Motif: The scope of the motif was to create radial pattern that would work for a ceiling tile. I came up with the idea while messing around with the rotate tool. I created it by drawing a star and rotating it by 5 degrees until it made a complete circle. I then copy and pasted that into the empty circle space and used the pathfinder tool to remove certain sections and create the above pattern. I thought this was fun because it was simple and easy to do while also having a wide range of possibilities.
Repeating Pattern: The scope of the repeating pattern was to create an interesting, solid color repeating pattern that would fit among others as a ceiling tile. I found the concept when researching different kind of designs online. I created in by placing four circles in a square and using estimate the correct amount of pucker and bloat to make the shape that was created by the circles meeting together. I then filled in the remaining spaces by the rectangles edge with the blue color. I thought this was enjoyable because it allowed me to find a design that appealed to me and recreate it using what I have learned in this class.
This article was about a Florida newspaper that was failing due to pumping out mediocre content for the purpose of filling up space. The paper decided to switch things up by focusing on major stories with better content and letting the newsroom experiment with journalism, which resulted in a happier newsroom and a higher quality newpaper. The author's argument is that by allowing more freedom to the reporters and valuing quality over quantity, a newspaper can become more interesting and brings joy to the journalists "... [due] to new opportunities to dig up enterprise stories and try out new ideas" (Nesmith). The strengths with the author's argument were that they were supported by anecdotes of the people who worked at the paper and who could give their experiences. A weakness of the article could be that it never acknowledge any possible opposition. Overall, the author wants a much more flexible newsroom. The author's arguments does support the main points of the article, because the success of the paper was convincingly contributed to the reasons the author's argument makes. The author explores additional reasons also, and shows how they might have helped to the success too. Being in Convergence Journalism, this applies because given more freedom and resources means more possiblities for us too. All in all, I believe the author provided a convincing argument that had great supporting anecdotes.
The video I chose was a short animated video about a lazy intergalactic delivery service. The general scope of the video was to portray a quick, dark, but funny short video. The story is about a how an incompetent delivery man land on a tiny planet, and unknowingly manages to bring terror to the planet and its inhabitants, and eventually disintegrates it. I decided to analyze the video through its cinematography. I thought it was fairly well made; although there were a lot of long and centered shots, it did also use the rule of thirds frequently and the long shots never felt drawn out or boring. For example, there is a scene where one of the aliens is running from a giant can, and while the shot goes on for quite some time, it does not entirely bore you by throwing little jokes here and there (although I agree that the team should have split it up into different shots). One element I might use from this video is the use of a wide shot to not set the scene, but to show the characteristics of characters, like the wide shot of the delivery man's messy ship. Something that I had already learned that I thought the video did well on was how to position the rule of thirds, by placing the subject on a line and having something interesting in every box. Overall, I believe the cinematography was pretty decent, was pleasant looking, but could use some improvement in adjusting shots and drawn-out shots.
For this project we had three sections to work on. The first section was to create a basic pencil using a tutorial sheet, as well as creating a can to put the pencil in, and it helped you learn how to create a basic object with basic shapes. The second section was to create another pencil, but have it personalized. My personalized pencil was colored in Royals colors and it was writing on a piece of paper. The last section had you create something of your own using shape tools and other useful tools in Illustrator. I decided to create a synthesizer using the mainly the shape tool and the text tool.
One of the main things I learned when doing the project was to always save frequently. At one point at this project, I forgot to save my progress, and right towards the end of class Illustrator unexpectedly crashed. Consequently, I had lost all of the work I had done that, which pushed me back progress-wise from the rest of the class. From that moment on, I try to save every time I make a major change, and I will try to make that a habit for later on in the year.
As for tools, I learned how to use the shape tool. For example, I learned that if you simply single click on the board, you have the option to input specific measurements for that shape. Also, if you hold the spacebar it locks the movement of the shape to a certain path. If you hold down the shift button when expanding the object, it locks to the original shape, allowing you to keep the same height and width. I also learned what the Live Bucket Tool is, which is a special kind of bucket that creates objects out of what's drawn, and then fills it in with a color.
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.
