jp32061-blog

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This project is our After Effect Animation. This project was an individual project. This project was the last one of the school year, and allowed us to be as creative as we wanted with our story. As I designer, I was trying to tell a story about a ninja. At the beginning of the animation, I used brighter colors such as the red and pink in the flowers to contrast with the dark suit of the ninja. Towards the middle, the ninja and the background have similarly dark colors, as he is meant to not be seen. The overall dark value of the animation was meant to make the video look more dramatic. All assets in the video were created by me, using the pen and shape tool on Illustrator. Not a lot of effects were used in this, just pen and shape, along with the movement, rotation, opacity, and scale in After Effects. In this animation, I am very proud of the overall movement of the characters. I felt that every action flowed smoothly into the next. A struggle with this project was the fight sequence, because they are 2D characters, while fighting is generally 3D. The fight was not really as dramatic or exciting as I wanted it to be. If I could do this project again, I would definitely revise the fight.

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This project is our Film Festival Poster. This project was a group project, and my group consisted of Zach and me. The project was meant as a way of attracting people to go to the film festival as an advertisement. As a designer, we were trying to fit in as many of the characters from the animations as possible. We used shape and pattern to create repeating floating islands so we can incorporate as many of the characters from all of the worlds as possible. The use of the white, yellow, and red for the words was meant to contrast with the dark and light blue background, to emphasize that there will be animations at the film festival. All of the characters were taken from the animations, however, the islands were created by me and the stars were created by Zach. The tools used for creating the islands and stars was the pen tool from illustrator, and the characters were cut out from the animations using the magnetic lasso tool. Overall, the poster looks really well done and was able to incorporate every animation into it. In this project, I contributed the idea to use floating islands and to have each island have a certain theme. I also did most of the character cutting. However, Zach was the one who actually put the poster together, as well as creating the stars. The thing we struggled the most with was just how we were going to include everything. A lot of the animations had characters we could not use for one reason or another. We worked around that by using other assets instead, such as the cap or the planets. If I were to do this project again, I would create a couple more variations for the islands, as some did not stretch so well.

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Our Tumblr header project was an individual project. It was a project that we could use as our way as expressing who we are. In this project, we focused on using a single color and a single shape. The color and shape I focused on using in this project were blue squares. As a designer, I was trying to create an image that expresses my appreciation for technology. The color blue can be used to symbolize technology and electronics, and technology is normally geometric, so I chose blue squares as a way of representing that. This use of the color blue is meant to calm the reader down, so they can fully enjoy the art in my portfolio. The use of the same shape but in no particular order was meant to symbolize how abundant technology is in the modern world, but also how it’s not always an orderly place. The photos and drawing are all original assets. The photos were taken over the summer during my trip to Taiwan, while the drawing is hand drawn on paper with a pencil, then inked over. The most commonly used tool is the shape tool, used to create all of the squares. I also changed the shape of the letters and added a clipping mask to give my name a fluid effect. This design was completely original, and all assets were created by me. The thing I feel went well in this project was the use of the repeated squares, as it really gives off the technological vibe I was going for. The thing that was most problematic about this project was the placement of the squares. Towards the middle of the creation of this project, I noticed that the squares had formed a sort of grid, as each corner overlapped another corner. The grid was too orderly for what I was meaning to do with the project, so I moved some squares randomly and made sure that the rest of the squares I placed were not forming another grid. If I could do this project again, I would make the pictures blend more with the theme I was going for. The photos are both blue, but it does not have the technological theme. The drawing is technological, but there is no blue.

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This project, called ‘Pomotype poem’, was an individual project using a song or poem from our childhood and creating an image to represent it. We used words to form the shape of the images, and were required to use varying font sizes as well as a certain set of colors. The theme of my project is the song Bingo, about the farmer who had a dog named Bingo. As a designer, I used colour and size to make the piece more realistic. The font size was used to indicate how close an object is to the viewer, with the mountain background and cloud having the smallest font. Because this piece is made entirely out of two dimensional shapes, the use of text size to indicate distance allows the piece to be more realistic to the viewer. The text was all created by me, however the reference pictures for all of the things in the picture were labelled for noncommercial reuse by Google. These pictures include a picture of Mount Everest for the background, a picture of a corgi for the dog, and a picture of a barn for the barn. Both the cloud and the lake were made using layered circles. Tools used in this piece include the pen tool to create the shapes for the words, as well as the text tool to fill the shapes with the words of the song. I am very proud of how well the background came out, as well as how easy it is to tell what each shape is supposed to be. However, the limitations on the colour made it hard to emphasize the barn from the mountains, as they are both shades of brown. The biggest struggle was trying to fit all the words in the shapes, as certain shapes were lumpy and not the best for fitting words into. If i were to do this project again, I would use more varied colours as well as fix the words in the barn, as they still do not fit quite right in the shape.

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This project, called ‘Rise & Grind Paly’, was an advertisement for the coffee shop held in the Media Art Center. This was a group project, however my partner and I each created our own advertisement and bounced ideas off each other when needed. This project gave us a lot of creative freedom, as long as we included all the information the coffee shop wanted as well as use a specified font. As a designer, I used value, shape, and texture to make the poster interesting to look at. I also emphasized the title to catch the eye of people from a distance so they would read the advertisement. The coffee cup and wooden texture are pictures taken by me, however the drop and the coffee in the cup are from a picture labeled for noncommercial reuse with modification on Google. In this piece, I used the shape tool to create the many shapes used to decorate the cup. I also used the paintbrush tool to create the scribble behind the title text, as well as to fix the font to become a sans serif font. I am proud of how well the drop and coffee fit into the cup, as well as how the shapes covered the entire cup. I am also proud of how little white border is left on the coffee beans, as it took a lot of erasing to remove all of it. The erasing was the biggest struggle, as the white border stood out a lot on top of the gray wooden background. If I were to recreate this project, I would make the values of the shapes on the cup much more deliberate, as they currently have no pattern and were put on at the last second.

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This project is called ‘our themed poster’. This project was an individual project, and each person designed they’re on poster based on what they like. The project required us to match different fonts to our piece, as well as use our knowledge of the tools to create the poster. As a designer, I tried to use emphasis on the fire and the text by making them lighter than the surrounding background. This effect draws people’s eyes towards the lighter parts of the piece, which is the words and the fire, so the read the words because it stands out in comparison to the background. The assets used in this piece are not my own, however all images used were labeled for noncommercial reuse with modification on Google. Four pictures were used in this piece, which are the fire and campground, the smoke on the text, the tree, and the shooting star. This piece was made in photoshop, and many tools were needed to make it. I used gradience was used to highlight the fire as well as to darken the half of the tree farther from the fire. I used the eraser tool to clear out an area of the background so the shooting star could come through from a layer behind, and used the paintbrush tool to make it fit. I am proud of how well the emphasis on the text and fire worked. However, I struggled with getting the shooting star in place. I erased and refitted the star multiple times, and it still came out blurry and hard to see. Next time, I would add a few more trees so the singular tree does not stand out so much. I would also use the lasso tool to cut out the shooting star instead of erasing the background, as it would make it easier to move the star around if I wanted to.