Graphic Design - Semester Reflection

            The first half of my year in Graphic Design we were able to learn twice as many skills as I had learned in the previous two years of the e-Communication program. The class started with simple projects, such as our Name Plates, and evolved to gaining the ability to brand ourselves as a whole.

The class grew as designers as we created posters for our school Homecoming, t-shirts to advertise school clubs, expressed stories through typography, created and branded our own imaginary company, and finally getting to chose a logo and brand for our future careers. We then went to create our own page portfolio on Adobe’s Behance in order to share our work with others. 

 

            One of the biggest struggles I had this semester was a lack of inspiration on some projects. Usually once I begin a design I sketch and find an idea that I really like and get motivated and excited to push it to the computer in order to get feedback from my peers. Unfortunately there were a couple of times this year that I struggled to find my inspiration to start a project. Working on my personal brand was a prime example of this. I had an idea of what I wanted and couldn’t seem to get there no matter how many sketches I sketched or inspiration I searched for. It is beyond frustrating to have an idea of what you want and are unable to get there. I worked with many different concepts, pushing them further and further until I hoped I would see one that I liked. Finally after fi

nding the fonts I wanted and with help from fellow students I was able to find the symbol to pull my logo together. I hope that in the future as I grow as a Graphic Designers I will be able to overcome the lack of motivation for all projects and be able to create something awesome.

           My strongest piece of work is most likely my graphics for the event before finals at Olathe Northwest called “Cram & Cocoa”. I was very inspired by the ideas and theme the administrator had approached me about. I work very long and very hard on it, and am overwhelmingly happy with the results. The information needed to put on the posters was a lot, and I struggled to include that alongside a graphic to represent the event. In the end it came down to a flyer void of the graphic but with the same elements as the poster in order for them to correspond with one another.

The work that I struggled with the most was probably my Homecoming posters. Due to missing quite a bit of school I was very time crunched with that project. When I returned from vacation my deadline was only a couple days away, therefore that week include me slapping some stuff together and calling it good. While I was proud that I had finished by the deadline with some pretty decent designs, I was also not as happy as I could’ve been with the end result.

This semester I have grown tremendously as a Graphic Designer. The process of creating designs has become much more clear and much easier for me. I have learned that not only does sketching help you begin your project, that it can shape your entire design as a whole. I have begun to reach out to my peers for critiques and assistance when my inspiration level is low. I’ve realized the effect of others feedback on a project, and how a critique can completely transform my design for the better. Not only that, but my ability to work with the software has further improved as well. This year compared to last year seems like an entire different program due to the amount of things I am able to do now, that last year I was not. I struggled slightly at the beginning of the semester with time management and meeting deadlines, but I have found that I have not been stressed about any of those things at all in this class. I hope that my knowledge of the programs, research and overall designing grows even more as I move through my next year and a half of e-Comm.

I hope that in the next semester and other years to come I continue to improve as much as I did in the last four months. I will make sketching and adding final touches to projects more of a priority in my free time, so I am not only doing all work at school and time crunching myself. I hope that we continue to create things in our own ways and continue with the freedom we have had this last semester. I look forward to learning everything I can about Graphic Design.

Graphic Design Final

 Burger Bistro

Process:

When coming up with ideas for our product, we started with the idea of a chef's hat to hold little plastic foods. When we went into thinking about the template and how it will work we realized that it would be too difficult to make a fluffy looking, realistic chef hat. We then resorted to the idea of a burger boy hat as seen to the left. This hat would hold a plastic burger set from Kacie's cousins.

 Graphics:

I created these graphics below. I created the burger by looking off of a cartoon from the internet, from there I created my own with the Pen Tool. I wanted the logo to look friendly and stand out a lot. I put the red checkers on the banner to make it look like a picnic blanket. I used the two different fonts to make everything flow together in its own way.  love the way the overall logo turned out. I believe it is some of my best work.

Template Design:

Kacie was the one who found the template and manipulated it into something that would work for our product. The graphics were all put into the template at the same time. We wanted to make it look as much like a burger boy hat as possible, but with all the other aspects of product design with it. We decided to go with a plain and simple look so that it didn't stray away from the original look we were striving for. 

Conclusion:

This project is what I believe to be my best work. I believe that I used all the different aspects that I learned this year in Graphic Design to create an awesome package. Kacie and I have worked well together all year, and did our best on this project. I have learned more this year than I ever had imagined and can't wait to take these ideas along with me throughout the rest of my career in Graphic Design.

Final Animation

Imagination Game Insane

Brainstorming:

Before starting this project we had to actually come up with a project to make in the first place. This, we struggled with. There were a lot of different ideas that were flowing through our group, none that we necessarily disagreed on, but none that we thought were good enough to make our final. It was my idea to use the green screen to show Wyatt daydreaming of being in a soccer stadium. After we decided this, the rest starting coming together. From here we created the storyboard (as seen to the left). We basically just made rough sketch before we went to test the waters while filming. 

Filming:

Brooke did most of our filming while Wyatt, of course, was in front of the camera. I didn't take video this year so I didn't have any experience with the big cameras or have the knowledge to know what aspects to think about. We filmed at least 2 shots of each clip we used just to make sure that the final product would come out smoothly. 

3D Animation:

I animated the soccer ball in Maya. I first created the sphere, then added the soccer ball texture, and finally tried to add a motion path for it to follow. Unfortunately, the motion path didn't work out as I had hoped. Instead I added key frames to get it to move in the directions I wanted. In order to render the ball in two different points of view I had help from Mr. Netterville to set up different cameras to line up the perspective to the clips we shot. When I finally rendered I had to do it twice, once for each camera I used.

Final Editing:

When we finally put everything into After Effects we layered it all together, tweaked everything that needed it, and ended up rendering four different times. With some feedback and help with Mr. Netterville the project ended up looking more realistic than expected. 

Throughout this project I learned that I work really well with Wyatt and how to properly edit an animated video. I learned how to render in Maya with different perspective cameras. Also I mastered how to work with green screens and how to add audio to my videos.

If I could do anything differently I would have either perfected the explosion or have made the ball break through the wall rather than explode. I also would have adjusted the sound to make things sound more put together and sophisticated.

My favorite part is where the green screen fades into the background and the ball flies. I think they look really well done and really show all the different things we have learned in Animation pulled into one.

The next project similar to this will be a lot more put together. At the end of the time we were allotted, we were running out of time to finish the small but necessary details. I'll definitely spend more time paying attention to the small things that can be very noticeable.

Overall this is the most proud I've been of a project all year. I really enjoyed filming and then pulling all the pieces together. It was a great way to wrap up a great year in E-Comm Animation!

Package Design

INSTA-MERMAID for kids

Process:

I worked with Kacie on this project and we made twin products. When brainstorming ideas for our package we tried to stay by something we would enjoy creating and knew a lot about. When deciding on a Mermaid theme, we picked out colors. I then sketched out an idea of what our mermaid might look like. I (obviously) used Ariel for inspiration. I later scanned the sketch into the computer and traced with the pen tool n order to create a clean-cut copy of our mermaid. We went on from there and created fonts, logos, slogans and an overall color scheme to follow. We were both very impressed with our final product and had tons of fun creating it together. 

My Experience:

I learned a lot of things while creating this product. I really enjoyed creating the graphics and placing them together. It was something that I really had fun with mostly because we were all so free to do whatever came to mind. I experimented with a lot of different ways to design the product and wasn't happy with any until we put it like this. I learned how to both advertise my ideas and to creatively add them to a product in which would be sold to a certain audience. 

Reflection:

Overall, this product has been one of my favorites. Kacie and I worked well together and had equal parts in the making of our product. We helped each other out when we needed it and made sure we both stayed on task. This product took quite a while but it was definitely worth it. 

My Night At Emagine

EMAGINE 2015

I took a couple of friends of mine who aren't involved in E-comm to Emagine with me. Although my boyfriend showed up too late to snap a picture, we all got good seats in the far back. The event was so organized and elegant and an overall good time. My friends were extremely impressed with all the different categories and winners. It gave them a glimpse into what really goes down in E-Comm. I hope that in the future I will have the opportunity to walk up that stage and accept an award of my own. :-) 

Snowflakes

MAYA: SNOWFLAKES

     This snowflake project was one of my favorites that we have done. I really enjoyed getting to create something that was completely my own and then putting all the aspects together in one movie. I like the outcome overall. I originally thought animating the snowflakes would be impossible until I actually got around to doing it and got the hang of it. It was all decently simple and pretty entertaining. I used the CV Curve tool to create the curves and then duplicated them six different times. I extracted the faces, combined them, and finally I smoothed them to give them a somewhat realistic snowflake look. I tried to set the key frames at different times so they would fall separately. 

Movie Poster

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON MOVIE POSTER

My Process

     My main goal when making my poster was to follow the style of Saul Bass movie posters. I wanted it to look simplistic/minimalistic but still show enough aspects of the movie to catch someone's interest. I created the overall poster in Photoshop but I made all the graphics in Illustrator. Using a photo for a little inspiration, I made the tale and the wings that sit behind the title with the Pen Tool in Illustrator. It didn't take too long and I'm very happy with the outcome. I made the main title by first downloading a font from DaFont.com and then installing it onto the Adobe Suite. I typed my title out, selected it, went to Type>Create Outlines. From then on I used the Direct Select tool to manipulate the original font into something of my own. The original came with few serifs and I added the drippy and sharp like features.

The Final Product

     I was pretty iffy about it in the end. I didn't know if I thought it was simple enough or if it was just too boring. After alternating the direction of the poster and testing out different layouts with the wording and graphics, I decided I liked my original idea. I did tweak plenty of things in the end by adding a border, adding a cloud atop the tale, changing the blend mode and opacity of the clouds, and finally adding a satin overlay to the tale in order to make it look more part of the sky and moving. If I was to redo my poster the only thing I would change would be maybe making the title a bigger aspect because I really like the look of it. Projects like these that allow us to be completely and creatively free with our work are my favorite. It gives me the opportunity to create something completely my own and show off my work.

This is an example of a Saul Bass Movie Poster. You can see the simple color scheme, the simple graphics that all pull together to give everyone an idea of the movie it is representing. 

Custom Name

I made my custom name by creating a Type Outline and then using the Direct Select Tool I warped the letters to fit next to each other. I wanted the type to look slightly messy but also very put together. I am really happy with the end result. It took a long time to grab each anchor point and move it to a way that I liked. Over all I think the letters look like they all fit very well next to each other.

10 Things

Jacquelynn Turnage: 10 Things

     10 Things I Cannot Live Without: Values and Consumption

Pizza: Childhood Memories/Satisfying

Converse: Comfort/Confidence/Style

Sweatshirts: Comfort/Confidence

Mac Book: Technology/Reliability/Entertainment

Makeup: Beauty/Confidence/Self Esteem

Toothbrush: Habit

Ring: Sentiment/Family/Remembrance

Tumblr: Entertainment

Chapstick: Habit/Comfort

Brownies: Satisfying/Memories/Delicious

     While creating this posters I learned a lot about values. I was forced to look into the things that I love and figure out why they are all so important. I really really enjoyed this project and the creative freedom we had while making it.

     I also learned a lot about Indesign that I hadn't known anything about before. I created both Object and Paragraph Styles. I mastered Kerning and Leading and how to make a creative and spacious grid layout.

Maya Tools

Maya Tools

     Learning how to work in Maya has been frustrating, difficult, and on my best days, breathtakingly simple. I've learned how to do tons of different things I never thought I would be able to create on my computer screen. Some projects I have soared through and really enjoyed, while others have set me back and caused me to ask nearly twelve different people for help. Despite any issues I had creating my projects, I learned so much valuable information in Animation.

Hammer

This project was my favorite overall. I think that may be because I understood how to do it best and I really enjoyed building the hammer. We used the Cut Faces Tool, Extrude Faces Tool and the Bevel Tool. It really helped me learn the Extrude Faces Tool very well. I carried that knowledge to other projects also. Along with that, there was the Cut Faces Tool used in order to cut the back part of the hammer to create the two separate pieces. 

Poly Thing

When making the Poly Thing I used both Booleans and then learned how to use all the different lightings. I mainly used Point Lighting and Ambient Lighting in all my projects overall. I used Point Lighting here in order to lighten the scene and then added Depth Map Shadows to create a realistic shaded look. 

Ice Cream

There were so many different tools I used in the overall creation of my Ice Cream movie. The new ones that I learned were Bump Mapping and how to Loop my movie. I used the Bump Mapping (found in the Attribute Editor) to create the actual melting Ice Cream effect on my scoops. In the Graph Editor I made the rotation of my Lazy Susan linear in order for it to loop smoothly. 

Bouncing Balls

There were many different processes that went into making this movie. One of the main things that I learned was how to use Keyframes. With the help from my peers, we made a key in Microsoft Excell in order to time out when the balls would hit the ground each time. Then we plugged those keyframes into Maya by using shortcut S. In order to make the movie loop smoothly I went into the Graph Editor and changed it to Linear. 

Salt Shaker

In order to make the salt shaker I used a NURB circle and then edited the vertexes to manipulate it into a shape of a salt shaker. I duplicated this shape four times and placed them all above each other. I then lofted, which was creating a surfaces over all the curves. I'm really happy with the outcome.

Cup Revolve

I created my two cups by creating a curve lined up with the Y-Axis. Following my creation of the curve I pressed the Revolve button found under surfaces. This revolved my curve all the way around in order to make a cup.