Final Post: Menu

I changes the color pallet, I like this much better. I made the burger and the shake on illustrator with the pen tool and brush tool. Almost done..

I made the salad plate on illustrator as well, I didn't use photoshop for this project at all. Then I reorganized the setup a little because of the awkward gaps there were and that's about it! I think it looks pretty good; I'm proud of it. InDesign wasn't too bad all.

And there it is. I feel it has a calmer look and I wanted to keep it simplistic and reminiscent of a 1950's diner.  

Menu

I had begun in class with a different font, but when I started working from home, there was no such font on my version of InDesign, so I had to switch it up. So the scale got messed up and its not as nice aesthetically, but whatever I guess.. I just gotta work back a few steps; not a problem. 

Anyways, what I'm planing to do is change their menu into a more 50's looking menu, since it's kind of like a diner and diners were born in the lovely 50's. I'm still deciding on the colors and such but my plan is to keep this setup. I added a border and I still have some sections and photos im planning on adding.

Final Newsletter

Here's the final newsletter. It's a front and back file. I tried to keep the same color pallet throughout  (purple and yellow) for the sake of it looking harmonious. From my last post, it has definitely changed a bit, and I'm glad, I like it better. I wrote all of the information besides the quote of MOSI's mission statement. All the assignment requirements are on there, and for the 2 techniques learned outside of class, I used the effects tool on  the images. One was the soft light effect and the other was the color burn. 

Newsletter

I visited MOSI on the weekend and took some photos of what I was allowed to. So far, this is what I have for my Newsletter. Is a one page newsletter okay if it contains all the information required? Because all of mine is here.. I've got three columns; one speaking of permanent exhibitions, one for general info about the museum and its attractions, and one for the temporary mummy exhibition. I included the information about the museum plus a map of location and a comment on its award. Almost done..

Newsletter

There's something about paying to see caged animals that doesn't really rub me the right way, so I settled for MOSI. I went by yesterday to get their brochures and such, and gather information about the museum and the exhibitions. I intend to go with company on Saturday for photographs. But I can definitely start on the newsletter with what I have now.

Here's the general layout I hope to follow for the Newsletter.

And this is the information I hope to include in my newsletter of MOSI.

Menu and Newsletter

I hope to recreate the Daily Eats Lunch/Dinner menu for this assignment. Its a front and back one page menu, and the back follows this same format and includes burgers, sandwiches and mac and cheese dishes.


About the newsletter project, I hope to go to MOSI tomorrow, photograph whatever I can, and make the newsletter's focus the mummy display, because it's what seems to most interest me from that museum. Also, I've never been, and I feel this would be a good opportunity to go, whereas I have been to the children's museum as well as the aquarium. And although I would have liked to go to the zoo, I feel these thunderstorms are getting in the way. So I might leave that for some other time.

For now, I've downloaded the InDesign trial, and am watching tutorials to get a feel for the program. Best of luck to all.

Final Sound as Image

The images I did only on illustrator were the political debate, the ceiling fan, and the long distance conversation between lovers. The process and progression are in the prior post if you'd like to scroll down and see. 

The other three (bridge, opposing sports team and shell crackling) were done manipulating photos on Photoshop. I showed the process of the first two on the prior post as well, and the crackling of shells was not what I had chosen initially for my sound of choice, but my initial idea was not working well.. so I switched. For this one I assembled a few images on different payers. They were photos of the same thing in different angles. Then I adjusted the levels and curves, and the opacity for transparency. What I hoped to achieve with this composition was the sound of shells crackling in a breeze. 

progress

Here's the progress of the conversation between lovers. Everything was made on illustrator using only vector shapes. I used the brush very little for the shading of the characters. But that was about it.. You think I should color the background in? Is white too plain..?

Here's the fan I started over:

These are also all vector shapes plus the blur effect to simulate movement.

Here's the opposing sports team one.. I'm doing it on Photoshop, with the one subject I can photograph at any time. 

I took a number of photos of myself and will replicate as many of these as i have to to fill up the square. I've mainly just used the quick selection tool or the magnetic lasso to exclude the background and pasted each one in a different layer. I used the transform tool to get the sizes right, and I'm using the lasso tool to select sections of my face and changing their hue to simulate face paint of flags and such. 

I don't like how it's coming out, but I don't think I can afford to be picky right now. Burn tool for the shadows too if I hadn't mentioned that already.

For the old bridge, I have this

I took the photo I said I would use. I copied part of the bridge into different layers and lessened the opacity so that it would be mostly transparent. My goal with that was to simulate shakiness, not sure that happened but I really don't know how to do it better. That little green car was cut from another image I took. This one right here. 

I then transferred the image to Illustrator to mess with the vectors. I did a little bit but meeh.. wasn't looking too real. So i left it as is.

sound as image

I might start a new fan, i really don't like the look of mine. But anyways, I haven't done too much since my last post because I worked a double shift yesterday and worked the morning shift today, so I really didn't have a lot of time left to work on these. However, I do have something planned for the weekend workload in terms of the other 'sound as image'.. images. 

Here's a photo of a bridge in Rome I took not too long ago. I think I might use this one for the sound of crossing an old bridge.

  For the conversation between long distance lovers I was thinking of following the same format that I did for the political debate, but split the square diagonally with a lover in each triangle to simulate the distance. Both would be on the phone longing for on another and whining about the distance (kind of sort of--at least that's what I hope to portray with the image). I'd draw out the characters using vector shapes much like I did for the political debate. 

I'm still a little lost on the opposing sports teams..I have this vague idea of showing the crowds of the opposing teams in different colors holding up signs and making cheering noises, but nothing's concrete in my mind yet. I'm not even sure if I'll use only illustrator or both illustrator and photoshop. We'll see though, I'll come up with something.

And for the one of choice, many ideas, nothing concrete.. I thought of the sound of construction work, sounds of frying stuff, the sound of splashing water.. We'll see too. By my monday post I'll be sure to have more than just ideas. 

Mesh Bear

For the Mesh assignment, besides the object difference, I'm sure everyone's process war relatively the same; separating each part of the object into different layers using the pen tool, filling it in with the eye drop tool with the general color of each area, then making a grid of each layer with the gradient mesh tool and going from the select tool to the eye drop tool and coloring each section with its appropriate color to make the object seem three dimensional. I spent a lot of time trying to make the sections blend in with each other because most of the time they would look like exactly that -- separate sections. So I'd use the eye drop tool from the color of one section to the other. I think this was most successful on his belly. For the texture I used the sponge effect. I tried many of them and it seemed to have been the most similar. Prior posts have images of earlier stages of the bear.

Sound as Image

This is how the bear looks now. I still have a few things to tweak and a few colors to blend more smoothly, but it's almost there. 

In terms of the sounds as images project, I started by doing a fan on illustrator but I wasn't pleased with my result. I might start over on that one. Take a look at how bad it looks though just so that it's made clear why I want to start over hehe.. 

Then I moved to the political debate, also done on illustrator. This is what I have

That blue thing is suppose to look like a donkey, which it most obviously does not as of now.. but I'll get there. I like how this one is coming out though. Still have a lot to do, and I'm still brainstorming on the ideas for the other ones. 

Opposites

This is the final result for the opposites project. I explored many a tools on Photoshop, some of which I mentioned in the prior post. I later added a border to the posters by adding a simple frame, but the result didn't please me; the image became heavy and I felt it didn't fit the composition very well. I very much enjoyed playing with the opacity and fill between the layers; I felt the result very much pleased me. That, as well as the words and how they fit nicely with their surroundings thanks to the eraser tool I used to change their shape by removing parts from the "dry" and the brush tool that I used to add droplets on the "wet". 

Overall I thought the result was successful and I'm happy with what I've done. Exploring Photoshop was interesting and I felt I learned a lot by doing this exercise although I'm certain there's much much more to know.

Wet and Dry

For the opposite assignment I went for a walk and photographed some dry and cracking asphalt, and for its opposite, I chose an existing photo I took a couple of years back in Natal, Brazil.

I altered the levels and curves on both images to enhance the patterns on each. I also added a slight green gradient layer to the wet landscape, and added an orange gradient layer to the dry landscape.

For the texts, both processes were relatively similar in that I added to the effects of the text with the brush tool; for the wet canvas I drew droplets on the text to simulate the movement of water, and for the dry canvas I  cut rough edges to simulate cracks similar to the ground.


This is what it looked like once I did those, but I still wanted to place images over both. 

So I added to the wet landscape another photo that I took from the inside of a bus with drops of rain sliding from the window. I pasted the photo on a new layer, changed its opacity percentage as well as the fill, and then chose the linear light effect. I like it a lot like this; 

And for the dry landscape I placed a photo of a part of the grand canyon I took a couple of years back and added some texture to the layer. I edited the levels of the photo, the fill and opacity then added the overlay effect. It contributes a lot to the orange tint the photo now carries.

Progress on zee Teddy and zee opposite poster

So far, my Teddy looks like such:

A definite progress from my last post. I'm proud of this, but there's still a lot to fix until Thursday. It's a very time consuming project, but once you get the hang of it, I feel it gets pretty fun, don't you? He's adorable, too. 

I felt a little stuck with this opposite project, especially with the topic I chose.. So I've decided, once again, that I'm switching. I'm going to work with wet and dry. I love when work of art has movement, and my prior idea wasn't translating that very well; the images were all still and flat. And although I do like repetition in terms of composition, I like it best when it works to create movement, and it wasn't doing it for me. I think this wet and dry opposition will get that point across better. Today I will photograph water (in movement) to represent wetness, and photograph cracks and dry leaves, things of the sort, to represent dryness. 

I feel I always have many ideas that come to me, but in execution, nothing translates as well as I would hope. I hope this one works. 

Best of luck to all and a great weekend.

Mesh Teddy / Well-being and Ill-being

Hello!

After the class session yesterday I thought that I wanted to do Man and Woman for the opposites project, but I unfortunately don't have many friends around during the summer, let alone any men willing to have me photograph them. I would pose as the man, which I think would be quite funny, but I also have no props of my own. I think the Man and Woman project would be a great one to invest in if this were a whole semester course. Given that, I tried to think of something else that would better fit the circumstances of summer. I decided on health/wellness and sickness/ill-being. And I've decided to work with food sources that bring those about. I went to Walmart and took some quick (possibly illegal) photos of their food products do display the contrast of those two words. Here's some of them:

 They aren't edited one bit and I do realize they are crooked and imperfect, but there's only so much I can do in stealth mode creeping through the aisles of the supermarket. 

  On my gradient mesh project, I noticed a good chunk of the class was working on the kettle. I was doing that one too, but I feel like I'd like to do something different. And I honestly think starting over won't be so bad. If anything, I'll get more experience with this mesh business anyways. So I switched to the Teddy. He's what the poor little thing looks like as of now. All choppy and 2D. And, oh surprise, I ran into some problems I can't seem to figure out. Sorry Brooke, I really wish I were better at these things so that I wouldn't bug you so much. 

  See you all tomorrow!

Six Square Banjo

I had a really tough time with this exercise at home and I had a lot of problems pop up from this one month Photoshop trial. The program would just shut down without warning and my saved files disappeared a few times. I did this thing over a number of times and how come when you place an image you can no longer make changes to it? That bothered me as well as kept me from perfecting my image. I'm having trouble uploading the assignment on lore right now.. It's absurd. It's been "submitting" for twenty minutes now. I don't think I can work from home anymore. It's ridiculous.

I'll make the best of this I guess.

So the beginning of my process is described in the prior post. I wanted to take the banjo (a simple enough looking instrument and somewhat of a bland composition) and make it more interesting, give it movement and life. So I worked with the concept of circular movement (following the shape of the body of the banjo) and repetition, which I think constitutes the pattern in music and rhythm.

I mostly used the clone stamp tool (for the background filling and parts of the banjo), quick selection/magnetic lasso tools, transform tools (to change the direction and size of the banjos). But also used the sharpening tool, Eraser, text tool, eye drop tool for the text color to match the banjo body color, burn tool for shadows, leveling and curves to make the colors more vibrant, the layer options although I didn't like what they were doing so I didn't do much with those, and the pen tool was the same; I messed around with it a little but I didn't do much with it.

I still haven't been able to upload my photoshop file on lore..
I don't know what to do..