Graphic design is the art of communicating through visual means, using text, shapes, and photos, among other things. It is at the simplest representing ideas in a visual form. Graphic design is everywhere in the world, from brands, adverts, and packaging to street signs and basic labels. The most successful graphic designs involve a memorable and relatable connection to the world, and portray a mood or concept that can be easily understood.
My favorite instances of graphic design would be album art. I very much enjoyed music, and I feel that the best album covers reinforce the tone of the album and can be easily associated with the music. They represent the emotions and atmosphere of the music into a visual format, and adds to the overall experience of the album.
The scope was to create a product that would appeal to consumers, starting up a company that would sell this product, and marketing it and creating a message and overall theme for the company. Our product was the Rainbow Generator, which was a machine that created rainbows with ease. The company we created in order to market and sell this product was Iris, Inc. The overall message of our company was to bring color into children's worlds, and to show them the beauty that is Earth. The partners that I worked with for this project were Madison Beck (ENFP), Ariana Caraway (ENFJ), and Elijah Harris (INTJ).
What was your process?
We started off the project by brainstorming about what our product should be. After a couple days of thinking and narrowing down our decisions, we finally all agreed on having the Rainbow Generator as our product. Once this was done, we had to create our company. We decided upon Iris, Inc., which represents the Greek goddess Iris, who summoned rainbows from the heavens.
The first rotation we had was animation. We first all put in our ideas on what the product would look like before settling on the final design, which is a large machine that resembles a water cooler. You insert water into the top compartment and press the button, which causes a rainbow to appear out of the hole. Maddi and Ariana worked on the final model of the product, Elijah worked on the animation showcase of the product, and I worked on the packaging of the product.
Our second rotation was graphic design/website. Our first goal was to create a logo. We all knew that we wanted a variety of colors for our brand to represent the rainbow part of our company, but we also wanted to find shades and hues of those colors that represented innocence and wonderment. I finally found a color scheme that we all believed represented that, which is shown above. We also wanted a simple logo, one that was easy to the eye. Maddi and Ariana came up with the design of the logo as well as the typeface. Next we had to design the website and coupon. I created the outline of the coupon, while Elijah created the majority of it. Maddi and Ariana worked on creating the website, which helped reinforce that idea of simplicity.
Our last rotation was video production. We had the difficulty of not being able to have a physical product in our commercial, so we decided to approach it by explaining the problems with creating rainbows the manual way, and describing how the Rainbow Generator can solve these problems. Maddi, Ariana, and Elijah did acting for the video, Elijah created the animation, and I filmed and edited the commercial.
What did you learn along the way?
Along the way I learned many things. I grasped a better understanding of using SketchUp, as previously I had little knowledge of how to use the product. I also learned small techniques in video editing that betters the overall end product, such as adjusting and mixing audio volume, adding titles and professional credits, and how to add effects to videos, like adjusting the speed. Professionally, I learned how to understand and work with a team that I knew little about before embarking on this project. I learned how to cooperate better with out people and how we all need to compromise to achieve a solid end product.
What would you do differently next time? What would you do the same?
Next time, I would probably try harder to become more involved with creative decisions and deciding the direction that the company is going in, as in this project I didn't feel the motivation to do that. Things I will probably do the same is continue being a source of logic for the team and compromise with other team members regarding important decisions.
What will you draw from this experience to enhance your next project?
I will bring an effort to work better with others and make our goals clearer before beginning to do a lot of work. I will also try to become more involved with the team, especially when making creative decisions that guide the direction of the project.
All in all, I enjoyed the project. I thought it was rather enjoyable and allowed to combine and use all the information and creative processes that we learned in this school year.
Our company's product was the Rainbow Generator, which is a rentable machine that creates rainbows at ease. We came up with the idea after several days of difficult brainstorming. It works by inserting water into the node, which then triggers a rainbow to flow out after a series of mechanisms inside of the machine. We soon then developed concept art of what it would look like, both in Illustrator and in Sketch-Up. After this we developed a website as well as a company logo to create a feel for the product and it delivers to the consumer. We found a color pallette that would fit with what the product evokes and means to the consumer. Then we created an advertisement, which is shown above. For the advertisement, we had to overcome the obsticule of not being able to have a physical model of our product. So instead of demonstrating its use, we decided to go for a more comedic/dramatic direction for the commercial.
What was the scope of the project?
The scope of the project was to create a full-scale model of a dream house that included details such as windows, porches, garages, and etc.
What was your process?
I began pre-production of this project by looking up many construction plans and selecting the one I liked the most. After choosing, I then wrote down major details of the house's plans, such as dimensions and sizes. During production I used Sketchup and its tools to create a 3D model according to the dimensions, and then added large details like the windows and the porch. In post-production, I made sure that all of the parts of the house fit together, and also added some fun compliment details, like a tree and a car.
What did you learn along the way?
Technically speaking, I learned about many different tools, such as the offset tool which allows you to create a copy of a shape at a different size, the measuring tape which allowed me to measure the length of lines and parts of the house, and the scenes tool which allows you to create an animated tour of whatever you are modeling.
What would you do different next time?
Next time, I will try to pay more attention to how to do certain things, because that limited me in this project. I will also try to focus a bit more on the project, so that I can end up next time with a much better result.
What would you do the same?
I will use the same method that I used to create the roof, as it was very simple and effective. I will also try to do my roof in the same style, as it is the easiest type of roof to do for a complicated structured house.
What will you draw from this experience to enhance your next project?
I will try to focus more on my end goal, and try to focus most if not all of my classtime on working towards that end goal and towards bettering my project. I will also try to be a bit more creative.
General Thoughts and Conclusions
I thought this project was very enjoyable, albeit challenging and difficult. I liked creating the house from scratch and making progress with each step. I also enjoyed some of the creative freedoms we were given in this project, such as the decorations.
The scope of this animation project was to create a short, 30 to 45 second animation using Keynote and iMovie. In pre-production, I came up with the idea to create a sequel to my beloved classic, and I created a storyboard as well as a couple of sketches to finalize my idea into something producible. As for production, I drew out each frame in Keynote, to make it as I planned in my storyboard, and I made sure that each frame made sense and that the animation was as good as it could get. When I was done with the basic story animation, I added in some other minor details such as a bird and a flower, and I also added in an intro title as well as end credits. Then I imported each frame from Keynote into iMovie and added in some sound effects and music.
What I learned from this project was how to navigate and use Keynote correctly in order to achieve the illusion of motion. I also learned how to work towards my deadlines, as well as my own personal guidelines. Next time, I would probably put more detail in my animations and tweak them more so that the main animation is as best as it could be. Something I would do the same is find ways to use the program to my advantage to achieve certain effects, such as the slow-mo fall. What I would draw from this experience is to try to be as efficient as I was in this project, as I was pretty efficient with getting my work done.
Project 1: For the first project, I used the opacity bar to make the text and the compass logo to appear faded and make it see through. I used the Horizontal Text Tool in order the create the text on the photo. I also used the Magic Eraser to erase the bits of white in the original compass image to make those parts in the compass clear.
Project 2: In the second project I used the Magic Wand Tool to select certain areas of the butterfly's wings. Once I did this I used the Hue/Saturation Panel to change the hues of the colors of the selected parts on the butterfly. I also used the Clone Stamp Tool, to copy and fade the sides of the butterfly's wings to make it appear that they are fluttering.
Project 3: In the third project I used the Horizontal Type Mask Tool to create a mask out of typed text. I also used the Character Panel to change the properties of my selected text. Once I did this I used command-shift-I to inverse my selection to select everything but the text, and then I used the gradient tool to create a gradient using ONW colors and dragged it across the picture in a linear fashion to apply it to the selected background.
Project 4: Lastly, in the fourth project I first used combinations of the Clone Stamp Tool and the content-aware fill option to cleanly get rid of certain unneeded object in the picture, such as light posts or cars. Then to get the Raven head into the picture, I used the Magnetic Lasso Tool to carefully select the Raven from its original picture, and I pasted it into the project. I also pasted other objects into the project and to get rid of some of the edges of the picture I used a layer mask to erase away the edges. I then used the opacity bar to fade these objects into the picture.
Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop are different in terms of work because Illustrator is more suited towards creating drawings and other types of images or sketches, while Photoshop is more suited towards photo manipulation and design. Graphic designers need both of these programs because both programs are better at their job than the other program is, so usage of both of these programs is good to fully perform your task to the fullest extent.
In this project we got to create our very own webpage in Adobe Dreamweaver CS6. I learned how HTML code works and how to use it, as well as the interface of Dreamweaver. I also learned how to use CSS to set a certain design for a website. I didn't find the project too particularly difficult, I thought it was pretty easy to grasp and work with. The only troubles I had was embedding a YouTube video, and that was because of a small mistake in YouTube's coding. I found the project to be very enjoyable. I liked customizing things and coding to see my creation come to life.
