{"id":9866,"date":"2023-07-24T12:29:23","date_gmt":"2023-07-24T17:29:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin-new\/?post_type=campus_story&p=9866"},"modified":"2023-07-24T12:29:23","modified_gmt":"2023-07-24T17:29:23","slug":"putting-her-spin-on-it-uw-stout-graphic-design-majors-vertigo-project-brings-national-attention","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/putting-her-spin-on-it-uw-stout-graphic-design-majors-vertigo-project-brings-national-attention\/","title":{"rendered":"Putting her spin on it: UW-Stout graphic design major\u2019s Vertigo project brings national attention"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
Amanda Piotrowski created Vertigo and a website for the typeface with animation in two spring graphic design courses. \/ Contributed photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Amanda Piotrowski<\/strong>\u00a0hoped to make a splash when she created her \u201cuniquely expressive, situationally very trippy and overall exciting and energizing\u201d typeface called Vertigo.<\/p>\n

The alphabet of swirling, colorful capital letters by the UW-Stout senior, who is majoring in\u00a0graphic design and interactive media<\/a>, did just that.<\/p>\n

Piotrowski, from Pittsville in central Wisconsin, created a bigger splash than she expected, however. Her website was accepted recently by three national online galleries,\u00a0CSSReel<\/a>,\u00a0CSSLight<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0CSSNectar<\/a>\u00a0and also was featured on all three sites as a Site of the Day. It also will be featured on\u00a0One Page Love<\/a>, which posts single-page sites to provide inspiration, templates and resources.<\/p>\n

\u201cVertigo represents the culmination of my education and experiences in graphic design and my passion for typography,\u201d Piotrowski said.<\/p>\n

Professors\u00a0Robert Fraher\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Alex DeArmond<\/strong>\u00a0taught the courses last spring in which Piotrowski created the typeface and the website.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe publication of the site in the online galleries can be understood as a stamp of approval of it being professional-level design,\u201d Fraher said. \u201cThe fact that the site also received an award from one of these galleries further evidences it being something special.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>
Amanda Piotrowski, a senior in UW-Stout\u2019s graphic design and interactive media program, has had her Vertigo typeface recognized by several national websites. \/ Contributed photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With Vertigo, named after a health condition that causes dizziness, she aimed to represent visually how a person\u2019s eyes travel through typeface forms. On the website, the letters that spell Vertigo are\u00a0animated<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s an exciting opportunity for an engaging, interactive experience of typography,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Piotrowski blended skills she learned in several classes. In Typographic Design, taught by DeArmond, students were assigned to create a display typeface, which \u201care expressive and used for large-scale elements like titles, headings and pull quotes,\u201d Piotrowski said.<\/p>\n

Using a mechanical pencil and a blank sheet of paper, she sketched some ideas. Then, she re-created the 26 letters using special software called Glyphs. Each letter has two dozen or more swirls of varying shapes and sizes.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>
Vertigo consists of capital letters made from swirls and Vertigo Sans without swirls. Piotrowski plans to add lowercase letters and more for potential commercial use. \/ Contributed photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI recognized the potential in Vertigo’s forms and envisioned an interactive web design experience for my type specimen. I also knew that I wanted to include the skills that I had learned in my Motion Graphics course taught by Professor Augustus Hinton to compellingly animate the letters to add more visual interest,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She received support from Fraher, who was teaching Advanced Interactive Design. He was impressed with Vertigo and saw the potential of it being published. As a result, Piotrowski used another assignment in Fraher\u2019s class to create the website, which features her typeface in motion as she explains her creative process.<\/p>\n

DeArmond called Piotrowski\u2019s website a\u00a0\u201ctype specimen\u201d that introduces the font to users. \u201cAmanda was able to communicate all the energy and movement inherent to her typeface design via the website she developed. She did exactly what we would hope our design students do, which is to find connections between their various studio classes to create work that goes further than just the project outline,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

She worked an estimated 210 hours on the project, including research, wireframing, visual design and website development. \u201cIt was a lengthy process, for sure, but definitely a labor of love,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The project taught her the value of committing fully to a project and tapping her creative and technical skills. She also created Vertigo Sans \u2014 the letters without the swirls.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s hard for students to really believe that we are capable of industry-quality work. It would have been easy for me to disregard advice suggesting further development for Vertigo, citing time constraints as an excuse. However, the invaluable guidance and support I received from both Bert and Alex during the development process played a crucial role in pushing Vertigo to its fullest potential.<\/p>\n

\u201cTruly the faculty in the GDIM program at UW-Stout are excellent educators who care deeply and passionately about the success of their students; their dedication is a marvel and a true asset to the UW-Stout community, and I would not be where I am today without them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Another design honor<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Simultaneous to creating Vertigo, Piotrowski created a website in Fraher\u2019s course called Designing and Color Blindness. She pursued the issue after it arose in a fall class, User Experience Design.<\/p>\n

\u201cI aim to educate designers on how to consider color blind users, why it\u2019s important to do so and to provide resources,\u201d Piotrowski said.<\/p>\n

Her project also was accepted by CSSReel, CSSLight and CSSNectar and featured on two of them.<\/p>\n

Piotrowski, who graduates in December, would like to continue on the path of web and interactive design as she begins her career. \u201cAdditionally, I have a strong interest in typography and aspire to explore opportunities related to the design of typographic forms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fraher expects her to do well. \u201cI believe Amanda has a very bright professional future,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Because she sees potential for the Vertigo typeface commercially, she plans to create a set of lowercase letters, punctuation and symbols. \u201cIt possesses qualities that make it suitable for headlines and other prominent typographic applications,\u201d Piotrowski said.<\/p>\n

UW-Stout\u2019s\u00a0School of Art and Design<\/a>, with six Bachelor of Fine Arts and two Bachelor of Science programs, is the largest in the Upper Midwest with more than 1,200 students.<\/p>\n

Like Piotrowski,\u00a0another UW-Stout graphic design student<\/a>\u00a0in 2018 had his work featured on the One Page Love site.<\/p>\n

\n

Written by Jerry Poling<\/p>\n

Link to original story: https:\/\/www.uwstout.edu\/about-us\/news-center\/putting-her-spin-it-graphic-design-majors-vertigo-project-brings-national-attention<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amanda Piotrowski\u00a0hoped to make a splash when she created her \u201cuniquely expressive, situationally very trippy and overall exciting and energizing\u201d typeface called Vertigo. The alphabet of swirling, colorful capital letters by the UW-Stout senior, who is majoring in\u00a0graphic design and interactive media, did just that. Piotrowski, from Pittsville in central Wisconsin, created a bigger splash […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":9871,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","institution":[90],"story_category":[],"class_list":["post-9866","campus_story","type-campus_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","institution-uw-stout"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story\/9866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/campus_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9866"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"institution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institution?post=9866"},{"taxonomy":"story_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story_category?post=9866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}