eComm Brochure

For this poster, I wanted to make it sophisticated and fun... like eComm. I used different shades of the main eComm color, blue, and added in a little black to offset the colors. The squares symbolize the pixels that I focus on in Graphic Design, which is the foundation of everything I do. The pictures worked into the pixels are all different sizes, representing the variety that this program has. I spent a lot of time and effort into this poster making it pleasing to the eye and taking accurate pictures of what eComm has to offer. I hope this poster draws people in and gets students into the eComm program.

Logo Design

At the beginning of this year I made this personal logo. I had little experience and knowledge of logo design,  and this is what I came up with.

For my final logo, I wanted to go with the theme of simplicity and feathers. The overall concept is bohemian with contrasting colors.

The industry I would be entering is bohemian-chic. These logos gave me inspiration when creating my own logo.

These logos are what I came up with. All are simple with no restricting border shape- such as a square or circle. My favorite one is the letter T with the feather going through the letter. I made many different color schemes and one in black and white.

This logo is my favorite and my final design. I chose the navy and light green because the colors can appeal to both males and females. I like the simplicity of the type face and the feather.

This is the logo "used in action" on my business card.  Since my logo is simple, I kept the business card simple as well. I left an asymmetrical white border around the side and kept some dead space in the middle.

For a web banner, I used a different logo design I came up with. Since a web banner is so wide, I didn't want to use my small, letter T logo. There would have been too much dead space, so I used an additional design. I dragged the feather to the opposite side of my name to add detail and get rid of dead space. To add pops of color I made lines of solid color and made some lines with a water-color brush for contrast.

The Kearning Game is a fun type activity where you move the letters and try and space them out like the font does. You move the letters and get a grade based on how close your edited word is to the actually type. It helps me as a graphic designer learn more about how different type fonts act and work.

eMagine 2014

Last Saturday, April 5, was the eMagine media festival. Although I didn't submit anything, I really enjoyed getting inspiration from other kids' work. To me, it is so cool to see kids right around my age being creative and making amazing works of art- whether it's a poster, logo, animation, or even a video.  eMagine gave me some cool ideas to work into my projects for this last quarter.

Modernized Movie Poster

With the assignment of modernizing an old movie from the 1960's, I began to research the trending designs of this decade. The main theme that I discovered was cartoon-looking approach with not a lot of detail. For my poster, I just made the bodies of the three main characters- leaving out the details of the face. The other extremely important design trend this decade is simplicity. With my poster, I didn't add tons of details to make the poster busy like Saul Bass did, I modernized it to make it appeal to people of all ages with simple but recognizable characters- Peter Pan, Captain Hook, and Tinkerbell. My poster is meant to be fun with colors unlike Saul Bass's dark and mysterious one. My poster appeals to all ages since it appears to be cartoon-ish and Disney themed.

A Look Inside Google

Google's font has a somewhat calligraphic feel with contrasting stroke weights and distinctive serifs. The colors are alternated to add a pop of color and fun to the pretty clean logo. In 2012, Google won the overall Brand of the Year award. Google's simple but well known logo is easily recognizable but can be altered from day to day because it changes all the time. The logo on the main page is constantly changed and added with extra details depending on the day. Google's colors were originally just primary colors, but then they threw in one green letter to bring back the idea that "Google doesn't follow the rules". The first Google logo ever was fat with thick letters that looked 2D. As the years went on, the letters became skinnier, 3D, and added with a small drop shadow. The best thing about the Google logo is the fact that it violates the long accepted tenet of brand management: that a logo must be respected and used correctly and consistently at all times. The Google logo has been noted for the constant interactive engagement that attracts the attention of the press as well as general public notice.

RWD Example

Responsive Web Design (RWD) is a web design that provides an optimal viewing experience- easy reading navigation with minimum resizing, panning, and scrolling with a wide range of devices. Starbucks is a great example of a website that would efficiently work on may different devices. Check it out at www.starbucks.com! Here are a few pictures of the website when the size is altered:

This is the main website- what it looks like on a computer full screen.

This screenshot is what the website looks like at about half the original size. A few qualities are missing, such as the search bar on the top and the picture captions of the right. Image sizes are lessened, but still the same quality. All the content is still easily readable and can be located easily.

This screenshot is the website at about 1/4 the size of the original, it is just a small, vertical sliver of the original. Even when the site is small, I can still read and see all the pictures. The headers at the top are now contained under a drop-down menu on the upper right corner. The main feed of the website is placed one under another. When I changed the width and size of this website, it constantly transformed and stayed clean cut. Starbucks is a great example of  RWD.

Responsive Web Design

Responsive Web Design (RWD) is a web design that provides an optimal viewing experience- easy reading navigation with minimum resizing, panning, and scrolling with a wide range of devices. RWD is important because it is one website that can be used on many devices so it is always accessible. Media queries is a CSS module allowing content rendering to adapt to the device conditions like screen resolution (smartphone vs. high definition screen). Breakpoints are the point where your site content will respond to provide the user with the best possible layout to consume information. 

My Story

When I say that I value something, I am saying that that object or those people have contributed to who I am today. For me, I don't value my phone or my car because those objects didn't shape my personality and what I have become over the years. An example of something that I value a lot is the beach. Not just because I like the water and warm weather (even though I do), but because that is where my family lives. I only see them every few years, and whenever I am with them, we are on a beach together. I value the memories I have on the beach with the people I love, not just the warm sand and the sunshine. I enjoy the band Twenty One Pilots because of the way I found out about them, which was an accident. They opened for the band Imagine Dragons when I saw them in concert. They only sang five songs, but they are now my favorite band and I will never forget hearing them live for the first time.
In this society, we are so brainwashed with what we have and how we look and who we look up to, that we forget that deep down we are all just the same. Everyone wants the cutest clothes and the biggest house, so when some of us have it, why should we value it? The joy that you get from an object only lasts so long, but the memories and important things that represent you are what will bring you long-term happiness. So I guess what I'm saying is that the things that I value the most are memories. I can say that I value objects or people, but behind everything that I say is a memory that I will cherish forever.

Bones Brigade DJs and Timothee Cottier

Bones Brigade DJs
http://www.bonesbrigadedjs.com

Using Adobe Illustrator to create the design of this website was a big bonus. The website is clean and simple with vectored images inside the shapes. The website is simple and allows the user to navigate easily. The two colors, orange and blue, really work well together and tie in the entire website.

Timothee Cottier

http://www.timotheecottier.fr

This website is a personal website for one man, and he really combined small images to make his website a hit. He used the three colors of the Superman on the backdrop of his website, and had his portfolio images on the front page which is easy to get to. Using Adobe Illustrator to make the images made them look professional while still fun, and the vectors make the image clean instead of blurry.

Using Adobe Illustrator for Web Design

To design web layouts, Adobe Illustrator can be used for sharp, clear images that are based off pixels. By applying a blank website page as a locked background, it can be the boundaries that you use when designing. If you use keyboard increments of 0.5 pixels you can easily smooth up a blurry picture of shape with a click of a button. 

Want a clean cut logo of design image? Easily create unique textures in Illustrator and add them to the design. Simply save them as graphic styles which can be added to websites, and you can be certain that they will be vectored and a clear image.

Even simple details created on Illustrator can save you a bunch of time during your actual web designing and will add to the design of the finished project. Doing simple tasks on Illustrator like 3D buttons with color or texture can go a long way. After designing a button, for example, just add it to the symbols panel and then when completed save as a graphic style again. Illustrator is even used for HD text. 

Adobe Illustrator is a super efficient and simple way to add that extra jazz to your website without eating up your time like a program known as Dreamweaver. :)

Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art

At the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art there is Contemporary American Indian Art on the first floor. One of the pieces is an Everlast punching bag made by Jeffrey Gibson. Added onto the bag is a wool blanket, glass beads, steel studs, artificial sinew, tin jingles and chains. There's something super cool to me about the fact that Jeffrey Gibson took something that is usually just beat up and made it into a beautiful work of art that nobody wants to hit anymore.