Author Archives: Xiaoqian Hu

About Xiaoqian Hu

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Illustrated Quote

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From the beginning till the end, I changed a lot of my design, but the only thing I didn’t move out is the yellow umbrella. Here are some steps I took to reach my design destination.

First, the reason why I chose this quote: “Character is how you treat those people who can do nothing for you.” is because I’ve remembered this sentence since 3 years ago, it leads my thought through these years, so no matter how long it is, I will use it anyway, I told my self two weeks ago. Then the question is what kind of image should I use, I was looking for some helping hands, but accidentally, I saw a beautiful umbrella with some love hearts under it, so I draw some sketches to imagine how it will work. However, turns out those hearts will take too much space and I have to use enough space to put that long quote inside of 10 by 10 square.

So I tried a single umbrella, I chose yellow color because it enlighten the whole picture, just like how that quote enlighten me. But problem is I didn’t know where to put my quote, so I just gave a try. After I heard some classmates and professor’s suggestions, I started to rethink, maybe I should add or cut something. So I did some changes: I used black as background color instead of green; I added a little girl looks like she is giving out her umbrella to someone else, so it will more related to the meaning of that quote; I put those words along the umbrella, small but neat. I tried to combine words with picture into a very quite and clean environment. Silent kindness is what I want to express through this project, and I like my second design.

Design Samples

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I think this design caught my attention because the wood material and the arrangement of those words make me feel it is a good wine place.

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This design is hidden in a Japanese style front door. I was not sure about what is this for, but the combination of yellow and green board and Romaji with Japanese words make this design very unique and reminds me of Japanese green tea and cookies.

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This fitness design is very interesting, because it changes “i” into a man doing weight lifting, and this little man will call people’s attention. 1

I like this burger logo design because it is neat, simple, understandable. The inside looks like a typical burger, and it uses bold Helvetica to emphasize what does this shop sell. “Spot” also means circle, so it uses a round circle to cover outside of “burger” logo, very great design.

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I like this design is because unlike other coffee brand designs, it uses color to emphasize people’s memory.  A simple simple bottle image and simple Helvetica “blue bottle” words, and a milk paper bottle makes me really want to try this coffee.

Trace my name

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The typeface I chose is century expanded. I chose this typeface is because after I tried every single typefaces in Microsoft word, this one looks the best. I like how it combines traditional beauty and modern neat. Obviously, it is not easy to trace, but I really enjoyed the process of doing it.

Once I started, I realized that century expanded has one typical feature“ every corner is round, every edge is straight. So actually, tracing job is much easer than I thought before. Through this project, I learned how to appreciate typefaces, I started to pay attention to their details, just like to appreciate a beautiful person. Before, I thought typefaces has no life, but I am wrong, it has million life styles. And each style has different meaning, century expanded’s life meaning is “I am elegant, as well as modern”.

Expressive Words Project

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Just like everyone did during the first day of class, I tried to work something out simply by using the software. However, it turns out pretty bad. After that, I know a good design always starts from a piece of paper and a pen and a good hand. I tried many types, some of them are simple, some are strange, and the longer the word is, the more difficulties will have. So I chose “Quiet” at the end, as the most short word on the list. I think I used the regular Helvetica, because I want it be as simple as possible.

What I learned from this project is that don’t try to play too hard on those words, it will make the design looks even worse than the original one. And typography is quite unlike fine arts, simple and clear will be the best.

What is Graphic Design

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The first paragraph basically tells us the definition of graphic design. I understand that graphic design is a practical and useful visual art that exists for a very long period. For a hundred years, from newspapers to websites, all kinds of design forms comes out, including images, words and graphics. Most importantly, the type design, which covers all the visual communication forms today. In every single graphic design pieces, you will see type design. So, to be more specifically, visual communication cannot communicate without type design.

My question to the author is that “Do I need a fine arts background to learn graphic design?” The possible answer I believe is “No, you do not need a drawing or painting background to do the visual design, but that defiantly will be a benefit if you know how to do fine arts.”