New Biz Card <3

yay me. except for it being ravaged by becoming a png and getting all crispy looking, this is basically the concept.

Portfolio Site Finalized

For the most part. I did not complete the Writer section nor did I upload the websites for my Design for the Screen section, but the site has enough pages to be considered complete for the likings of my instructor and I made the corrections suggested to make the site stronger. Now only to find where the files for those rascally old websites are...

To look at the updated website just click on the website link in my previous blog.

Portfolio Site

Believe it or not, this is almost the whole shebang!

Bonnie Gail Cook: Designer and Writer

Enjoy :)

Tuttin' Away

THE SOURCE

It wasn't impossible. I think it's a quick-n-dirty way to achieve the effect of glowing text if that's your prerogative. I did a humhum job of dodging the background so take that into consideration when tackling the project on your own. Despite the feats you conquer, crappy craft will come back to haunt you no matter where you try and hide. Overall, I like the effect. Who knows when i'll ever use the effect. Glow in the dark t-shirt business, perhaps?

Recipe for Insanity With A Side Of Disaster

To concoct insanity with a side portion of disaster, do the following:
Give two weeks to complete a portfolio website that, content and vision wise, should take a summer.
Add 21 hours of coursework.
Set timer to week before exams.
Mix in alcohol and lots of high-fat foods.
Bake in Senioritis because everyday you work on the project it is sunny outside.
Cook in insomnia and borderline meltdowns in a weeks time to translate your vision into the rigid and vengeful world of Dreamweaver.
Let cool only after eminent destruction lies ahead (exams from Hell).
Serve to the professor for a taste test, hopefully not too much will need to be revamped for the final recipe.


I'm exaggerating just a little, but it's not too far from the reality i'm facing. I know it'll be worth my time and my extreme panic-attacks in the long run, but right now I want my website concept to just fall in my lap rather than struggling to scan odds and ends, decide how large the site really should be, and perfectly mesh everything into the CSS format I want for the site's architecture.

My site feels like a jigsaw puzzle of pieces right now. I need to complete the complicated yet beautiful piece in a seamless and short-term manner. I'm living on a prayer right now. Seriously.

Student Showcase: The Last Four Sessions

Each year Peace College hosts a full day to celebrate the academic achievements of her students. Lunch is served on the lawn while there is music, dancing, and, for the past four years, sunny and warm weather. The four sessions I attended while at Student Showcase this year were also sessions that I was a part of in one way or another. Because of my academic love triangle with English and Graphic Design, I spent most of last Thursday running up and down stairs between the two academic departments, twice having to go to one late because of the one before bleeding over in time.

The first of the four sessions I attended was the Peace College Prism reading in the Main Parlor. I was the Design Editor for both last years and this years Prism. The Prism is Peace College's literary magazine and it's fascinating to look back on past magazines and see the different interpretations of the text. Unfortunately, Student Showcase is also the day that Dr. Duncan, the overseer of the Prism from the English department loses eight years of his life stressing over the Prism's last minute arrival. Of course they did as they always do and amongst a packed room, a panting pug, and an assortment of sugary edibles, people read aloud their poetry. Showcase always gives a great sense of worth for all the hard work that is put in throughout the school year. Seeing the Prism in its final form is perhaps the most tangible result of my endless hours pouring over the screen and my dorm room floor piecing together a fifty page magazine by hand. The second and perhaps most exciting part of my day's presentations was beginning upstairs as the reading began to get going on the Prism, so I slipped out the door with my parents close behind and made my way back upstairs.

Because I'm a lunatic when it comes to preparedness, my Graphic Design portfolio was meticulously laid out prior to me going downstairs for the Prism reading. People had been pouring in and out of the room so I quickly rearranged my disheveled work and tried to look as presentable as possible despite my skyrocketed anxiety attack being brought on by back to back presentations. My portfolio consisted mostly the things that I am also including in my digital portfolio online with a few additions. Most people gravitated to my book that I created a couple of years back, Homage to my Body. I feel like i'm starting to see a trend in what things of mine people see as exceptional and it has inspired me to make more books that I have had lying dormant in the back of my creative toolbox for the past few years. Other pieces that I included that were of interest were business cards, including my own, a packaging project for The Body Shop rereleasing a certain scent of soap, a completely number based calendar that I painted by hand and then worked with in Illustrator, a CD package, postcards, invitations, and several over ubiquitous designer type projects. I also managed to include in my portfolio presentation the newest Prism from downstairs, an exciting start to the session. Of course as luck would have it, my time overlapped yet again and I was as carefully as one can stuffing my portfolio into my laptop bag and running back downstairs.

I got to the door and Dr. Laskowski was looking over a presentation. I was obviously late. My parents and I among other stragglers stood patiently outside the door shifting our weight from one foot to another waiting for the presentation to end so we could make our not-so-sneak-attack into the classroom. Once the presentation was over and the low thunder of clapping erupted, the outsiders made their way in and found a nice cozy place in the corner of the classroom. Feeling like a herded animal mashed behind a classroom full of people and chairs, I tried to imagine in my head more space around me, and it was impossible to free myself of my claustrophobic tendencies. Five or six presentations later, I bolted to the front of the room and was glad to be free and capable of ranging in my domain of five cubic feet. I wasn't nervous about presenting, although I was pissed I forgot to mention Nell Gwyn and not long after my suave throw-down of the Seventeenth Century whore, the session was over. Time to head back upstairs.

The last session that I was part of was thankfully low-key. Upstairs in the gallery space hung several of my paintings and some other projects, including a photomontage that I created several years back in Drawing [it's a permanent installation]. Everything was looking good there and I eavesdropped on a few people talking about how awesome my paintings were before heading down to the Wellness Center to see the new work hung from the Advanced Graphic Design Studio class. Upon arriving I was bombarded with people that I knew, since I often spend mornings lounging around in the Wellness Center more frequently than a hypochondriac. The new work was strong and it was fascinating to see how differently the approach of the newer class toward wellness was than our class a year ago at Showcase. Some of my old art was still hanging so I went and paid homage to myself and felt good about yet another permanent installation and then as things began to wind down, walked my parents back to their car.

As the hot sun was blown across my back and through my hair in a mild yet beachy breeze, I took a few moments to reflect that my time at Peace was coming to an end, and that before long I would walk onto the stage on graduation day a student and leave it a graduate. I've just gotten a part time design job for the summer so that uneasy feeling of being asked "What are you doing after you graduate?" won't be so hard to swallow anymore. I'm still looking for more opportunities though and strangely enough, it seems like several will be coming from Peace College. This is as much a testimony as it is a plug; Peace College has been life-giving and life-changing. I can hardly imagine the summer is beginning so soon.

Portfolio Site Inspiration: MONDONGO

Sewn art is gorgeous. Check out the details--crucial!

MONDONGO

Tutorial: Spraying the dissolve brush behind a cloud that reminds me of a night light

I enjoy the 3D effect that this tutorial allows and the simplicity of the tutorial because it focuses on a certain skill. I want to do this effect behind some type on a future poster now!

this text will magically take you to the tutorial site

What To Do, What To Do...

I am working currently with my images that I want to incorporate in my website. The photographs of my work are mediocre if they don't somehow embody the rest of the sites theme. I'm thinking about some kind of cool border or even some "default" sewn effect over the imagery (in avoidance of sewing down over 50 different images). Hopefully some solution will pop up epiphany-style soon!

Sewing Together My Portfolio Site

I've never sewn before. I surely have never sewn a website together...until now. Last night I planted myself on my bed with my miniature sewing kit and a jug of cherry Kool Aid and began working on my portfolio site's identity. Because of my concentrated interest in women artists, especially women who recreate conventional roles that have been expected of women, such as quilting, painting on pottery, or even ornately arranging found objects on window sills and on top of furniture. Women who inspire me are Sabrina Ward Harrison, the Sayre women, Toni Morrison, Joyce Carol Oates, Margaret Atwood, Zadie Smith...the list is exhaustive. What i'm drawing from these women is the shared theme of going beyond what has been a metaphorical barrier of what is possible for women to do. As a female artist and writer, I've surprisingly heard even in the 21st century stinging comments about where a woman's place is in both of these worlds. Strongly going against this stigma, my design portfolio has remnants of my cultural past as I have tried in my own vision to allow the vision of my feminine genealogy show through, but I have also worked tirelessly toward making something new and and original while managing to also hold meaning. A huge portion of my work is within the handmade tradition and I constantly am using found art of mine within my design process. The quilts of Gee's Bend is what I think of mostly when I look over my initial design concept for my website. The tradition of paint, sewn type, and other elements of image of women are important elements that I want to reverberate throughout my digital portfolio, but I also would like a sexless identity that reaches out to an audience that can appreciate the work without any necessary identity. I'm excited about where my site will go even though getting it off the ground so far has been in the most literal sense painstaking as I have prodded myself with the sewing needle several times. As a consequence, i've learned the value of a thimble placed on the right finger. Finding roots while finding an identity that accurately portrays the self is my mission and i'm trembling with excitement as I see myself allowing it to take form.

NYC Visuals

New York: To and Fro

Easter Break was spent beyond the green grass of Peace College. My friend Natasha and I went to her home in New York City and it was nothing short of pure awesome. The road trip began as many do, with constant scanning of the radio to find the perfect road-tripping station of music and the often annoyance with the TomTom's yelling "LEFT LEFT LEFT" if we didn't turn quick enough off of an exit ramp. The excitement of the trip was amplified when a car was slowly creeping ahead of our car on I-95 Northbound. Because I love looking out of the window on a car trip, I couldn't help but notice not only the car but the two gorgeous men that were piloting the vehicle. The humor of the situation increased as their windows rolled down and so did my own. Numbers were exchanged and moments later I was making new friends. Apparently the Marines stationed at Camp Lejune had a holiday as well and many of them were heading home to New York for the weekend. Many hours later through traffic jams, tunnels, toll booths, gas stops, and occasional rain we made our way into the city. As soon as we arrived, I could feel the different energy of the city. It's exhilarating. Natasha's parents had take-out sushi and red wine waiting for us when we finally met our destination, a meal of championship. Considering we had arrived in New York around 11 pm, It is even more amazing that I didn't stumble into bed until around 6 am the next morning. The next morning really began in the early afternoon and I spent the day with Gratz and several renowned Pilates instructors doing a photo shoot. It was a 7 hour event, but it was amazing. Much of the day I was talking with the Art Director of Pilates Style magazine about the design work I do as a student and my interests beyond graduation. Besides making great connections, I also gorged on smoked salmon, four types of cheeses, rice crackers, grapes, strawberries, champagne, and Ferro Rocher chocolates. The night continued as we went to a friend of Natasha's birthday. The music was pumping so loudly that we could hear it about twenty floors below as we waited for the elevator. Needless to say, it was wild in the sense that the small apartment had about fifty guests and each one that was of age was toting a beer or some other form of alcoholic substance for the majority of the night. I helped myself to Coronas from the freezer and a plate full of homemade food. I danced for hours and hours and by the end of the night on the Taxi ride back to Natasha's home I could barely keep my eyes open. The last full day spent in New York was spent outdoors at a street fair that had vendors selling all types of trinkets and once again, food! Natasha and I tried about 10 different things to eat and I bought a warm hat because of the howling winds that were blowing through the streets. We found a Goodwill in New York after our adventure through the street fair. It was filled with designer clothing from Prada shoes to jackets that cost more in a second-hand clothing store than what I spent full price on the clothes I get from Target and Delias. The evening ended by a trip to the restaurant Serendipity. On the way there, we passed Zac Efron on the sidewalk. Honestly, I was buried in my cell phone when Natasha began poking me and telling me to turn around because the High school Musical posse had just passed, so essentially I saw him from behind, which is still good enough to possess bragging rights. The food at Serendipity was enough to make your face melt off. I had a monstrous cheese burger because most everything else on the menu was expensive and Tash and I shared a frozen hot chocolate, edible proof that God exists and loves us. We went over to Sharon (Natasha's friend)'s house again later in the night and hung out for awhile, this time in a completely different atmosphere than the night before. The next morning was when we left, which was in actuality 2 pm because of our exhaustion and Natasha going through her old room to find things to bring back for her new apartment. The trip back on the road was less eventful than the ride on the way up, despite a few crazies in Virginia and some hardcore jam sessions on the radio. Once we were back at Peace, I was happy and sad simultaneously. What could be more inspirational than immersing yourself into a culture that constantly pushes you to see the visions of other people whether through buildings, dress, art, or food. I'll be going back....soon!

Wireframe for Portfolio Site

Nifty Photoshop Trick

It's not often that you may run into a situation that could benefit from this type of application besides page layout or editing large numbers of a type of document, but when the time of opportunity arises, you'll be glad that photoshop offers this time-saving technique. Many photoshop routines can be automated. The times when I found myself using automation is when I was editing a large group of photographs to the same modification and then today when I needed to transform about 50 photoshop files from RGB to CMYK. Not that the task itself is difficult to do, but when you are crunched for time, it's pertinent to know a command that can get the job done. Getting your files together into one folder, you can begin the process of automation in the step-by-step that follows:
1) Open the actions palette in photoshop
2) In the action set folder you will be storing your actions. Actions have to be saved in sets, but it's not hard to do:
Actions are mini recordings (macro style) of commands (what you are doing to a document while it is in photoshop) By using automator you are short-handing what you do in one document to repeat itself into other documents so that you don't have to repeat yourself in each one. You create the action and store it and then when you are ready to apply the action to the batch, you simply press play. As mind-blowing as the concept of "recording" and "copying" yourself into commands in photoshop, it's surprisingly easy. Make sure that you record yourself doing everything you want done to a file and then closing it out in the end of the process so that your desktop is not a tsunami of photoshop documents. If you are going to apply this action to a really important group of images like I was earlier today, it'd naturally be a wise move to "test" your behavior on a small set of images before you let loose on changing a large group. For designers who already spend substantial amounts of time in front of the computer, knowledge of techniques such as automation can allow for important coffee or bathroom breaks, or perhaps even a brief session of facebook stalking. Either way, you cut time spent doing mindless alterations on the screen and you feel more awesome because you have expanded your knowledge to the tiniest increment of the omnipotence of photoshop.

Mood Board Idea

For my site, I think the stronger of the two mood boards is my idea of using a watercolor background with the "sewn" work into the page. It's reflective of my handmade style and my desire to collect objects and reuse them through my design. Wireframes to come!

Mood Boards for Portfolio Site

Sitemap for Portfolio Site

Photoshop Tutorial 4

I'm starting to get it. This tutorial in particular pushed the skill of transforming text into shapes in order to achieve a 3D effect without having to draw in all of the lines perspectively or any other insane backdoor method. I liked that I played around with texture as well because I found myself not only working with the layers of making the piece (or the text at least) dimensional, I simultaneously was working with making sure that the texture felt reasonable as well. I think that this tutorial has an obvious skill to offer and if you were perhaps looking for a more faceted photoshop experience, more tutorials or a different one may be required. By the end of the semester, I want to have acquired enough photoshop knowledge that I no longer ignore the sad blue box on my dock, but instead, begin using photoshop for otherwise laborious tasks that I had been accomplishing by hand or by ineffective technique beforehand.

Mini Artist

The beginnings of my painterly passion :)

Sabrina's Studio

Talk about an inspirational space... Love it!

Portfolio Site Concept

Taking the recent Portfolio Review advice to show myself for the things I am most passionate about, I'm going to take the direction of making a website that is not the ubiquitous "vintage" site, but rather a reflective handmade site that feels like the design of my book Homage To My Body and the two years of the Prism literary magazine that I have designed. The site will be functional within the standards of CSS, but I want to make sure that it also is dimensional and feels like one of my found object style projects. A particular artist that I am drawing my inspiration from is Sabrina Ward Harrison. Her work is profound and if my site can ground even some of the type of energy that hers does, i'll be satisfied. In my site, I also will be focusing on making a tight portfolio rather than a larger and more expanded site like my first portfolio site. Mike (former President of AIGA-Raleigh) voiced the importance of not showing all of your work online so that there is more to offer once you are offered the opportunity of a job or a specific client. Between now and the rest of the week, my job will be not so much the gathering of my portfolio pieces, but instead getting a batch of strong digital images of the final products and begin collecting material that I want my site to be constructed from. It's strange to think about my collective process these days being as much a digital scavenge as it is one carried out through magazines and piles of other people's junk.

My Site-y

Here it is so far!

I need to fix the tiling in the background but aside from that, it's almost there!

WEBDESIGNPIE

Project One: It's a wrap

Realization of the oncoming due date for project one no longer is the primary subject matter for my nightmares. I'm actually feeling good about the progress thus far made on my site. I'm not by any means near the finish line, but I'm on a steady pace that is a sure sign of finally "getting it," something I've not felt like I could say about web design until this week. It's hardly fathomable that I have not only learned but been capable of applying the entire Adobe Suite in four years. Four years may not sound short, but considering my simultaneous juggle with the other 100 or so hours of my liberal arts double major and several monstrous papers i've written in my English major in preparation for graduate school AND working 20 hours a week at a part-time job for part of my educational term in nothing less hellish than retail....i'm doing okay. I am absolutely obsessed with the written word in its form and in it's mechanism and there is a parallel in the mastery of the discipline of design that drives me toward wanting my ideas spread so badly, that the struggle toward learning the language of different programs is entirely worth it. I've never been someone that has been afraid to take something apart and allow things to get messy for the sake of a process that gives way to translations of the fruits of my mind. The Dead Poets Society says it nicely; "No matter what people tell you words and ideas can change the world." I've not encountered many people that would dispute this statement, but I do believe that one of my greatest personal struggles has been wanting to be at the finish line even before I ever start the race. I'm forcing myself to run and do my time just like everyone else because even if I try and convince myself every time otherwise, the finish line is never worth it unless you give it your all to get there. How I can even compare the elements of web design and css to triathlons seems out there, but the point remains. I'll even admit that often web design makes my heart race as hard as the forced mile runs I made in middle school and high school, sweat and all, all for the cause of the gratification that lasts.

CSS Hell

I'm so worn down and frustrated.

Our first CSS-based site deadline is creeping up slowly and I feel nothing short of unprepared.

As of right now, i'm functioning on hope that I will somehow stop freaking out and then simultaneously figure out how to translate my ideas into Dreamweaver and the style sheets. I already was aware of my feelings for web design prior to the class and now I feel like I am free-falling into a new world of unfamiliar discipline and rules. The larger part of me wants to give up but then the smaller part reminds me of the moments where I make my breakthrough and urges me forward. I've barely touched the surface of the world of web design and because I can't see the bottom, I'm tightening up my life jacket. Coming from someone who has never done anything in this world that was wonderful without hours and hours of sweat and tears and only rarely blood, it's never worth it to give up if you want something bad enough. Even though tonight i'm coming to class with something I'm not necessarily proud of, i'm coming with an attitude that I can learn from the experience and have a phenomenal amount of growth between now and next week.

Who knew web design would provide these moments of reflection?

I didn't.

Tutorial # 4

http://www.tutorial9.net/photoshop/creating-a-typographic-wallpaper/

Above is where I found this ol' tutorial.

This is the first photoshop tutorial that I found entirely pleasing in an aesthetic sense. It wasn't horrific, but it was definitely time consuming. If you have words repeated, it'd save you a lot of time. I also think this image would be cool to later apply into a poster or a textured background, making it have more than one element of visual integrity.

Web Site Progress

CSS has forced me to completely reevaluate your design process on Dreamweaver. This weekend as I was working on the foundation of my site, I realized the intricacies of incorporating CSS into every page, making sure that what you want your entire site is to look like is carefully tagged in an external style sheet. I realize that there is still so much of the style sheet concept that I am failing to grasp. I was thinking about what to do with the different pages of terms. The good thing about the styling of CSS pages is the fact that I won't have to repeat the same template over one hundred times. Phew! Well, more on CSS later.

Senior Portfolio Review at Catevo

Saturday was phenomenal, transitional, inspirational.

Saturday, I took four years of hard work and allowed three professionals to help refine my work and prepare me for the harrowing and likely painstaking job search ahead. I brought with me a variety of my work, from photography in the darkroom and on my own as a professional, posters from the tobacco-free campaign that I helped to create an identity for, logos of sorts, literary magazines I designed, cd's and dvd's, a calendar, and my book that I created several years back. The morning began with mingling amongst other seniors and volunteering professionals with jugs of coffee and every Krispy Kreme doughnut you can fathom. Bonnie, Tamica, Whitney, and I found a room and set up shop. It was strange seeing all of my work spread out in a small space-four years of myself, everything I've worked hard to conceive just sitting there before me. For a little while, we walked from room to room watching other people set up, all the while making our way past our own little area seeing people picking up our work with "hmmms" and "ooohs" and soft chuckles at posters such as the "Condom Sense" piece that became part of the Peace College Wellness Center and Wake County's Health Calendar. Not long after everyone set up, there was a panel discussion set up in a conference room with four members ready to talk about questions mediated by Kate LaMere, the Education co-Chair. Ryan Dean, Dave Alsobrooks, Colleen Simon, and Mike Josse each came from a different background but had wonderful insight into the world of design as a professional. The first question was what each panel member did once they first graduated from college. Some went home and recollected their self all the while searching simultaneously for a job, while Mike described his ambitious and risky move of only applying for the one job he dreamed of having and actually getting it. The honesty of each member made me realize that I wasn't far from this point in my own career and each testimony strengthened my own confidence to become an employed designer....somewhere....somehow. Something that was emphasized repeatedly was the necessity of networking and giving yourself as many routes to the job market as possible. Even informal sources such as facebook were described as useful for keeping and building a network amongst peers and other contacts. A topic that particularly touched me and got me thinking about my portfolio in a new way was even in a fragile economy, I need to market myself for the job I want. It seems like an elementary concept, but really a lot of what I brought as my portfolio work was good work, but not the type of work i'm necessarily passionate about. The labor of love is what I want to get me my job because what's the point otherwise? I love the fact that design, along with many other disciplines, is a continuous learning process. Work ethic can be an integral part of the extended learning process. Bringing in ideas beyond the rigid 8 hour workday brings more than you being an employee, it makes you someone that is genuinely passionate and valuable. Something that i've not thought about doing up until now is creating a process book. Mike talked about how this book allows others to see your process and the time and effort you put into your work. I also noted the idea of a .pdf packet, which becomes a briefer of what type of work you produce. The packet serves as part of the "cover letter" that is used to send online to prospective employers. This carriable concept of your self is ingenious as it doesn't reveal everything, but is one of many ways to put your face to your resume in the job market. Lo and behold, blogging was also discussed as an important part of your thought process. As .pdf packets serve as a printed self, the blog is a nice way for employers to see an internal self that gives personality to you as the prospective designer in a firm for someone who otherwise has no information about you besides your work. 

Now on to the portfolio interviews...

After the panel discussion, we were given sandwich boxes from Bear Rock Cafe, each marked with either an H, T, R, or V. My H turned out to be ham while Bonnie's T was turkey and Whitney's V was vegetarian. After the indoor picnic, the interviewing process began. 

My first interviewer was {ah-insert name here}. She immediately made me feel confident in talking about who I am and why I became a designer. I felt myself generating the same response to each of the reviewers:
I love the written word. Whether it is through my discipline as a writer or a designer, I immerse myself in the process of tweaking and perfecting an uniquely powerful concept; language. I became a Graphic Designer through my evolved passion for creating to communicate. Especially interested in Social Justice work through creating a sense of self-awareness and appreciation and ultimately an awareness of one's environment, the moment when I see my design becoming a tool for change and a reason why someone becomes more fulfilled in their life, I am happiest. Design is a powerful and lasting way to express myself. It's something that I continually grow through. It's a job doing what I love, something that is impossible to separate myself from because before I ever became a Graphic Designer, I innately designed with my senses and in my discipline as a fine artist.

My second reviewer was Chris Faith, one of the Programming Chairs of the AIGA board. Chris was immediately taken by the Homage book, which was something that I by this time was planning to use in my portfolio regardless. He also noted that my Numeric Institute Calendar, Breaking Boundaries CD, and Prism 2008 designs were powerful. He suggested that this work be what I show as my compacted portfolio because they all had the common element of being hand-made and innovative. He suggested that I avoid any work that I had done that used the generic photoshop filters because they, although interesting, scream amateur. I cannot help but agree now that I look at my Chuck Norris and Peace College Main Building and see nothing but "palette knife" from photoshop. A plug for Denielle is that this reinforces the importance of being advanced not only in my craft away from the computer, but also the necessity of being a "professional" in the Adobe Creative Suite. Chris also suggested that I avoid cliche work in my portfolio like photography and drawings because that is an assumed discipline in a designers education and my portfolio needs to be more client-based work that is effective rather than self-motivated work that is merely aesthetic. 

My third reviewer was Steven Pius, yet another Programming Chair from the board who left me with feelings of confidence in myself and my work and excitement and anticipation toward interviewing for jobs. Steven was drawn to the exact same pieces in my portfolio as Chris. Doubtfully a coincidence. By the end of my third review, I had a strong idea about what type of work I want to represent myself. If I got a job based on the 5-6 pieces that I show, i'd be optimistic about what i'd be doing in the workplace. Steven was encouraging, telling me that he thought my work was outstanding and solid. To hear someone who I admire as a professional and a mentor tell me that he admires my own work was touching. Seeing my fellow classmates Bonnie and Tamica also leave gratified and confident reminds me of the four years that we have spent at Peace working countless hours toward becoming the full-fledged reality of our dreams. Steven told me to apply to places that I think will allow me to expand my own style. He told me that while he was in the job searching process, he had people from one company tell him that they hated his work, while others responded to the same work with admiration and the desire to hire him right off the spot. This is probably the hardest part of being a designer because so much emotion goes into the work that you create and when it is rejected, it is a part of you that becomes rejected as well. Steven also gave me advice about current situations I've been having working with clients freelance. To hear that everything I find stressful has been experienced by at least one other person in the building yesterday allows me to mature my expectations beyond the classroom and prepare myself for a world that is tough, but not solitary. 

I wouldn't have missed yesterday for anything. Of all events I've attended through AIGA in the past four years, this was the one event that I would say was necessary for me to attend, even if I was unaware prior to going. It was the bridging between my lens of interpretation of the job market as a student and the exciting yet very new perspective of my future as a beginning professional. I hope that five years from now, i'm back at the event as a reviewer helping to prepare seniors get their portfolios and their hearts oriented toward their future careers.

Pattern Master

A tutorial that is directly applicable to this week's work! I found on pshero a tutorial about creating patterns for background images. I decided that with Web Design Pie in mind, i'd make myself a patterned background to use. For someone who is challenged when it comes to the intricacies of photoshop, the tutorial was extremely helpful and easy to follow. Instead of having to always "borrow" the free background templates and brushes of others, it's really easy to make your own pattern with the tutorial. I'd suggest this for anyone who's looking to make an awesome pattern for their website background this week!

Tutorial #3

NEW SHIZ FRESH OF THE HEEZY

My Milk Carton...

Photoshop Tutorial For Dummies

I've learned a valuable lesson within the past two weeks. 

My photoshop abilities remind me of a childhood experience that was, well, kind of embarassing.

To explain this phenomenon with Photoshop CS (not 2, not 3, and hell no, not 4), let's take a trip down memory lane:

In Kindergarden, I was always the kid who was mechanically challenged. I couldn't tie my shoes (it took until third grade to figure that out) and I most definitely could not open those cardboard Mayola milk cartons that came in either whole, chocolate, 2 %, or skim. I usually spent the first half of the lunch period tearing at the neatly folded crescent where there was supposed to be a spout. By the end of lunch, I'd destroyed the carton by finally ripping it open into a box shaped cup and managing to spill a third of it on my sweaters. 

This reminds me of how I feel when I get in Photoshop. 

Perhaps it's because these four years i've managed to get by without ever having to "create" anything solely using Photoshop. Regardless of the reason, I feel like I slowly tear apart the seemingly flawless and simply explained tutorial, leaving what is considered "amateur" products. I tried my best to work this week with layers since last time I realized there was so much I didn't know about them. In the process, I also found a cool new tutorial site that is in fact, resourceful, clean, and reliable! >> Tutorial 9

I tried out the tutorial where you create a surreal landscape using layers and different manipulations with the brush tool (something I also need(ed) dire help with.

Create a Surreal Environment Using a Photo

On a positive note, regardless of my final product for the past two weeks, I've learned a substantial amount of new things about Photoshop. I feel like I'm starting to see the program now as a tool with a million new functions I was previously unaware of. That's daunting, but it is something that overtime I will be able to master, much like the milk carton, and eventually the shoe tying. 

Photoshop Tutorial Gone Askew

I chose one of the PSDTUT tutorials - create a portrait from a photograph. Following the steps were easy. The effort of creating a detailed portrait using only a touch pad was a pandora's box of its own. I worked blood, sweat and tears into my portrait, yet somehow the resulting image bears striking similarity to Tina Turner if she went through the same surgical procedures as Michael Jackson. Needless to say, i was devastated with this result, unless I have unaware been living as a caucasian double of Tina Turner for the past twenty years. Focusing on words of advice i'd give to future makers of look-alike celebrity portraits: make sure you go very very close to the area you are working on. I made the mistake repeatedly of working too far back from the canvas, thus missing opportunities for necessary details. I would also suggest working with a photograph that has defined edges in the eyes, mouth, and nose. I found it difficult to work from the photograph I chose because firstly it was angled, and secondly it was not contrasted enough to allow me to see where to shade etc... Since this was my first time attempting the tutorial, it's likely that you might even need to have a similar experience to mine to get to the next point of being able to create a flawless tutorial image like the one PSDTUT made. I do think this tutorial was fun to work with, but it was time consuming, especially on the week when I have four upcoming midterms and a paper due along with the typical work that comes with the week. Next, I want to create the tutorial image PSDTUT - Create a Sleek Illustration that Fades from Line Art to Color: it'll be necessary to have sufficient time to work on it considering that it is 28 pages worth of instruction and probably about 5 or 6 hours of hard-working time in photoshop. 

Updated Web Templates

A little tweaky here. A little tweaky there. This is what I got.

Second Attempt to Load The Templates

eeeerrrrr...why are they blue?

Site Templates

Here are the three initial templates that I have created for my Web Design Field Guide titled "Web Design Pie." A few things to note: 1) The third page that is orange is a pop up window, thus doesn't need a home navigation. Also, on that page are three links listed. When created in Dreamweaver, they will not be listed as the entire site, but rather the sites name and will be linked. Otherwise, have at it with some crittage (slang for critique, of course)

Web logos for Web Design Pie Site

I has them.

#82 >> It's all about the texture

Texture of a photoshop document that can be partially visible in a document through layers is a technique I decided to focus on to learn from a specialty magazine focusing on photoshop craft and practice. Within the texture tip reads that in order to create the texture, you must first create a new layer, press Shift-Delete, choose 50% Gray from the Use menu, and then click OK. Once you've whipped this up, you take it layer into the filer gallery to apply the texture and change the layers blend mode to Overlay or Soft Light. You put this on a separate layer so that if you become so inclined and decide to have the painting printed on canvas, you can turn off this little application. 

Tip courtesy of Lisa Sage

Below are examples of images created using this photoshop technique:::   they're free!!

 

Photoshop Textures

Word Its

Why not show my word-its from the semester so far :)

Late

Obviously

Short