What Is New In The Path2Design?

I have some awesome news! I was actually part of an article in the CM-Life newspaper involving my Design Bureau class! The article covers how we get to work with real clients in a classroom setting. Personally, I am working with three clients Solar Cycle Lights, Moore Hall TV, and New Central 34. Read the full article by following the link below.

CM-Life Design Article

Recently I decided to take some time to revise the Velo logo. This logo is for a business idea that I have in store, but still have a long way to go with building my web development skills before this business can move forward.

Below is a logo I worked on to show my appreciation of small businesses. This idea of #heartsmallbiz is a focus on the importance of small businesses being recognized in a local community. We are losing a sense of community with all of the corporate businesses leeching the profits and the entire idea of community away from the people. I hope to create an online community that will counteract this and give strength back into the idea of small businesses throughout our nation. You can show your love for small business by following the brand new Twitter account Heart Small Biz.

I also participated in a St. Patrick's day t-shirt contest for my Design Herd group. The idea was appropriated from the Lucky Charm's character with a couple mug's of beer in his hands to celebrate the Holiday.

In my Advanced Typography class we were assigned a unique assignment where we had to construct 3D type. The assignment was so broad that students have been scrambling to narrow down there ideas to one thing. One night I was at the library and happened to have my camera on me and the idea of creating the word "Face" out of library books would be a brilliant idea. I then went a step further and used books that only involved social media and the internet to give confused viewers an extra hint.

A few graphic design professionals came to CMU recently to speak to the designers on how to attract business, making the transition from school, building a portfolio, and considering making an online portfolio to increase exposure. Once I hone in my skills I will have a website up and running.

As for the latest news, I applied for a graphic design internship in LA through an internship program called "Dream Careers". The tuition is steep, but they provide you everything all inclusive. This includes housing, commuting to work, meals, facilities, speaking events, and other events. Everything is located at the UCLA campus and as a student of the program you are allowed to have access to the UCLA facilities. It also provides school credits and a 100% guarantee for an internship of your choice with some of the top companies like (Yahoo, MTV, Millennium Films, etc). They also provide other internships throughout the U.S. and even outside of the U.S. as well. I decided to apply to the LA program because it seemed to be the most suitable to my interests as a graphic designer. Working for an entertainment agency would literally be a nice taste of a dream career. So if you are interested in finding an internship that is catered to you, the ability to network with other interns, and make your experience more accommodating to the transition into a real life work situation then this might be a great opportunity to check out. The website to get there is is summerinternships.com.

If you are a student graphic designer and have any questions about building a portfolio, how to get into the graphic design program at your school, networking, finding tutorial websites, specific questions about my projects, or any other general advice I would gladly help you out. Please leave comments and suggestions as well because I will be happy to hear your advice as I continue this journey on the Path2Design.

There Are No Brakes In The Car of Life

There is so much to tell you! But before I do I just want to say something in addition to the title that you read above. Even though there may be no brakes in the car of life, as long as you hold your head high, the road will continue on so you will never crash and burn. Enough with the motivational speech and time to catch you up. Where have I been since mid-September you may be asking? Well, I have been attached at the hip with my laptop because I decided at the last minute that I was going to build my Graphic Design portfolio for this semester rather than in the spring. I finally completed it on Monday and turned it in on Tuesday which was only one day before the deadline. I have been so busy that I haven't even had time to manage my fantasy football team. I feel like I'm letting those guys down! All kidding aside, it really has been crunch time lately between the projects, exams, homework, quizzes, and a majority of the time devoted to building my portfolio.

The contents required for my Graphic Design portfolio for the Central Michigan University Graphic Design program:

*A written form showing the grades I had in a few Art classes and included my signature

*One page essay of the reason why I wanted to become a Graphic Designer

*10 projects

*10 descriptions

Brownie Points (hopefully):

*Added a cover on the front of my portfolio that matched that basic design for the descriptions

*Laminated every page to give it a professional look

* For some of the designs I provided thumbnails for an easier viewing and to make my project flow more smoothly

Below is my portfolio from cover to finish:

That completes my portfolio! I hope you like it! I had to leave a couple parts of it out, but it shows all ten of my designs that I submitted for the program. Wish me luck!

This next piece below is one from my typography class. I decided to design the Ray Ban wayfarer sunglasses out of type. All of the type inside the image is about the history of the Ray Ban company and how it has been a significant part of our society's style for many years.

This piece below was created for my Art 117 (Intro to Contemporary Issues) class. It was created to match the similar style of David Hockney. It displays the style use of time and motion to represent what the human eye experiences in an event over a period of time. This particular project was created to represent a night of fun between college friends and capture the energy throughout the night. 

Below are a few logos that I am working on for my personal logo. These are for my Logo & Identity course where I have to create a business card, letterhead and envelop. If you have any suggestions I'm open to hearing any of them.

Well there you have it! These project are what I have been devoting the first portion of my semester to. Feel free to comment and share your knowledge with me to help me in the process of becoming a Graphic Designer. That also goes both ways, I'd be happy to help you if you are need of any advice on project ideas too.

Learning From Scratch

Hello everyone my name is Andrew Russo and I aspire to become a Graphic Designer. I decided to change my major last year from Marketing to Graphic Design last year because I realized my passion lies within Art. I am in my third year of college, but I am behind in school partly due to my change in career focus, but I also  participated in an internship through the Disney College Program during the spring semester of 2011. When coming back to Central Michigan University this year I had to make the decision of pursuing my marketing degree or make a drastic change by pursuing graphic design.

Ultimately I decided, with the help of family and friends, to put aside marketing and pursue what I knew I would really enjoy. The reason why I knew graphic design would be the perfect degree to acquire was because I had always loved art, I spend the majority of my free time on the computer, editing pictures, creating advertisements on ebay, learning a little bit of code and embedding files, and creating my own website my senior year of high school.

Not only do I plan to work for a company someday, but I plan to create and manage my own social network. As far-fetched of an idea as it is right now, I am aspiring to learn all of the necessary tools in creating my own unique social network. I have had the basic fundamentals of it written out and drawn up since 2009, but I had brushed it off to the side for the past couple years because I had no idea where to start. Now that I am pursuing a degree that will help me with this in the long run I have found my motivation once again.  I will have the basic skills necessary to begin the project once again. I will use tutorials from Youtube.com, other webpages to learn to create it, and if you have any supportive tips then I would greatly appreciate it as well.

As for school, I am working on building a portfolio to get into the Graphic Design Program through Central Michigan University. They only select a limited number of applicants into the program, so I am in great need of assistance on what kind of work I should put together for my portfolio. I am currently in the basic art classes, but intend to start posting my work onto my blog for all of you to see. Next semester I will finally be in Intro to Graphic Design so I am very excited to show all of you my work progress throughout the semester. I will try to post videos and tips as I pursue my journey to becoming a Graphic Designer.