Graphic Design Semester Reflection

My Projects

       This semester I did seven projects that I will discuss in this reflection. Each one is something that I did this semester. My first project I did this semester was and 11 x 17 poster that I had to make. The project details was that you had to make a poster for the Nelson Atkins Art Museum that is supposed to be represented by an art style I studied. Mine was constructivism and the planning took a lot longer than the making of the poster. It took about a week overall. I learned a lot more about history with my poster and thinking outside of the box. A challenge was coming up with ideas for the poster. I changed a lot about how I made the poster into something the represents the museum.

       My next project was a 5 x 5 artboard that I did for our typography unit. I had to use 4 quotes and make them each into 4 different artboards that were interesting as well as colored. It took two weeks to do overall, but that was including coloring and planning. Challenges I faced were making it unique and how to fit color schemes into the. I learned more about spacing and how to correctly use color schemes that worked well with my project. I changed color schemes a lot and it was difficult, but worth it.

 

      My third project i worked on was my combination mark logo for the Louisburg Cider Mill in Louisburg, Kansas. This project was very interesting as it started out very hard. We had to make 30 logo ideas and 10 fonts to go with them. However, it paid off as then making the actual logo was very easy. It took about four days to make each combination mark because we took our designs and put them all together into our 6 best marks overall. I changed a lot about spacing and the fonts of my marks. Colors too. We had to color each logo into 6 different color schemes so overall I had 36 different combinations marks to chose from. The process was long, but I learned a l to about colors an it really helped as a logo that I didn't color thinking it would be the one I chose to represent the brand, actually ended up fitting very nicely and was my final choice. This project really helped me as a graphic designer and I took a lot of insight from it.

       After the combination mark, I had to make a business card, a letterhead, and an envelope based on the combination mark I made specifically for the company. First off, the business card was fairly easy to make. It took about a day to make and was easy for me to manipulate into something that could represent the company. The color scheme was already given to me from my combination mark so I didn't have to worry about that. The only imagination I used was how the layout would work and what I had to put on the card. Challenges I faced was spacing on the card and making the card look like a legitimate business card. I changed the word spacing and the info I put on it a lot. The feedback given really helped improve the card overall and made it a lot smoother.

       The letterhead was very easy. Even easier to make than the business card. Like previously stated, the color scheme and ideas to base it off of was already given to me. However, this one didn't require as much information as the business card. One challenge I faced was putting the information on the letterhead and that was also the feedback given to me. I changed the information on it, like the address and email. But other than that the project was very straightforward. However, it did help my branding site a lot.

       Last but not least, the envelope based on my combination mark was probably the one I put the most effort into. I changed up the scheme of the envelope so that it's more interesting to the client. I also used the same stripes from the letterhead to keep the same overall feel to the entire group of branding. Since they're all from the same company I figured they should relate to each other. I changed up the colors a lot and the designs but it was worth because I was able to think outside the box a lot. The feedback was helpful and I mainly fixed the information on the envelope.

My Time in Class

       My time was spent doing projects and I stayed productive a lot of the times. The only times I didn't stay productive was when I was done. Granted, I should've still done more graphic design practice when I was done with my projects but I got better at it over the course of the year. I have grown a lot in graphic design and using the tools given to me for it. Outside of class I draw and do some designing on thing such as my personal logo and practicing making designs. I plan on working on it over the summer as well.

Strengths and Weaknesses

       My strengths were that I am very efficient in getting projects done, and done well. I am fairly decent at using Illustrator so my ideas are easily transferred to the computer. I believe that graphic design comes very naturally to me so I usually don't have a problem with the projects assigned. However, a weakness would be productivity. Since I usually don't need to spend a lot of times on the projects, I get distracted a lot in class. When I am finished with my work I don't tend to enhance it or make it better when I should.

Summary

       I loved every project this semester. They all were fun and made graphic design interesting. I love the freedoms that graphic design gave me and I hope to keep improving even though I won't be in e-Comm next year. I want to keep working with Illustrator and even if graphic design isn't something I want to do with my life, I still don't regret taking as it helped me become a better artist and helped me learn so much more about graphic designing. Over the course of a year, I already improved so much. I look back over the year to projects that I can actually be proud of and see how much I've improved. I would definitely try a lot harder to improve, even if I already have improved a lot. i want work more outside of class and over the summer. Next semester I would like to redo my personal logo into something I can be proud of. I started out the year hating graphic design but now as I've actually done the projects and tried, it's become so much easier for me to do, and now I love it.

End of the Year Animation Reflection

What Did I Take From The Year?

I learnt about 3D modeling and lots more about 2D animation than I did freshman year. It was valuable because now I have more insight onto how CGI, special effects, and green-screening works. I faced many challenges. So much that I couldn't finish a project first semester but I quickly got back onto my feet and tuned it around this semester. Communication and collaboration go into the same category to me because I learned more about both in the same project. The group final project we did we worked together very well and it came together fast. Despite what my neighbor/best friend says, I was very productive a lot recently and I put effort into a lot of my projects. I am not a leader so I didn't learn much about it but my project management got so much better throughout the year. I was able to turn more projects in and actually get them done and turned in on time.

My strengths were that I was efficient at getting projects turned in throughout the semester and asking for help. I didn't understand a lot of the concepts quickly but after help I was able to apply them to many other projects. I have improved a LOT on 3D modeling and I think that it's my favorite part about animation. I also improved on special effects and learning how to green screen things better. I really liked the special effects unit as well.

I think that I'll use what I learned maybe later in life since I'm quitting e-Comm. I want to work on my art skills so maybe I'll get into doing 2D animations when I'm older and better at digital art. I might even work on 3D modeling when I get bored sometimes because I really liked Maya and everything that we did with it. I don't regret taking this class, e-Comm definitely gave me more insight as to how these things work and what I want to do with my life. I just realized that animation isn't was I want my career to be, but I still loved it while I was in it.

Overall, I would want to push myself harder to get things done during first semester, but I deepened my friendships and learned so much about myself and what I want to do with my life. Without this class I would still be doing something that I don't want to do for a living. So I'm thankful that this class helped me realize that.

Louisburg Cider Mill Rebrand Project

Summary

      The first part of my project was coming up with a logo and combination mark for the Louisburg Cider Mill in Louisburg Kansas. After I came up with a logo and combination mark I liked, I then had to chose colors for 6 different color schemes for each 6 combination mark designs I had. It was a lot of designs to go through and chose which one I liked the best, so I'll showcase the transition of the design I liked the best. 

       After I chose a color, I then made A letterhead, Business Card, and an envelope for the logo. I would definitely change my envelope to look better along with the spacing in the business card. My favorite part was choosing the colored logo and my least favorite part was making all the color schemes.

Personal Blog Semester 2

About My Project

      For my project in animation, I did the green-screening for a collaborative project between six students in our class. We did a short video based on the George of the Jungle trailer(link it). The process of making this project was pretty easy since there were six of us coming up with ideas for our final project. We each had separate jobs to do in the group; such as special effects, green-screening, and 3D modelling. All of which was something we learned at some point earlier in the semester. I was one of the students doing green screen in my group. 

     The project ran smoothly as well. We had the story board made just the day after figuring out what we wanted to do for our video and started filming almost immediately afterwards. The idea of our film was inspired by a kid in my group named George. Editing went smoothly as well, since we has a lot of people in our group, the project came together very well. I got done with my part in green-screening within a few days.

What I Learned

      Along the way, I learned a lot about green-screening and editing. I had a lot of help from my teacher but it paid off a lot because I now have a better understanding of green-screening and how it works. Collaboration was a big part of this project as well, communication between my fellow peers was a vital play into how quickly we got done with our project.

     I think next time I would definitely white balance the camera before filming our scenes. Next time I will make linear keys before the key lights because that was a  mistake I made a long the way. Making shadows proved to be very helpful in this project. I overall have a newfound respect for green-screening. It's very hard to get to look just right and takes a lot more editing and refining than you'd think, this project was very eyeopening for me.

Article Review Semester 2

What The Article is About

     Disney's new movie Moana is a hit and grew immensely in popularity. However, it required much more math and physics then you would think for an animated movie. In this article, written by Stuart Wolpart, called "Mathematicians bring Disney's 'Moana' to life", goes into depth about how that works. The author argues that there's more that goes into animation than just making something; it's making something that looks real. The author uses credible sources such as quotes from physicists working on Moana's animating team. They also use statistics to back up their claim as well.

Claims and Author's Meaning

     The article's strength is that he goes very in depth as to how and why math and physics is needed so desperately  in animation. A weakness may be that the only sources used are interviews, not as many other forms of evidence are used. The author's conclusions are broad, and more informational than opinionated. Animation requires more logical skill than creative skill, and often times it requires just as much of both.

     What the author is saying is very significant, it brings animation into a new light and shows us how difficult and how much critical thinking is involved to make such a realistic production. The author's arguments support his claim a lot. The evidence is well-rounded and informal, it is so convincing to the reader that I have no reason not to believe it. This article means a lot to me as an animator because it pushes me to think more outside of the box and involve more critical thought into my work.

     I don't understand a lot of the physics references in the article, but I believe that it's because I'm a sophomore in high school. This article provides a lot of insight to animation overall, and definitely gives credit where credit is due to animators everywhere. Animation is a long and difficult task and this article shows that very clearly, especially to people who don't know much about animation.


Wolpart, Stuart. "Mathemations bring ocean to life for Disney's 'Moana'". Phys. 4 Jan 2017. Web.

Article can be read here

Professional Blog Semester 2 Animation Review

Summary

     This animation was made by a CalArts students who won an award in Indiana and other video festivals. It shows many smooth animation skills and the story is just as well-developed. The animation is about a little boy who plays music and shows off his animals for a penny. However, there are two other animal shows tat seem to better than his. He wins over the crowd in the end and gets a lot of pennies for his animals' food.

The Process/Comparisons 

     This animation is a 2d animation that looks like After Effects was used quite frequently. I saw layers shift like how you would make the backgrounds shift in After Effects. Also I saw the use of frame-by-frame animation in the lip-syncing.
     The use of layers and smooth frames is something I would love to be able to put into my own animations. Lip-syncing as well. One thing I have already learned is how to shift the background layers to look lie they're moving in After Effects.

Conclusion/Analysis

     The creator did best at making the animation smooth and clean as well as the story. The short looks like something you'd see on a kid's cartoon channel and it's already fantastic. I think that there are some frames where it's a little bit rough, but I can't hold it against them since they did that all by themselves. Overall, this animation is well written and transferred phenomenally onto the screen. I aspire to be as talented as they are and their animation is well worth the award.

 Sjursen-Lien, Kiernan. "The Magnificent Menagerie of Melvin McMelanie". Vimeo.com. Web. 11 May 2017.

Video can be watched here

The Plausible Impossible

In animation, we watched a video by Disney about the Plausible Impossible. The Plausible Impossible is an animation technique that because of certain context, impossible things seem plausible. These are five plausible impossibles I found throughout the video.

     The video I chose to feature for this post was a short that Disney made about Donald Duck when his cousin comes to visit his house. In this scene, Donald's cousin, Gus, knocks on the door to his home and the ring vibrates Donald's head like a gong. Normally, this would be impossible, but with the sound affects, this seems possible, as sometimes sounds do produce enough waves to vibrate.

In this scene, Gus drinks all of the soup in the bowl shown above within a few seconds. We know this is impossible because no one can eat anything that fast, especially since he was eating it with a spoon. However, since the spoon was moving extremely fast, this action seems possible.

In this scene, Gus decides to make a sandwich with all of the bread and ham. However, he makes the sandwich shown above by shuffling the bread and ham together like cards. That would be impossible in real life because both ingredients are too floppy to do so. But in this scenario it is possible because the sound effects and the way the bread and ham move make it seem like its able to be shuffled like cards.

In this scene, Gus is knitting spaghetti into a sock with needles before slurping it up by the string. This would be impossible since spaghetti is slippery and in no way would stick together like that. Since he does it so quickly and the way he crochets it together like you would with tread, it seems completely possible. 

In this last scene, Donald gets his head stuck in the mailbox after running into it. This would be impossible because no one can fit their head through a mailbox and be okay. But because of squash and stretch like principles, it is possible. And he was going at a high enough velocity to fit and remain unharmed.