FINAL PROJECT - NYC

For the final project, I wanted to do something interesting. I knew that I would not succeed if I didn't choose the right subject. the assignment was to pick something we were passionate about. I thought about reading, writing, fashion, old Hollywood, and eventually fell into New York City. It is a spectacular place, and I realized that nearly all of my aspirations and goals have something to do with working, living, and somehow being in the city. I also thought that I would be able to do something interesting with the narration and soundtrack.

Using Google, I was able to find great photography of the city. Many people feel the same way I do about NYC and are able to capture that feeling in photos; making my slide show easy to put together. As far as the narration went, I was a bit anxious about it. Recording and hearing yourself is an odd experience for me since it is not a common occurrence. Despite this, the script was no problem for me to write because it is easy to write about something you love. I also enjoy writing and playing with words, so the slide show combined with my script was a fun way for me to use my creativity. For the music, I knew instantly that I wanted to use Frank Sinatra's "New York New York." I love Sinatra and I don't think there is a better song to choose when talking about the Big Apple.

When I put all the components together, I decided to have the images changing while my narration played with real sound in the background. Even though 3 things were going on at once, it all flowed together and didn't feel forced. It felt right artistically. After a minute, the narration and city sounds end and move into an instrumental part of "New York New York" for 30-seconds and then leads into a final 30-seconds of Sinatra singing.

The most challenging part of the project was the technical part. It was a bit difficult to get the timing right with the photos and song lyrics, but the most difficult part was posting the project. I posted using the Slideshare program and a list of steps with a "zip file." Even when followed precisely, the process did not work the first few times. Thankfully, it finally worked and I was able to post the slide show to my blog. Mission accomplished.

If given more time to complete this project, I would play around more with the photos because I know there is an endless amount of city photography I could sift through. Also, I would probably try recording my script again and attempt to change my inflection or tone. I want to be more comfortable with the sound of my own voice since I am a journalism and political science double-major and speaking is a prominent characteristic of both fields.

For the bind-in/blow-in cards, I did two in Quark (the bottom 2) and 1 in InDesign (the top-most one). I prefer Quark to InDesign because it is a simpler program with less options. In my opinion, it was easier to work with Quark because commands and effects were easier to find and use. My only issue with Quark was that when I printed, the highlighted yellow part on the price did not show up. I did not understand why this happened.

The hardest part of this project for me was the black and white side of the card. The lines were tedious to make, and I had difficulty creating a straight line and getting the widths just right. In contrast, the easiest aspect of these cards was finding the fonts and image. I had no difficulty finding near-perfect fonts to match the actual card.

I worked really hard on these cards and am happy with the result. I looked at this project as a challenge, and I am glad that I was able to complete it with a pretty good outcome. If given more time, I would have spent it making the measurements more precise and the lines straighter. I feel as though there are an endless amount of adjustments I could make with the bind-in/blow-in cards.

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Bristol House of Pizza - Mock Website Homepage

Bristol House of Pizza Brochure

For the brochure assignment, Kyle and I chose to do Bristol House of Pizza. Bristol House is a local restaurant that we both order take-out from on a regular basis. The restaurant's actual brochure is very plain, so we decided to create our own brochure for the best pizza place in Bristol. The ultimate goal was to create something that caught the eye of possible customers.

The most challenging part of this assignment was the program. For me, InDesign is not "user friendly" and was difficult to adjust to. Everything I wanted to do seemed more difficult to accomplish on this program. Adding a gradient, for example, required a bit of experimenting and trials to finally get the desired colors and effect.

Overall, I am very happy with the way the brochure came out. It is very crisp, clean and the end result fulfills its purpose of being a take-out menu. The colors work well together, and you definitely understand that it is an Italian restaurant/pizza place. I especially like the drop shadow on the photos. Something about this effect is really pleasing to the eye and adds a little extra something.

If Kyle and I had had more time to work on this project, I probably would have wanted to try different font combinations and worked with placement of menu items and photos. It is always fun to try different things because you never know what might turn into something cool.

Chrisitna Aguilera Concert Poster

My goal for this project was to make a concert poster that was eye-catching and bold. I was familiar with Quark prior to the assignment and wanted to utilize my knowledge to make something very cool.

For the concert poster, I wanted to represent a popular artist. I knew that if I chose someone well-known, I would be able to find a high resolution photo to use for the poster. I chose Christina Aguilera because she is a favorite of mine and has a new album coming out. I figured that she might be doing a promotional concert and wanted to create something that her PR Reps might use.

The most challenging part of this project was not over-doing it. I was able to complete the poster rather quickly and then started to knit-pick. I found it difficult not to second guess myself on small decisions like whether or not to use the album cover art for the opening act (Ladytron) and whether or not to underline "Christina Aguilera." In the end, I took a step away from the computer and decided that I was perfectly happy with my result.

The aspects of the poster that I am most proud of is my image and color scheme. The photo of Christina Aguilera is really sharp. I also think that only using half of her face is outside of the norm and makes the poster interesting. Also, the black and white contrast catches the eye. Combined with a red accent color (that plays off of the lipstick color in the image), everything goes together.

If I'd had more time to do this assignment, I might have played around with color choices and different images of the artist. Overall, I found this to be a really fun assignment that played off of my creativity and would love to do a concert poster for another band or singer.

Band PowerPoint feat. Safteysuit

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For this assignment, I was hoping to put together a PowerPoint with transitions that made the slide show fluid and seamless. I also wanted to work to get the music as close to perfect as I could manage when I blended the two tracks.

I chose to do my PowerPoint on the band Safetysuit because it was a band introduced to me by my sister. Since then, Safetysuit has become one of my favorites. I chose to do my project on them because I wanted to introduce new music to the class, and I didn't think my classmates knew who they were prior to my presentation.

The most challenging part of the assignment was cutting and blending the two song tracks on Audacity. I'd had absolutely no experience with the program, so it was a learning process. Another difficult aspect of the assignment was getting the timing of the slide show just right in PowerPoint.To move past these challenges, I simply had to spend time in the lab working with the two programs and doing more than one run-through of the show in order to tweak mistakes.

I am most proud of the photos in my slideshow. I was able to find some really crisp images of the band online, and the color theme I chose for the slide show came from these photos. I think everything blends together really well.

If I'd had more time to work on this assignment, I would have spent more time with Audacity. I might have tried blending more than one track or choosing different tracks for the Powerpoint presentation.

Animated Font Poem

With the animated font poem, I was hoping to achieve something cohesive and effective. Because I am new to the Photoshop program, I was a bit anxious when I started the animation phase of this project. As a result my animation is pretty basic, and my collage is more artistic. I caught on to photo-editing rather quickly, so I was able to go farther with my collage.

I chose to keep the layout of my font poem the same because of time constraints. It would have been difficult to map out the words in an entirely new way (that I was happy with) in a short period of time. Because my quote is by fashion icon, Coco Chanel, I chose to take images of other fashion icons I admire. People, characters, and styles that are unforgettable. Carrie Bradshaw and Audrey Hepburn are some of those featured.

Challenges I faced, besides my initial fear of animation, was laying out the collage so that the photos could be distinct while blending together. To get the desired effect, I worked with the opacity and placement of each layer. Putting one layer before another definitely had an effect. I also used the background tool to crop out parts of images I did not want.

I am most proud of the end product. I was very uncertain going into the animation/collage project and I was surprised to be happy with the outcome. I am especially happy with my collage. The images look good together. Also, the collage is reflective of my personality because I love fashion and old Hollywood.

If I had more time to complete this project, I would have experimented more with animation and color choice. I think that maybe I could have had images from the collage come in one at a time instead of altogether at the end. I also think maybe I should have chosen a different background color. All of these changes and more could have been done if I'd had more time.

Exquisite Corpse & Double Exposure

Contact Sheet

Row 1 was an experimentation with resolution. As resolution gets lower, the image becomes blurry and pixelated.

Row 2 tested color varieties. To do this, you had to work with the "mode" of the photo. The CMYK is the most vibrant and the DuoTone could have been done with any two colors. I happened to choose black and green.

Row 3 tested different ways to "frame" a picture. In every photo the height is 1 inch. For landscape the width is longer than the height. With the square, I set the crop tool to 1 in X 1 in and cropped the landscape. The same technique was used to create the portrait. I set the crop tool to .75 in X 1 in and cropped the previous photo.

Row 4 zoomed in on an object over several shots. I kept the crop tool at the same ratio for every cropping I did so that the size of the photo did not change. I cropped until i was satisfied with my close-up.

Row 5 used the same method as row 4 but to more of an extreme. I continued to crop to find an abstract image I liked.

Finally, Row 6 tested the different textures that could be done to a photo. My particular favorite was the "cut out" texture. I wish I could have tested these textures on larger photos to really see what Photoshop can do.

FONT POEM

I chose this particular quote because it represents part of my personality. I strive to leave a lasting impression in whatever task I am focusing my efforts, so this quote by Coco Chanel (who is unforgettable) really spoke to me.

I chose to keep most of the fonts similar to one another in an effort to evoke the Chanel symbol, so they are all Helvetica Inserat.I did modify the font with "irreplaceable" by making it glow and changing it to Helvetica LT Std. Also "must" has shading. These two words were changed because I wanted to emphasize them. Also, each letter in "different" is a unique font in order to portray the meaning of the word.

I arranged the words the way I did because they are Coco Chanel's words and I wanted the phrase to appear to be the Chanel fashion symbol.

Problems that I encountered during this project were choosing a phrase and then deciding how to lay out the words. In the end, I chose a quote from a person I admire and tried not to go too crazy thinking about the layout. I am most proud of using my creativity and having figured out the Photoshop program.

If i had more time I would test out different fonts within the quote and work more on making the "C"s as symmetrical as possible.