Some things I have learned so far.....

Guidelines to Communications Graphics at Buff State:

 

DO NOT COME LATE TO CLASS!

All projects are in InDesign, all exercises are in Illustrator

PACKAGE YOUR WORK

Magnetic lasso tool is a life saver, and project saver

PAY ATTENTION TO THE FIRST DEMONSTRATION FOR ALL PROJECTS

Save everything. Use Dropbox. Don't forget your flashdrive

BLOG.BLOG.BLOG.BLOG.BLOG.

Do not eat in class

NO ORPHANS OR WIDOWS, PLEASE!

Walk away from your work if you start to make mistakes

DELETE AND START OVER IF YOU NEED TO

 

EL

 

Fall in to the GAP!

Every season we have a new campaign at Gap. All year we have seen brights across the runway, and this is not changing for this season or winter. NEON'S! BRIGHTS! LOUD! COLORS! Those are all the word that come to mind when I see our GAP style book. These are some images from our 2012 style campaigns. 

 In this ad, I like that the bodies are at a slight diagonal to draw the eye to the word "BRIGHT"

These are images from our summer campaign, as you can see brights and neon's were definitely in. As for design purposes, you can see that the text and the texture of the text is the same for both ads. Now I will show you a picture of the latest campaign, RED, BRIGHT AND NEW. I think this is the name because the elections are right around the corner this fall, but also because fashion is bringing our dark fall wardrobe to the light. 

As you can see, the same text and the same texture for this ad too. I think this is something some people would say "If you have a great idea, RUN WITH IT!" I think that the text works for the company. It is a good mix of bold and subtle. One criticism I have is that maybe they could have had another color for the textured text. I understand why they have it, it is because everything in our store right now has that color or pairs well with that color, but I don't think other people get that. I am not sure what color should go there, I would have to play with it, but I think it may be a little too much red. Other than that, I love this. I also love how the image balances out the text and the color are repeated across the entire add. I think GAP does a fantastic design and concept for all their campaigns

EL

You're so SQUARE

Who knew all of these took so much thought. I never knew squares could be so difficult. I has no problem with choosing colors for the first row. I actually really like the colors I chose. They remind me of summer.

For this part of the exercise, I thought that it was something completely different than what it was. I thought that as soon as they overlap the center color will happen, but instead we had to fill that ourselves.

The next set of square was super easy. It kind of reminds me of yin and yang. I think it is interesting how the difference in colors in these two designs (above and below) shows how our eyes perceive colors in a weird way. 

I just love colors. I chose the purple in the center of the square because it is my favorite color. The complimentary color on the color wheel would be the green and the analogous color would be this blueish purple color. I think it is kind of neat how you can use the eyedropper to make shapes the same colors because it is hard to find that exact color again if you don't. 

Overall, I liked this project. SOOOOOO MANY SQUARES!!!

EL

Project One

I am actually really excited to show my project to the class later tonight. I really put a lot of time and effort into this project. I spent about a total of 8 hours on this project. I fought with the computer a few times, deleted everything a few times, and started from scratch a few times, but I think my final result looks fabulous! I made it very much about the pumpkins.

I chose to do the pumpkin article, because it is the perfect season for pumpkins. I love fall, so there was no doubt in my mind that I was picking this article. The first thing that popped into my head was color. I went for a color palette that would match most of my fall clothes: brown, burgundy, mustard yellow, dark green, and orange. I played around with the colors over and over. I went from mostly orange to the burgundy brown I chose to stay with as my background color. I chose white for my font so it will stand out from the dark palette behind it.

The next thing I started to think about was design. What images was I going to incorporate? How many should I put there? How can I make the reader look from top to bottom? So I took some ideas from my white board at work. Every week I decorate a white board at work to fit in holidays, seasons, and fun events in the area. Last week I made this board.......

I love the idea of falling leaves. So I went onto morgue file and found leaves with blank white backgrounds. I also found pictures of pumpkins with plain white backgrounds. Professor Greenan showed me how to use the magnetic lasso tool in Photoshop to select only the object and copy and paste it onto a transparent background so I can add the images to my magazine article. I made the leaves look like they are falling. I also did the same thing with the pumpkins as I did here in my white board drawing; I have all different sizes placed in front of and behind each other.

The last thing I took care of was the typography. I wanted a big title, a bold subtitle, and a round text for the rest of the article. I feel like I executed this goal flawlessly. I can't remember the font faces I used exactly but You will be able to see what I did in class. I feel like it looks really good! I had to make sure I had no widows or orphans, because we all know that those are a BIG NO NO! With this, I just changed the kearning slightly in the last few lines of the paragraphs. The last thing I did with the typography was that I put large letters at the beginning of one paragraph a column in the background at a 55% transparency. This is to draw the readers eyes from left to right.

Overall, I really liked this project! I feel like I learned a lot by playing around with the programs and I am very proud of the piece I created :)