Graphic Design

Many things use graphic design that you don't even realize. The best way to describe it is, in a movie when one camera cuts to the next and it feels natural like a fluent motion. It is like this in graphic design when you look at a menu and you don't even think about it because it just feels natural, its designed how you expect it to be organized and it just looks appealing.

It isn't just confined to menus however, someone somewhere designed every different sign manual pamphlet or website. Not only that but they made it look easy as well.

Using different typefaces and colors a graphic designer is able to achieve and portray an emotion or idea. It can be from organizing words on a page and choosing the font and color to creating a picture or design keeping in mind the feelings behind each color. The best way to understand what graphic design is, is to picture life without it. It would be boring not easy or fun to read and would ultimately create a monotonous environment everywhere.

I really enjoyed this video because it was fun to watch and helps to get across its message which is what graphic design is all about

The Final project

The Final project

For the video segment of our product, we all made videos then voted on the winner. I was in charge of setting up shots and I had help when the others weren’t acting. I also made the watch prop for our video.

In the graphic design portion we all made logos and the one seen on the website we, again all voted for.  As seen here, my contribution to the website and graphics were that I designed the banner and the color scheme for the website I also helped trouble shoot the website.

For animation we all made the watch in sketch up then decided based on each other’s skills, which one of us was in charge of each of the 4 parts of animation. I was in charge of making the actual watch, so I started over and perfected by reshaping it and choosing fitting textures.

In the end, our team was capable to work together and produce an astounding end product. We used each others skills and strengths to fill in for each others weaknesses and created a strong team by doing so. Our team had two lions which resulted in some disagreements at points but we were able to guide ourselves to the correct path.

Prime Watch Commercial

Overall I enjoyed this project because it had a lot of freedom. We were able to use most things we learned from 3rd quarter. I find that the video is pretty easy to follow what happens and it still conveys the message we were aiming for. The video came out exactly as I was picturing in my head.
My group used a new technique as well which was panning, where the camera followed our actress walk down a hall. This turned out very well it was smooth and consistent and feels natural. Something new I personally used was during editing I learned how to display a name on the screen during a testimonial.
If I could have changed one thing I would have added more people talking for background audio because I feel I had to get too much music to fill in the blank spaces where someone is just walking. I also had trouble meeting a minuet which I did eventually get.

My Personality and Its Contributions

INTJ

My personality type is INTJ, this is also known as the strategist or mastermind. I have a slight preference of introversion over extroversion. This means that I work well by my self and enjoy time on my own, but I can still communicate and work in groups. I have a moderate preference of intuition over sensing, meaning that I do what I think is the best way to go about something vs. what might seem right. I have a moderate preference of thinking over feeling. This is exactly how it sounds, I base my decisions on logic over emotions. I have marginal to no preference of judging over perceiving. I only had a 1% toward judging this shows how I could work from judgment or perception the same. 

Real-Life connection

I find that this personality type truly fits me because like the personality type explains I like time by myself just to think about possibilities, Ideas and theories. A line I saw that really caught me was " INTJs inherently trust their insights, and with their task-orientation will work intensely to make their visions into reality". all in all I couldn't find a part of this personality that doesn't fit me.

Application

In a group I can be a leader and mostly like to use my Ideas because, well "I'm always right". I understand that simple is better but I can find that hard to implement sometimes because the more complicated way can seem easier. I feel that INTJs are necessary to a functioning group as a visionary and to determine the best way to solve a problem.

Raven Collage

Out of all the projects shown this one is by far the most complicated because it involved 6 pictures and editing each individually. The first part to this project was editing the background of the school by taking out the otherwise distracting light poles. This was done using a tool that I hadn't seen in illustrator, that would be the clone stamp tool. It allowed me to copy the area selected with alt and replace the area that I dragged it over. Then the raven was cut out using another tool I hadn't seen before: the magnetic lasso tool. This was for the most part pretty easy to use because unlike the rest of the program it was easy to undo by just clicking the delete button. then I used the brush in a different way to fade the pictures together. Finally I adjusted the transparency, cropped the picture and added a border.

ONW

This project was relatively simple I started with a picture of the school then opened a new project and added the compass and resized it. Next I added the compass to the school background then I used the magic eraser to get rid of the white box and other unnecessary white spaces. The next step I did was blending the compass with the sky and clouds. finally I added the type over the top of it and just as the last I finished with adjusting the transparency and cropped it.

Northwest

This project surprisingly out of all of the projects gave the most trouble. I found the type tool very frustrating during this because it seemed to finalize too fast and it was difficult to adjust after it was typed. Then trying to add the gradient was difficult and I had a lot of trouble with it. Over all this project I had more problems with then all of the others.

Rainbow Butterfly

This was my favorite of all the projects because it was simple but it still had lots of freedom with changing the color and and adding the blur with the clone stamp tool. At first I did have some trouble with the magic wand were it wouldn't select the entire orange section but only parts of it. In the end I feel this one turned out very well.

Custom logo

The scope of the project.

I began process of studying the content in this logo when we started studying color psychology. This logo is a monochromatic logo for two reasons. The first reason is because I wanted the logo to appear to be three dimensional and I accomplished that by making it look like light was reflecting off one side and a shadow was on the other. The other reason is because I wanted a simple object that didn't look messy with too many colors. The reason I chose blue was because out of all qualities a company could have I feel trust is the key and blue represents trust.

The Next part of this logo are the shapes involved. The first is the circle, with it it allows a picture to feel like a logo by making it all one clean shape. The main shape I think in this would be the square, even though it isn't a real square the triangles make it appear as if it is a square. I like the square because it is a strong shape and its very equal. I also really like the triangle so I really wanted to use it. I decided on making it more in the background but still present. I didn't want to make it the focal point because even though its the strongest in nature, it still gives a kind of off putting feel. Over all as a three dimensional shape I liked the one that was in a video were it wasn't 90 or 45 degrees and it was just a little tilted so I tried to give a similar effect to mine.

Finally the "M" on the top is probably the most straight forward part of my logo. I used two 8th Notes and bended the arm between to create an M. The reason I did this is because I wanted it to reflect music because hopefully I will own a music related company.

What I learned during this project

What I was taught in this project was how to create or change every aspect of a design or logo to convey the feeling or message. For example if you were making a logo for a bank you would want a blue square because blue symbolizes trust and a square shows strength or support. Something that I learned on my own in this project was how to use the scale tool to orient the M so it appears as if it were actually on the plane of the object.

What I would do differently next time

The one thing I would think that I may do differently if I did this again would be, I would make it a little more exact or maybe center it differently. The Next time I could also try a different color scheme or just a different color.

What I would do the same

I would mostly Try and do everything else the same. I would definitely keep the M that I made and I would use the same shapes in it as well. Over all I really liked the outcome of my logo.

pathfinder testing

I have learned that with the pathfinder tool it is much easier to make organic shapes by combining ordinary shapes together or removing a shape from another like a cookie cutter. And with that I learned that there are a lot more possibilities with illustrator then I had initially thought. A good application for this would be if you wanted to make a logo or design using the negative space of the piece you were working on you could just use the pathfinder and cut a design out of a solid shape.

To the left is what I tested, I tried using the same shapes for each function to compare them and see what I could come up with. To the right I tried using the pathfinder to make a guitar. I started with a rounded rectangle and added an ellipse to the bottom then just cut out the shape using other pieces. At one point it was unproportional so I cut it in half then sized it down and used the pathfinder to put it right back together. This will probably be my most used tool on illustrator.