Book

While I feel stuck and lost on the graphic mark, I decided to start thinking about the book which is a big part of my thesis deliverable.

Who is the book for?
Couples or individuals who are searching for information specifically about older child adoption.

What's in it?
The book will provide non-biased information about adopting older children. My goal is not scare prospective parents but also not to keep their expectations too high that when they come across a hurdle during and after the adoption process they wouldn't know what to do. Having short real-life stories about older child adoption will definitely help the readers understand what they are or about to go through.

How is this possible?
The contents will be coming from books, articles both printed and online. Most importantly from those who I consider the "experts" in the adoption field. These are the people who work for adoption agencies, social workers, adoptive parents and adoptees themselves.

Below is a draft of the book content:

Book Content

I.       Introduction

a.      Short History

b.      Current Situation

                                                i.     Stats

                                               ii.     Who are the children?

c.      Benefits of having a home

d.      Rewards of being a parent

II.      Making the Decision to Adopt

a.    Can I/we adopt?

b.    Who is going to make the decision with me?

c.    Who do I/we want to adopt?

                                                i.     How many children do I want to adopt?

                                               ii.     What age/s am I open to?

                                              iii.     Gender

                                              iv.     Race and Ethnicity

                                               v.     What are the financial commitments?

d.    How ready am I?

                                                i.     What are my expectations?

                                               ii.     What I should expect instead?

                                              iii.     Who are the people that I consider as my support system?

III.     The Adoption Process

a.      Who should I go to? (adoption agencies, lawyer and/or government organizations)

b.      How long is the entire process?

c.      The Home Study Process

d.      The Referral

                                                i.     Learning about a child’s past and present

1.      Background

2.      Health

3.      Personality and behavior

                                               ii.     Does it feel right? (Is it okay to turn a referral down?)

e.      Being matched with YOUR child

                                                i.     Finalizing the adoption

                                               ii.     Getting to know your child

1.      First encounter

2.      More than documents and records

                                              iii.     Waiting

1.      What can I do while waiting?

a.      Preparations

                                                                                                      i.     Siblings

                                                                                                     ii.     Family, relatives and friends

                                                                                                    iii.     Your home

IV.     Your Child is Finally Home

a.      How to handle/what to expect on certain situations

b.      How to introduce your new child

                                                i.     Relatives and Friends

                                               ii.     Community/Church

c.      Parent-Child Relationship Developmental Stages

Stuck?

In the past few weeks I've been feeling stuck at this stage. My thesis advisor had been feeding me with some inspirational books though, one of my favorite books he lend me is Adrian Frutiger's Signs and Symbols: Their Design and Meaning.

page 121: The graphic weath of pictograms.

Some of the earliest Sumerian pictographic script, ca. 3500 BC  note: Heart 

page 258: Symbolic human figures: abstract, stylized and concrete. 11=Family 

page 265: Everyday objects elevated to symbols. 24=Cradle 

Few more sketch ideas for my thesis' graphic mark inspired by the symbols above.

Another inspiration from my advisor: The Visual Language of Herbert Matter
Hundreds of sketches is normal. I must stop complaining and keep my pencil moving.


NHRR logo development from Herbert Matter on Vimeo.

Graphic Mark

A graphic mark, commonly referred as logo is the most important element of an identity system. It can be an icon, logotype, or a combination of the two. A good graphic mark should:

• grab the viewer’s attention
• be memorable and distinct
• and it needs to communicate the right information in a very clear manner

Similar to the process of coming up with a thesis name, I tried to think of and sketch as much as I can for the graphic mark. Here are the selected sketches I had done in the past couple of weeks. I also included all my rough sketches below. Your comments and suggestions are much appreciated as I continue with the graphic mark exploration and creation. Thanks!

SELECTED SKETCHES

ROUGH SKETCHES
NOTE: Embedded below is a 19-page flash file, you must have Adobe Flash Player to be able to view it. If you do not have Flash Player, you can download Adobe Flash Player here. You can also download a pdf version of the sketches here.

Please give the file a few seconds (depending on your internet connection) to load and then click or drag the top or bottom corners to turn the page.

Mood Board

Mood boards contain both visual and verbal elements such as photographs, illustrations, colors, typographic style, words and quotes. Mood boards are used to establish the overall look and feel of a piece or project.

click the image to enlarge

I wanted my thesis to look youthful, warm and encouraging. I would like to develop my own set of photographs rather than relying on stock photography. If possible shoot all the photographs myself and collect photographs from people I’ve talked to during my journey upon completing my thesis. The colors will be bold without being too child-like since it will represent a wide range of children and youth. I would like to use powerful words that can touch people’s emotions. I thought a humanist sans serif typeface would be appropriate to give my thesis a clean, modern but not look too stark.

Color Palette

Below is the actual color palette that I would like to use. Again, youthful but not pre-school primary colors. With the right use of these colors I can achieve a warm and homey feel.

Search For A Thesis Title

 When I presented my thesis topic to the Academy of Art University’s Midpoint Committee it was called, Finding Home: The Truth About Older Child Adoption. At first I did not have any problems with it because I thought it was straight-forward; I thought it worked pretty well. Later I realized that it was bland, perhaps too straight-forward and it is not memorable. I also received a comment that the subtitle, “The Truth About Older Child Adoption” sounded more like “The Truth About Used Cars”. Then I realized that I had to think of a new name. I did not want any negative connotations on my thesis’ name. It should be creative and memorable. I hoped to find a word that I can give a new important meaning, something that will not be lost in the clutter.

I listed all the words that I can think of that are related to adoption, foster care, family, home, love, search, etc. I used the dictionary and thesaurus to search for words and made mind maps. Some words made sense, some didn’t. At that point t didn’t matter, I just had to get it out of my head. I tried to avoid the obvious but the word akin stood out to me more than the others. Akin is not as creative than I thought but the more I think about it, it became more meaningful to me. It also occurred to me that it means “my own” in my mother tongue, Tagalog. Akin can translate into “my own child”, “my own parent” and “my own  family”. It seemed perfect but I would still love people’s opinion about this title. I wanted to know if it makes sense to others as much as it makes sense to me and how familiar everyone else is about the word: Akin.

Below are some of the other titles that I thought of:

• Dock Adoptions
• 360 Families  
• Fuse Families 
• Abiding Haven 
• Abiding Embrace 
• Found Families
• Boundless Harbor