Top 10 Things Poster

My values reflect my work and products in the way that everything I do is positive and fun. Who else would put doughnuts on their top 10 poster? I enjoy being positive and I believe that is reflected in my work. This drives consumption because nobody wants to indulge and spend their time and money on negative, dull things. I believe these qualities will help me in the future because I want to be a successful graphic designer. My values reflect the fun-loving person I am and hopefully clients will appreciate that when choosing who to hire. I chose my fonts based on my personality and what I liked. My headers and sub headers are a Sans Serif font and my body font is a Serif font. A huge tip regarding typography is opposites attract, and I took that seriously when deciding on what fonts to use. My type pallet looks fun and interesting just like my personality and that's why I think my top 10 poster accurately and professionally describes me.

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