Final Slide Show

What I was hoping to achieve with my design was a beautiful slide show that told a story. I really wanted unique, high quality pictures and an interesting narrative. Also, I wanted them to blend together.

First I wrote my narrative. Then I found pictures to describe the narrative on Flickr. Then I edited my narrative and added music and sounds to it. I have a lot of songs instead of sounds because I think it is appropriate for what my slide show is about. There are not that many sounds in dance besides music.

Finding nice pictures I could get online for free was challenging. I had the same problem finding free sounds. It also took a while to edit the audio and it was awkward to record my narrative but all and all I think the end product turned out well.

This is probably because I just kept at it. I searched for a while until I found all of the perfect raw materials. Then I just spent a lot of time putting everything together and it ended up not being that hard at all actually.

I am proud of this whole project, I think it turned out really nice. I like the look of it. I also like how it flows and how the pictures and audio blend together. I am also proud of myself for getting it online!

If I had more time I might have edited audio more carefully. Or I might have done fancier things with the slide show as a whole. I might have touched up the timing a little more too.

Bind In - Blow In Card

In my design, I was simply trying to to achieve a similar look to the original. I wanted to be able to use both Quark and InDesign to create almost exact copies of the actual card. Realistically though, I ended up just trying to have them come out similar instead of exact because this was really difficult!

I decided to start with Quark because originally I disliked it. However, when it came time to use InDesign I realized it was much more difficult for this particular project. (The card from InDesign is at the top. The other and the back were done in Quark.) I decided that these two programs both have their pluses and minuses, choosing comes down to what kind of project you are doing. For example, I found making shapes was much easier in Quark which was very helpful because my card is filled with circles.

This circles were a pain and took forever to do over and over again. What was also difficult was finding the exact same fonts as the one in the original. I am not sure how often I was even successful with this. Also, getting everything to fit in the right positions was very difficult. One thing I do not like about InDesign is the way it works with pictures, it is much more difficult than Quark and this took me some time. One thing I found impossible was making an arrow like the one in the original card. I could not find a single easy was to make a triangle! Also, all of the little lines on the back are not straight because this would have taken an hour all by itself.

Like many projects in this class though, with enough perseverance most of this problems fixed themselves through time and effort. I just had to search for fonts, move things around over and over again, and play around with the photos. Although, I could do more with more time.

However, I am proud of finding good images and mixing accurate colors. I am also proud of myself for sticking with this project, it was very frustrating. One of the things I am most happy with is that I am starting to master not one program but two because of this project.

I can not even image all of the time I could spend on this if I had forever. I would definitely touch up everything actually. What I want to fix most though are the arrows, the fonts, and all the little lines on the back.

Flickr Powerpoint

How to Use Flickr

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Soundslides

Webpage

Brochure

In my design, I was hoping to achieve a look that really fit the company. I wanted to use their colors and make it something they would appreciate. I also wanted to create a brochure that gives just the right amount of information.

The first decision I had to make was the overall look. I choose pink and black for my color scheme because those are the colors that the company always uses and I think it is appropriate. I choose the font for the front cover because that is the font that the company uses. I choose my other fonts because they were my favorite for this company off the list that was given to us in class. Then I had to choose what information and pictures to use. I basically just picked what I believe to be the most important information to have in a brochure and then choose pictures that sort of illustrated what I was saying and made the layout more interesting at the same time.

I found making a gradient very challenging. I needed a lot of help and time to figure out how to use the tool in InDesign. Also, simply deciding what information was the most important was difficult.

The main problem I had to solve was making the gradient. First, I just played around with it for a while. Then, when that did not work, I looked up how to do it in the help menu and in our book but I still could not do it. Finally, I just used the help of others in class and that did work!

I am most proud of the overall look of my brochure. I think that the company would be very happy with it. It is cute and it gives a lot of information in an interesting way.

If I had more time I would work on the pictures. I am not sure if the program is just doing strange things to them but some of them are kind of blurry even though I edited them in Photoshop first. On the other hand, this happened to others as well so I just let it go for now.

Concert Poster

I wanted my Concert Poster to be easy to read and informative first of all. I also wanted it to be visually interesting though. Plus, I tried to make the design reflect the band and the other graphics they have used before.

I choose red and black as my main colors because they really reflect the band's taste and style. I choose my font because I think it looks a little rock and roll which is perfect. I decided to make the time and place information a different font and color because this information needed to be really clear. All of my placement decisions were based on trying to create the ideal Z shape we discussed in class.

The hardest part of making the poster for me was deciding on the graphic. Since this is a small band they do not have many good pictures to use on posters. I also tried to use the magic eraser tool in Photoshop but it ended up looking unprofessional because I could not get the background to leave completely. I also had trouble deciding on the placement of things. I wanted to create a Z without leaving too much white space and this is difficult.

I think I solved both of these problems though. I like what I did with my picture. When it comes to the positioning, with the little information and graphics I had I think I filled up the space fairly well.

I am most proud of myself with sticking with the project. It was difficult, and I do not think that I really like the program we worked with. Quark was very frustrating to me for some reason but I just spent a lot of time with it and made it work.

If I had more time I think I would tweak almost everything. I am not completely satisfied with the placement. Also, I really wish I could have gotten the magic eraser tool to work with my photo.

PowerPoint

With my design, I was hoping to achieve a nice blend of clarity and creativity. I wanted to use what I had learned from the reading about PowerPoint to make an easy to understand presentation. However, since my topic was Lady Gaga I also wanted to work in a lot of playfulness so that it would match her personality.
One important decision I made was the color of the slides. I chose blue because Lady Gaga seems to wear this color a lot and fashion is very important to her. Another stylistic aspect that effected the whole presentation was the font. Originally I had a really plain font so that it would be easy to read, but I eventually decided that this was one thing that needed to be ruled by creativity instead of clarity. I also tried to throw in a few crazy transitions and animations for added interest. On the same note, I made my own table so that I could be more creative with animations here as well.
I would say that the timing of the presentation was the most challenging aspect. It just took a really long time to make it work exactly like I needed it to, but after spending a lot of time on it I think I got it right. Also, getting that balance of creative and clear that I was talking about was difficult. I solved this by simply playing around with colors, and fonts, and animations while still keeping the basic rules in mind.
I think I am most proud of my slide with the table. I tried really hard when making it and it was not easy. I also think it is really interesting, different, and effective.
If I had more time I would probably just do some extra touching up. I might make a better music clip with fading effects. I would also maybe tweak the timing a little more. In addition, I would probably play with color and animations a little more.
Gaga

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In my design I has hoping to achieve a good connection between my poem’s meaning and the look of it. When it came to the actual poem I have already justified why I choose the fonts and background that I did. All of the fonts give meaning to the specific word and I wanted my background to have the look of nighttime to go along with the dreamy message of the poem. I was going after the same thing when I made my collage. I wanted the picture to tell the same story that the poem does.

In order to do this I wanted a picture of feet over dreamy images to symbolize the message of someone walking over your dreams. After I found the picture of the feet, I put the moon image right under to show a transition from the real world feet into dream pictures. I then put things that I, and many others, dream of underneath everything else, including cities where I want to live, things that symbolize what I want in my life, and even a nightmarish picture. Then to really make the collage fit the poem by changing everything to black and white for a nighttime feel. I also made sure that all the pictures I used were sort of dreamy looking. Finally, I blurred everything together to make the collage really look like one piece.

What was most challenging was getting all of the pictures into the collage the way I wanted them to be. I wanted them all to be the appropriate size and this was sort of a trial by error process, which tends to be frustrating. As you can see though, it did work out in the end.

I really did solve most of the problems I encountered by just going back and doing it over. Again, the only challenge I really had with the collage and animation was putting the collage together. Although, getting the collage into the animation also took a little trial by error.

Out of my final animated font poem the thing I am most proud of is my collage. I tried really hard to make it have the meaning I want by looking for appropriate pictures. I also wanted it to blend really well so I spent a fair amount of time just playing with the blur tool until I was completely happy with it.

If I had more time I might see if I could do more with my animation. I think I saw some examples where the words flew into the poem in crazy ways. That would be cool. Also, I might add a slide where my poem comes over my collage but I would have to play around with colors in order to find one that would make my words show up over the collage and then I would have to change all of them. You can see how this would take some extra time.

Contact Sheet

The first row was fairly self-explanatory considering we all used the same picture and went through the process together. Of course it was not super easy because it was my first time working so in-depth with Photoshop. Mostly, I just had to make sure I was changing the number in the resolution box instead of another one and that I kept the height at one inch.

The second row was all about color. I had some difficulty with Duotone. First of all, it took me some time to figure out that I had to change the image to Duotone after changing it to black and white. I was also thrown off by the fact that it was supposed to look like sepia and suddenly thought my coloring was wrong, but then I realized that with a program as advanced as Photoshop I could make Duotone a variety of colors.

The third row was also not that difficult. Once I found a picture that was wider than taller, also known as landscape, that was a decent resolution simply changing the dimensions to a square and a portrait was not that difficult. However, I was thrown off for a little bit because my portrait was kind of an optical illusion and I was not sure if I got the dimensions right or not. With the two crops, I also wanted to make sure I cropped out the less vital parts of the photo so I had to play around artistically for a while to achieve that.

The fourth row was a bit more difficult. I kept messing up the close-up because I would cut off parts of the sign I wanted to be there, but I simply had to play around with crop again. Then I had to go back to this one later and make the resolution higher so that it would be less blurry, which was kind of difficult.

The fifth row was challenging as well. It took a while to get my final abstract shot truly abstract. Finding the image in the first place was also difficult. Even though I did eventually find a higher resolution picture I upped it anyways so that it was as clear as possible.

With the sixth row I also ended up changing the resolution. I took an image of myself off of Facebook, which provides 72 resolution pictures. Needless to say my photo was very blurry. Other than that though, this row was actually fun. I enjoyed playing around with all the effects there are in Photoshop.

Hands & Corpse

Font Poem

The quote I chose is from the poem "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven" by William Butler Yeats. I chose it because it is my favorite poem and I use it whenever I can. It is my favorite poem because I really like its message. I also thought it had a lot of sensory words that would be fun to play with in Photoshop.

I used the font Verdana for the words "I HAVE," "BECAUSE YOU," and "ON" because all of these words are very straight forward and call for a simple font. Verdana is my favorite simple font, so I chose it. When it came to the word "SPREAD" I was looking for something that would look smooth, like putting peanut butter on toast. In the end I came up with Banshee Std. Next came the "my dreams." For them I chose Monotype Corsiva because it made the words look smooth and puffy like clouds. I also used the arch tool to wave the words and make them sort of trippy, or for the lack of a better word, dreamy. For "under" I was looking for something that seemed to be getting squished from the top. I ended up with Birch Std and I made the word really small. When it came to "YOUR FEET" I wanted the words to look big and gross like feet. The font that achieved this is Cutout Std. It even looks cracked like feet. For the "treads" I chose Cascade Script LT Std because it had a sort of "moving along" look to it. I also made that word angled up so it would have that "walking" appearance and I gave it pebble texture instead of color for symbolism. When it came to softly, I just wanted something cursive and pretty. I went with Snell Roundhand LT Std in speckled pink. I made repeating words the same because I think it helps the poem looking clean cut.

The first notable thing I did when arranging my poem was to put "SPREAD" on a lower level than the words it was next to in order to add to the italic flatness that represented the word to me. "Under" was also very important. I put that on a lower level than "YOUR FEET" for symbolic purposes. For the other words I really just wanted to spread them out in a slightly more interesting than linear way. I also wanted to make sure there was not too much white space. For the whole arrangement I did try to keep the Z pattern in mind.

When it comes to difficulties I had with this project they mostly involved the background. First, I had a hard time remembering exactly how to change the background color. Finally, I started to memorize the way where you go to "Edit" and then click "Fill." Then I decided my plain purple background was boring so I played around with the Gradient Tool until I liked it better.

I am most proud of the fonts and colors I chose. I worked really hard to make them fit their meanings. If I had more time I would probably just play around with the background some more and see what other things I could do to it and if I liked any of them better.