IRENE
Prologue
1. Introduction
Hello, I'm Irene, a student at Arizona Western College - but most importantly, I'm a generator of random thoughts with a tiny capacity for memory storage. Here, I will be posting my journal entrees. I hope to amuse you and serve a purpose in this vast universe of nothingness!
3. Academic Major
Currently, I'm focusing on majoring in Computer Graphics.
4. Goals
I'm taking Graphics 101 because it is one of the classes that is required to major in Computer Graphics. Apart from that, it sounded like a really fun class to be honest.
5. Continuing Education
Apart from graduating from Arizona Western College, I might consider attending a Full Sail University; a school that is more focused on the entertainment industry.
6. Favorite Animation
I found my favorite animated video a while back while I was still in High School. The animation is called "BECKY PRIM" and it takes place in a High School filled with teenagers. The short film revolves around Becky, a nicotine addict and her "bench time". This video was published in 2016, during Halloween. Though it is still a mere rough draft in the processes of becoming a finished animation, the style the creator utilizes is stunning. The video was made in a rough cartoon style that exaggerates big heads and teeny waists in a black and white environment (though it sometimes adds color here and there).
7. Skills
Other than binge watching anime that's supposed to take the whole year, in one week...I guess what I do best is drawing. It doesn't matter what medium, but if I had to choose my favorite, I'd go with watercolors.
8. Future
In ten years, I see myself far, far, away from Arizona...in a place where rain is not a supernatural phenomena. Plus, I'll hopefully have my dream job of an artist from home, working really long hours, but overall feeling satisfied with myself at the end of the day.
9. Favorite Vacation Spot
My favorite vacation spot, though I've never gone there, would be Cancun. This place always popped up in magazines and even "La Familia Peluche" (a mexican, family, TV show).
10. Pets
My house is basically a zoo. We have daily exhibits of one fat pit-bull, two chubby pugs, one anorexic chihuahua, a baby turtle named Penny for its size, a gallant rooster, a moody chicken, and five little chicks (if the dogs haven't eaten them yet).
3 Steps of Critique
1
Descriptive Analysis - the work or image described as literal as possible such as the dimensions, thickness, and such.
2
Compositional Analysis - the shapes in the composition as well as the colors, lines, or texture included in a piece.
3
Interpretational Analysis - the meaning of the overall piece of artwork.
Crayon Rubbings
4
5
Text - The word no is repeated over the page.
6
Semiotics - In this piece, there are three symbols; a no smoking sign, a men's bathroom sign, and a woman's bathroom sign. The usage of these symbols as a whole describes a message of no smoking to both genders.
7
Texture - In this piece, the texture came from a trashcan's rocky body.
8
Color - The colors utiliized in this piece separate both men and females with the colors green and blue. The main focus however, is colored with a red, warning color.
9
Best Part - the best part of this assignment was how creative and liberated it was.
10
Difficult Part - the most difficult part of this assignment was trying to find a message conveyed from just random objects that we picked outside.
11
Analysis/Critique - There are bright colors that seem festive that catch the eye as a warning. The text that says no, and the symbol of the no smoking sign further serve as a warning to both males and females to not smoke.
Analysis Of Other Student Crayon Rubbing
1
2
Taking into account the symbol of a human as well as the text, this piece signifies the current location of the entrance to the AWC gallery. With the human at its core and its warm, orange hue, the piece gets added a feeling of welcoming to all who see it. There are only pleasant feelings evoked from the piece that contains warm colors and a refreshing, green background. It makes the viewer feel welcomed and at ease. For me, the piece associates with the front door of a neighborhood house – the one in every neighborhood that seems like a lovely family resides in. This piece is a sign that has an educational purpose to it, since it gives off the information of where the AWC gallery is located.
Interpretation Factors
1
Cultural Color - In some cultures colors change in meaning. For example, weddings in the United States are usually composed of the color white, while the funerals of tose in china dress in white.
2
Natural Symbols - a natural symbol that everyone would understand and come to terms with, is the peace symbol.
Scanning
1
Three things that affect file size when scanning are the color mode, reolution, and the scale. The bigger the colors in a color mode like CMYK, the bigger the file, while the smaller the colors such as the bit map. With the resolution, the higher the quality, the bigger the file size. As the scale increases, the size of the scanning increases, which means the file size also increases.
2
Saving a File - When saving a file you must consider the file format, the location it's being saved to, and the name of the file.
3
Safe Working File Formats - When scanning and wanting to safe in a safe and nonlossy manner, a TIF format and a PSD format are safe, since they dont compress the file much.
4
Delivery Format - when saving as a JPG, the quality of the overall image deteriorates since its being compressed and losing data.
Color Mode Exercise: Selfie
1
Label: RGB
Size: 14.2 MB
The largest file of them all, since it includes the RGB colors and doesn't limit it to just a few colors.
Label: Greyscale
Size: 4.1 MB
This file limits the colors to only 256, making it a smaller file size, but also taking away all the color.
Label: Indexed
Size: 658 KB
Since this image is limited to only 7 colors, the file size is smaller, but some of the colors are still left.
Label: Bitmap
Size: 140 KB
Out of all of these images, this is the smallest of them all, since it is limited to only black and white, leaving no space for colors, or greys.
2
The colors accessible in an image vary when taking in consideration several different color modes. For example, the RGB color mode keeps the image at its top "image quality" since it retains all the colors, if that's what you're looking for. In another color modes such as grey-scale the "image quality" when taking into consideration the colors, is lowered exponentially. However, this does help the image retain a smaller size than the RGB color mode.
3
1. One of the definitions for Bitmap is as it is used to express a color mode that only includes black and white.
2. Bitmap could also be meaning raster as in pixels, or as in image made up of pixels.
3. Bitmap's final definition is found as .bmp, or as you would call it: bitmap format.
File Managment
1
File Naming: It is important to name your files with a descriptive name in order to know what it contains and to not misplace it or confuse it for anoter file.
2
File extension: It is important to remember that just by changing a files' name that format is not affected.
3
Archiving Files: It is good practice to archive files for back up, since that means that the original image doesn't get changed nor damaged.
File Formats and File sizes
1
Different File Formats/Sizes: the more compression the file format achieves, the smaller the size of the file will be. For instance, as a raw format, psd will always be larger than a jpg, which compresses files even to the point of losing visual quality.
2
Image Quality: Depending on the format and the desire of the creator, the quality of the image changes. If you want to get block-like and grouped up colors to make the image look or feel a certain way, then the format you might be interested in could be an over-saved jpg. However, if you want a crisp image, then a Tiff format might be the way to go.
3
Bitmap: as an image made of raster/pixels
Bitmap: as a file format .bmp
Bitmap: color mode with two colors: black and white
Layers and Compositing Exercise
1
Sample Images:
2
Final Composite:
3
Story:
The Sheepocalypse
After several decades, the lightbulb-looking parasites living in sheep finally managed to transform into something much more devious and dangerous. These petite microbes became the new hosts of the sheepish animals, digging their way out of the sheep’s bodies and lodging themselves atop of the sheep’s heads. The parasites then proceeded to control the sheep’s brain, movements, and appetite for human flesh. Now the infected and mind-controlled sheep corpses roam the desolated villages, forever starving, since all human kind had already been devoured. However, they changed their sweet tooth onto film reels and antique phones, managing to barely scrape by and survive.
4
Layers in Photoshop:
In Photoshop, layers work as individual, and overlapping images.
5
Selection Tools:
For selection tools, there are: the lasso tool, the quick selection tool, and the magic wand.
Lasso tool: lets you "lasso" a part of an image you want to select.
Quick selection tool: when clicking in a certain place of the image, this tool selects everything within a certain shaped or "closed space".
Magic Wand: This selection tool selects everything that has similar colors.
6
File Format:
I utilize a PSD format while working on a project in Photoshop, since this format doesn't compress the image, and leaves all the layers untouched and workable.
Semiotics
1
Semiotics Definition: is the study of signs
2
Symbols: there are three kinds of symbols:
* Iconic symbols look like what they represent - such as a fire symbol.
*Indexicil symbols represent the cause or effect of something - for example the skull symbol that means there is a possibility that this thing might kill you.
*Symbolic symbols are symbols that need to be learned, such as the radiation symbol
SHAPES
1
2
Vector Parameters:
Some of the parameters that can be modified when using vectors are:
Fill color - which changes the color of the inside of an object
Stroke color - allows you to pay with the color lining an object.
Position - can be moved
Scale/size - keeps the same visual quality when stretching or shrinking an object.
Stroke weight - allows adjustments to be made in the thickness of the lining of an object.
Angle/rotation - can rotate a vector or retrain to certain angles.
3
Vector vs. Raster:
Vectors are resolution independent, and are mathematically generated. On the other hand, rasters depend on the resolution and are made of pixels.
4
Modifier Keys:
Shift - controls the proportionality of an object that you're trying to create by forcing all the sides to be proportional to one another
Command - turns your tool into the selection tool
Option - drags and creates an object from its' core.
Pen Tool
Screen Shot of Pen Tools dropdown
1
2
Modifier Keys
Shift: Creates the line from its center and restricts it to only 45 and 90 degree angles.
Command: Changes the tool to the direct select tool.
Option: Changes the pen tool into the anchor point tool.
Stroke Palette
3
4
Perfect Rectangle
To create a perfect rectangle, one must hold shift to create straight lines, and then wait for the bright purple/pink rulers to indicate that the line you created is the same size as the other you want to connect to.
5
Perfect circle
To create a perfect circle with only two points, one must use the curvature pen tool that allows you to easily create curves.
6
Vector
A vector is a mathematically generated line that doesn't loose any visual quality as it is stretched out or shrunken down.
7
Raster
Pixels that are used to create a picture
8
Creating a JPG
To create a JPG when using Adobe Illustrator, one must select export and then export as, to get the option of saving the document as a JPG.
Vectorized Self Portrait
1
2
Assignment:
In order to convert an image that is built of rasters into a vector image, one must first trace your selected image. After tracing such image, you can then choose to "expand" it, which will create paths all throughout the image, thus converting it into a vector image
3
Style:
This style of image could be used when wanting to lower the number of colors and thus the file size of an image. Or, when taking a more artistic view to it, this style could be utilized to create things such as propaganda posters, or just to show a cartoony style.
Vector File Size Comparison
1
Vector:
a mathematically generated line or image that is resolution indepent
2
Vector Attributes:
-fill color
-stroke color
-stroke weight
3
Points vs File Size:
When using Adobe Illustrator, files are usually bigger when more points are created.
4
Results:
Logo Design
1. Example:
2. Discuss your design:
My design is the fusion of my initials and my love for art. In a sense, I guess I want for whoever sees this, to know that art is a big part of who I am - this is kind of why the pencil takes a really big part of the whole design.
3. Least Difficult:
The least difficult part of the assignment was choosing which sketch was going to become the full-fledged, final logo.
4. Most Difficult:
The hardest step of this project was coming up with the sketches. Since the logos had to include gestalt principle too, it was hard to focus on doing sketches with these characteristics, other than just letting out ideas.
Design Stages
1. Audience:
I'm focusing on just doing this for me, but I am also taking into consideration my peers in the class, since they will be criticizing it later on.
2. Gestalt:
I'm going to incorporate the Gestalt Principles in my logo by breaking apart my overall design - this will make use of the closure principle. Since the piece will also only be black and white, it will already be using the principle of figure to ground.
3. Summary of Idea:
I'm going to fuse my initials and an artistic utensil - most likely a pencil. I am going to include all of my initials, and within a letter, I will create the illusion of an artistic utensil.
Layout Stages
1. THUMBNAILS scan:
2. ROUGH scan:
3. COMPREHENSIVE:
4. Final vector image
Type Figures using Adobe InDesign
1. Type Figures:
I created this snail by using one b and c, and two l's. I forgot the font I used, but I remember that as soon as I saw that font, it gave me the visual of a snail.
2. Robotype.net Example:
I made a cat by using a variety of letters and tilting them as well as moving them around. After doing the first figure, ideas kept popping up one after another.
3. Booklet Photo:
.jpg)
4. ASCII ART: I really enjoy looking at this piece of artwork since it feels all unified. The text's font also adds to the piece, creating a classical and ancient aura around the piece. One personal point of this piece that I really like, is how dark and easy it is on my eyes.
My Type Assignment
1. Example:
2. Placing an image:
There are two ways to place an image in Adobe InDesign. One way is by dragging an image into Adobe InDesignand and then clicking once. This will make the image its original size. Another way is by placing the image in a shape and making it fit into the shape's dimensions.
3. Linked Images:
In Adobe InDesign, an image is not actually there, all there is is a link that leads to where your image is.
4. PDF Format:
The benefits of using a PDF format, is that it utilizes unlossy or safe compression. Plus, it isn't a proprietary file format, which means everyone can open it and have access to it.
5. Low Resolution Images:
Apart from being a low quality image, it can only be maintained in a small size to avoid noise and other grainy features.