Naimi, Samir: Portfolio

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Thursday, November 15, 2012

Since the beginning of my training as a

graphic designer I have always been interested in typography. I enjoyed manipulating it in order to draw in the audience’s eyes such as I have done in the following piece. Taking something as rigid as a calendar, and creating an unconventional way of laying out the days, to create a sense of chaos that maintains order due to being embedded into a grid system.


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I continued on the path of letting the

typography lead the viewer’s eyes in the following poster for the typeface Goudy Old Style. In this piece I wanted to contrast the fluid forms of the ampersands in the background, with the strict lines of the typography in foreground in order to create a tension that the viewer’s eyes transitions between, complimenting the typography’s natural soft curves against its fixed vertical lines.


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Goudy was a typeface designed by Fredric W. Goudy in 1915 for the American Type Founders (ATF). It was Fredric’s first font created for ATF, and was his twenty-fifth typeface overall. Goudy Old Style, which is also known as just Goudy, is an old-style classic serif typeface. The typeface is one of the most popular typefaces ever created, and is often used in packaging and advertising. Its versatility allows it to be used in both display settings such as on posters, and in text format like in a paragraph. Places that the typeface has been used includes the Ritz-Carlton logo, Bazaar

Magazine, and is the standard text for Key Club Publications. Goudy Old Style is also the official typeface for the Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. It can be easily distinguished by the diamond-shaped dots on the i, j and the points found in the period, colon, question mark, semi-colon and the exclamation point. Some other recognizable features include the elegant upward curve on the ear of the g as well as on the base of the E and the L, and the pointed, upward slant of the hyphen.

There is also a strong calligraphic quality, which is most apparent in the downward slanting curve under the Q. Due to the rising popularity of Cooper Black typeface, Lanston Monotype commissioned Fredric Goudy to design heavy versions of Goudy Old Style, Goudy Heavyface and Goudy Heavyface Italic were released in 1925, ten years after the original release of the font. The gently curved, rounded serifs found on certain characters suggest an influence from Venetian typefaces.

Goudy Old Style

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My passion for typography has

continued to grow, and I have branched out from purely digital works to create hand made type. The following typeface is one I created out of seashells as an exploration of how natural forms can lend themselves to be used in graphic design.



I have also begun to manipulate and

create my own digital typefaces as well, such as the following, a typeface created to be use for headers, inspired by the work of Piet Mondrian.



Explorations with creating my own

typefaces have taught me that typography has character, which is something that I explored in my poster for the unveiling of the William H. Hannon Library. Typography is being used on the primary level to display a title and text, but is also being used as part of the design aesthetic as a way to bring meaning to something that would otherwise just be ornamental like in the banner across the top that describes the features the library has to offer. The shift in scale and weight of the typography as well as the illustration of the building creates a visual hierarchy to keep the viewer interested. The color scheme and repetition of shape is inspired by the buildings architecture.



Exploring the different applications of

typography led me to using it to create emotion and meaning. The following is cover art I did for Passion Magazine’s issue on depression linked with obesity, and with using only cut out letter forms from the magazines prior issues I was able to create an image that was gestural as well as informative, allowing the typography to read on a literal level as well as to illustrate a feeling.



I further explored how forms can convey

meaning in the following piece inspired by a newspaper clipping describing the increase of abandoned homes in Detroit. I allowed the negative and positive spaces to play with one another in order to allude to the seclusion and emptiness occurring in the city. The absence of the letterforms parallels the absence of residents in the homes.


rDetroit Census Figures ConfirmA Grim Desertion Like No Other


I continued to use negative and positive

space in the brand identity created for Dance Smart as a way to integrate the name with the function of the program, which teaches dance to elementary and high school students. The challenge in creating these logos was that they had to bare resemblance to the companies brother organization while still being unique. The dancer amidst the black background mimics a dancer captured by a spotlight.



Practicing with negative and positive

space taught me how to allude to symbols that may take a moment for the viewer to visualize, like I created in this piece of a lioness’ face created from ten hexagons. The two gaps beneath the first row reveal the eyes; the next gap below reveals the nose and the gap below that reveals the mouth. This piece illustrates how I derive inspiration from everything; this work was inspired by patterns in tile.



I was able to take the concept of

alluding to images and incorporate it in a competition I won to create the official seal for Loyola Marymount University’s Choruses. The individual elements within the seal have also been chosen as separate logos for the three choruses on campus. An object found in nature represents each chorus’s logo: a feather, a butterfly and a shell. Within each of these symbols, in black, there is a reference to music made in the negative space: a musical note, two treble clefs, and a bass clef. Furthermore, all three of these symbols are contained within a black casing composed of the letters LMU affixed to one another to create a modern interpretation of a traditional seal. Each piece adds a new layer of purpose to the seal to create a unique piece filled with meaning.



Each of the logos created for the

branding of Loyola Marymount University’s Choruses can be seen together in the form of the seal, or individually which can be seen in the following slide.



In my exploration of metaphor and

creating an image with the absence of a shape I created this poster for ‘The Simpsons’, letting the bite taken out of the donut and the impression of the teeth mark reveal a silhouette of Homer Simpson, as donuts are his favorite food. This piece was inspired by the apple logo that contained Steve Jobs silhouette, which gained much recognition after his death. Simultaneous with the death of Steve Jobs, Fox threatened to pass severe pay cuts to the cast of the Simpsons and there was serious concern that this beloved series had reached its end. This piece was created as a commentary on what could have been the death of the Simpsons franchise.



Creating posters of subjects I enjoy,

such as television shows, is something I often do; the following is another example of this that I created for ‘Breaking Bad’, a television show about a crystal meth dealer. The poster is composed of the drugs the character, Heisenberg, makes, and they come together to reveal his face. In this poster I was challenging myself to use repetition and let one repeating element depict the form of the whole poster.


Friday, September 28, 2012


The next poster was created in order to

advertise a concert being held by Loyola Marymount University’s dance department. I created an abstracted representation of a dancer that can be found in the background and brought the text to the foreground, varying the weights and sizes to allude to movement. The motion in the piece is seen through a variety of elements including the treatment of the text, position of the dancer and stylized brush strokes. This work illustrates my interest in creating pieces that are not always obvious, but draw the audience in and require some attention before fully seeing what is being illustrated. The poster allows the text and the figure to come together and merge with one another.



The following poster was chosen as the

winner in a competition to represent the 2011-2012 season for Loyola Marymount University’s theatre program. In order to create something that would properly reflect the season I researched each of the plays that were to be performed and took key elements from their plot, affixing them to one another to create this unusual figure in motion. In creating this piece I relied on the bizarre to attract attention, forcing the audience to look deeper in order to understand the meaning of the image, which would begin to become clearer after each performance is viewed.



In the next poster I wanted to create a marriage between the dancers and the typography, in which the typography takes the role of another character in the scene. The dancers bodies create fluid movement around the hard lines of the typography as if they are dancing in between one another. I used the dancers body language to guide the viewerʼs eyes throughout the poster.



The following is a one from a series of

posters I created from the “Do Something” campaign made to encourage various individuals take action towards a cause they believed in. Moved by the unfortunate plight of Baha’i’s in Iran I created this piece to bring attention to their situation. This is a human rights issue in which Baha’i’s are being denied their basic rights, including the right to higher education. The ‘ED’ is in red to showcase the importance of education as it is the key to progress, and that everyone must educate himself or herself about the position of the world. The fist is a universal symbol that shows resistance against oppression and persecution, and alongside the logo it reminds the viewer to do something and encourages everyone to take a stance. The figure is green to show solidarity with the Iranian Green Movement. This piece hits close to home, as I am a Baha’i of Iranian decent.



When hired to create a poster for a

reading of ‘Trial By Fire’ a true story about a boy and girl who were burned alive while in their home, I knew I wanted to incorporate the image of the children in the poster in order to allow the viewers to connect with the victims of the crime. I physically burnt a frame with the two children’s images as it could likely have been seen on their mantle. This was done so that the viewer could feel a sense of what it may have been like in the home, as well as to symbolize the loss of the children’s childhood.



The following is a spread open view

of a quad-fold brochure that I created for the Loyola Marymount University Department of Theatre Arts and Dance. The brochure was created in order to outline their upcoming events and bare similarity to Russian Constructivism.



The next slide contains a brochure I

created for Art Smart, an organization that teaches the arts to children. The theme of the brochure is of a tree in order to symbolize the grass roots approach that is being taken by the organization and how the effects of the courses help the children branch out to future career paths.



As the brochure is physically unfolded it

appears as if the trees branches are growing. The following is the front and back of the brochure fully opened.


Burgeoning fromthe seeds planted tenyears ago, Loyola Marymount University’s ARTsmart program has flourished through the careful tending of LMU faculty, staff, students, and sponsors. Stemming from the LMU mission, ARTsmart is the community service program of the Department of Art and Art History in the College of Communication and Fine Arts. During LMU’s centennial year, ARTsmart celebrates a decade of branching out into the lives of both our LMU students and underserved youth. Rooted in the

Jesuit and Marymount traditions emphasizing service to others, education of the whole person, and the encouragement of

learning, the LMU ARTsmart program has worked to foster self-expression, confidence, and critical thinking in students

from kindergarten to eighth grade. Today ARTsmart takes from its past to grow its future. Student mentors from many

backgrounds continue to design and teach lessons and projects in the arts, focusing on the visual arts while also

including dance and music. Every year, the trunk that is the ARTsmart program gains a “ring” of experience and comes

nearer to closing the arts education gap in California.- Emily Calles, LMU ’13

ARTSMART

Designed by Samir Naimi, LMU 2012

10 YEARSCELEBRATES

The dual mission of ARTsmart is, first, to provide underserved schoolchildren with an education in the arts that will provide both the instrumental and the intrinsic benefits necessary to become well-rounded,

productive members of a rapidly changing society. Second, ARTsmart is a leadership-

development program for LMU student mentors that incorporate teaching

in the arts and community service.

ARTsmart’s Mission

Community Service ProgramDepartment of Art & Art HistoryLoyola Marymount UnivrsityOne LMU DriveLos Angeles, California 90045

Initially funded by a grant from the Conrad Hilton Foundation in 2001, ARTsmart continues to thrive as

we celebrate a decade of serving the community. Thanks to ongoing support from alumni, parents, foundations,

corporations, and friends of the University, LMU and the College of Communication and Fine Arts (CFA) have raised over

$200,000 for ARTsmart. LMU recently received a generous gift from a family foundation to establish an endowment for ARTsmart. It is hoped that, as it receives further contributions, the endowment will eventually ensure that this transformative community service program last in perpetuity. Because of the generosity of these donors, the College has prepared its student mentors for lives distinguished by creative and compassionate responses to a complex and needy world, while also ensuring that schoolchildren receive the finest in art education.

In addition to the donations supporting the operating costs of the ARTsmart program, we have received over $100,000 in scholarship assistance for LMU ARTsmart mentors. These scholarships allow them to develop their academic, humanistic, and artistic capacities on the way to becoming leaders in their communities.

Donor support ensures that LMU can continue to educate ethical, talented, and deserving students for generations to come. Your generosity, regardless of the size of your gift, will help LMU

continue to provide art education to the underserved children in our community. If you are interested in supporting ARTsmart, please contact Tara Flynn Frates, director of development for

CFA, at 310.338.3093 OR [email protected]. You may also support ARTsmart by making an online contribution at http://go.lmu.edu/cfa.

ARTsmart Donations Provide a Strong Foundation

Terry Lenihan is a Los Angeles artist and educator. Professor Lenihan directs LMU’s art education program, which includes ARTsmart. A committed advocate for arts education and a believer in the

power of art as a catalyst for social change, she focuses her research on K–12 and post-secondary art education, service learning, collaborative art,

and social justice arts education. Terry Lenihan is a sculptor and installation artist known for monumental figurative sculptures

that reference the individual’s struggle against constraints, and the power of celebration in the human gesture. In March

2010, Governor Schwarzenegger appointed Terry Lenihan to the California Arts Council, and

Governor Brown reappointed her in February 2011.

The LMU student volunteers, known as artist mentors, are undergraduate students from a variety of backgrounds and

disciplines (fine arts, graphic design, multimedia arts, art history, animation, dance, music, and liberal studies). Through their teaching experience in urban

classrooms, LMU students gain leadership and collaborative skills, self-confidence, and an understanding of the social justice perspective. After working in ARTsmart, many

LMU students use their experience as a foundation to continue as leaders in their communities, and many are inspired to pursue careers in art education, community service, and related fields,

both at LMU and in further graduate work.

ARTsmart mentors collaborate to design a curriculum that fosters a passion for exploration and develops 21st century skills. This contemporary arts education curriculum prepares students for our globally

competitive work force by developing the abilities to innovate, communicate, and collaborate. They also learn problem solving, critical and creative thinking, facility in dealing with ambiguity and complexity,

integration of multiple skill sets, and the ability to perform cross-disciplinary work. Lessons also provide opportunities for students to reach their full potential, focusing on transformative experiences,

empowerment, and what it mean to be a citizen and a healthy person in today’s global world.

ARTsmart Artist Mentors

ARTsmart Partner School: Westside Global Awareness K–8 Magnet School

In fall 2008 ARTsmart began its partnership with Westside Leadership Magnet, a local K–8 school in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Then,

in fall 2010, the school was renamed Westside Global Awareness K–8 Magnet, focusing on government/politics, science, and environment/ecosystems.

Westside has become a strong partner, given its focus on developing leadership skills while promoting academic excellence and social justice. Approximately 80% of the families enrolled at Westside live below the poverty level, and its students are from diverse backgrounds. In a short time, ARTsmart has made an

in-depth contribution to Westside students by providing thoughtfully developed standards-based arts education as well as

ongoing mentoring services and support.

ARTsmart Director


The following is a typical mailer piece

that I created for Santa Monica Infiniti in order to reach out to customers or other dealerships.



In working with Homeboy Industries, an

organization that rehabilitates gang members and prisoners to release them back into the working world, I created an advertisement that was sent out in the newspaper. I let the circles be the source of color to focus the piece on the individuals themselves and the work that they were doing in order to familiarize the viewers with what occurs at the organization.


Celebrate Homboy’s 24 years of service

this year by supporting one of our six

business. We are fully equipped with a

bakery, silkscreen and embroidery workshop,

farmers market, café and catering services,

diner and lastly, storefront merchandise for

purchase. Through utilizing these services

you will be doing your role in helping keep

Homeboy Industries doors open.

Homeboy Industries is a nationally

recognized successful gang-intervention

program that has provided jobs and free

support services to former gang members

and at-risk youth from more than half of

the 1,100 known gangs in Los Angeles

County. Homeboy businesses, including

Homeboy Bakery as well as Homegirl Café,

offer hands-on training and experience in

a safe work environment. The program

also offers mental health counseling, legal

services, education, job counseling and

tattoo removal services, which offer hope

and opportunity to participants. Homeboy

currently has a line of products in retail

grocery stores including delicious chips

and mouthwatering salsa. With your help

Homeboy can continue to change lives and

improve upon our community.

Make a donation onlineHave lunch at the Homegirl CaféBuy your bread at Homeboy BakeryOrder silkscreened clothing from our workshopPurchase fresh products from our farmers marketHave your next event catered by Homegirl CateringContact Homeboy and find out how you can help

Want To Help?

www.HomeboyIndustries.com 323.526.1254


My interests do not solely lie in graphic

design, I also create physical objects as well; the following was created by attaching a toy motor to LED lights and affixing it to cut up, inverted and reattached traffic cones. It can either be viewed from a distance or close up as the inside and outside are equally interesting. It can be held in the viewer’s hands and moved to create different patterns of light on the walls. I created it as a piece that would involve human interaction as the more the viewer plays with it, the more interesting the light cast on the walls becomes.



The final slides are a look at a data-

visualization that I made that tracks the amount of incoming and outgoing text messages I had with a friend during a three-week period. This was created in lieu of the phenomenon of compulsive texting, and how people have become addicted to texting one another regardless of what they are doing. The visualization breaks down the texts day by day, then compiles them week by week, and lastly compiles all text messages as a whole.





Documents

Naimi, Samir: Portfolio