The Art Institute of Tenessee - Nashville

Jefferson Rodriguez

Designers Statement
My name is Jefferson Rodriguez, and I want to become a graphic designer. I have been interested in the field of graphic design since 2004, when I was a freshman at Independence High School. It all started when I was put in the wrong art class. The name of a typical art class was called “Visual Art” and for the design class the name was “Visual Art I”.  When somebody was filling out my application, they accidentally put the “I” at the end of the name of the class. I think that that little mistake was a sign that changed my life.  Since then, I have learned a lot of skills and knowledge in art and design, and I am currently a senior taking the fourth level of that class.

In these four years of taking that class I have learned typography, photography, adobe software, and how to be involved in this career. A special hobby that I have is to make stencils and graffiti on canvas and t-shirts. I am terrific at making stencils, thanks to my knowledge of Photoshop.  My style for most of my projects is retro, rocker, and urban. For my projects for school I work in a Mac with Adobe software. For freelance projects that I do for friends I work in my laptop PC in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator CS. I also have Flash and Dreamweaver XM. I have some knowledge and skills in Flash and Dreamweaver, but I really want to learn how to use those programs in the way that I am expert in Photoshop and illustrator. For my freelance projects, I have a small company called “Airplane A-08” where I sell t-shirts.

The design concept of my poster is simplistic and abstract. I based the design on sketches that I made for this entry. I took a photograph of a building in my last visit to Washington D.C., then I used that photograph and edited it in Adobe Photoshop. The building photo represents the Art Institute and the green background with the scattered sun growing from the building represents the influence and grandiosity of the institute.

The typography that I used is simple and easy to read, and it matches and contrasts perfectly with the building and the background.  I originally planned to put a rocket or an airplane with colorful lines coming from the engines, but after I saw how it looked, I realized there was a loss of hierarchy in the design. I used the zeppelin because they are not usual in these days, and because it matches perfectly with the composition of the design. All the pieces were edited in Adobe Photoshop and Adobe illustrator; the final poster is in legal size.