Business Card and Postcard

 This is my business card and postcard. We were to create a business card and on the font add a  mask for the text and a picture. For both business cards we were to have our personal logo and basic business information. I chose a view of skyscrapers to my card because arial views are a good picture and have good variety of designs and other things.

Below is my inspiration for the way I decided to design my business cards and my postcard. I got them from Moo.com.

Professional Article Review Graphic Design

Professional Article Review

"There's a method to the madness of breaking rules and pushing boundaries, and it's all for the sake of good design."

Design shouldn't always follow the rules.  In fact, when you bend or break the rules sometimes you come up with a better design.  Three main points to do this are: starting with design history, taking risks, and staying open.  

  Design history is very important. It is very good to stay up to date with the designs and styles that are being used around us. This is important because if we use those techniques and styles then we are more likely to be able to successfully produce a product. Knowing design history also includes learning from designs that have failed and making your own design better.

Taking risks is a necessity to good design. This is because when you take a risk over a certain design or style, you open up more opportunities to either get better and learn or even to start new trends and styles.

Staying open is key. Although you want to keep with the up to date looks, you need to be open about your design to be able to make it your own. If you stay open you can discover many different designs.

Following these key points is very effective in creating good design sense and successful production.

Technical Tutorial

Poly Thing

The object I'm showing how to make is a Polygon Shape that we made in class. I made a second one here, this is not my original. The object of the tutorial is to make a polygon and give it two shadows that bounce off the floor and two walls. Enjoy.

1. Create a simple sphere in the center of the grid in Maya.

2. Create a cylinder that is longer than the sphere and fits inside the sphere like so. 

3. Duplicate the cylinder and rotate it 90 degrees as above.

4. Do this one more time until you have this shape.

5. Once you have that shape, select all the components then click on mesh+boolean+difference.

6. Your shape should look like this.

7. Select the plain tool and create a plain (floor).

8. Make two more for the walls.

9. Color your poly object by click and holding right click and choosing Assign New Material+Blinn and select a color. Do the same for the walls.

10. To create a shadow go to the rendering tab and select the spotlight.

11. Make two spotlights and position them like so.

12. After positioning, click this render button at the top of the screen.

13. This should be the end result and from here you can save your image.

Story Line Blog

This is my story line animation. The scope of the project was to create a story that involve a character walking through at least 3 different scenes. In my particular story the robber goes through 5 different scenes.

My process involved drawing a picture of my character, making a story board for my plot, designing my scenes in photoshop, and then putting a walking character in the scenes through after affects.

The major thing I learned in making this project was not to procrastinate because it will hurt you in the long run. I also learned how to make a flashing light by adding a glow affect to the light layer and having it alternate from on and off.

Something I would've done differently was to not make the walk cycle out of pin tools and instead do the same way as the first character we did. That's because it took much more time to do it the way I did this time rather than last time.

Something I would do the same is how I did the layers in Photoshop because they seemed to work really well and I didn't need to redo anything because of layer problems.

An experience I will draw from this is that I will try to work with more focus and to have fun at the same time. I really enjoyed this project because there weren't any set things we had to create, it was just your own ideas.

These are my sketches for my character and storyboard.

Professional Article Review

        This article was about the description of computer animation, by the illusion of movement between images and objects. It described the 2D and 3D aspects of animation, and the frames and rendering models of certain objects and images.
       
        The author's point is that computer animation is the art of creation and ideas using moving images. His strengths are describing 3D and 2D animation objects by feeling your own kind of designs and ideas. His weaknesses are that he doesn't really have a structure to his article and there's no real argument between each side.
       
        There are a few things in the article that I don't understand. That is probably because we have not gotten that far yet in animation. Also, because this author's work is more professional. Although there are points that I don't understand, I can still apply this information to animation in e-Comm.
       
        I agree with this article because it's intriguing to the viewer to see moving pictures. This article gives helpful information in learning how to use 2D and 3D animation and making your images come to life. I believe it's very important to understand these concepts of computer animation.


http://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/computer_animation.htm

Picture Painting Fun

For this project we were to make a real picture appear as though it was painted. Pretty cool, huh? This project was not particularly difficult, in fact it was pretty simple. In order to make this look painted, I needed to create my own paint brush with certain settings that were found in the instructions, literally just paint over the picture, and that was basically all. The scope of the piece was very simple and the turnouts are great. I had a lot of fun creating this piece of art. You can also use different specifications for the brush to make it your own desired look or style. I chose to do the same as the instructions and am very proud of how it turned out. Unfortunately I ran out of time and was not able to add this style to my own picture but I could easily do that.

I added my original to my blog!

Personal Logo

This here is my personal logo! I did not make it based on a company, just myself. How I decided on this was actually kind of interesting. First, I had drawn about 15 thumbnail ideas. I thought they were pretty good but maybe too hard to figure out how to do them. I decided to choose a diamond shape with my initials in the middle. Once I out my initials in it, I went to change the font by highlighting the letters and noticed a black box from the highlighting. I then thought it would be cool to add a box of black just around the letters. I did this and kept the diamond but that was too boring. Since it was boring, I added more rectangular diamonds around the first one. I thought this added a very nice subtle yet exciting look. The box kind of represents me because my life is dark to a lot of people, meaning its a mystery and people don't know much about it. The blue diamonds can also show that my life is an organized chaos. I also thought the overall logo showed maturity. That is how I came up with my personal logo. Hope you like it!

Texts and Masks

In this project we were to move an image into a text. To do this I had to insert an image, create a clipping mask, a textbox, and move the image up. The purpose of this project was to learn more about clipping masks and how to use them. You can also use them when creating a gradient on an object. The reason I chose clouds was because I could keep it simple but yet still unique. You wouldn't want like a whole phrase but rather just a word or two. I really enjoyed this project and the turn outs of this. I did go through some obstacles during the process of making these. First, I wanted to do a nature type or something with trees and water. The problem with that was that it made it very hard to read. And, of course, if it's hard to read then nobody will enjoy it. That is why I chose clouds, because it has a nice empty space, perfect for the text.

Here is my original gradient.

3D Bottle Revolve

In this project we were to create a wine glass of some sort. This was to give us a better understanding of how and when to use the pen tool. Not only did we learn the pen tool but also how to revolve an object around a center point. In order to do this, I needed to trace with the pen tool around the outline. Now, this was only half the bottle, the rest was when I went up to the revolve settings. I chose revolve and it automatically made it look like a wine glass for me. I chose an exciting yet simple color, then I had to separate the cork lid from the bottle itself. Once I did that, I chose it a color. To make the tag for my bottle, I traced the outline again with the pen tool and put in a typeface to write my name. I duplicated that 4 times because the instructions said. Once I did that, I was able to put it on the outside of the bottle. I did this by going to the bottle revolve and went to mapping. I simply put my tag on the bottle and pressed ok. That is how I made my 3D bottle!

BMW Tutorial

This was not necessarily a required project but yet highly recommended to do. We were to choose a famous logo and find a tutorial on how to make it. This was done in Adobe Illustrator. The BMW logo was actually pretty tricky. I ran into lots of obstacles such as selected the correct circles for different gradients that I didn't even know were used in this logo. The hardest or most challenging thing I had to do was probably making sure the color tone and gradients were correct with the black and chrome appearance. This was difficult because the tutorial I used was out of date and I had to improvise in many areas. I thought this was a cool thing to make but it was very frustrating because I couldn't figure out certain things that needed to be done. Although I had troubles, I again was able to work around them. This was overall made by circles and not much other shapes, there were some letters, and a couple unique shapes in fhs very center. I think I did quite well considering my obstacles and frustration!

Bird Shadow

In this project we were to create a shadow from an image that did not already have one. I chose to do a bird and go further by adding a background. To make the shadow I needed to copy and paste the bird itself, flip it to an angle that would look similar to a shadow, turn its color tone all the way to black, and then finally change it to a low fill/gradient. It still seemed kind of boring so why not add a little effect?! I added a different color tone to the whole image and also found a vintage looking filter to put over and fade it a little bit. Of course, I couldn't have done any of that without the help of Ethan! He helped me make it look more exciting and realistic but yet vintage. There were a few other tweaks but after that I had a finished bird in a forest with a nice shadow!

A Whole New World (floating mountains project)

This project was called the floating mountain. Pretty self explanatory, right? The concept was to use the quick selection tool as well as getting rid of pixel fringe. We also were to give the illusion that the mountain was somewhat in the clouds. This was pretty tricky and involved moving a couple layers around and selecting only certain parts of the cloud. Not only did we have to put a mountain in the middle of the sky but we also needed to erase the previous name and add our own. In order to do that I needed to use the eyedropper tool to select parts of the sky and clouds to make it just look like more sky and clouds rather than words. Then I had added a text box to type my own name. I called it 'A Whole New World' because I thought it suited a mountain in the sky well because that is completely not real. Making it, a whole new world. There were also changes made such as contrast and color dillusion. But that is the main idea of the whole project and I learned how to use lots of different tools. My favorite being the quick selection tool! 

Motif and Repeat Pattern

The scope of this project was to create a motif and a repeat pattern that would match the inside of our graphic design classroom. We were to make sure the colors were exactly the same and that the motif was radiating out from the center. My process included making and duplicating the same shape as well as different shapes. I decided to use the pathfinder tool to look at different shapes within. I also decided to use the live paint bucket to be able to paint the exact shapes I wanted. This project was not very hard in my opinion. The tricky part was making sure the motif actually radiated from the center correctly, and also that the repeat pattern could repeat off the page. I personally enjoyed making this project because it was a simple yet modern thing and that is kind of my style. This was a great project to be able to experiment with shapes.

                  MOTIF
                                                                                                                            REPEAT PATTERN

 
 
 
 







 

Creative Pieces and Pencils

My Creative Pieces: To the right are the creative pieces I have made. They look like weird space things, right? Well, actually they are space emojis. The moods that I replicated were a happy, excited, and annoyed moods. The Earth was just made to add more space effect. Also, the flag is on the earth and not the moon because I wanted to make sure people knew that it was actually Earth and not just some random planet.  I chose to make my different emoticons in space because I wanted a theme to my creative pieces rather than having two completely random objects. I also chose to make emoticons because I wanted to make something that was unique to other peoples' ideas. To make sure I added the uniqueness, I put my emojis in space and made them space themed. I wanted something that was a little more outside the box than my peers. Not just a basic everyday object such as a plant of some sort or a piece of sports equipment. I thought the space emojis would be a perfect way to incorporate unique and exciting in one image.

My Pencils/Pencil Cup: The pencils and pencil cup were an assignment that was given to our class. Its purpose was to show us different ways to use Adobe Illustrator and the different tools it provides. I learned that you can duplicate and move an object exactly where you want it just by using the control and shift keys. While creating my own design for the pencil, I figured out how to add more live paint bucket patterns. That was really cool because it gave a bigger horizon of patterns and designs to put on my pencil. I also learned how to make a curved line. This is actually pretty simple, all you have to do is grab the pencil tool and draw with the mouse whatever you wish to put on the canvas. I used this tool to write my name, then I moved my created pencil to the end of my name and made it look like the pencil had just wrote my name.  I also learned how to make the cylinder to wear you can put things inside of it. Then I was able to design the pencil holder and make it my own!

Finding Nemo Animations-Proffesional Project

                                        Finding Nemo 

              For this blog I chose to explain what kind of work goes into animating for the movie, Finding Nemo. A quick summary of this video is that the directors and animators explained how they created the animations in this movie. These people had to use lots of different techniques to create this film. Making a film like this takes about two years and a ton of work. These animators tell about what they need to do to know how to animate the movie and they talk about what some of the parts of animation they use. Before the animators can even start to animate the fish and the settings of the movie, they are told that they need to experience the ocean first hand. So that's what they did.  Once they had a good idea of the images they would need to animate then they started story boarding and making sure they had the story exactly how they wanted it. For the digital animation part of making the film they needed to focus on these things majorly: pacing of the film, motion, range of underwater color to track where the character is/was, lighting, surges/swells back and forth, matter and style of the water, facial expressions, and shading and texture. That's a long list. To put these elements in short, animators for this movie had to be very precise in the motion of a fish and in what underwater life is actually like. The story that was told was how animators created Finding Nemo and what they had to do to get to a point of creating it. One element of this that I can apply to my work is to get a real life feel of what life around me is like and make my animations come to life better. Another element that I have already learned is that you need to story board your idea before you start to actually create it. The creators did a really good job of making the movie seem like it was coming to life but not making it too realistic to where it doesn't seem like an animation anymore. That's because they took the time to go out and experience what they needed to for the film. It could improve by maybe not taking so long to get the job done. To conclude, I think this was a really well done movie and Finding Nemo is now probably one of my favorite animated films.


Finding Nemo  ( just watch part 1)

Graphic Design

         Graphic design is the art or skill of combining text and pictures in logos, magazines, books, etc.  The point of adding graphics is to portray a message to the reader or consumer.  In order to create the perfect design you need to put yourself in the shoes of the consumer. The color is very important when it comes to connecting your topic to the design.  Graphic design is about discovering new ideas and coming up with new designs for your product. It's very helpful to color coordinate the color of what your logo or image may be to what is being sold or consumed.  That's important because if you were to design a logo for a lawn mowing company, you wouldn't make a pink logo with swirl designs because that doesn't make any connection to people that you are providing a lawn mowing service.  Instead, you would maybe make a sharp looking green logo because green stands for nature in the world of logo colors.  There is much more to graphic design than just these things, a big part is being able to have some imagination and creativity. This is what makes graphic design, "Graphic Design".

DubFresh Project - Making it Happen

DubFresh - Making it Happen

        Our product was called, DubFresh. It is a toothbrush that plays modern day music. My role in the DubFresh project was designing the product packaging and also the product logo.  This toothbrush was designed for a younger audience. That of maybe teenagers.

DubFresh Commercial

      Below is the commercial for our product. It tells a short story of a teenage boy who doesn't want to brush his teeth because it is boring and, to him, a waste of time. His mom introduces DubFresh to him and tells him that it plays music while you brush. He goes ahead and tries it out. At the end he turns out to love DubFresh and tells the audience to get their DubFresh today. The commercial's purpose is to prove to those watching that this is a great product and that it works perfectly. For filming the commercial, I took the role of lead director and story boarder.

Summary

In conclusion, I contributed to the packaging animation, directing the commercial, and creating the product logo.  We used SketchUp to create all the animations, including the packaging design that I created.  Collaboratively we needed to come up with a good commercial that would catch the attention of the teenage audience.  We made that work by assigning certain roles for each person in our group.

DubFresh Commercial

The product for our group is called DubFresh. These products are toothbrushes that are designed to play music as you are brushing your teeth. The music can be whatever is desired but it is mostly dub step. The concept of the commercial is to show a teenage boy that doesn't want to brush his teeth getting a new toothbrush and enjoying brushing his teeth. The commercial is convincing people to get a toothbrush that their teens will enjoy and will encourage them to brush their teeth more often. Our slogan is "Toothtunes for Teens". DubFresh is a toothbrush that plays music to encourage teenagers to brush their teeth every night for the rest of their life. Teens will enjoy listening to their favorite music while improving their physical health and whitening their teeth. This product goes out to a greater audience. The audience of teens rather than that of younger kids or adults.

Final Interview

     Video in e-Comm was really fun this quarter!  We learned all sorts of things, such as, shortcut keys, different angle shots, the Six Shot System, and storyboarding.  I definitely had a really good experience on practicing collaboration with either a group or just simply one partner.  I also had opportunities to work on speaking in front of an audience.  This would be when we would present our videos.  Time management was also a big factor in video class.  In order to get the assignment finished on time you needed to stay focused while with your group and you also had to figure out a time out of class if you didn’t get a film completed in class.  The Six Shot System consists of the extra close-up (XCU), close-up (CU), medium (MS), over-the-shoulder (OTS), wide (WS), and extra wide (XWS) shots.  Overall, I believe this quarter in video was a great class and I enjoyed it very much!

The Chase

        I learned that when doing a running scene or something like that, you should start running before you actually enter the shot because then it looks more realistic and like you’re actually being chased. I also learned that to get the project done you can’t mess around, you actually have to work to complete your work. For my next project I will make sure that all the shots are correctly angled and in the right position. Collaboration was different because you had to speak up when you had an idea and talk a lot more to agree on something like the storyline. Also, there were more people so there were more ideas said. When there are more ideas it makes it easier to figure out what to make the video project about. I think I collaborated pretty well, if I needed to improve anything about my collaboration it would probably just be more open to speaking ideas rather than just going with whatever.

ab sequence

I learned that time management is very important while taking videos.  Also that you need to know exactly what you're doing when you film.  In my next project I will manage my time better and make sure I know exactly what I'm doing in my videos.  Collaboration is working as a group and we had to apply this to our project by working together to complete our videos correctly and on time.

6 Shot System

The 6 shots in the 6 Shot System are a medium, close up, extra close up, over the shoulder, wide, and extra wide shot.  The abbreviations for these are MS, CU, XCU, OTS, WS, and XWS.  The medium shot is the hips and above, close up is just the head and a tiny bit of shoulders, extra close up is always of the hands, over the shoulder is just above a shoulder and shows what the person is doing and shows part of their face but not all of it, wide shows the whole body, and lastly, extra wide shows the whole person but also showing the setting.  I learned that this system is supposed to be quick and to keep the viewers attention.  What I will do next time is make sure the shots are accurate and that there aren't items in the setting that we don't want in the shots.

Highlight Video

    The program I used for this project was Final Cut Pro and the tools I used in it were youtube.com to get my videos, ssyoutube.com to download and use the videos, and the finder window to transfer my downloads to Final Cut Pro.  I used command "I" and "O" to figure out which parts of the videos I wanted in my highlights.  My hobby I chose for this project was softball because I've played this sport for many years and I love it.  I did and did not enjoy Final Cut Pro.  It was difficult at times like when you needed it to end at an exact point, it could be difficult ending it there.  Overall I think my project was pretty good and I will probably catch on to this Final Cut Pro program as the quarter goes on.