Projects for the Semester
Photoshop Tutorials
The first project I did this semester was following some Photoshop tutorials. The tutorials were made to teach me how to use the many different tools within the Adobe program. I learned how to use the clone stamp, the patch tool, content aware fill, and the spot healing brush. These tools make editing photos a breeze. After learning about the different tools, I went through a series of specific projects. These included making a lotion bottle, a billboard, a labor day photo, and a portrait collage. Then came the challenge. You can see the finished result above. It involved using each of the tools I used in the tutorials, and using my own imagination to create a collage that showed the styles I like to use. All the tutorials together took a month or two in order finish. The only challenging part was trying to choose my favorite tool in Photoshop because I enjoyed using all of the different tools. Overall, my classmates and my teacher really liked my finished challenge project, and said I was doing a great job. I really enjoyed creating the challenge collage, and it was really fun to follow the tutorials, and go at my own pace.
Illustrator Tutorials
After completing the challenge Photoshop project, I immediately jumped into the Illustrator tutorials. This including creating animals and people in Adobe Illustrator, making postcards, and turning bitmap photos into vector images. These were all done by following tutorials, but we were allowed to change the style of them to our liking.
1. Raccoon Postcard
The first tutorial was creating a raccoon. We had to follow a tutorial on a website to make the body, but the clothing and background were created by myself. Then we set out to incorporate these designs into a postcard that was eventually sent to print. This was probably the longest project, taking about two months to have everything finished, turned in, and ready to print. The difficulty for me in doing this project was trying to figure out how to incorporate my own design onto the raccoon and the raccoon postcard. I eventually decided to put a suit and mustache on the raccoon, and to have Bachelor Party design for the postcard. This project was basically the start of learning how to use Illustrator's numerous tools and functions. It was also very fun to create the hand written typography, and I think it turned out to be okay. I feel like the end design could've looked better, but it was at least adequate for the requirements of the projects. This project was also put on Behance. You can view the Behance project here: https://www.behance.net/gallery/43511389/Raccoon-Project.
2. Monkey Design
This was probably one of the two least creative projects, where I just followed a tutorial to do finish the design. It was kind of fun to do, and didn't take more than a few days to complete. There was nothing difficult about this design, but I did learn how to use the pen tool to create palm tree leaves in Illustrator. The finished product looks a lot like how the tutorial showed that it would be.
3. Thanksgiving Project
This project only took three days to complete, but the end result looks pretty cool. It is a pilgrim with a pumpkin and turkey next to it. My favorite part about this project were the shadows, but this is the least creative project, because all we did to complete it was follow a tutorial. The difficult part about this project was making the pumpkin look right, and the pumpkin took longer to create than the entire person did. It was very nice to learn how to use the direct selection tool, however.
4. Vectored Self Portrait
The next project was a vectored self portrait. You had to turn an image of yourself into a vector image in Illustrator. This was not all that easy. It took a few weeks to complete, but it turned out fine in the end. The hardest part about this project was getting all the colors to be right so it wouldn't make the vector look too bad. I know that my finished product was not as well put together compared to some of my classmates, but this was probably the best I could have done for now. My dad helped me figure out the right colors to use, and how to use the pen tool efficiently, without having to click a couple hundred times to just trace one eye. The end product was probably made to the best of my ability at the time.
Infographic
This was the first Illustrator project I did where I was almost completely on my own. I got to choose a topic to create an infographic about, and stylize it however I wanted to make it show the data that I wanted it to. I decided to go with a head-to-head cubing topic, that I could ultimately re-design in the future to be about different people, not just Samuel and myself. This project took about a week to research, a week to design, and another two weeks to create in Illustrator and present it to my classmates. The first difficulty in creating this infographic was deciding whether the graphic would be vertical or horizontal. I couldn't really decide, and I designed both a vertical and a horizontal infographic, and has Mrs. Smith help me decide which design to go with. We ultimately chose the horizontal design. The next hard part was placing everything on the infographic, so that it would be appealing to viewers, with sufficient information, and almost no clutter to it. The finished product did this very well, by making the viewer first look at the title, then the cubes down the middle, and then the people and other information on the sides. It was very cool to learn how to make the best visually appealing design, without losing the content of the infographic. The utmost difficult, though, was getting the infographic to be easy to understand for non-cubers and with enough information for a regular cuber to like it as well. It seemed to turn out great, when I got feedback from my classmates after presenting my infographic to them. They all liked it, and didn't find it confusing at all. Everyone seemed to like it, so I didn't do too many things to change it after the feedback session. I really like how this project turned out, and I hope to be able to use the basic design of it to create more head-to-head infographics in the future.
Personal Logo
This was the second to last project that I did this semester. It was to create my own logo in Illustrator. It was very fun to do, because it was something our class did entirely by ourselves. The only instruction was to create a logo for yourself in Illustrator. I decided to design my logo to reflect two passions of mine; solving Rubik's cubes, and playing Xbox. So this logo has a Rubik's cube pattern on top of a Xbox One controller. It only took a week or less to make, and was very fun to design. The hardest part about creating this was making the Rubik's cube pattern stay only within the boundaries of the controller design. The rest of the creation was pretty simple, just using the pen tool to trace an image of a controller and using the square tool for the design. The final design looks pretty cool, and I think it really does combine cubing and Xbox into one logo. The only thing I can think of changing is the text below the controller, but other than that, I think it looks good.
Graphic Design History Project
The final project for this semester in graphic design was to create a paper about a famous graphic designer, and then, using Illustrator, create PowerPoint slides that present the information in the paper in a visual order. I won't out the image of the slides here, just because it has too many slides to fit into this blog. It took the last few weeks of the semester to create, but it was very cool to learn about the graphic designer that I chose, Paul Rand. At first, it was hard to choose who I would do, and how to find the information about Paul Rand, but in the end it took only time and design to create the slides in Illustrator. The slides feel a lot like something Rand himself would make, and I incorporated the logos he created into each slide, just to make the presentation feel like a Paul Rand design.
Time in Class
The time in class I spent was used very well. Instead of just slacking off the whole hour, or watching videos, I tried to be working on any project I could. I would only do something else if I didn't have a project to work on. For myself, the projects took shorter time than they were supposed to, but turned out to be at or above my classmate's quality of work. I would finish a lot of the projects early, especially the tutorials, and when I was done with one project, I started another. Sometimes I would work on projects outside of school, mostly to get help from my dad on anything because he is a graphic designer.
Strengths
The strengths I have as a graphic designer are pretty cool. I got my dad's eye for good design, and I know a good graphic when I see one. That also means I know when a graphic is bad. I have also worked with the Adobe programs before, which let me have some of the technical skills down before coming to this class. I tried to improve these strengths through this class, too. I tried my hardest to learn the tools of Photoshop, to be able to edit photos faster, and to not have to look at a tutorial every time I use the program. I also tried to improve on my pen tool skills, because the type of design I like to do requires a lot of pen tool work. It was very fun to practice using, and I really enjoy being able to trace things at least sort of quickly.
Improvements
The thing I'm probably worst at in this point of time is creating cool looking figures in Illustrator. It's hard to describe, but I'm not the best at free-form design. It's hard to just be able to come up with something to make and then make it. It's just not something that comes easy to me, I have to have at least some instruction to be able to do it on my own. I wish to improve on this skill in the future, to become the best graphic designer that I can be.
Summary
My favorite part about this semester was probably the infographic. However, the work with the end product that I liked the most was the challenge Photoshop project. The infographic was fun to do, as well as the personal logo, because I got to incorporate my favorite things into them. The challenge Photoshop project didn't have my favorite things within it, but I think it looks the coolest out of anything I did this semester. The only things I would change about my work this semester would probably be putting a little more effort into the earlier Illustrator projects, because they just weren't at the quality that the rest of my projects were at. The overall takeaway I have from this semester is knowing what I can do as a graphic designer. By strengths, my abilities, and my limits are easier for me to find now. And I know the graphic designs that I like to do now. A goal that I have for next semester is to keep up my hard work on graphic design, and be able to incorporate that into my video editing as well. I really enjoyed this semester and really liked this class and hope to further expand my design abilities down the road.
No comments:
Post a Comment