New Student Union Building Signage

Everybody knows about all the hype that's going on with the new Student Union Building at Cal State L.A. The anticipated date for occupation should be sometime later this quarter. The Mardi Gras event that's being hosted by the Center or Student Involvement will be a soft opening for the building along with the Thank You event where students will be provided with a free Carl's Junior lunch. However, the building will not be fully functional until Fall 2008. The time between now and then will be for mass promotion, branding, and planning. 

The Grapics department will be in charge of most of the promotional stuff. That being said, I was assigned to design most of the building's directional signage which I will begin doing very soon. The signage will be inspired by San Diego State University's college of Fine Arts. The signage features a 3-D renderring of the buildings floor plans which give a better idea of where a person is in the building. I plan to improve the design with the help of the Student Union staff and the marketing director for the Graphics Department (my boss). I have two type faces to work with Meta Plus, and Univers which is the typeface that will be used for all the letterheads and business cards for the Union Staff.

What I'm really pushing for is to have past Graphics artwork and Student Union events posted along the hallways of the new building. That may fall under a collaboration with the marketing director and myself. Currently, I am also working on the new graphics department logo that will match the rest of the departments once we have ourselves well established. I really can't wait to see what kind of design opportunities we will have once the building is open. Not to mention my new corner office. HA HA! 

Anyway, I hope you all are as excited as I am.

Last week I had some family over from Australia (No, Im not Australian, do the math). I was having a conversation with my cousin about the economy when she raised a very important point: "I reckon U.S. money is bloody ugly looking, ey?" I definitely had to agree with her. Here's the thing about US money, they are barely starting to add a splash of color to the currency. Guatemalan Quetzales are way nicer with the national bird printed on it and gives a little display of spatial illusion. U.S. money is just plain flat and green. Yes, its beautifully illustrated and nicely crafted but so is everything else...

Then my cousin showed me Australian currency... and that's when it hit me. The world's most powerful country may also have the worlds most poorly designed currency. After examining the bills you can see and feel that the quality is even better. US bills are made from a cotton and linen blend, which means they can easily be ripped. Again, its green and flat and the typography is a little too much for a dollar bill. Australian currency is made from a synthetic material that is extremely difficult to rip. Plus, when you hold it it feels really cool... and expensive. You really don't get a kick out of holding a $100 bill like that anymore. I was a little to struck by the material and color to really focus on the typography, though. There was also a small detail that probably makes the Australian currency so unique. On one corner, the bill had a small icon that was printed on a transparency. The transparency in the bill was outlined in white.

That being said, I think this class is doing a project where we have to design new U.S currency. After seeing the Australian bills, I'm not sure if I'll be able to design something that will satisfy me... 

Since I still haven't purchased the book for Art 413, I decided to write my first blog on a reading i have on the grid. For almost the entire time I have studied design, I have avoided the grid. The main reason was probably because I hate math so much. However, that is not entirely true. Looking on past projects, I have used the grid system without knowing fully what the grid was nor its historical content and classification. Again, I always thought it had something to do with math. Even though it does have a mathematical background, its not always tied in when using it for design. 

I just made 3 different layouts using the grid for my Art 308 class and the only math I used was looking at the rulers so I know where my guides will be placed on Illustrator. My work was strategically placed in a certain way to fit the layout of the page. I don't think it was used in relation to the concept of the project. I know grids are used often in book covers and that is the only way I think the layout of the design ties in with the context of the grid. Keep in mind that the reading was only about 6 pages with a couple of paragraphs in each page. Now that I know where the grid derives from I will atempt to use it in a less accidental manner so that I can learn how to fit the system into a design problem that I may encounter.