BYU-Idaho Graphic Design Alumni

[gallery]Deciding what to do for the BFA was half the battle. I chose to do an experiment to design one tomato sauce package in one day for fifteen days. The purpose of this project was to discover my design process, how long it takes to complete each step, to figure out if there is a limit to quality design solutions, and to stretch myself in a way that I had never been stretched before. Every day I kept track of the time spent in each phase.

In the end I discovered that I could come up with a package in one day. The hardest part was to stop after 24 hours because I wanted to keep pushing the design until it was good enough to sell. The more packages I designed, the more ideas I kept having. In the beginning I spent more time in the research phase than at the end because the subject didn’t change, and because there were some days I had a design I couldn’t get out of my mind until I made it from the sketches and research I had done previously. Overall the majority of my time was spent in the production phase.

These are the statistical results:
Time spent researching: 5 hours and 38 minutes
Time spent sketching: 29 hours and 59 minutes
Time spent in production: 95 hours and 3 minutes
Total time spent on th 15 packages: 130 hours and 40 minutes

Read the rest of this entry »

Shadow is such an interesting topic, but it is easily missed. Shadows exist in our lives everywhere, but we may not even look at them. This Exploring Shadows Exhibition is hoping to create a time for an audience to see shadows as objects.

The Shadow topic comes with my observing things in Rexburg. At first, i viewed things more objectively. I saw flowers, trees, leaves, sunsets and i tried to take pictures of them. I loved to take pictures because it is a way for me to record my life and blessings. However, about 1 year ago, i started to feel the subject matter was missing. One day i was in my room, and the lights came in the window.  The shadows in my room at that time were so pretty. Since that time, i have started to see another side of the objects. and Shadows are all that I see.

But why shadows? Why do they intrigue me? When my teacher asked me about this question, i really thought so hard about it. It comes to my personal feeling of the way i view myself. As a human being, i am viewed as an object at the first sight. However many personality and understanding can be found from observation later on. It is like shadows. I like to see my shadow as big, tall and stretchable. The shadows appear in various ways. They are changeable and interesting. They have hard edges and soft edges. They can be created and re-created.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hello everybody, it is great to be able to finish the show and share some of the work with everyone here. I have always been fascinated with propaganda, whether wartime or advertising related. To give you an idea of what my project was trying to accomplish, I will explain my process.

I spent a long time gathering information and eventually picked three topics to use: Global Warming, Air Pollution, and the Job Stimulus. Each topic was given A) A single set of quantitative information, B) A poster campaign in support of that topic, and C) A poster campaign in opposition to that topic. The catch was that the same info was used for both B and C, to illustrate how easy it is to skew information and support a given agenda, all the while never technically telling a lie.

This is the artist statement I put on the center podium for all to read before looking at my work:
The goal of the Propaganda project is to shed light on the ways accurate quantitative information can be skewed in order to achieve almost any conclusion desired by the person presenting the information.
By telling half-truths, one may easily mislead an uninformed audience.
This project is meant to encourage you, the audience, to take action to inform yourself, rather than let media feed you answers.
In times when political, environmental, or economic topics are so important and yet don’t have one simple answer, it is your own responsibility to be informed.

Read the rest of this entry »

Full-time Graphic Designer needed in Idaho Falls

In-House designer for McNeil Development (Taylor Crossing, Elim Valley, Pointe Perry, WaterStone Park). Responsible for all design aspects of the company.

Obviously need a good grasp of Design software (Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop). Preferred preference will be given to someone with Flash and/or HTML knowledge, After Effects or an aptitude to learn new software. Photography skills and IT knowledge also a plus. Rarely, travel to St. George to assist in the Elim Valley project is required.

This position is Salaried - Negotiable, and includes benefits: 401k, Medical, Dental, Vision, Life insurance. Paid sick/vacation time and paid holidays.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yellowstone Partners

The company has offices in Idaho Falls and Salt Lake City. It sounds like a great opportunity. -Scott

I own a wealth management company with offices in Idaho Falls and Salt Lake City. We are looking for a graphic designer for a full time position right away. I would be willing to consider someone who could be an intern until they graduated as well with full time position. We will provide the computers and printers as we have already purchased everything. The individual who we would want to hire needs to have good flash programming skills and be able to eventually head up our marketing and branding department. They could also work eventually out of our Salt Lake office. We are a growing office and we want to leverage the skills of someone with these talents to continue to give us a competitive edge over our competitors.

Dave Hansen

Read the rest of this entry »

This is from John Fitch:

I have a contact at a high-end small web shop in SLC that asked if I knew anyone looking for a full-time gig. This is more of an entry-level position currently, but all applicants are welcome. This would be for a web designer. If they know how to do CSS and light javascript, that would be a huge plus. Even bigger would be a working knowledge of Actionscript 3 and good with flash.

If you are interested, send them my way (jdfcreative@gmail.com)… They would need to send me a portfolio sample and personal URL.

This would likely be contract work to start, and they prefer the candidate to work in-house on location. Whomever is interested should be willing to work in SLC. If the candidate does well, this very well could be a full-time job opportunity very quickly.

Completing my BFA project has been an incredible experience. I was been able to challenge myself and in return grow and learn new things.

I started thinking about what I wanted to do for my BFA project in the summer before I took my first semester BFA class. I had been making sock creatures all summer and wanted to brand them. I wanted to create a whole store for them and other creative things I had made. After I went to my first semester BFA class I changed the project to informing the general public about good design. Then I read Elder Uchtdorf’s talk “Happiness, Your Heritage.” After reading the talk I knew I wanted to focus my project more on creating and why we do it. A couple days after reading that talk I had an art seminar class with Erik Adams. He came to my BFA class and I was able to talk to him about my project. He said instead of focusing my project on what I create, focus it on what others create and get as many people involved in your project as possible. It took me awhile to get over my idea of having my project about me, but I’m so glad that I listened to what Erik had to say. From there the concept for my project was set. I then started to create a list of people that were different ages and created different things. By this time I entered into my second semester BFA class. I started to interview people. The interviews took anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours. I would ask then questions about what they do or create and why they do it. My husband Daniel would come with me and photograph during the interview. He would photograph them creating something or photograph projects they were working on or had already done. This part of the project lasted several weeks. During that time I started to think about the format of the book I was going to be putting this information in. As I completed an interview I then had to write up the interview and edit through the pictures Daniel had taken. Then I would flow the text and photos into the book. From there it was a long process and editing, designing, printing mock ups for critique, taking the feedback and adjusting and finessing the project.

The idea for displaying my project was something that came to me the more I worked on my book. I was looking through Martha Stewart’s website and came across a photograph of several empty frames that were all different sizes and shapes that were painting in an analogous color scheme. I feel in love with that idea. I didn’t want to put up foam core boards in the gallery, which is want most graphic designers seemed to do. It is a gallery for art and I wanted the project to fit in the gallery. So, Daniel and I spent a week going to the thrifts stores picking up picture frames that were different sizes and shapes. The oval ones seemed to be the hardest ones to find. We then spent the weekend sanding, priming, and painting the frames. Since I was displaying a book for my main project I needed something to set it on. I didn’t want to use the stands they provided in the gallery. A friend gave me the idea of having an environment of a creative setting that would have a desk and supplies to create things. I bought the desk and wanted to have things on the desk to have it feel like a creative environment. I ended up not putting supplies or too many other things on the desk just so that the book would be the focal point.

Read the rest of this entry »