GILLIAN
STEINMETZ-BLAIR

My earliest encounter with design that I took notice of was the wayfinding in the busy streets of Paris, France. I’m not much of a reader and when I was young, it was all about imagery and never about long words on paper. Cities overseas though have easy to understand signs, and even as a child, it didn’t take much to figure out how to get from green dot A to green dot B. The elements were clear and to the point, with only a minimal amount of text to help name locations. I didn’t know it at the time, but those clean and organized layouts would carry themselves into my design style and would be the core of what I look for in pieces. But alas, my appreciation for such balanced aesthetics did not direct me to the field of design.

I’ll be honest, what actually got me into graphic design was anime intros and outros.

It was beyond interesting how the brief openings could either fail or succeed at giving a summary of the story while also trying to convey the tone of the series with just a bit of imagery and music.

Then came movie and television show introductions with the description of roles and actors. Everything had its specific position with text placed to enhance the imagery or imagery placed to highlight the text. Some scenes were noisy and others were bare of almost everything but a small name in a corner. However each element was precise and clean in its own way.

It was in those details and the mindfulness of meanings behind layouts that my design philosophy surfaced and through my time at Chapman became refined. To create pieces that carry balance, that hold a sense of unity. Designs that are precise in their elements through grid layout and sophisticated in their definition, a balanced piece.  
 

I like to live by the draft one is draft done rule.
That you put your all into whatever you do, because sometimes all you get is that one shot.