For the start of 2012, AIGA Houston is running a New Year’s Resolution contest! Submissions must be on a 720 x 720 composition and can feature illustration or design that represents one or all of your goals for the new year!

Contest ends January 31st. To file a submission please email jpegs to socialmedia@houston.aiga.org.

Entries will be uploaded to the album as they are received. Whichever submissions gets the most “likes” will win the typographic pocket planner, “Today is the Day”, by Jessica Hische to help make your goals a reality!

To view the gallery on Facebook and vote on your favorite.

I remember when we fisrt began to study form and composition, triangles in Photography 101 just did it for me. I became hypnotized when watching movies at the time. Frame by frame, I could see the ingredients to beautiful. In particular, I remember the Harry Potter scene when the kid took off with the magic broom in the courtyard-or in Black Hawk Down when the helicopter fell. Every shot was crafted, built, cropped-angles, visual continuity, movement, harmony everywhere. Not a single paused frame was neglected.

Design principles are imperative to our daily. Due to the eye’s tendency towards gestalt theory, a sound composition is a visual magnet. We use them to sell, show, teach, seduce, inform, indulge-communicate. This is why we can not forget to create with care. You’ve got x amount of seconds to communicate to eyes, brains across America through a movie and youv’e got an hour and a half to do so; this is why people want to look at movies, because they visually hand craft those frames with love and it shows. You have 30 seconds to create a tv spot that people will not walk away from; what words do you choose to put on the screen? After all, isn’t filming in any form, just a record of information hierarchy? You have .5 seconds before someone decides to click on another webpage, use that giant image for your home page and they are gone. You have photographs to send to your boss, send careless pics and your efforts become wasted. You have to photograph work that represents your team, what are you going to put in your square-your lens, your L7 weenie fingers-what do you say if you neglect composition?

We are creators of visual anthropology. Let us tend to our responsibilities and mind our principles. It’s not about being pretty, it’s about communicating effectively. Photography plays a huge role in design. Recognition is crucial.

2011 was a very good year for AIGA Houston. A quick montage of people, places and events that helped shape our experiences and community in 2011, and helped informed our vision for 2012.

What are you looking forward to in 2012 from AIGA Houston? We’re interested in hearing your thoughts and ideas.

Music track: “Inní mér syngur vitleysingur” (Icelandic for “Within me a lunatic sings”) by Sigur Rós

AIGA Houston would not be possible without all of our members, volunteers, sponsors and board of directors.

Many Thanks to…

Our 2011 Speakers:
Nessim Higson
Allan Chochinov
Andy Epstein
Pablo Ferro

And to the following studios and organizations for their continued support:
AdCetera
Axiom
Brand Extract
Culture Pilot
Gensler
Keystone Resources
Origin
Primer Grey
Pennebaker
Savage
Schipul
2 Chairs Design
CultureMap
Domy Books
Heights Theater
Houston Press
Getty Images
Spacetaker
Rice Design Alliance
Museum of Fine Arts Houston

And a special thanks to our volunteers:
Marrisa Avelar
Nurit Avni
Erica Bogdan
Joanna Bonner
Jill Hunter
Monica Yeal Garcia
Rowan Gearon
Daren Guillory
Chris Jones
Christopher Lee
Mick Markham
Norma Riehle
Jessica Rios
Steve Thomson

Portfolio shows. They are the debutante’s ball of the design world. It’s the nerve-wracking rite of passage we all go through to demonstrate to the world that we’re ready to leave the comforting nest of design school and spread our wings in the marketplace as professionals. But for the founders of Project Khömble – Carmen Garza, Hugo Perez, Lucie Pognonec and Athena Floudas (above, left to right), all students at the Art Institute of Houston – one portfolio show just wasn’t enough. They wanted something more substantial, more focused, and more unique than the show they all received as graduates. So they got busy working on a crazy idea – an independent portfolio show of their own making – and earned some pretty impressive fans along the way.

This independent portfolio show will be held Friday, December 16 from 6–11pm at Houston’s Alley Theatre, free of charge and open to the public. Be sure to check out khomble.com for more information (including the show’s participants and their portfolio sites) and @KhombleProject on Twitter.

Of course, at this point you may be asking, “what the hell is a Khömble?”

Khömble (pronounced KOOM-bull) is a mash-up word invented by the founders to encapsulate the attitude of its participants: “confident but humble.” Proud of their skills and all they’ve accomplished, but grounded enough to know they have a lot to learn. “It was just an idea, in the beginning,” says Athena Floudas. “I wanted us to have something that we could always look back on, memories; [an event] to promote the way we want, to have a fun time and a great show. And at first we weren’t sure, but – now we’re here!”  The ‘here’ is the heart of Houston’s theatre district, the Alley Theatre. An impressive venue, no doubt – one they were able to secure through Ricky Ruiz, a Khömble participant who happens to also work for the Alley. “Khomble turned from an idea into a full-running project once I showed them [the terrace room]  – right away I could see the spark in everyone’s eyes,” said Ricky. From there, the students developed the overall concept, began meeting regularly to hammer out the details, and got busy making sure the entire project had a clean, professional look. Khömble suddenly became kind of a big deal.

The level of promotion in both traditional and social media for Khömble has been impressive, to say the least. Silk-screened posters, leave-behinds, t-shirts and business cards – even the old-school route of actually sending formal invitation letters by mail (remember those?) – compliments an online presence that is professional and approachable. The cost for this campaign came through a combination of donations (printing costs and space) and good old fashioned creative ingenuity. “Just about the only thing we’ve had to pay out of pocket is the postage,” said Lucie Pognonec.

Khömble’s Twitter account has been a means for the group to reach out to and correspond with some notable figures in the design world. “The typeface we’re using for Khömble – Benton Sans – was designed by Cyrus Highsmith, and he sent us a shout-out. He sent us inspirational words of wisdom, his ’10 rules for students and teachers.’ So amazing that he would do that for us,” said Carmen Garza. Erik Spiekermann was also another notable advice-giver via Twitter, and others have contributed advice via uploaded video that will be shown at the exhibition.

17 designers in total answered Khömble’s call for entries, and all 17 were accepted into the exhibition. “Everyone who wanted a spot got one,” said Athena. “The call for entries was our way of making sure everyone who wanted to participate was going to appreciate it; to take it seriously and make the same effort we were. We let everyone know: you have to be motivated.” All 17 are students of the Art Institute of Houston, however, that was more a result of where the project got started. Khömble is not an Ai exclusive event. “To me, the school [that you come from] does not matter; it’s not about the place that you went to. It’s about how much you wanted to be there. For us, the Art Institute was just the place for us all to meet,” said Lucie. Athena would also like it to expand going forward. “I’ve seen the work from the students at UofH and HCC and others, and we would love to have their work in the show in the future,” she said.

It’s tough for these students to look too far past this Friday night. They’re hoping the whole thing goes off without a hitch and that they get the largest turnout they possibly can. But in the long run, they don’t see Khömble ending this week – they’d like for it to grow into an annual or semi-annual event. And though all students participating happen to be from the Art Institute of Houston, they plan to encourage students from the greater Houston area to participate in the future, giving employers a unique opportunity to see some of Houston’s emerging design talent. But the future of Khömble hinges on Friday’s turnout.

Come out this Friday and support Project Khömble. AIGA Houston wishes them all the best of luck, and we would also like to encourage students from other schools around Houston to take the initiative and launch more independent projects of their own – no matter how crazy they might seem at first. It’s these kinds of projects that really help to elevate your student experience – and Houston’s student design community at large – rewarding you with recognition, priceless experience and the forming of friendships that last your entire career.

See you all Friday.

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If you are a student or student group member and would like to involve AIGA Houston in an initiative of your own, email education (at) houston.aiga.org.

It doesn’t snow very often in Houston, and if it does it really doesn’t stick. Only huge Art Deco snowflakes will last (and they come back every year).

I love the simplicity of these decorations. They harmonize well with the Art Deco architecture that surrounds them. There are many buildings in the Art Deco, Neo Deco and Art Moderne styles in Houston and they give it a part of its particular character. Examples include the River Oaks Theater, the JPMorgan Chase Building (formerly Gulf Building) and the Williams Tower (formerly Transco Tower).

Prior to 1927, most architect-designed buildings in Houston were either local versions of classical revival architecture or Victorian designs adapted for the city’s hot, humid climate. Modernistic architecture’s growing popularity coincided with a conscious effort by Houston’s business and civic leaders to tie the city’s image to the American West and de-emphasize its Southern heritage. For many Houstonians, modernistic buildings represented the city’s future.

Source: houstondeco.org

The decorations were created by Always in Season.

Step 1- Download the Firefox Browser

Step 2 - Download and install the Firebug Add-On

 Step 3 – Turn on Firebug

Once you download and install Firefox and the Firebug Add-On, you should have an icon in the top right hand corner of your browser as shown below. Click on the little bug icon. A “window pane” will open up at the bottom of the browser.

For the remainder of this article, I’ll be utilizing the HM White Architects website as an example. You can open it in another tab and click on the Firebug icon:

What’s Important and What’s Not – For Now

Now we’re ready to explore! For our purposes, I’ve highlighted a few key features that we will be reviewing as some are a little more advanced and not necessary right now. On the left hand side of the Firebug toolbar, we want to focus on the blue arrow with an outline box, the HTML tab and the CSS tab as shown and highlighted in light blue:

On the right hand side of the Firebug toolbar, we want to focus on the Style tab and the Layout tab as shown and highlighted in light blue:

The rest of what is available to us is a little more advanced, so there is really no need to explore those sections at this time. And while I’ve labeled them “Not Important”, that is only because we need to focus on the simpler features first.

Given the curious nature of designers, I’m positive you’ve already begun clicking here-and-there to see what happens and in the general sense, I would encourage you to do that. Explore the Firebug toolbar and see what it can do for you on your own.

Remember, though it would appear that what you do in the Firebug toolbar is affecting the live site, it actually isn’t. The only way to affect a live site is if you have administrative access to the hosting server and the files that reside there. The point is, don’t be worried if the layout of the website changes after you click something – it isn’t really affecting the site. You can just refresh your browser and it will go back to the way it was.

Twirl Down, Mouseover and Select

There is a lot to learn, so I’ll guide you through a few more steps before we *wrap this lesson up. You’ve probably noticed that when you mouse over the HTML markup in the window pane at the bottom, a portion of the website highlights in a light blue transparent color. This is to show us “where we are” on the site from within the markup. The image below shows how we have “twirled” down the arrows on the left hand side of the markup and clicked on div id=”content”, which has highlighted the corresponding “content” division or “layer” in the website:

*Remember, a “div”, short for “division” is only a containing box that holds content. We can also think of it as a layer.

We should be very familiar with “twirling” as this function is native to virtually every OS, as well as our popular design tools like Photoshop, i.e. “twirling” down layer groups to reveal the contents within the group.

In addition to highlighting the selected portion of the website within the main window, Firebug will also list the styles associated with the selection in the lower right hand portion of the window pane as shown below:

From what we can see, both the wrapper div  – #wrapper – and the content div – #content – have the styles of “float left” and “width 773px”. *Don’t worry about syntax right now. We can also see that those two divs have inherited multiple styles from the “body” CSS rule, because it clearly says, “Inherited from body”. We learned about inheritance in my previous article.

Using the Direct Selection Tool

After you’ve experimented twirling down the HTML markup and highlighting some div id’s or classes, go ahead and click on the direct selection tool:

Now you will notice that we can drill down further into the HTML markup just by mousing over areas of the website from within the main browser window. In fact, you will notice that as you move your cursor over the website, various portion of the site will be highlighted with a gray box and shadow. This highlighting effect is dependent upon the HTML markup, or the “code” and as you move your mouse around you can see how you can navigate directly to portion of the code where the mouse is – it will be reflected in the Firebug window pane.

As you can see below (note the position of the cursor from the previous paragraph), we should get a clear picture of what is happening, on a visual level, with websites in general. Namely, the design, markup (or HTML) and the style (or CSS) are all communicating with one another to create the finished product:

On a fundamental level, this is the point of the article: to understand that there are multiple components working in concert to create the desired effect. In addition to that, there are tools we can use to help visualize this process.

There is still a great deal more going on, like interactions using javascript for example, and more tools that we can use that are more detailed. But, this should get us going and set us on a path of discovering how websites work on our own.

In the next segment, we’ll dive more into how Firebug can help us as well as why there has been a dramatic shift in favor of CSS. On that note, if you want to get ahead, go ahead and click within one of the CSS rules like we see in the image above. For example, try selecting the font-size: 11px; attribute within the Firebug style tab in the lower right. Let’s use, 20px for the font size instead. See what happens?!

Also, in case you needed more background information that builds up to the points that were made here, be sure to read:

• Wrapping Your Brain Around CSS – Part 1
• Wrapping Your Brain Around CSS – Part 2

Enjoy!

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DESIGN MATTERS with Debbie Millman
Debbie Millman
Design Observer

In some ways, I feel silly recommending a podcast featuring Debbie Millman. After all – among designers, who isn’t familiar with Debbie and her work? She isn’t exactly low-profile in the design world, having just ended her very successful term as President of AIGA. Most of you reading this I would imagine have at least one of her books in your collection. Yet it surprises me how often I run into people who’ve never heard of the Design Matters podcast.

In Design Matters, Millman interviews the biggest names in the creative world. From rising stars like Jessica Hische to design legends like Milton Glaser, DM is one of the best resources I have found for perspective and philosophy from the greatest minds in design, all in a casual, conversational format that makes the interviewees’ personalities shine through. It’s one thing to admire a designer’s work on a visual level. But to really hear from the designers themselves about how they approach their process, their career ups and downs, and especially how they got to where they are, offers a level of personal insight we rarely get to experience. Debbie Millman has a knack for asking all the right questions and coaxing the most relevant insights from her subjects.

Occasionally, Millman deviates from the standard interview format and strikes a more personal note. My personal favorite DM episode was her interview with Stefan Sagmeister from November of ’09 (her second DM interview with Sagmeister – the former occurred in ’05). Listening to Sagmeister is always engaging and worth one’s time, but it was the intro portion of this episode I found so endearing. Rather than launch directly into the interview, Debbie related a story about her early career, where she faced a series of personal and career setbacks, culminating in an impromptu trip overseas she was too stressed out to truly enjoy. I won’t spoil it for you, but essentially her relating a personal story of career anxiety and learning from one’s failures resonated with me as much – if not more – than any of her 100+ interviews with the icons of design. It’s Millman’s personal touches that make Design Matters something special.

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You can subscribe to Design Matters via iTunes. Be sure to check out the Design Matters Archive as well. Debbie Millman’s Twitter feed is @debbiemillman.

If you have a podcast, lecture or series you’d like to recommend for us to share with the AIGA Houston community, send submissions to education (at) houston.aiga.org.

This Saturday (November 5th) will be CTRL+ART+CREATE: AIGA Houston’s 2nd Annual Art Festival. For those that missed it last year, this year we will be offering live music, raffle prizes and giveaways and free workshops for the kids. Please feel free to stop on by and bring your blankets and lawn chairs to enjoy the nice weather.

To give you, our loyal blog readers, a sneak peek of what to expect, we’ve compiled a listing of some of your local artists and vendors who will be showcasing their work there at the festival. (Note, we will be updating this page as more bios and artwork comes in. So please, check in often. )

Lisa Chow is a Houston based artist, illustrator, make believer and story teller. Armed with an overly active imagination, a healthy dose of creativity and self-taught skills learned through trial and error, her work is whimsical, delicate, surreal and strange. Drawing inspiration from crowded cities, fairy tales and bygone years, Lisa strives to transport viewers to foreign lands that still feel oddly like home. Her personal artworks have found homes with collectors from all over the world and her illustration clients stretch from the music industry to magazines.

Erica Bogdan is the Creative Services Designer at the web marketing company, Schipul. But when she isn’t designing websites, you can find her away from the computer – paper macheing giant heads, sketching new whimsical characters, and making jewelry pieces. Erica got her bachelors degree in graphic design at St. Edward’s University in Austin and participated in the screen print t-shirt sales with the SEU group, Command G. Erica gets inspiration from her work everywhere, but especially loves browsing around on Pinterest and Fffound and can get lost for hours on those sites. Her illustrations are usually doe-eyed sad looking children with animal hats but once in awhile she’ll throw a robot in the mix. Check out her website (http://www.ericabogdan.com) or her etsy or even follow her pinterest.

Tupelo Grease Co. produces men’s and women’s vintage rock-inspired clothing – including graphic tees, pearl snap shirts, vests and blazers, caps, watches and other accessories – all with a vintage look and feel. In fact many of the items are actually composed of vintage items and materials, and are hand-constructed, distressed, printed, stitched, sewn and otherwise embellished right here in Houston. They can also be found online at http://www.TupeloGrease.com

Sylvester Sanchez is a graphic designer from Houston and he draws weird things. See some more of his weird drawings here: http://dudetrippy.tumblr.com

Graciela Constanza is a Graphic Designer. She likes to work with gold, silver, precious and semi-precious stones, and vintage findings to create one of a kind pieces of jewelry. Look for her at the GC Design table.

Beth Linesch has been in the design/advertising field for over 25 years as both designer and manager of designers. Her interest in glass started about 3 years ago when she took a glass blowing class through the Center for Contemporary Craft in Houston. From there she took a fused glass class and really enjoyed creating things out of glass. At her home studio she looks for that special blend of colors and textures that leads her to each piece of fused glass she carefully designs such as ornaments, jewelry and more.

Keddy Outlaw’s artwork is for sale in Houston at Lucia’s Garden and the Texas Art Asylum. She had a solo collage show at Caladan Gallery this past summer, and her work has been in various group shows in Texas. She received a cash award from the National Collage Society in 2010.  As for the rock art, I have a sereis made from beach brick found on the Galveston shores months after hurricane Ike. The little pieces of brick were debris from the houses ruined by the hurricane, softened by the sea and sand.

About Workhorse Printmakers: Nothing says love like heavy metal. We don’t mean purple satin, long hair and guitars heavy metal. We mean one ton of cast iron slowly squeezing paper in its tender embrace. We mean men lavishing attention on long forgotten machines that once were the epoch of human ingenuity. Hammers hitting steel, the squeek of belts, and the sizzle of oil on well lubed bushings. We love letterpress.

People used to make things with blood and toil and sleepless nights. Nothing you truly care about can be made by a nameless face in a far flung country and left out in the rain on your porch the next day. Our investment to you is missed parties, skinned knuckles, and an alarm that comes too early. We do it because we care about the things we make. More importantly we do it because we care about the things we make for you.

Workhorse Printmakers is a letterpress print shop run by designers for designers and we’re happy to support the Houston chapter of the AIGA through participation in this year’s CTRL-ALT-Create extravaganza. We’ll be on site with our Challenge Machinery Co. 15MA proof press allowing you to purchase and print one of five+ specially created posters celebrating Houston’s Space City heritage.

This halloween send some spooky wishes to everyone you know! Treat your friends, family, and loved ones with one of these mad halloween e-cards. Created just for you by Monica Yael Garcia, Oliver Wilkerson, and AIGA Houston.

http://aigahouston.net/halloween/

Specifically, we looked at this box-model diagram of CSS:

At this point, it’s important to note that, while the image above is completely valid and true, we should actually be thinking of CSS in the following way:

We will expound more on this idea later, but in effect, when you create a new “div” you are essentially creating a new “layer” as the diagram shows. For designers, we should be able to relate to this because Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign all have layering capabilities. We can actively select layers, fill them with color, text and images, etc. and move them up and down so that we control what is on top and what is on bottom.

We also know that when we print, most often it is one ink layering on top of the other. For a process image, various screen patterns made up of cyan, magenta, yellow and black layering on top of one another create the full color image. The same is true for CSS in principle.

What is really cool is that once we truly grasp this concept, we can begin literally layering transparent .png files one on top of the other in our web pages. The only caveat to this is that the .png format isn’t completely supported at the time of this article ***cough – Internet Explorer (the bane of my existence)***. There are workarounds, however, and hopefully later releases of this browser will support .png files; aka “pings”.

A Note on Layering and Nesting
The primary difference between layering in CSS and layering in Photoshop, for example, is the concept of “nesting”. In CSS, we have to remember that although one div is layered on top of another, it is done so relative to its parent element.

In the diagram above, although we can clearly see div class=”main” layered on top of everything else, we have to remember that in the HTML markup, “main” will still be “nested” within “body”:

Thus, any CSS rules you have applied to “body” will also apply to “main” – unless you override them. We will discuss more about how to create CSS rules and their application, but by definition, CSS rules you create “cascade” down to the next element – or elements “nested” within them. These “nested” elements are also known as “children”. So, in effect we have a “parent/child” relationship with CSS and nested divs.

In my next article, we will specifically cover visualization tools so we can see this in action. If you want to get ahead, go ahead and start by downloading Firefox and the downloading and installing the Firebug Add-On.

• Wrapping Your Brain Around CSS – Part 1
• Wrapping Your Brain Around CSS – Part 3

Enjoy!