Essay Research

Generating ideas

I used the spider diagram technique to get some ideas flowing for my essay, I wrote down titles and topics I am interested in.

Chosen essay title- How women have influenced Graphic Design over the years?

I feel strongly about this topic and am very interested in researching more about these influential women and what they contributed to the field of graphic design. I did another spider diagram to generate ideas about some of the most influential graphic designers in the industry.

From looking at my ideas and the above artists I have decided on 3 artists who I connected to with the most to research further to include in my essay. this allowed me to properly began my in-depth research for my website essay but choosing the most inspirational women in graphic design over the years. My chosen 3 artists are:

1.Paula Scher

2.April Greiman

3.Susan Kane

Artist research:

Paula Scher

I began with Paula, I knew a good amount of information on Paula Scher already as I talked about her in my presentation. I wanted to include her as she is such an important pioneer, and she really helped make a place for women in graphic design. Initially I loved her graphic work, including her album cover designs and her use in typography in all her work.

I used my research from the abstract espisode, this was a great source with lots of quirky, fun facts about the artist that will be great for my essay. link to my previous blogpost- Paula Scher Research

April Greimen

I created a diagram for Greimens’ chapter, with books sources and website article information. Greimen is another huge pioneer and I had to include her as I particaulry am fond of her graphic posters and her use of layering, I have included images of those in my diagram.

Here is a snapshot of the book, ‘Pioneers of Postmodernism’. I read the chapter all about Greimens work and gained some good knowledge and insights about her as an artist.

Susan Kare

below is my diagram for Kares’ section of my essay. like my previous artists I included the most vital and important information about Kare and her work and more specially her work with Apple. initially it was her icons she designed that caught my eye and encouraged me to include her in my essay.

Website Design inspiration

Mood boards

I created a mood board of some simple, clean website designs that I came across online which I liked the design of. I like the colour schemes of these examples, they are simple, yet effective with a modern feel.

These mood boards contain screenshots of numerous websites that I looked up and was attracted to, alongside that I have included a range of different colours and images from the internet that I feel would suit the type of website I want to create. The second mood board contains images of  a more concentrated colour palette that I hope to use for my website design. I have included icons that I hope to use within the design and I would like to create something of my own to add in, to add some personality to the essay.

I will refer back to these mood boards when designing my website essay.

Reflection

My methods within my research for the essay section were successful, I like the simplicity of the spider diagrams on Milanote and it makes it easier to include all of the most vital information into my essay. I think mood boards are always a successful tool and I use this method frequently when planning projects, for this particular project it has given me a good foundation for the design aspect.