The Grid is a system, Neo.

It seems I wasn't the only one in Typography class last night who didn't "get" the whole grid layout concept. After a 5 minute explanation from the teacher, I felt like I had an inkling of understanding. Even though I don't feel completely secure in my knowledge, going from having NO clue to at least SOME clue was huge. I felt like I could suddenly see the Matrix.

For those of you (like me) who are coming from a non-graphic design background, I'll try to explain. Imagine blueprints for a house you're going to build. You've got the square footage, the rooms are all drawn out, and that's the plan. Once the house is built, you are free to renovate and knock down walls if you want. A grid is sort of like a blueprint in the world of page layout. You set your margins, number of columns and their width etc -- then you build your design on top of those standards. That's how I understood it, anyway.

Our prof. said the explanation of grid layout was all in our book. Okaaaay. Granted, I'm not yet 100% done with the reading. However, I read the stuff about grids and to me, it was jibberish. That Typography book is as dry as toast. I fell asleep on top of it at 5 o'clock in the afternoon the other day! I'm a firm believer in going back over the reading material in class - even if it's just a quick overview to see if anyone has questions. Which, clearly, we all did. I learn much better by seeing and doing. Looking over a magazine with the teacher and having him point out the underlying grid patterns helped my brain immensely. I have a starting point now. Now maybe I can make heads or tails of the next two layout assignments. At least I know I'm learning something, right?
Five more weeks of class before summer va-k. (o:

You know what day it is

It's typography Tuesday! I have my class tonight. That means I usually have nothing to talk about except school this time of the week. (Sorry!)

But, on a positive note -- I sort of feel like Super Woman today.

I finished my logotype project and am pretty proud of how it turned out. I illustrated the honeydew shaped "O" for an image on the letterhead and the back of the business card. I kind of love it. (I'll post newer pics soon).

I also finished up the first portion of my brochure layout assignment. I'm not so proud of that one, but at least it's done. I'll be honest in saying I had ZERO idea what I was doing last night. Brochure layout...whaaa? You might as well have told me to write a paper in Russian. I just can't seem to get the concept of a grid down in my brain. I know what hierarchy is, but ugh. It's just not working out. Even if my samples are abysmal (which I'm pretty sure they are) I'm not super worried. I seem to be learning really fast and I'm sure the crit will set me on the right path.

Other than that, we have a quiz tonight and I have no idea what we're expected to know. The only thing he told us for sure we'd be quizzed on are hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes. Well, I know what those are. Let's cross our fingers that's the only thing on this quiz. Especially since I didn't finish some of the reading I was supposed to do (gulp!).

After all of that, I somehow found the time to make a semi-complicated stew at the last minute and throw it into the slow-cooker overnight. Usually my poor hubby can forget about a home- cooked meal until Wednesday. Granted, I was still cooking at midnight last night, but at least we have dinner for the first half of the week.

Full time work, plus homework, plus commuting, plus school, and I still manage to be one mean cook? Seriously, where's my cape? (o;