Elements
For this brief we were tasked with choosing a simple shape like a square, circle or triangle and do something complicated with it. I chose the triangle on Adobe Illustrator and my first idea was to make three interlocking triangles similar to the viking symbol”Valknut”, which went better than I had expected though it was a pain getting the spacing right.
Once we had made our first complicated shape we were challenged with making a more complicated shape with our complicated shape, so I decided to make a large Valknut symbol out of loads of smaller Valknuts which actually turned out really well, much better than I expected but I will admit it was very tedious and quite frustrating at times because I had to use the eraser tool to remove any bits that were sticking out (which was a lot) and this was a right pain getting a smooth line along the inside edge.
Overall I would say that the project went very well and not a whole lot went wrong but when something did go wrong or a mistake was made it was swiftly corrected. The biggest thing that went wrong was my memory stick got corrupted and I lost my work on that brief unfortunately.
Poster project
For this project the objective was to design and create a poster based on one of three themes, surrealism, banal or dystopian film festival. I chose surrealism and for my poster I decided to peel a banana and stitch it back up, in my opinion this looks good because it shouldn’t exist.
I’ve peeled and stitched the banana and it looks really good, the stitching took about 45 minutes but then again I haven’t done sewing in about 5-6 years so I’m happy with the way it turned out. I’ve taken some photos on my phone.
I have brought the banana into college for the next graphics lesson to take photographs under proper lighting with a proper camera but the banana isn’t as yellow as it used to be but it now has a kind of leather texture on the skin so now in a way it looks better, more surreal.
I have gathered research on different font types and have chosen a photograph to use as the main poster image. I have chosen “insektofobiya” as my type font, the word “surrealism” has been warped and I changed the perspective to create the illusion that the text is following the curve of the banana, the text has been blurred to match with the banana. I have also duplicated the banana layer and made the bottom layer black and white, I then set the top layers opacity to 30% and kept the colour so the overall colour is muted. I then made the top layer slightly bigger so it would give a blurred effect. I did a similar thing to the word “surrealism” I duplicated the layer, set the top layers opacity to 30% and made it slightly bigger.
I think that this project went well, I didn’t find any parts of it particularly difficult and any parts that I did find difficult were overcome relatively quickly. The photographs came out well but I think they could have been slightly better but since I know very little about cameras I think I did pretty well.
Typology/Typography
This assignment was about making a small compilation of images that were based on a letter in a series of fonts or things in the environment that look like letters of the alphabet or a series of images of the same image but slightly different.
I opted for typology for this assignment. I originally wanted to to a compilation of Special Forces emblems in Adobe Illustrator because I have an interest in them and as a kind of tribute to them. So I did my research but once I started to make them I realised that it would take too long to make them all. I had recently seen an online photo album of these really close-up and detailed pictures o peoples eyes and I wanted to do something similar to it, which is handy because my Dad is an Optician so I asked him for some images of the insides of peoples eyes taken with an optomap (a camera what takes pictures of the inner eye). I have compiled the eye images into Adobe InDesigner so it looks like something out of a magazine so it looks better.
I enjoyed doing this project as I found it entertaining and interesting learning about this art form and trying it for myself. The only real problem I encountered was realising I couldn’t do my first idea fast enough for the brief which was unfortunate but I still enjoyed using the eyes.
Self Promotion
For this brief we were tasked with designing and making a business card and clothing design to promote ourselves using themes from our interests, things that we had done etc. I decided to go along with the Old Norse theme because I have a great interest in them and my second name is descended from their culture. For my symbol I did two wolves heads resembling the Yin Yang symbol which took a while to do.
My business card is split into two halves with a horizontal line dividing the card with it gradually fading out to the right, the logo is in the top left, the company name is written along the bottom and some company information is displayed in the top right. The t-shirt design is just the company logo on the chest.
I didn’t find anything too difficult in this brief, the only things I had trouble with were getting initial ideas and making the logo. I wanted to make the outer circle of my logo look rugged but making it look convincing proved somewhat difficult and it took ages for me to make the wolves look smooth. I still think I did well though. Saying that I think that the colours could have been done better by adding additional affects to them but at the time I felt that those colours worked the best.
Gulp bottle label project
In this brief we were tasked to digitally or photographically create a bottle label using one of a series themes and I chose virus/biohazard. I created a label canvas that I felt that would work best which was 25cm by 5cm which nicely fits a medium sized bottle. I made the biohazard symbol in Photoshop and put that in the middle, I made a circle around it with the drink name “Toxic Waste” written on either side of the symbol in an infectious looking font that I think works really well with the theme. The brand name “Gulp” is written under the word “Toxic” and the drink flavour “Sour” is under the word waste, both words are yellow and outlined in green to fit in with the theme. The label has a bar code located above the word waste and on the far right of the bottle label is a nutrients list with ingredients.
I think that this brief went well and I had a lot of fun with it, I didn’t encounter too many issues apart from coming up with my first idea which took a little while. I didn’t encounter any technical difficulties but I did have to change the labels width a couple of times because it was too small. It took a few attempts of trial and error to get the colours to look good however I do think that they could be better by adding some effects to them but I am still happy with it.
jpinnington 