Week 3: Jasuta

Design Strategy:

In second grade, I was invited to all the boys’ birthday parties. So did my girl friend Kris. It wasn’t necessarily because I was friends with only guys, but because the moms would go through the class roster, and send invitations to all the boys in the class. So it’s no wonder I grew up with a penchant for dinosaurs and Power Rangers.

But I am not a boy. In fact, I’m very much a girl: big, blonde, and beautiful. And that’s what I wanted my resume to be: big, blonde, and beautiful. I wanted to keep the format of the resume clear and simple, and I wanted it to breathe. I wanted it to be fun, but respectable. Still, I was trying to incorporate my full name (“Stephanie”) with my wordmark. After struggling with a series of sketches and playing around in InDesign, I realized that I am a “Stevie,” and will always go by “Stevie,” especially since it sets me apart from all the other “Stephanie”s.

I kept in mind the audience: future employers in the PR and museum studies fields will see serious resumes. I aimed for something more eye-catching, more memorable. It’s not to say that my resume lacks quality content—or quantity. Assuredly, I had the hardest time editing down information to include on one sheet of paper. But I specifically designed my resume to reflect who I am, just short of being on pink paper and slightly scented.

Choice of typefaces:

I knew I wanted to pair a serif with a sans serif font. Originally I had thought that I’d use a modern serif for my wordmark, but it was two slab serifs that caught my eye: Italia and Caecilia. From there, I started looking for a good sans serif to match with either font, which brought me to Syntax and Gill Sans. I went with Caecilia-Syntax as a pairing after deciding that the kerning and full weight of Caecilia fit my personality more. Heavy serif makes the headers pop, then again bold typeface makes my experiences/skills/education stand out in the body. Syntax in the body provides detail without convoluting the space. Though the x-height is a little tall, the humanist sans serif adds dimension to the page, and pairs nicely with the serif.

I kept my wordmark and headers in lower case letters because it seems less threatening, and more cohesitive. Plus I love how my contact information could tuck into my descending “j,” and by keeping the rest of the colored headers in lower case, I created a visual gestalt.

Extras:

The title or position I held is larger than the place, location, and time period in order to emphasize my accomplishments. The experiences/skills/education are also 90%K to add depth to the page. Plus I’m not a black-and-white kind of girl, so I liked the idea of including a dark grey instead of black. A deep pink and orange are my color choices in my wordmark because they’re both playful and pair well together. I had originally thought of going with yellow and green, but pink-orange popped off the page better, and truly reflect me. The headers are orange as to let the pink “Stevie” stand alone and therefore stand out—I have the kind of name that can easily be a one-namer (like “Madonna” or “Beyonce” or “Shakira”). But visual gestalt is still there in the repetition of the pink in the dots of all the “i"s and “j”s.