Amanda Valentine Studio Visit Fall 2015

Our Foundations of design class recently visited Amanda Valentines Studio

Turns out we were here third group of students that day she's made time in her schedule for. Those who arrived early got to see her sketchbooks from fashion school. She told us all about her newest collection, her time on Project Runway(runner-up Season 13), working in LA, styling 21 pilots and gave us a sneak peak of her husband's new short film on her laptop. She talked about researching all the way back to find out how grunge became grunge so she could have a chance at adding to the conversation with her own work. Music is her muse and is always on in her life. She answered any and all questions and left us with the key to success in an venture whether it's fashion or a friendship-hard work! 

Black by Maria Silver-Art Institute Visit 2015

Maria Silver came to Foundations of Design during the Summer 2015 Quarter to visit with our class.
She talked about taking a circuitous route to launching her own fashion line and how passion and curiosity led her through a variety of experiences that made her the designer she is today, including playing drums in The Ettes! She encouraged students to take as many business related classes as possible and research ideas about financial strategies that will push each of their creative interests. She also talked about an aha moment when she realized she should design clothes she or friends would wear as opposed to costume ball/extravagant evening wear that are worn once a year by very few people. She was wearing a pair of her "Painter's Pants" that she designed based off a documentary of an abstract expressionist painter who had deep pockets in their studio pants to put their brushes in. She said she once scrapped a whole concept of designs she'd been working on after watching a Youtube video of molten silver being poured into water. This video lead her to new work that she felt was much more successful than the abandoned designs. She took the time to look at each student's sketchbook and discuss their drawings, gained followers and followed us on Instagram. She also really liked the tree root we offered her as a gift for coming to talk with us. It was a discussion full of practicality and magic. I sort of want to be a fashion designer now.
Thanks Maria Silver!

To find out more about Nashville based Fashion Designer Maria Silver visit her website below
Black by Maria Silver or to hear her on drums The Ettes

Shape Project Fall FOD

Just a few of the great shape investigations from Fall FOD designers. I love that Ayren wore a t-shirt that he designed while revisiting Fresh Prince of Bell-Aire style! Taylor's individual drawings of wedding dresses were all gorgeous, Azu went all 3-d and Matthew somehow made the overused guitar theme(for Nashville) work by packing it full of graphics that's playing Nashville's song!

Sketchbook of The Week Jessica

Can't wait to see Jessica's Sketchbook by the end of the quarter. She is really diving into the idea of experimenting with new media and working with her hands as a way to balance/inform her digital investigations as a graphic designer. Please do yourself a favor and ask to flip through her sketchbook to check out what she's up to.

Field Guide to Line

This is a new project for line that my Winter FOD students nailed straight out of the gate. They created a field guide to line that used their chosen field of study as the focus for their research. Here are some of the results and the designers presenting them to their fellow designers.

Field Trips for FOD

I work hard to plan field trips that will be inspiring and useful to you as professionals in your field. Art Galleries, Special Collections Rooms at Libraries, The FRIST, Casa Azafran, design shops and studios are just a few of the examples of the kinds of places we might visit. These places provide real examples of the Elements and Principles of Design as well as practitioners of design. They also provide you opportunities to build professional connections that will directly inform your future successes.

If you choose not to participate in a field trip I will need a 500 word essay that explains your decision. It should be double spaced, typed an emailed to me before the class period we are going on the field trip. If it is has grammatical or spelling errors (your computer can check these) I will ask you to write it again.

There also may be additional work that will be completed by your fellow students who do choose to come on the field trip that they do during that class that you will also be responsible for. ( due in email format to me before the next class meeting).

This is not meant to be punitive rather it is to convey how important these field trips are. I owe it to you to provide a meaningful class each and every time we meet. In lieu of you choosing not to participate I believe writing about that decision will be a good reflection exercise.

If you choose not to attend field trips and do not communicate with me before(not the day of) you will simply be marked absent and will not receive participation point and cannot make up any work for that class period.
If you turn in your essay after the class period of the field trip you will also be marked absent.
If you have a doctor's excuse or an emergency situation obviously I will make arrangements for you to complete the classwork.

The Elements and Principles of Design

http://splitcomplementary.blogspot.com/2012/02/elements-principles-of-design-icons.html

Please follow this link for quick reference for Elements and Principles of Design.

Our two quizzes for this class will utilizes these reference guides.

Quiz # 1 Using the Elements of Design guide find a unique(from your mind) example of these elements in our shared world.
i.e. The pin stripes on my neighbors car are an example of hard line used to create a sense of style in relationship(or contrast) to the curves of the car body.

Quiz # 2 Using the Principles of Design guide do the same as above.

Your examples should be well thought out and well written. A google search of your explanation should not produce any identical results!

The Civil Rights Room

Andrea Blackman giving us the tour from the lunch counter at the Civil Rights Room at the Nashville Public Library. She has agreed to collaborate with my Foundations of Design class at AI, give us tours and we'll do a group project with April 19, 1960 as it's conceptual departure point. Maybe we'll come up with something that helps her better tell the story of Nashville's Civil Rights history. Even if we don't we'll get a lot out of this partnership!