Logos

What is your favorite logo and why?



One of my favorite logos is the Twitter logo. The most recognizable image within the logo is, of course, is a bird. This image of the little bird goes hand in hand with the sound a bird makes: a twitter or tweet. The purpose of this social media platform is to send out quick bursts of status updates and or pictures, similar to the way a bird would "tweet" to others around them. The logo is simple, but cute and memorable. The logo also makes a lot of sense in terms of the purpose of this kind of social media.

5 logos from other sites




I like these because the image reflect the name of the company. "Poison Cat" for example literally has poison inside of a cat. "Focus" has the word focus, with a focus symbol on the "c". The "Pixels" logo is pixilated. So the images of the logo match the name, which I like. Some logos seem random and we almost have to force ourselves to associate that given image with the name of the product or company. These, on the other hand are easier to interpret.

What's Your Stance? Reflection

                                               

1. I do think my stance was clear in my final poster because I was able to demonstrate a contrast in perceptions of what theater as an art form means to a typical person. I used a pair of drama masks to make a clear cut distinction between the good and bad perceptions. The drama masks originally demonstrates comedy or tragedy in theater. On the corresponding side of the positive mask, I used light colors as well as the positive ideas that one should come away with thinking about after watching a live theatrical performance. On the negative side, I used darker colors to convey the negative perceptions that people often associate with theater as an art form and industry. Then, I used a silhouette of a single audience member to make clear that a person must decide for themselves to either be critical or willing to learn.
2. The poster on the left closely resembles my original ideas found in my thumbnail sketches. While I was able to recreate my original draft successfully, my stance was not conveyed in the manner that I wanted to originally. I do, however, like the new visual outcome because the message that I wanted to get across is much more clear.
3. I decided to keep the "Playbill" Template, but I got rid of the stage setting, globe and Shakespeare quote. While it was clearly representative of drama or theater, there was no sense of urgency in the poster. I had to remove those things and make the text and images meaningful in context of my stance. So by creating a more direct focal point, using contrasting colors, and direct text, my stance made more sense in the long run.
4. I think my project is strongest in the design portion, because I made sure that everything I had on the poster was specific to my stance. This includes the images of the silhouette audience member, the white drama mask, the colors in the background, etc. I think my project is weakest in the concept section because I found it difficult to incorporate all of my ideas in the way that I originally wanted. My concept made sense to me, but it may not have to to others. There could have been various ways to bring my concept to life.
5. The most challenging part was making my concept make sense through art. I think it's easier to do so in speech or writing, but artistically it is much more difficult. Thinking about detail conceptually was therefore a challenge because I had to really think about why I was putting images and colors onto the poster and how they would convey the message I needed to get across.
6. Technically speaking, assorting images and colors in a meaningful way was hard. I needed to be precise in image and color placement in order for my message to be clear. I had to think about technicalities a lot more in this project than in any other.

Current Events HW

Topics that currently interest me are...


1. Education

Everything from college admissions, affirmative action, and education reform interests me. Education is such an integral part of our society, yet there are disparities within the system that raise questions as well as socio-economic issues.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/us/as-graduation-rates-rise-experts-fear-standards-have-fallen.html?ref=education

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/15/opinion/sunday/frank-bruni-how-to-survive-the-college-admissions-madness.html

2. Race in America

Because of recent events, I think race in America has become such a prominent controversial issue. Many people don't want to talk about it, and because of that, it definitely should be talked about.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/your-stories/conversations-on-race?ref=opinion

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/06/business/economy/racial-identity-and-its-hostilities-return-to-american-politics.html?ref=topics

3. Media Influence on Youth Culture and Body Image

I believe the media has way too much influence on body image expectations for our youth. People want to alter their image and even harm themselves in the process.

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-29569473

https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/media-body-image-and-eating-disorders

Self Symbol GIF Project Reflection

My self symbol concept is daydreaming about my future or the goals I would like to achieve in life. I arrived to this idea after brainstorming the many different aspects of my personality that I would like to portray. I wanted to make it really personal and true to myself. I decided to go with the theme of my aspirations of being on Broadway someday, since it was recurring in my thumbnails. Since I think of this aspiration of mine all the time, I decided to animate myself daydreaming about being on a Broadway stage. I thought that it would best represent that part of myself and what I think about often.

My animated GIF pretty much remained the same in relation to my thumbnail and post-it notes. I had the image clear in my head and I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. The Photoshop process was challenging, however, because it was hard to draw and animate precisely in the way that I had originally envisioned. Also, very minuscule details were drawn over several different layers, which allowed me to really think about flow and movement. I had to think about what was going to be seen at any given second, so a lot more time and patience went into creating the GIF then I had originally thought. On the other hand, I think this process really enhanced my original idea because it allowed me to add little things that would make the image really come to life, essentially. That was my main goal, and I think I was successful in doing that.

GIF HW

The Best of SoCal :)

Portrait Transformation Project

Project Title: Old-Hollywood in Modern-Day NYC

1. My concept for this project was to take an "Old-Hollywood" scene and/or moment, and place it in a modern New York City setting. I specifically transformed my sister into an Old Hollywood actress by using different Photoshop techniques. Overall, I wanted to created a sharp contrast between the glamour of the past and the modernity of the present.

2. I am very happy with the results. This wasn't really representative of my original concept. In fact, I was pretty indecisive when it came to coming up with a concept. At first, I wanted to do a genre of fantasy, and do a kind of parallel universe. Then, I changed my ideas a few more times. I didn't come up with this final concept until I really understood the pictures that I took of my sister, as well as how she could blend with my background photo. My "Old-Hollywood" dress, which was already in black and white gave me the idea to just keep the image type and color consistent. I then decided to add an old-fashioned camera crew to sort of make it like a movie set or something. I liked how my concept came together, and I think the results look good!

3.

Final Project 

My Original Background Photograph

Original Photograph of My Sister

4. First, I needed to find a dress to put my sister's head on top of. Once I found the black dress, I saved it in Photoshop, and began to remove the model's head. I used the quick selection tool, and outlined the body. Then, I copied and pasted the body onto my original background photo.

Next, I put my sister's picture into Photoshop, and with the quick selection tool, cut out her head and pasted it on my project document. Next, I selected the layer of her head, and used the black and white filter to match the body with the dress. Then, I used brightness and contrast to make my sister's black and white skin tone match the arms that came from dress. Then, I attached the two layers to make one full body.

My next step was to add my next piece to the project. I searched Google Images for a camera crew from an Old-Hollywood set. I copy and pasted the photo into Photoshop, and used a layer mask to erase the extra parts of the background that I didn't need. Then, I cropped the layer to adjust the size so it would be proportional to my sister's body.

My last step was changing the ground of the background. My original image was taken from a rooftop, and there was a table and chairs on the ground. These objects crowded my image a little too much, so I decided to find a clean floor for my figures to stand on top of. I found an image, and with the quick selection tool, I cut out the floor and pasted it under the layers of my figures. This created a cleaner and more focused background layer.

Photoshop

Photoshop Mini Lesson