Jack Schutz Design Portfolio

What's up

I talked about my qualms with my design portfolio in my Wallace digital design page. If you missed it, or don't want to read here's the gist:

I struggle a lot with graphic design and making thoughtful artistic design decisions. As I moved through college I found that my brain works much better on science/technology applications and system design rather than graphic design and typeface selection.

That being said, I struggled a lot in college with my design portfolio. Every time I made a design choice, it was critiqued in a way that I felt helpless to understand. I felt like I couldn't make something that made everyone happy... I had no clue what I was doing so every suggestion was just something I was doing wrong and didn't understand how to fix.

After a lot of long nights, mental breakdowns, and many redesigns, I have finally landed on a design that I appreciate. I appreciate my website because I created the branding system for it and I've gained a more in depth sense of how I design things from start to finish.

It started with a logo...

After chatting with my good friend, Sarah Gleason, expressing my frustrations with her critique and my poor understanding of the design language of my website, she suggested we start with a logo and build from the ground up.
She gave really great advice about starting with something really small and working my way up to bigger tasks as they came up. Redesigning a website is a huge undertaking for one night, but brainstorming logos and a brand image is quick task that can be finished in one night.

The logo I created uses two main shapes. One is the rounded fish-hook J shape and the other is the rounded semi-circle rectangle. I think I'm in my rounded rectangle era of my life right now. When two of the rectangles are combined together they form an S shape. This rounded rectangle shape is also carried throughout my website in project thumbnails. I'm really into bold colors and soft shapes right now hence why my logo is made from these elements.

Brand Identity

The next order of business was brainstorming brand language. I needed something that was able to be applied to all of my projects and reflected my personal taste and pizzaz. I ended up finding the branding guide for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. I was really inspired by the use of color, framing, typefaces, and simplicity and grabbed my favorite elements to twist in my own Jack Schutz way.

Color Pallet

This color pallet feels similar to Google or the Paris games. I chose these colors because they feel young and playful.

Typeface

Montserrat was an easy typeface to choose for me. It's a variable sanserif typeface that is easy to look at and feels happy.

Iconography and Identity

I created these asymmetrical rounded rectangles using Adobe Illustrator. They are very playful and eye catching. I also tried tiling them on my website and I really like the look.

Putting It All Together

I spent a lot of time honing in my taste to choose elements that stood out and felt right.

Check out my website at:

www.jackschutzdesign.com

What I Learned

One thing I totally learned was that my brain works in like a logic system format. When it came time to create my website, I was using templates that confused my system thinking design brain. When I sat down to redesign the brand system from scratch, I found that everything fit into its own place very easily.

It took lots of design inspiration, longs nights, constant evolution, and lots of apologies for losing my cool with my friends when I was working in the Wix design space. That shit is not to be underestimated - I had a full mental breakdown over the creation of a single rounded rectangle in Wix.

That being said, I couldn't be more proud of my website. Sure, there are a few things that need updating and tweaking, but those things will always be there. I am so proud of myself for sticking with it and pushing through the tumultuous designing. I learned a lot about how I work and when I present my work, I'm so confident in myself because I know the things I've created are really special.

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