The Best of it All.

Best Thumbnails:

I chose my "car" thumbnails of my sailboat. My original thumbnails weren't as clean cut so i re worked many of them for this portfolio, making them a little tighter and neater. I think the end result is much improved from my original one. 

Best Marker comp:

I chose this parakeet comp to be my best marker comp because it really demonstrates a drawing aspect of the marker comps more than the text. This is something I really struggle with, but with working with the project I really concentrated and was able to pull out a very decent comp. Professor Nelson had me fix a few things on this certain piece and I think it made a big difference!

Best Copyfitting:

This is the fishing magazine spread marker comp with copy fitting. I spent a lot of time on this one. It looks pretty close to my final production. The copyfitting was hard to figure out at first. (All that math!!) But i eventually got the hang of it. This turned out really well.

Marceline Pamphlet:

This project was really fun for two reasons. One: It's Disney. and two: It's sort of like a magazine spread.  This was easily the most difficult project of the semester. Cramming all that text in an organized fashion was miserable BUT I LOVED creating the graphics from scratch and piecing all of the work together.  It was really cool to make something for something that is actually real, and to learn about something as well.  I really enjoyed this project and I am proud of my final design. 

Best Design:

I chose my fishing comp for best design because I really like how i utilized the sunset photograph in the background and placing the fish on top of the text boxes. It really creates a Three-dimensional feel.  I also really like the hook in the W of Clear Water. It adds a sense of movement along with the fish. I really like magazine spreads abiove all else thus far. Now that I really understand WHAT I am doing to certain images and WHY I am doing it, the process has become much easier when it comes to design because I can focus more of my time and attention on that. 

Best Typography:

I chose this piece for best typography because I feel like the text I chose really seems nautical. It feels uniform with the boat and scenery. I think it is really important to find typography that goes with the topic of point of your design. I am really excited to take typography and learn more about this and the history of it so I will be able to understand or choose typography.  I also like the typography I used in the Big Creek Marina logo in the bottom right corner.  Overall, I feel like this was a pretty successful piece.

Best Creative Concept:

I really fixed up this poster from the original. The original called for 1 color, no bleed. I though I would make it a little more interesting using the techniques i've learned throughout the year. I really like the final production because it is my own design. A lot of the work we did at the beginning of the year didn't allow for much creative, so second semester it was really fun and hard to brainstorm up ideas that would be unusual and do-able.  I chose this piece for my most creative because I spend a lot of time coming up with unique ideas. The Marceline project was my second choice, but so much of that project, like the text and the map are already given to us. This assignment had less guidelines so I was able to show my style a little more.

Let's start from the beginning of the semester with the best examples from illustrator, photoshop, and indesign. 

First off, indesign.

Indesign is easily my favorite program out of the three. It seems really practical to me. I do like using the pen tool and such in illustrator but overall this program really seems to do it for me. I LOVED this project more than any other this year. It really got my brain thinking about WHAT i want to do with my visual communications major. After tackling this project, and the fishing magazine spread,I'm almost convinced I want to work for some magazine and make spreads. I really find it enjoyable. I guess that all will depend on the pay and letting go of my dream of working at DreamWorks. We'll see. This assignment was awesome. I wish I had a copy of the original layout to post on here. They're identical. :D

Next up, illustrator. 

Here is my sailboat, known as Ms. Richmond to the family. Creative, huh? I am extremely proud of this particular piece of work, probably due to the tremendous amount of hours spent with my eyes fixed on the Mac. In the end, it was well worth it. I really created something that gave me a lot of confidence. It was sweet to design something that I really care about looking good, it gave me the determination and motivation to sit in the Beta lab for endless amounts of hours. And because of this I learned that I really do have the skills and patience to do what I want to do, I just have to stay focused!

Lastly, photoshop.

Here is the photoshop project of four combined images. Woo! I used a regular glossy photo (the colored one of the four girls), a black and white glossy of a covered bridge, a magazine image from Cosmo, and a ink drawing of a sailboat. This project was where I met my enemy. AKA photoshop. I learned A LOT from this project. After reading the textbook and slowly but surely learning how to use certain tools for certain things, I started to have fun with this assignment. I really like the opacity tool. I used this quite  bit in this piece as you can see in the four girls the covered bridge shadows through onto their skin. I really liked the variance between the four images. This was definitely  a challenge for me, but useful.