The Year in Review

Although I am, without a doubt, disappointed that my time in visual design class is over at last, my portfolio project will forever serve as a reminder of the immense amount of work that I completed in preparation of my eventual graphic design career.  The culmination of every project that has been assigned and seen through to the end this semester, this project was certainly a challenge to complete.  After every illustration was both worked on and concluded, I placed every file into the specifically – sized document that my professor asked for, and soon began to arrange the work in a design – oriented fashion.  Reviewing the “book” I created, I was surprised and impressed at all the pictures it contained, as well as intimidated by them.  “How can I ever surpass this achievement?!”, I thought to myself.  Despite the shock I had upon viewing my own work, my professor’s goal in assigning the major task soon became clear – I found it difficult to process the volume of work I had been able to finish in only a few, short weeks!

Portfolio Final for Presentation v2

Which one is the Original?  Can you Tell?

This project gave me the chance to see what it’s like being a real magazine designer, and showed me that it’s definitely not all about how the content is written!  I had to use the format of an actual magazine of my choice, replace the main cover image, and keep the text the same for a result that I think is awesome.  Finally, I was required to post the original next to my new version for a result that, in my opinion, is absolutely stunning!

The Flatter the Better!

It turns out that, again, I was given an assignment for visual design class that was themed around flat design!  This poster project was not of my own creation, though, as it instead called for me to copy a poster that was already made.  In doing so, however, I was able to become even more familiar with the Adobe Illustrator software.

flat poster

“Flat Day The Game”

Take a look at the game board that is posted below.  After several different versions, with each one differing slightly, this is the final result.  With just a bit of critique from my professor on what to add, I think the final looks awesome!

Alternate Logo Possibility

Who Am I?  My Personal Logo

After examining many different kinds of professionally designed logos, and taking note of the shapes, images, and colors that are contained within, my class was given the assignment to create our own logo, which is supposed to give the viewer information about us.  Just as real company logos inform customers about what the company does, I think my logo gives people a sampling of information about me.  My final logo, after much debate, is pictured below.

Captain America Shield!

While this optional Visual Design project may look simple, it, in fact, taught me a lot of information in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop that was extremely valuable.  Along with this, I was able to create a realistic – looking Captain America shield from an original file that appeared flat.  I think the end result is fantastic!  Take a look and see for yourself.  

9 X 9 Illustrator Grid

This was an entertaining assignment, as I am very interested in the “logo” aspect of graphic design.  Every student in class was able to pick our own logos to recreate in Adobe Illustrator, which familiarized us with the software and enabled us to feel what it is like to design logos.

Final Pear Scene

Looking at the images pictured below, you can see all the work that went into creating this scene.  The instructions for making the pear itself were given out by the professor, and with that, each student in my class was required to add “an object” to the image.  I, clearly, created an entire scene to put my pear into, as I felt that it should not be by itself. I also thought it would be interesting adding elements from my former projects around the room.

Learning Adobe Illustrator – Class 8

The assigned projects this week gave me a chance to familiarize myself with the Adobe Illustrator software, as they provided me with several different types of individual tasks to complete.  The first part of the homework was to create my own, custom color wheel.

Next, I experimented with the different fill options available in Adobe Illustrator by filling up 64 boxes in a grid.

Finally I had to follow one of three tutorials that showed me how to design a character.  This was by far the most difficult of the three assignments as I believe the monster character, with all his hair, was one of the most challenging options.  I did decide to change the color a bit, and the hair is more spiked than the example, but I am very happy with the result!

The tutorial can be found here:

https://blog.spoongraphics.co.uk/tutorials/create-a-cute-furry-vector-monster-in-illustrator

These projects are works of my own that were created both inside and outside of class, using inspiration from movies and other media that I love.

I hope you enjoy, and please feel free to leave any comments, questions, or other feedback.

First Illustrator Project

The assignment for this project was to add at least one object to the pencil sketch homework my class was given by our professor in Adobe Illustrator.  Despite this, I decided to add multiple objects, and create a scene that incorporates the pencil!  Check out the image below and see what you think:

Photoshop Final Project

This assignment marked my final project in Photoshop for Visual Design, as my class was given the instructions to create a poster for a cause that we were passionate about.  With these directions in mind, I decided to design my poster around the support of brain cancer, as I suffered through it during my sophomore year in high school.

First, I sketched three different designs for my poster, each one which highlighted a different cause.  Although I was reasonably sure that I wanted to make one about brain cancer, my other original concepts included a poster dedicated to feeding the homeless and one for an event, which I chose to be a concert like that which I went to after my “battle” with cancer.

After drawing my initial designs, I chose to make my military – themed “Join the Fight” cancer poster for the final, Photoshop version of the project.  Before creating the poster in Photoshop, though, I drew a sketch of the concept in my sketchpad, which is pictured  below.

After my sketch, it was time to make the final product!  I had several versions of the final, all of which document one of the various steps in the “ideation” process that I learned in my Design Research and Methods class.  Below is one of these “intermediate” poster designs, before the final was made:

While it is similar, without a doubt, to the final version of my project, you can see by looking at both side – by – side that it took multiple concepts for me to decide that the below version was the final one.

Update! – This picture was featured on Fox News, and I thought it looked strikingly similar to mine:

I guess my poster idea was even better than I thought!

Photoshop Retouching Assignment

For this project, which again was given in order to help familiarize me with the Photoshop software, I had to use a certain group of images that my professor gave the class to edit and retouch.  The pictures were all either crooked, discolored, faded, ripped, or just needed a bit of editing to make them into the pleasing works you see below.  Each one was a new, unique challenge, but I think the end result was well worth the effort.  I hope you agree!  The before and after images are posted below.

 This is the “crooked window” picture before and after

For this image, I had to cover up the marks in the original rock wall and color the walls of the canyon any color I thought to be a good fit.

The original ship you see above and to the left is clearly extremely faded, crooked, and broken, while that on the right is not only more visible, but also edited.

Similar to the ship above, this photo was also extremely faded and crooked before being edited.

The original version of this photo not only contained a garden statue within it, but also was missing its bottom left corner.  As you can see, the right image has neither a statue nor a missing corner.

The dog pictures were probably my favorites to edit, as the original two photos showed one dog looking to the left, and the second with the other dog looking right.  In the final, edited version, though, the two dogs sit happily next to each other, both looking towards the viewer and the camera.

The above image to the left, which is the original version, is obviously torn in several places and missing components to the picture.  The one to the right, however, contains all of the original pieces and is no longer ripped.

Similar to the horse image above, this picture was badly damaged.  I used layers in addition to several healing tools to bring it back to life.

The woman in this photo received a makeover when her shirt got a color upgrade!

Just like the woman on the bench, the lady on the left had a shirt color change in the image on the right.

Photoshop Layer Mask Driven Work

This project enabled me to become more familiar with using layer masks in Photoshop.  I was able to use my creativity to select a variety of images, mask the backgrounds, and finally to put them all into a scene that I consider to be out of this world!

Bear and Woods Layer Masking Project

In this project my class was given a picture of a bear in a running position and a picture of woods with a bench.  We then had to “cut – out” the bear in Photoshop and, using the layer masking technique, bring him into the woods and sit him on the bench.

Stars and Mountains Layer Masking Project

In this project, my class was given an image of mountains, one of a starry night sky, and one of galaxies.  We had to combine them into the image you see below.

“Photoshop Selections” Project

This project gave my classmates and I the chance to practice the various ways in which to cut out objects and re – size them using the Photoshop software.  We were given a document with multiple images to use, and a sample of the end result, and then had to produce our very own version of the work after having manipulated the images on our own.

Photoshop Painting

For this assignment, each person in my class had to choose a coloring page and color it in any way we wanted.  I obviously chose the castle, and was able to learn the tools of Photoshop while coloring it in.  This project gave me the chance to not only better familiarize myself with the software, but also to do so in an amusing way!

Altered Self – Image

For this project, everyone in my visual design class had to create a Photoshop document and paste three pictures of themselves on it.  Once each picture was uploaded onto the background, we had to pick a different texture or style for each and make them all unique.

Resizing and Cropping Images

During visual design class number three, on September 10, 2018, I learned how to appropriately re – size and crop different kinds of images in order to fit them into a certain size of document.

 

Four Animals Project – August 27th, 2018

This project is from my first day at Quinnipiac University and my first day of visual design class.