Design Art for the KAZU Art Mug Contest

Hello Students,

Entering design contests is a great way to boost your experience and if you are a finalist it can be a big boost to your future career. KAZU is hosting a coffee mug design contest as a give away prize to station subscribers. Your newest assignment is to create a design for this contest and if you so wish to submit it for judging. Contest details are below and a template for the artwork can be downloaded as well.

KAZU Art Mug Design Competition:

KAZU 90.3 FM is seeking submissions from our talented and creative listeners for the station's inaugural KAZU Artist Mug Design Contest. You make KAZU possible, and we want to involve you in what we do. This is a way you can leave a lasting impression on KAZU Public Radio. The winning design will be featured on a limited-edition mug that will be available to KAZU donors during the Fall 2015 and Spring 2016 Membership Drives.

About the competition:

What does KAZU mean to you? What image does it conjure? Your design should reflect an interpretation or appreciation of the station, its programs or the station's home in the Monterey Bay Area.

We welcome all styles of artwork from cartoon to watercolor to photography -- as long as it translates well on a coffee mug! The winning design will be posted on our website and will also be promoted on the air during our next membership drives. The winning artist will receive significant on-air mentions during the Fall 2015 and Spring 2016 Membership Drives.

All entries must be received by the station by Friday, August 28, 2015. Check the home page for the template artwork

How to submit artwork:

Please submit your entry via email to lwalling@kazu.org OR mail it on CD to Lisa Walling - KAZU 90.3 FM - CSU Monterey Bay - 100 Campus Center - Seaside, CA 93955. Include your name, address, email, and phone number with your submission. More than one entry per artist is accepted.

Design specifications:
The printing space is 8 and 3/4 inches wide and 4 and 5/16 inches high, and the entire design must fit into the printing area (see PDF file below with template of printing area.) The image should be in full color and able to wrap around an 15 oz. white ceramic coffee mug almost from handle to handle.


The art must be "placed" and sized into the template -- see PDF file below with template of printing area. On the template, please note the horizontal text lines (the dotted lines across the top and bottom.) ALL text must sit between these two dotted lines. This keeps the text away from the lip and bottom of mug and avoids blurriness during the sublimation process. All imagery can go all the way to the lip and bottom (noted by solid outer black lines in the template.)

A caption "Designed for KAZU by (your name) 2015" must be included. It can be incorporated into the design or run along the inside edge of the horizontal text lines in the printing area.

The design must be provided in a digital format. We accept Adobe Illustrator (preferred), Photoshop, and JPEG and TIFF formats 300 dpi or higher. Hi-resolution vector art in CMYK is ideal. The artwork can be created in any medium you want, even a painting or quilt, but it will need to be scanned or photographed at a high resolution of at least 300 DPI to then be converted into a digital format. It should fit the printing space given above.

The design must be created exclusively for KAZU 90.3 FM. The artist gives KAZU the unlimited rights to reproduce and/or display the image on mugs, websites, and other promotional materials. The image will become the property of KAZU 90.3 FM, and we will retain the artwork submitted for the station's permanent collection. The artist will not receive any payment, cash or otherwise, for the work.

Some examples of winning public radio coffee mug artwork can be found at:
Utah Public Radio
WUOT Public Radio
New England Public Radio (scroll to bottom of page to see designs chosen in the last 8 years)

The design chosen for the mug will be decided in-house by KAZU staff members and the chosen artist will be notified no later than the second week of September, 2015.

Questions? Contact Lisa Walling at 831-582-5293 or lwalling@kazu.org

- Have fun!
- Mr.W

Design and Create an Original Magazine Cover

Hello Students,

Your new assignment is a combination of using Digital Photography and 3 programs to create one product, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and Indesign. Find a high resolution image and process the photo with filters if you wish in photoshop and use it to design an original magazine cover with Adobe Indesign. You will create additional artistic elements with Illustrator as well. This project is a good lesson in utilizing multiple software tools. You need to use original photos and content!

Part 1 - Launch and Explore InDesign

• If you are confident with Indesign you can skip ahead, if you feel you need more familiarity with Indesign than read through and try out all the tools in Indesign before proceeding.
• Go to the dock and launch InDesign, or look in your Applications folder to find the app
• Go to the File Menu and create a New Document
• Go to the Window Menu and set your Workspace to Advanced
• Explore the tool bar, click on the text tool and draw a text box to create text, try the shape tools and look for the color modifiers to change colors
• Open all the palettes under the Window Menu and explore all the functions, look at the quick guides below for reference
• See if you can create text of different sizes, change the colors, modify the text kerning and tracking and draw shapes in different colors and with different borders

Hidden Tools and Shortcut Keys

Character Formatting Panel In InDesign

Paragraph Formatting Panel in InDesign

Part 2 - Magazine Cover Design Project:

• Think up a magazine topic and title for your cover design, create a simple pencil sketch of the cover including all photos, art, titles, headers, text insets Your magazine must have a title header that is created in Illustrator, a cover photo that has been post-processed in Photoshop, a photo inset, text headlines with effects created with Indesign. It should also include all details such as month, date, edition number, etc.
• When you design is ready grab a camera and shoot your cover photo, use Photoshop to post process the image for your cover. Crop, colorize, convert to black and white, use filters for an illustration look.... do something creative with your cover image
• Design your magazine title with Illustrator, spend time making the typography and any illustrative elements look perfect. Consider colors that will blend well with your cover image
• Create decorative borders or inset elements with Illustrator
• Set up your document in Indesign for standard letter size.... import all your different elements and begin arranging them on the page.... create any additional typographic elements in Indesign... use colors that are complimentary and read well.
• Add your image insets and additional details for a polished look, make it perfect!
• If you need some standards to go by or some inspiration, check out this tutorial: Magazine cover design tutorial with Indesign

Here is the progression of my magazine cover design. I took the photo, processed it with Photoshop, added colorful borders in Illustrator and brought it into Indesign to create my magazine cover design.

Designs are due on friday, this should be another great design piece for your portfolio!

 - Mr.W


Student Examples:

Design an Original Album Cover

Hello Students,
Your new assignment is to create an original album cover design. All artwork, photography and illustration's used in your cover design must be 100% original. You will focus on creating the album cover only to fit a cd jewel case insert. Use all of your skills you have learned this semester, you must demonstrate your competence in using design and software skills.

Introducing: Fou Ts'ong, Piano, Mozart Piano Cocerti , K503 & K595,  Westminster , Rudolph de Harak

Assignment Details:
You will be creating a CD album artwork. Start by listening to an album you would like to create a design for. Think about how you can visualize the physical and emotional response the music creates inside of you... how can you put those influences into a visual representation? When listening to the music it can help to create a list of words that come to mind... think of it as creating your own inspirational word cloud.. this can help influence your visual design and give it focus. They key to this assignment is to make sure the artwork on the album cover is representational of the music it is showcasing.

Assignment Specifications:
Utilize all of the skills you have learned this semester. This project should be a shining example of your graphic design skills for your portfolio.

• Find a template for a CD jewel cover insert for the dimensions, if you like you could design the album for a vinyl record album... the dimensions will be larger so look up a template by searching for it online
• All artwork, illustration and photography used must be 100% original
• Make sure the design shows unity with the music it is showcasing
• Typography must display the album title and name of band
• Use all design principals that can be applied, alignment, typography, contrast etc. Focus on typography and composition for a professional looking result
• Use Photoshop or Illustrator or both, your choice

Links for Inspiration:

35 Beautiful Music Album Covers

History of Record Cover Design

50 Amazing Album Cover Art Examples

Designs are due on friday, have fun!

- Mr.W

New Project: Event Poster Design

Hello Students, 

Your new assignment is to design an event poster for a musical group. You must adhere to the specifications below and use your own creativity to design an eye catching and original poster design. This is your chance to flex your creative and design skills. All elements studied are to be utilized and will be scrutinized: color, design, illustration and typography.

Poster design by your instructor, Seth Wilson

Event Poster Design Project:

- You MUST produce 1 FULL PAGE pencil sketch of your poster design idea

- Your poster must be designed at 18"X24" at 300DPI if you are using Photoshop

- Your poster must contain ORIGINAL ARTWORK or ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHY. You can use found images as reference only, but direct artwork tracing or photography used in your project must be original. Time to bust out your camera's!!!

- You may use Photoshop or Illustrator or both... your choice

- You may use no more than 2 fonts

- You must choose 2 bands/musical acts/artists to include in your poster, one group is the headline act, the other is the opening act

- Your poster must contain the following elements:

   • Band #1

   • Band #2 Opening Act

   • Location (the venue, such as The Catalyst or The Greek, Shoreline, etc...)

   • Date of the show

   • Show Times

   • Ticket Price

   • Ages Admitted

- When you post your final work to your blog you must display the color palette used, list all fonts used, what software and hardware was used, including the camera

TIPS, TRICKS AND RESOURCES FOR POSTER DESIGN

• Designing a poster isn't always easy, especially if it is your first time. Don't be afraid to experiment and don't feel held back by your drawing capabilities. There are lots of tricks to creating original artwork from photographs that don't require elite artistic techniques.
• Pay attention to the spaces BETWEEN your letters. Take some lessons from our typography studies and pay attention to the spacing, pace and rythmn of the words.
• Use colors that COMPLIMENT each other. When your color choices clash it affects the entire composition of your design.
• Communicate your message with the right images. Poster design is about communicating and delivering information. Your design should fit the style of music that the poster is advertising, pay attention to what will speak to your intended audience best.

Links for inspiration:

Link - Creative Event Poster Design Samples

Link - 30 Inspiring Poster Designs

Link - Vintage Poster Designs for Color Inspiration

Examples of student work: