For our final grad type class, we had to print our final project, a poster for a fictitious event at the MoMA, and present our identity projects.

We spent most of the second half of the semester working on the identity project, of which the main deliverable was business cards. However, we also needed to create a system that worked for letterhead, envelopes, and mailing labels.

We started with a gesture paintings. I created about 50 and then combined some to form my starting composition.

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We took these paintings and then had to translate them into type. I used Meta and only the five letters in my first name to produce the following spread for my business cards.

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For the poster, I went through many iterations and lots of feedback before arriving at my final design. Kristin Hughes applauded my progress, and said I may have “hit the nail on the head.” Though we both acknowledged some things that still need to be resolved, but I came a long way from my original concept.

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In the end, I am glad I took grad type instead of the Flash class. I learned a heck of a lot more and now have a good foundation in typography, which I believe extends to communication design in general to a degree.

On the up side, my latter projects have benefited from my new typographic skills. On the down side, I spend more time tweaking typography and layout on projects that I would have previously ignored, which means less sleep for Jamin, but better results overall.

The final crit was Thursday, December 7.