sense of defensiveness, like they would want to do anything to protect their family, future, and country.


Could there be another interpretation of the speech?
      I think the speech has a straight forward interpretation, but how the speech is represented in a visual aspect could be done in numerous ways. 


Write/find a short bio, of the person giving the speech.
      Born of Irish descent in May of 1917, Brookline Massachusetts native John F. Kennedy would eventually become the youngest man ever to be elected to the office of President of the Untied States of America. John Kennedy graduated from Harvard and in 1940 began a career of defending his country in the United States Naval Forces. Three years into his tour Kennedy's boat was attacked by a Japanese destroyer and destroyed. Although suffering serious wounds in the attack the brave young man was able to lead the other surviving members of his outfit to safety.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy returned from war a hero and was elected the Democratic congressman in the Boston area. In 1953 he quickly advanced his political career to the Senate and that same year he married Jacqueline Bouvier. Two years later while he was in recovery from a back injury Kennedy wrote the novel Profiles in Courage which would win it's author Pulitzer Prize in the history category.

1956 is the year in which John F. Kennedy narrowly missed the Democratic nomination for Vice President however four years later he successfully attained a position on the ballot as a presidential candidate. Millions of American citizens watched Kennedy's debates against Republican candidate Richard M. Nixon that election year. John F. Kennedy would prove victorious and become the nation's first Roman Catholic president with just a small margin in the popular vote.

His motivational inaugural speech with the historic comment "Ask not what your country can do for you-ask what you can do for your country." was the beginnings of Kennedy's promises of making the United States once again a productive nation. Innovative plans to jump start the country's economy and ground breaking civil rights legislation where soon being produced from the young president.

Permitting an exhiled group of Cuban's invade their former homeland to dethrone dictator Fidel Castro, President Kennedy's attempt to help the country establish more basic human right's ended in failure. Shortly after the Soviet Union once again renewed it's plans to go to war with West Berlin and situated itself as a nuclear superpower in Cuba. Standing strong in the face of nuclear war John F. Kennedy proved the United States of America was a force to be reckoned with and made the Soviet's back down from their nefarious plans.

Tragedy of epic proportions struck America on November 22, 1963 as not even one thousand days into his time in office John Kennedy was struck down by an assassin as his motorcade made it's way through Dallas Texas. This unfortunate event made John F. Kennedy not only the youngest man to become president but the youngest to die while in office.