Postcards Galore

This first postwar I created with Photoshop. I started by downloading a font off of dafont.com that I liked. I liked it because it was simple but also modern, much like my personality. I then created a new layer for each letter in my name. I added a clipping mask to each letter after I had chosen the five images I thought best represented me. I chose images of times Square because that's my favorite place in the world and I want to live in New York someday. Then I chose some sheet music because music has been the greatest influence on my life thus far. I chose an empty auditorium because I live my life through theatre and I spend more time performing than I do at my house. Then I chose a picture of a beach in Hawaii because I aspire to have a vacation home on a beach in Maui when I get older. And last, I chose a picture of watermelon because it's my favorite food in the world and some of my greatest memories from childhood stem from indulging in the glorious fruit. After that, I went into the Blending Options and added a stroke and drop shadow to make it have more depth. I decided it needed even more depth and I added a Bevel & Emboss Effect.

The second postcard I created was my Christmas card and this one is my favorite. I downloaded a wonderful font from dafont.com because I wanted something that looked Holiday-inclined. I then looked up images that translated what I wanted to Photoshop. I used a blur on the background image to make the text more acknowledgeable. I found images on poinsettias and gold bows and used what I've learned to make it look good. I added a gradient to the text so that it looks better than just a plain color. I enjoyed this postcard the most of all

Floating Mountain

This project I completed was all about Photoshop; using layers, de-fringing methods, and blending modes. My idea was to create a floating mountain and put different layers of clouds around it and to add a moon. I wasn't sure what else to add to this project, but then I thought it would be enlightening and slightly less serious if I added a man falling off the mountain. All it took was some resizing of the image I traced out, and some de- fringing to make the man look more realistic. I am very unpleased with my moon. The de-fringing methods were not co-operating with me at the time, and I tried to reach out for help but nothing was working. Normally, I would never turn in something I wasn't 150% proud of, but this project was not at the top of my priorities. This was more for me to mess around and experiment with the different tools that were accessible through Photoshop. Next time I might try something that isn't so outlandish and do something more realistic, as fantastical images are not my forte. Overall, I found that this project helped a lot with learning things about Adobe Photoshop.

In the Clouds

Through this project I learned how to use the many tools in Photoshop. For some frustrating reason it would not get rid of that pixel fringe no matter what I did. I learned about short cuts when using this program. The quick selection tool is W, move tool is V, brush tool is B, and lasso tool is L. You can use the refine edge tool to create a seamless, fringeless image.

Concrete Jungle (Extra Credit)

I decided that I was going to use Photoshop some more and learn more about masks when it comes to actual text instead of images. I had never worked with masks and texts together before, but the process ended up being much simpler than I had originally expected. I download a font with various buildings built into the letters, because it looked like New York City at night. I then found an image of Times Square at night because that is my absolute favorite sight in the entire world. (Can you imagine having one of my designs put up on something in Times Square?) I then typed the words New York City on one layer, and created a mask. It was that simple! After adjusting the positioning of the words for awhile, I was finally satisfied with what I had accomplished.

The Difference Between a Red Sphere and a Red Sphere

I created two spheres that are very similar in appearance, but made with different programs. When using Illustrator, the size of the art board is infinite. Instead of using pixels like I did when making the photoshop one, Illustrator used a bit-map. I found illustrator a tad bit easier when it came to the gradient tool because i'm used to using it and although Photoshop has a very similar gradient tool, Illustrator allows you to do more creative inclined things. The pen tools are very different on Illustrator and Photoshop, but I didn't have to use anything other than the initial shape tool and then the gradient tool. I think that gradient is an okay way to make something look like a sphere, but knowing about the 3D Revolve effects you can use on Illustrator just made these gradient spheres look amateur. I added my (kinda) signature onto my Illustrator sphere, and put a gradient inside of it. On my photoshop sphere I made it bouncing.

A Circle is Never Just a Circle

Spheres symbolize unity and infinity. The can be balanced or unbalanced as we learned through that wonderful video we watched. I learned that every circle has a story behind it and different designs and techniques can determine the overall outcome of the art. The work flow for these projects were fairly similar. I found Illustrator slightly easier in making simple designs on spheres, because all you had to do was add a 3D Revolve effect and then add a symbol to the Map Art, but Photoshop has a lot of advanced 3D mechanisms and the textures were more extravagant. Illustrator used inches and I had an infinite amount of space to work on, where as Photoshop used pixels and I was limited to the space I requested when opening a new project. When I saved my Illustrator work, I first screenshotted it because that's the easiest way to guarentee that it was saved, but it saved to the server as a PDF.  I saved my work on photoshop as a screenshot as well, but then saved it to the server as a jpeg but could also be saved as a png. I learned a lot about custom pens, symbols and shapes when completing these spheres. I need to learn more about shapes and lines because they always have some little thing wrong with them in my experience and it can be frustrating.

Illustrator Tutorial: http://pixelrockit.com/create-stylish-3d-shapes-with-adobe-illustrator/

Photoshop Tutorial: http://layersmagazine.com/3d-texture-mapping-in-photoshop-cs6.html

Zentangular Art

For this extra credit I drew a zentangle in my free time at home. A pentangle is basically a drawing with lots of shapes, lines, and designs that calms you down while drawing. I then brought my sketch to school and scanned it. I tried multiple times and even had Ms. Lofquists' help trying to figure out how to fill it with Illustrator, but we couldn't make it work. So I used Photoshop to fill it in and I think it makes for a very cool logo-looking thing. I used a cool color scheme because it represents trust.

My Personal Logo

The reason I chose to use a circle for my logo is because a circle represents a constant row of energy, thoughts, and creativity, which is exactly what I want to accomplish in graphic design. I put two rings with arrows at the end around the circle and the arrows represent how I want to spread my ideas as well as the traits listed before to many people. The arrows are also a representation of moving forward. I used the colors blue, red, and yellow, but not the typical primary colors you always see, because I like to be different. The blue represents trust. This lets you know that you can trust me and my ideas, which will be helpful if I ever become a professional graphic designer with clients. The red represents boldness and vibrance, which really shows my personality and the way I approach things. I used a light yellowish store on my lettering to show the warmth and happiness. The letting looks a little odd, but I hand drew it and it's a backwards B, backed up to an R, which creates a t in the middle, thus creating my initials, which is the name of my blog. My process includes creating art boards with grids, and just used the shape tool and made lots of circles and shapes with different ways of creating appealing logos. I learned how to use the tablet to draw things and how to use the graphic styles tool to create new brushes. I also learned how to use a symbol sprayer and create your own symbol, but I id not use this while making my logo. I think I did really well on the lettering, the color scheme, and the general appearance of my logo. If I could do something differently, I would probably try to make the stroke look different and maybe make the ring a little thicker. I feel like it will look odd if the logo is in a smaller resolution. Overall, I'm very pleased with my outcome and I loved the process of making a logo. Making logos is my favorite thing to do in graphic design. 

Adventurous Designing

Our assignment was to find a text effect tutorial for Adobe Illustrator and use it to create a replication of the text. When I got this assignment, I decided that I was going to do some stuff on my own. I chose to replicate the "Bang!" effect, but add a different background to make it more of my own and what i want. I learned how to use lines to break apart text, and how to make the chunks flying around the screen. I think what I did well was follow instructions and problem solve, as well as picking a color scheme that works. If I were to do this again differently, I would probably want to create a different background that maybe was striped or something else creative. I want to learn more about using different fonts ad creating shapes that blend into the background.

The Story of the Google Logo

When designing the classic Google logo we all know, the designers wanted to go with the natural colors of red, blue, and yellow. These are the primary colors, but you may have noticed that there is some green in the logo. The reason they chose to throw green in their is because "Google doesn't follow the rules." Rules is clearly referring to the fact that they didn't stick to their primary color pattern. The first official Google logo was created in 1998 by Sergey Brin, but the current official logo was created by Ruth Kedar. Google also has specialty logo designs that can be seen on holidays, famous icons' birthdays, days of major tragedies, and when Google has their "Doodle4Google" competition. Google also uses a favicon that includes a plain, white, lowercase g and a blue background that appears when in a web browser. The Google logo changes very often and their are different variations of their logo for different medias.

Personality of Fonts

After taking the font personality quiz, I got the font Marina Script. I searched for the font on countless websites, but could not find it available for download. So I found a font that was very similar called Edwardian Script. The words I got were emotional, understated, traditional, and disciplined. The font is very traditional, and that was one of my words. I don't however understand why this font is understated because it has very large loops and extra swashes. I had Mrs. Loftquists' help to make the perfect outline to a font.

I Brought My Pencils, and My Creativity

The first assignment was to create a basic pencil using the instruction sheets and learn how to use the tools.

The next assignment was to create our own pencil using the same rules and applications but this time we had to make it personalized the way we want it. I enjoyed this project more than the first one.

The final assignment was to create two objects that went together. I chose to do cookies and chocolate milk (because plain milk would blend in with the background.) We had to use the same elements from the previous two assignments to create objects without instructions. I found this project really fun except for the fact that it was hard at times to fill objects since i was making it so complex. 

My three big takeaways were:

1) Pressing Shift while sizing an object will hold the objects shape without distorting it.

2) Command Z easily un-dos things that you messed up on, so that you could easily go back and see what you did.

3) Pressing Command+K is a short-cut to get the Live Paint Bucket Tool.

What Is Graphic Design?

Graphic Design is an art that can be expressed through graphics. All it takes is your imagination and a pencil, and you've created a graphic design. More advanced and professional graphic designers use computers to make their graphic designs for different companies. In graphic design, it is important to put lots of thought into what you do. If you are designing something for someone else, then think deeply about what would make them the happiest. You have 4 seconds to sell your product to your customers, so it's important that your designs make the customer feel emotion through your product.