Sunday, May 16, 2010

Design Rationale - Final Project

I chose to do food for the topic of my final project because I love food. In this slideshow I wanted to create my love of food and also one particular experience with a different type of food. I chose to talk about my experience to South Korea and the different food they have there. I wanted to give the reader a sense of a story where I start off by mentioning what food is, my experience in Korea with food and then wrapping it all up with how much I love and enjoy it.

Some of the decisions I made while creating this slideshow was choosing which pictures to choose and which music I wanted in the slideshow. It was difficult choosing pictures because some of the images were too small so they looked funny in the slideshow. I did choose the song Cheeseburger in Paradise by Jimmy Buffett for the end of my slide show because I thought it was a good food song that mostly everyone knows.

I felt like I had a lot of problem this time with audacity and posting. Trying to post to WebNg and Filezilla was a pain because whenever I tried to upload my powerpoint to them it would just stop in the same spot and never finish the upload. I never accomplished any of my problems because I never got the project uploaded.

I am most proud of the whole project and how I put a bunch of things together. It took a little effort to write a script that would easily portray what I wanted to say. I then needed to find pictures that accurately went with what I was saying in the story and then a song that also fit the theme. I think in the end it turned out really well despite all the uploading problems and I am proud of the final project.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Thursday, April 15, 2010

BiBi Cards














Quark Bibi Card














InDesign Bibi Card









I chose to duplicate this card because I thought it was challenging but not too challenging enough to do with both Quark and InDesign. I anticipated having problems with InDesign.

The fonts I chose were obvious because I was duplicating the exact fonts that were on the card. The entire Arial type family (Arial Black, Arial Narrow, Arial Bold, Arial Bold Italic, and Arial Narrow Regular) was used for both my Quark and InDesign BiBi cards. For the back of the BiBi card, the font were also a few of the Arial ones and then for the signature E L L E font, the font used was Bodoni STD.

Some of the problems I encountered when duplicating cards was using the program InDesign. I’m more experienced with Quark than InDesign so using the new program was a challenge for me and got me very frustrated. Also, trying to do the gradient on the yellow circle on both programs was very challenging. I solved this problem after getting frustrated and with the help of Sofia we finally figured it out.

I would say that I am really proud of my BiBi cards duplications because they look so real! If I had more time I wouldn’t change anything because I think my cards look accurate and perfect.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Brochure

















Sofia and I chose to do the restaurant Leo’s for our brochure because we both enjoy going there. Leo’s is also a place that many of our classmates could relate to since it is popular among teenagers our age. We were hoping to achieve a final project that included the menu for the restaurant and a brief history on it while also displaying images of the restaurant in a colorful way. Also, we incorporated reviews on the restaurant so anyone reading the brochure would see how highly acclaimed the restaurant is.

We chose to keep the colors on the front of the brochure the same as the ones that the restaurant uses for their logo and menu. We also chose to use pictures of the restaurant and the inside on the front of the brochure so the reader can get a visual of what it looks like. The contact information was also put on the front of the brochure so it’s easier to access. Because Leo’s has a very big menu, we decided to have the menu take up the three panels in the inside of the brochure. We chose a history of the restaurant and a map and reviews for the back of the brochure because out of everything, those were the least important.

Some of the decisions we had to make were where we wanted items to be located on the brochure and what information we wanted to put on it. Also, what colors and fonts we would use for the words. Fonts

One of the problems that we encountered was trying to make a shape that had gradient. We couldn’t figure out how to do the gradient with a color. We ended up solving this problem by just making an oval shape and putting it behind the words “Leo’s Restaurant”.

I think overall we are both most proud of the final brochure. I think it looks really well done and we did a really good job. I think if we were given more time I wouldn’t want to change anything. Maybe we would have changed the back side of the brochure and switched how we placed the history.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Dave Matthews Band concert poster




















What I was hoping to achieve from my design was a creative concert poster featuring the Dave Matthews Band. I chose this band because I know they’re really popular among this University’s student body. I wanted anyone who saw the poster to find it appealing and want to go to the concert.

There were a lot of decisions made throughout the creation of my poster. I had to decide which fonts worked best together and didn’t make the poster look too crowded. I also had to decide what pictures I would use on the poster if I was going to use any. In the end, I chose a picture of all the members of the band and using Photoshop I cut them out of the background. I chose to use a blue color for the background because I thought it looked like the most appealing color.

Nothing was really too challenging to this project but I did have trouble deciding where to place words on the poster. I have a tendency to put the words in a straight line but I know that this is not creatively appealing. The only other thing that was a pain to do was cutting out the picture of the band on Photoshop. It was a long tedious process. I solved these problems by making sure I didn’t put the words in straight lines and also by just working on the photo really hard.

I’m most proud of my overall project and how it turned out. I really like the colors and fonts I used. I think the poster came out really good and I think that most people would want to go to the concert if they saw my poster. The date and place on the poster is when the Dave Matthews Band will really be playing there and some of my friends who are going to that concert thought my poster was really neat.

If I had more time I probably would have tried out different fonts and made my poster a little bit more creative. I would have played around with the colors and maybe even used a different picture. It all depends but overall I like my final product.

Monday, March 29, 2010

Cobra Starship Powerpoint



In my design, I was hoping to achieve a final PowerPoint presentation that was appealing to my audience but also creative in the way I presented the band Cobra Starship. I was hoping that the music I chose would help my viewer get a sense of what kind of band they were. I was also glad that by doing this project I got to expand my knowledge of PowerPoint because I feel so much more knowledgeable with the program.

In creating my PowerPoint presentation, I had to make various decisions that would affect the outcome of my project. One of the things that I had to decide was what music I would be putting in my PowerPoint. Since Cobra Starship isn’t really that popular I chose to use songs that I thought people would know better than the other ones. I also had to decide which pictures worked best for the slides. I wanted to put pictures on my third slide with the chart but in the end I decided it looked better to do one picture as the background and have the picture be dimed.

The most challenging thing of the whole project was the music portion. When we first used audacity I was having trouble putting the music together because I had gotten the music file from Limewire and it was bad. I solved this problem by having to download the song again so at that point I changed the song to a different one that I thought would be better. This new file was better and it worked when I combined the two songs together. Once the music was done, I had to make sure the music fit with the PowerPoint and ended at the right time. This part was hard because I had to slow things down or speed animations up to make the music sound right and look right with the slides.

I think I am most proud of the project as a whole. I was proud of myself that I could learn how to use a different version of Microsoft PowerPoint that had so many different features! I enjoyed it though because it gave you a lot of fonts and animations to choose from. I was happy that my project came out half way decent and my music eventually worked. Since we had just learned Photoshop it was good to be able to go back to that program and fix my photos.

If I had more time I would have worked on the music portion more. Because I had trouble with the music files in the beginning I wasted a lot of time on that, therefore my music wasn’t as good as it could have been. I would have really spent time on it and made it sound really creative. I probably would have also been more creative with the way I set up the slides. Once I spend more time on something I start to find more creative ways of doing things.