Thursday, April 16, 2009

Bristol, RI Brochure!

















Above is a brochure I created to advertise some museums that can be found in Bristol, RI. I found it easy to find pictures & backgrounds for the brochure, because Bristol is such a scenic town. My biggest challenge was when I forgot to save my document in my private folder, and lost all of my material and only found out the day the brochure was due. However, because I had saved all of my images, putting it back together was not a problem. I am most proud of my ability to make such a professional looking document. Quark Xpress was a great program to work with, and after using it for a second time, I feel pretty comfortable with it. If I had more time, I would definitely have worked with more fonts and more graphics to make the brochure look even more professional. I would also have used PhotoShop to customize every picture.
I chose to create a brochure about museums and historical sites in Bristol, RI because I feel that it is important to understand the culture and history that has taken place in a particular town.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Jonas Brothers CD Release Poster!


This poster was created on Quark Xpress, having never used Quark before I found it very easy to get used to. I enjoyed using the same band I used for my Power Point, so that I could use the same images and color schemes that I had used previously. If I had more time, I would definitely have used a more interesting background, probably one that incorporated a large image of the Jonas Brothers. I stuck with the same font throughout the poster because I believe that it made it look uniform, even though the fonts varied in size and color. My biggest problem was remembering to switch from the item tool to the content tool, I would always forget to do that and end up dragging around the wrong thing. However, overall, this assignment was fun and allowed me to be creative. I feel that by knowing how to use Quark Xpress, I will definitely be using this program in the future for classes and personal reasons.

Monday, March 30, 2009

The Jonas Brothers- A Kiosk Powerpoint

I created my power point about the Jonas Brothers, one of my favorite bands. Creating this power point came very easily to me. I thoroughly enjoyed using pictures as the backgrounds of the slides, and playing with the transparency and coloring of the pictures, to have it match with the font and text used on the slides. I felt that I used the animations very thoroughly, however, they did not go along with the music. The only challenge I really faced was figuring out what color font I should use, to ensure that the font was readable but still went along with the slide's color scheme. I am most proud that I was able to attach the MP3 file and figure out how to play it constantly on my own, without any help. The skills that I learned while completing this power point will definitely be of assistance to be for the rest of my academic career. If I had more time I would work more with the effects of the slides and the animations. I would make the animations coincide with the music, and have it go to the beat. Overall, I felt very confident in my final product and will hopefully be able to use my power point skills in the future.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Contact Sheet- Image Editing Basics~


I found this assignment quite interesting to complete. The toughest part was finding images that were big enough to edit and were an image of something that would represent the kind of editing tool I was using. For the resolution tool I chose a picture of a red flower, a picture that you can easily track the change in resolution from 72 DPI all the way to 1200 DPI.


Next, for the Format/Mode tool, I chose a picture of Mount Hope Bridge, a picture that looks great in the RGB setting, as well as the CMYK, Black and White, and Duotone. I mixed the duotone with purple and yellow, to make a rustic look in the picture, the color kind of reminded me of a sepia tone. To the right, I have pictured the black and white version of the picture of Mount Hope Bridge, this image has all color stripped out of it, a setting you must put into effect before you can use the duotone setting.

For orientation I chose a picture of cars in a junk yard. This image was appealing to me because it was abstract and could easily be changed from landscape to square and portrait. For the tool framing, I chose a picture of a red car in a junk yard with a green hose. I gradually cropped the picture to the close-up, where the green hose is the focus of the picture. For the content tool, I started with a picture of a sunflower with a bee on it. I gradually cropped the picture to finally form the abstract image of the center of the sunflower, that has great texture and intricate colors. For the purpose tool, I chose an abstract picture of a red cross. I used the artistic finishes Fresco and Plastic Wrap, because they added interesting flairs on the picture. I finished with the Palette Knife, a finish that added a soft feel to the picture.
As previously stated, my biggest challenge was finding pictures that were the right size and had the right effect for each category. I solved these challenges by continuing to search for pictures until I was satisfied. I thoroughly enjoyed working with all of the different settings and seeing how one effect could change the whole picture. I am most proud that I could come from the first assignment, where I felt lost the whole time, and then complete this assignment all on my own. If I had more time, I would have looked for better images that were more creative and abstract. Overall, I enjoyed this assignment.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Font Poem!


This quote "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints. The sinners are much more fun." is a quote from the Billy Joel song "Only the Good Die Young". I chose this quote because I truly live my life by this quote. I would much rather have fun and be considered a sinner, than to hold back from living just to be well behaved all the time. I strongly believe that one must rebel and make mistakes to learn life lessons and to most importantly have fun in the process. The song in its entirety has a great message, basically it states that you should live fast, die young. I am a firm believer that you never know which day will be your last, so you have to live each and every day to its fullest. This quote definitely portrays that message.
I chose to use the font Orator Std. for the words that did not need much emphasis, because the font looked like a pretty standard font and would not take away from the words I wanted to emphasize. For the word "laugh", I used the font Giddyup, because the font seemed like a very fun font, a font that would coincide with laughing. I used the font Eccentric for the word "Sinner", because the font stood out and appeared to be confident and standing tall. I put the words "laugh" and "sinner" in red because they coincide with each other and are in the same line. For the word "cry" I used the font Herculanum, because the font looked sad to me, and did not appear to make a bold or happy statement. I used the font Lucida Handwriting for the word "saints" because it appears church like to me. I chose to make the words "cry" and "saints" Cyan Blue because Cyan Blue appear to be saint-like and pure. The word "much" is in the font Cooper Black, because it is bold and really emphasizes the word "much". And finally, the word "fun" is in the font Rosewood, because to me, it looks like a font that would be used at a circus, and a circus to me, symbolizes fun. I made the line "The sinners are much more fun." much larger than the others because I feel that that line is the most important one, it shows that its better to have fun and be a sinner than be sheltered or held back and be a saint.
I found it very difficult to navigate around Photoshop at some points because as a class, we were not shown how to make different font effects and we had to figure them out on our own. I worked with this difficulty by asking one of my classmates for some help and by playing around with the tools.
I am most proud that I could use one of my favorite quotes and make it into a piece of personal art. It was awesome to be able to choose a quote that many people may know, and make it my own. If I had more time I would have played with the layout of the fonts, and would have added a halo over the word "saints" and a devil's tail around the word "sinners". I would have also rotated the fonts and played with the finishes I could put on the font.