If you want to find out more about my design work. Check out my new site; maxduggan.com.

So yeah, I used to suck at editing. Here is the proof.

YAY, we have almost finished sewing 72 prints onto 13 yards of fabric! Over the next day I will be posting crappy process shots of this project, instillation photos, and photos of the final show.

Should Visual Communications be part of the School of Art and Art History as part of the College of Fine Arts?

And my simple answer, after much thought is yes. I came to this answer by analyzing the motives and skills required to succeed in both media and studio arts and design field.

Skills – It seems obvious overlap is that all these fields of study generally require the same skills, such as creativity, understanding of Art Theory and Visual Concepts, plus the ability to technically execute concepts.

Motives – The differences arise from the motives of studio and media arts verses the design field. To make my argument, I will compare the  motives of the Visual Communications and Ceramics fields. When a ceramicist is making a vessel, their motive is to create a beautiful emotion evoking object, that in many situation is also meant to be functional. When a graphic designer designs, their motive is to create a beautiful emotion evoking piece, that informs and serves a function to the viewer. As a designer, I seek to create something functional, an advertisement, logo, etc… but at the same time want to experiment, question and provoke emotion with the style and visual language in which I present my work.

In conclusion, I believe that good graphic design is more than just displaying and organizing information, but also requires the motives behind it that make good art. I can not envision a good Visual Communications department that did not have a relationship with fine arts or good designer that does not have a passion for art.

Here is my newest work, and Ive got this idea for the armadillo to pull something like a trailer full of trash or a semi. But I feel like there might be something better and so I would like to propose to steal great Ideas from others? Please let me know how you fill in  the following statement :

look, its an armadillo towing a __________________?

So I am designing a new site (its going to look almost exactly like the current one) and I hate it. I need to blog to encourage myself to keep making work. When I know I will show it to others, it makes me fine tune my projects more and document them better. Secondly, I want my site to assist me in social networking, and when I say social networking I mean just keep up with people I actually see and go out with on a day to day basis. For example I don’t post pictures or projects to Facebook, I just post them here and then post a status to twitter witch automatically goes to Facebook and walla, everybody has been notified about the photos or my new project blah blah blah. I think I will still keep a Tumblr to keep stuff I create separate from stuff I find around the intronets.

The image above is from my brainstorming on what layout I should use, and what parts do I actually need on my site. Obviously the blog is the main part, but I am shrinking it down on the home page, it will now be about 420px wide vs. the 600px ish wide it is currently. In the interest of social networking, I am also working on a nice little section of links to all my friends and favorite artists sites. I have some talented friends, so if you care to come here and see my work, you will probably really enjoy seeing theirs. Going into the school year, I want this site up and running for two reasons: First, I want the new web professor to critique it, and second: I want to start making better process posts as I dive into litho and serig and hopefully the combination of the two. If you have any recommendations on what you think I should do with my new design, let me know.

If you are a vis commer with free time and want to improve our reputation among basement dwellers, please give me a nicer logo than this by the end of the day.

by : Tyson Manning

by : Brian Kurklin

Thanks – Max

Ok, here is my Time Square panorama. I know it is over done, but I had to give it a try. My file is a BAF so the largest file I could upload with this post is 50% of the original. Enjoy.