Poster Project

One of the tools a used a bunch in this project was the eye dropper tool. I wanted to keep a flat palette in both posters, so using the eye dropper was a big help. It made it so I could easily match colors so I could stick to the same ones.

I think font type played a bigger role in my Quack Attack poster than the other one. For the main title I used a blocky type font. I chose that one because I wanted a font that resembled the type used on letterman’s jackets. This “movie” is about a flag-football team so I wanted to use text that conveyed the sports theme.

I really like dorky, not-very-well-known-bands so I decided that was the kind of band I wanted “Chapstick Revenge” to be. I wanted the poster to come across that way. I found a picture of four random people on Google, who became my band members, since it’s a smallish band. I wanted the Quack Attack poster to come off comically. My friends really do have a flag-football team and they take themselves pretty damn seriously. So yeah, this poster might be making fun of them just a little. I think between the massive rubber duck and super cliché slogan, I accomplished my mission.

Photo Project

"Friend"....Trenton getting ready to dominate a game of pool. Oooh yeah.

Photo Project Reflective Essay

As you can probably tell from the angle of my ‘other’ picture, I didn’t ask permission. This dude was just chillin’ by a bus stop on Ashland Street. I put my camera by my side and took a picture all sneaky like as I walked by. He had headphones on and was really in the zone working on something so I didn’t want to interrupt him in order to introduce myself.

"Self-Portrait"....me+mustache. yum.

I only made one adjustment to my ‘other’ photo. I really like the angle of this picture so I didn’t crop it at all. I upped the vibrancy a little just to make his stellar purple shirt stand out a little more. Other than that, I left the image alone.

 "Other".... the man with red headphones.

I took my camera on a run with me one morning and ended up taking the majority of my alphabet pictures that day. It was relatively early in the morning and the lighting was pretty good for most of the pictures. So adjusted the brightness on the sidewalk photos such as the 'I' and the 'X' because they were really washed out. Other than that I pretty much left the pictures as is.

Type Project

Type Project Reflective Essay

                I chose all my letters at random. I chose them simply for their shape. I didn’t have any connection to the letters. When choosing the letters I just thought about what I could do with the shape of each letter.

                In the majority of my compositions I rasterized the letters. I found that this made it easier for me to manipulate them the way I wanted. The only problem I found with this approach was that once I had rasterized a letter I was stuck with whichever font I had first chosen. I think by rastersizing the letters, the compositions were more about the overall visual effect instead of the actual letters.

                My favorite composition was the one with the dandelions…by far. It was the first project I did and definitely think it turned out the best. I like it better than the others because it depicts a scene even though everything is made out of v’s. I also like this one because I think the colors work really well together. I knew it was finished because I kept trying to add things to it and it just looked worse and worse. So I finally stopped trying to ruin it and let it be.

Toy Project

Paco the Dinosaur!

Reflective Essay

With Paco, I started creating him by first coloring his skin. After I had the basics covered I moved on to his face and other additional features like the spikes. I think this was a good approach. The only disadvantage I encountered was when I decided to change his skin color and had to work around all the other features.

At first, I used the eyedropper tool to sample colors off the Internet. Eventually I decided the colors just weren’t doin’ it for me, and ended up using the bright green color that was already in Photoshop’s toolbox. I used other Photoshop colors that worked for me for the other features in my toy also.

       My motivation behind this project was mainly just to have fun with it and learn more about Photoshop tools. I didn’t model my toy off a real person or try to make a political statement (obviously…). I thought making a baby dinosaur would be fun and would look simply fabulous sitting in my dorm room. (:

Scratch Project

Reflective Essay

         Before this project, I had basically no experience in Photoshop. I’ve pretty much just used the InDesign program. In the past I only used Photoshop to change photos to black and white. So needless to say, I found this program just a tad frustrating at first. However, by the third scratch project I was finally starting to get the hang of it and actually enjoy myself. :)

         My favorite tool was the shape tool. I used it in every image. The only thing I don’t like about this tool is how it creates a new layer with every shape I added. In the first project I was really having a hard time managing all the shapes and getting them to look the way I wanted.

         I think my best image is the one with the tree in it. I like how the brown stands out against the lighter colored shapes behind it. This was the only project that I went into with some general idea of what I wanted the final image to look like.