Art vs. Graphic Design

Description:
For my graphic design final, I was asked to show that I know the difference between art and graphic design by turning a piece of art into a design piece. I decided that I would use the hot air balloon project from my previous post to create a poster for a halloween balloon festival.

Image:
To the right is the image I used in this project to create my poster. This cartoon is obviously art. First of all it can have several different meanings. Maybe I, the artist, love aliens in hot air balloons ---or maybe it is a metaphor for the dreams of little people. The point is you do not, and never will, know.


Final Project:
This is my final design. I used a combination of my balloons and aliens, alphabet project text effects, and thus acquired knowledge of layer effects to create a Albuquerque Halloween Balloon Festival poster.  This is obviously now design because is has the singular message that there is a celebratory festival. The aliens are obviously people in costumes, and while little people may dream of coming to this event, it is not representational of little peoples dreams.

Hot Air Balloon

Description: In this tutorial I learned how to use layer effects and patterns to make cartoon style hot air balloons. I took the artistic liberty to add aliens. Well they were suppose to be my BFFL Julie but I couldn't get the right shade of green to match her skin tone.

Tutorial: Hot Air Balloon

Final Product:

Description: In this project I found 26 text effect tutorials ans created the alphabet. The hardest one I completed was probably 'B' because it entailed so many pages of steps. 

I learned:

• how to use the layer styles
• how to use the artistic effects
• how to use channels
• how to create a light source
• how to download new fonts
• how to make 26 different types of letters

Tutorials:

A B C D E
F G H I J K
L M N O P

Q R S T U

V W X Y z

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Social Awareness Poster

Description: To make this poster I did two tutorials, then created the individual elements of my poster (the apple, the branch and the text,) and lastly played around and put them together to create my final product.

Tutorials: See previous blog post

Images:
1.This first image is the branch that I cartoon-ized
 2.  This second image is the globe I used as the basis for my apple

Final: I chose my message to be "Good planets are hard to find, don't blow it" because I think the going green message is important. I put the globe as an apple on a tree because when apples too old or damaged, they fall off their trees.
I learned how to:

• Use the warp tool
• Apply gaussian blur
• Use a combination of blurs and opacity to create an image
• cartoon an image
• Use the brush palette

Overall I am pleased with my final product. I like the colors and am especially proud of my apple globe.

Tutorials

1. This is my first tutorial, Creating an Apple. I learned how to use tools like

• the warp tool
• the noise and blur settings
•  the sphere tool
•  the path tool

 It was a little frustrating at first to find where I could get to all the tools but I think the finished product came out well. I am applying this tutorial to a picture, rather than starting from scratch, in my poster in order to make the picture resemble an apple.

 2. The second tutorial was much simpler and allowed me to put a cartoon effect on a photo.
I learned how to use

• different filters
• different artistic effects

I will use this tutorial to help e make the branch I am using match better to my apple.

Art Deco Travel Poster

Description: To create this travel poster I first researched other art deco styled travel posters. After, I chose the destination I wished to represent ad started sketching ideas I had and found some tutorials I thought could help me create the piece I wanted. I then found a few photos to chose from that i could manipulate into my poster. I created my photoshop document and using my tutorial and other knowledge, put the pictures and text together to make the poster

Tutorial: The tutorial I used taught how to give a photo a watercolored effect. It can be found here. To the right is my completed tutorial project. I applied this effect to two photos in my poster to make them blend better into the theme.

Images:Above are the original images I decided to use in my poster. To the left is a picture of the Sydney Opera House and to the right is the bridge that resides nearby.

Final Product: 
Here is my final travel poster to Sydney Australia.

• I used my tutorial for the two pictures as well as some new tools.
•  I used how to use the wave tool to get a slight water effect on the blue beneath the opera house
• I used opacity to create the dark blue border and add slight definition to the opera house
• I learned how to use the rulers to line my pictures up properly
• I learned how to effectively organize layers individually and in folders
• I learned how to use the magic wand tool to subtract from the image

Travel Poster

This is where I am at so far with my art deco styled travel poster. The idea it to add a bridge behind the opera house and maybe do some more deco-ing.

So far I have striped the sky different shades of blue, made the opera house watercolored and chosen a font.

Improved Color Theory Video

Learn the basics of applying colors to logos.

Color Theory-Graphics 1 on Prezi

Sources:

1. Color and the Wheel
2. The Twelve Step Color Wheel
3. Coloring With Adobe Kuler
4. Do's and Don't's
5. Color Theory

Color Theory Presentation

Learn about color theory and how it applies to logo design.

Color Theory-Graphics 1 on Prezi

Sources:

1. Color and the Wheel
2. The Twelve Step Color Wheel
3. Coloring With Adobe Kuler
4. Do's and Don't's
5. Color Theory

Logo Designs

This is one of my name logos. One day I was playing around with the different shape tools and discovered the swirl button. Looking at the swirl, I decided that I wanted to use it for the letter 'e' in my name.





This is my initials logo that also has a symbol in it. It was inspired by my love for penguins. I wanted to make the penguins become part of the letters so I felt I should use a rather thick font.

This is my symbols logo. I wanted to make it look like a old fashion bicycle, using the wheels to incorporate the two 'e's in my first name. My BFFL julie helped me choose between doing 'ellen' verses 'e.lalk' for the logo. Thank you julie.