winter has arrived.

Well winter has officially arrived with the freezing temps and the loads of snow, though right about now I am glad to be in Minneapolis where the crazy snow storm is going to be over by the time it gets here. None the less there is still a decent amount of snow outside, good thing I’m going to be stuck in the basement for the next week and a half doing finals work. Thought I’d give you a sneak peak at some stuff I’m working on for my environmental science class… these posters are part of a package deal that will contain “eco-friendly” items in a reusable bag. I’m sure I’ll be posting more of my work as the week progresses, as for now, have  lovely snowy evening <3

Fort Snelling

Poster design is probably my favorite thing to do so far. Here’s a poster I did for my print production class. We had to pick a state or national park and make an advertisement type poster for them. I chose Fort. Snelling because I had my own pictures from there that I could use. Naturally this looks kind of bad on here because it was made for print, not web, but hopefully you get the idea The man in the photo is my brother, he has a pretty rad blog too, Check it out.

Painting Salvage

Well… if you read my previous post you would know that I was SO excited about the way this project was going… then I added the text and it went all down hill. I will spare you of the details, but lets just say this have NOT been my week. I used a oil-based pen to apply the text. I didn’t trust myself with a paint brush AT ALL, so I went with the pen… part of me wishes I would have risked the paint brush. Anyways. Here’s what it looked like. The text is just to shiny, and so it stands out to much. You can’t really tell in this picture because I moved the light so it wouldn’t be shiny. lol. The text also bothers me because I think the handwriting is bad, but it should be, because if it was perfect it wouldn’t fit with what it was saying. I just have always not liked my handwriting so that’s all that is about. SO, I took a trip to blick and the scrapbooking store and bought some stuff to hopefully help me salvage it. So I added these cute little brown squares, some blue and green buttons and some flowers. I def think it helps. The big flower in the middle is the biggest part, that empty space was really bothering me so that makes it look so much better. I like it better now, but part of me wishes I would have never added the text… but hey, there’s a reason I’m in school right?

 

Your thoughts? Am I crazy and it really looks fine? Is it still horrible? (hehe) I wanna hear it all! <3 .

Grammar of Ornament

So I just finished my Design History project and I LOVE IT! It’s probably my favorite project I’ve ever done, especially painting speaking.

We had to take an idea from a specific time period and re-create or create a project with that theme. I took my inspiration from a page in the “grammar of ornament”. I have always loved the ornate look. It’s amazing the things people come up with. So I took this original… I added color to it. So first I had to find my colors, and tape everything off to get the perfect squares and paint the first layer on. This took awhile painting perfect lines and I had to apply two coats. Then I sketched on the designs, some are these originals, some are modified, and some are new. Then I used an oil based paint marker. This was the longest part. I bet it took me about 10 hours to paint in all the designs. I had to be really careful not to mess up or get it on my hands because I don’t have the stuff to clean oil based paint (which can’t be washed away with water and soap) so it was all of drawing and waiting to dry etc. etc. So enough of my rambling… Here’s the final product… the picture is kind of bad, but just as I was going to take a different one my camera died So when I take a new one I’ll fix it. seriously, I love it.

I [think] I’ve Done It!

WELP. Today I spent about 4 hours working on my logo and getting the vector version.. just right.. it’s harder than you would think. BUT I think I finally have a logo I love. We’ll see how it all goes down on Monday at my final critique, but for now I want to hear what you guys think!

The middle three are really just example of what I could do with it for fun situations. The top and bottom are the ones I’m debating on. Do I want to always use the bottom one? Or maybe use both of them depending on the situation. For now I’m leaning towards the bottom one, I just feel like it looks cleaner and more finished.

But what do you guys think? Also, Do you like the “JennMann Design” part of it as well?

Also, If you would like to see a larger version of it, Click on the flickr photo on the right. It’s kind of crappy quality, it being a jpeg and all but it gets the job done for now.

Logo: finally?

SO, after a much need lllllooooonnnnnggggg convo with my teacher about my previous *horrendous* logo designs, I have a new idea. Now I was going to show you the process and all my scribble sketches, but well I didn’t feel like scanning all of those in AND its not the interesting to look at. lol. Anyways, if you have ever seen my sign my name I put this little weird design on the inside of my “J”. I started going it a long time ago because I’ve always thought the letter “J” was ugly (sorry mom & dad) and I wanted to make it unique. This is a spin off of that… well actually… when I first started writing my “J” like that like it looked more like this with an “M” shape in the middle… not its just a lazy, fast squiggle.

Obviously this is just the sketch and I need to take it into Illustrator and make the real deal, but I thought I would show you guys this before that’s done. It is, of course, part of the process hehe. ANYWAYS where it says “JennMann Design ////” that’s just showing an option of laying out my info with my logo the “/////” would be where my phone number and/or email would go but obviously I’m not going to plaster those across the internet. Once I get this into illustrator and start messing with it some things might change a little, I realize the “M” kind of looks like a heart, maybe to much, although my last name is “mannhardt” pronouched man-heart. So, some people say its fitting, we’ll see, its not done yet but its MUCH closer than my previous ones.

Now for the important part… WHAT DO YOU THINK?!

argh.

so please ignore the post below. because, well it all sucks. and i’m starting from scratch, again. haha. oh the design process, such a frustrating and stressful one but so very rewarding in the end.

It’s ironic that I love design, yet the process for me is horrendous. I don’t deal with stress very well, I never have. I have various ways of trying to deal with it some good (like exercising)… some not so good (like eating my grandmothers delicious cookies, her’s are the best… for the record.) One thing I have started to learn is that I need to just stop what I’m doing and walk away and at some point I will have an epiphany about what needs to be done and how it should happen.

I also find it funny that these epiphanies come at the weirdest times, usually when I should be focusing on something else important or in a random place where I can write down what I’ve just thought of. For example: at the grocery store, driving, in the shower, when I’m on the phone talking to someone about something totally different etc. BUT I also find it AWESOME that some of my BEST epiphanies have been when I was at some sort of “church” function. For example, well when I’m at church, or when I was at Rob Bell’s “Drop Like Stars”, or when I was at the Desiring God Conference.

I think it has a lot to say for how creative our God is. I was in the presence of God at these events and I wasn’t even focusing on my project/design dilemma and yet *bam* perfect idea I needed. I often feel bad when this happens in church because then I can’t stop thinking about it when I know I should be listening to what John Piper (or whoever else) is saying.

We talked about the universe this week in Sunday School (I’m at 7th & 8th grade small group leader) and how magnificent it is, and how creative and amazing God is for creating it. It’s reminded me that He is the ultimate creator and the most creative being and when I find myself in times like this where I want to rip all my hair out or crawl in the corner and CRY, that I can turn to Him for comfort and guidance. Because who better to ask advice for than the greatest creator ever?

How do you deal with stress?

When was the last time you TRULY looked around and realized how amazing/beautiful our universe is?

I’m Back!

Well I’m back. I miss the blogging world and I have to document a lot of stuff for school and as things get harder I feel it would be really nice to be able to blog them and get opinions.. (assuming people read this lol.)

So my major predicament right now is creating a logo for myself. I’m struggling with this. I want something that can be versatile, something that can be really classy and then also used in a really artistic way. I want to be able to apply texture to it, because well, I love texture. And, lastly, I want it to be able to work in grayscale and in color.

I’ve decided to refer to myself as JennMann for lots of reasons, a few being Jennifer Mannhardt is long and most people misspell Mannhardt (this is important when it comes to website search engine stuff), my twitter name is JennMann, lots of people call me JennMann and well, its just kind of fun and easy. (opinions on this? hate it? love it? don’t care?)

well here are screen shots of what I’m working on. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let me know what you think!

These are all pretty rough, so I wont be offended if you say “I HATE THEM ALL!!!!!” haha.

This is another one I just quickly threw together, I really love the ornament look, but I don’t know. There are lots of reasons I’m leaning away from this look. What do you think?

well I’m going to stop blabbing. Let me know what you think!