Posters

After so many sessions of getting to grips with Photoshop, learning the basics such as shape theory, colour theory, typography, it finally came to putting it all into play and making Project connect posters, as well as a Creative CV.

As I've mentioned before, Project Connect is powerful and effective, leading young people such as myself into the right direction. It also targets the older generation, there's no age limit on following Project Connect and making yourself a better person. After much thought of what I wanted my posters to be like, I decided to go for two posters based on self development. The first one is relating to a college trip to take place next February, with the background being a night view of a busy road in New York. Not only this but the writing says "EXPLORE", which can relate to self development due to you advancing as a person. I chose to do this mainly because it shows how outgoing I aim to be, the pop of colours from the New York lights also shows positivity. By layering the same picture has also had a big impact. This is because I decided to use tilt shift on the back layer, therefore bringing focus to the text on the actual image. Tilt shift is a form of blur, explained in a previous blog, by giving a rectangular shaped view, I was able to rotate it to just where I wanted it, press OK and therefore created a blur as simple as that. For my text to stand out, I used drop shadow. A drop shadow is a visual effect that portrays a visual effect, consisting of a drawing element which looks like a shadow of an object, which therefore gives the impression that an image/text is raised above the background, giving you the feel that your image is 3D.

 This is my second poster representing Self Development. I used the History Brush tool to allow me to have my poster in grayscale and colour in the animals. By doing this is shows a fun side to the poster as well as it being entertaining due to them being inflatables. This is suitable for a college because its aimed towards a younger generation, leading onto why I used sans serif font. I did this because its a lot less formal yet still works. Not only this but because I've got quite a bit of text on this, i didn't want to over complicate it by adding strokes to my letters. The text is a quote from David Bowie, an incredibly inspirational man that everybody knows, and so by adding a self development quote written by him I feel as though the younger generation can relate to it and be inspired by his words. Not only this but I put that in white because white is a pure and heartening colour, standing out and portraying a very whole feel. I also used the colour yellow, yellow is an action colour, exciting and vibrant, and so by using this it's eye catching and an immediate attention is brought to the text and so the reader is practically forced to read it after that. I also used shape theory with the circles. This is because they represent endlessness, and that therefore means that self development should be endless. Not only this but they're a friendly shape.

project connect - posters

I aim to write 1000 words on the pictures I have taken of project connect, including all theory knowledge I've been taught over the past two weeks.

This is a picture of the logo for Project Connect that I found on Google. As boring it may be when first seen it's actually an incredibly clever logo when you look at it closer. For example shape theory has been used with the circles. Circles represent endlessness, which would be meaning that the factors of Project Connect such as self development, consistency, punctuality, respect and responsibility are  never ending, you as a person should always be aiming to achieve all five factors of Project Connect. Not only this but circles portray friendliness due to the lack of sharp edges, the smooth edges represent kindness and happiness. Circles also represent wholeness, therefore reflecting into the reader, making them also feel whole. The circles are also coloured, which you could arguably say is split complimentary as the colours are all at separate parts on the colour wheel. By doing this it has a strong visual contrast but has much less tension, as oppose to complimentary colour scheme. The warm colours also outweigh the cold colours too, representing the friendliness Project Connect has. Yet, the colder colours such as purple show luxury and power, which could show how Project Connect is powerful and worth following. Red is a dominant colour, showing masses of passion for Project connect. Not only this, but by using green, this project connect logo is showing that it's active, full of life and love. By using the colour yellow, it shows positivity due to the vibrancy and dominance, as well as giving off an impression of excitement. Not only this, but the text is in grey, a formal mature colour, representing how Project Connect is a prestige and professional thing.

The leading and kerning are in proportion too, leaving "project connect" to have an easy readability as well as it being legible. Having project in capitals ensures people know it's something that needs doing, it's an instruction meaning people should naturally follow project connect's subtle order. Due to the leading and kerning, there's no negative space. It's spaced out and therefore presents a full and professional look.

2)

This is a poster I found on one of the walls in college. When walking past it stood out to me due to the vibrancy and dominant effect it has. Closure has been used with the main feature of the poster (Gestalt theory) by using the letter R with a fist punched through the middle. By doing this our brains are able to picture this as being complete and understand what they're trying to achieve. By using the initial "R" we know it stands for respect, and it reinforces just how important it is to be respectful towards your peers, teachers and yourself. Not only this but due to it being big, it leaves no room for negative space, meaning the poster is eye catching and also aesthetically pleasing. By using the colour yellow it draws attention immediately due to it being exciting and vibrant. Not only this but it's a positive colour, representing respect to be something you should be happy and eager to be. Using black as the text colour shows dominance and enables it to stand out from a vibrant colour, therefore drawing your attention to the text typed on the poster. The font family doesn't make the poster too overbearing, it's simple yet effective, speaking an important message that people listen to. The typeface is sans serif, a causal typeface, a good choice for a poster in college as the students will relate to it more due to it being a more modern font. Due to this poster having more writing than others it makes sense for it to be sans serif because serif fonts have strokes on the ends of each letter, which would make the poster look too over complicated, so by having a sans serif font it enables the attention to be drawn to the transparent fist punch and then the text. 

3)

Third and finally is this image that was also in college, portraying the message of responsibility, taking responsibility of your own actions. Project connect wishes for you to help yourself and others by being responsible at every opportunity. Your attention is instantly drawn towards the purple title which says "responsibility" and this is peculiar because this is in the middle of the page, but colour theory has proven that the dominant colours will always draw attention first due to them being so powerful in meaning. Split complimentary is used with the three main colours being red, purple and orange, which would usually cause a clash but due to them being with white and black it actually works incredibly well. The colour purple is a royal, spiritual colour, which therefore represents responsibility in a positive way. Not only this but purple is a creative colour, making the poster aesthetically pleasing and happy. After this, red is the second colour that I see, which is a passionate, lustful colour, as well as it being warm and vibrant. The passion of this colour represents how passionate project connect is to have people follow what they want them to follow. By using the different squares and rectangles, it shows dominance due to the sharp corners. Usually this would represent someone who's unfriendly but in this context it works as it represents power, and also then represents project connect to be a powerful source. Lastly, by having the logos at the bottom it rounds up the poster as a whole, showing how we as a college need to be responsible for ourselves and don't blame others for the mistakes we may make. It also shows the Project connect logo, which shows how Responsibility is part of the 5 strands of project connect and is one of the ones we should always be aiming to follow and succeed within. 

My creative CV

This is my creative CV that I've been designing. It's not your typical black and white basic CV, instead it's got colour, passion and charisma. It's completely different just by changing it from portrait to landscape.

What went well:

I was able to achieve a continuous theme (Gestalt) by having the most important part of my CV on the left hand side, and then having a decorative font family with my name makes it stand out from the rest, instantly bringing your attention to who you're reading about.

I provided colours which represent calmness as well as them being friendly and subtle, not only this but they're simplistic, meaning they're not too overbearing with the text provided. The colours also represent me as a calm individual. Having a light brown as the background worked well, contrasting it with the dominance of a black stroke and black text. I think that the icons also went well. The bow used represents neatness, punctuality and perfection, a trophy meaning success and achievement, meaning I want to do everything I can to get my dream job, and then I've added flowers as my border to represent purity and growth as me as a person. Also I added a light bulb to link to my text that I've written about later on. This is because light bulbs represent brightness and ideas, which is what photographers need to be. They cannot be laid back when it comes to choosing what to do for a certain photo and so I wanted to show that I am creative and I'm full of ideas for the sort of photos I want to be taking. By using the fonts I have, I've kept it simple yet effective by choosing them to be in capitals, which could show that I'm a bold and outgoing person. Also, by using the text "In Greek Eleanor means "the bright one" I've shown creativity and travel sense, therefore reflecting skills a photographer would use. I also used sans serif font, purely because there's loads of text on here, and so by using serif font would over complicate it, and also sans serif links to my age due to it attracting a younger audience. By using circles I was showing my wholeness and endlessness to my passion when working. I've used Gestalts theory of continuity because I've listed to more important things on the left hand side so they're seen first and the reader gets to grip of who I am. However the attention isn't taken away from the title which is in the decorative font family, a clever technique to catch the reader's eye, and overall creating an aesthetically pleasing look to the whole CV. Also, by using the decorative font family it gives a personal touch. This is because it looks handwritten which shows masses of effort and creativity. It shows I'm marking my own work just like a photographer does. I've used organisation skills also by separating everything with a stroke. I used the stamp tool to create this stroke, and I chose to use the flower border because it compliments the leaves in the background. I added a photograph of myself that's different to a normal photo. This is because I've doubled it up to try and show that I have skills when it comes to editing photos. Alternatively, I could say that this CV has the connotations of a wedding invitation which could show the sort of photographer I want to be. I would love to be a wedding photographer and so by my CV looking like an invitation to a wedding I could be showing that that's what I want to do as my profession.

What I could've done better:

When I asked Jo and Terri if there was anything to improve they said they wouldn't change anything, however I think I may change the colours maybe, due to them not being as bright as they could potentially be. If i changed it to maybe a purple colour which could then represent creativity and luxury, which would therefore represent me to be a creative person, which would then link into photography. Not only this but I might add a bit of green in somewhere, which is an active colour, representing how I'm ready to start working immediately and will always be on top.

Do if feel that I met the brief? 

I do feel as though I have met the brief due to me meeting all targets set. I worked on this project for ages and feel as though I've achieved the best I possibly could and I'm incredibly happy with it.

Completed to my best standard? 

I feel as though I have but I could've improved the colours to represent my personality a bit more because I'm an incredibly outgoing person and the colours are quite simple and subtle so don't represent me as well as bright and vibrant colours would.

Production Journal

In today's session, we were introduced to Photoshop, learning how to set it up and get it working. When you first get onto Photoshop it'll bring up a blank screen.

When first opening Photoshop, you go to file and New, then bringing up a new window. Where it says "preset" which we would usually click "International paper" as this is the best one for us. Not only this but we've been taught that the measurements for A4 and A3 which for A4 it's 21cm width, 29.7cm height and for A3 it's 42cm width, 29.7cm height. After learning this, we brought up Photoshop. Jo told us having 300 DPI for print which is the best quality. We were also told about colour mode. We will be using the two main ones, "RBG" and "CMYK". "RBG" stands for Red Blue Green, and "CMYK" stands for cyan, magenta, yellow and key. CMYK is the best quality colour mode to have when printing magazines especially.

 

Firstly, we used the Marquee tool, a tool for making certain shapes, such as ovals, circles, rectangles and squares. When clicking on this button and dragging across your page you'll make a shape. When wanting to draw a perfect square, you hold down shift and then drag, changing a rectangle to a square. The shapes I did are to the right, adding colour with the paint bucket located on the left hand side of the Photoshop screen. To get a perfect circle, you also press shift which will then allow you to do so.

 

 

Afterwards, we were to make our shapes have smooth edges. This will therefore come across as friendly, and welcoming, whereas sharp edges instantly portray harsh tones which is not what you want. To do this, you go to select, modify and click on smooth, you then set it from 1-16 on how smooth you want your edges to be, 1 being not very much, 16 being the smoothest they can be. By smoothing the shape it portrays happiness and calmness rather than anger.

 

 

After this, we made our own brushes. This is cool, creative and fun and makes your work so much better because you're showing you have a great imagination. To do this you go on google and choose any image you like, you then paste it into Photoshop via CTRL V. Afterwards you go to edit and define brush presets. You'll then rename your brush, so I renamed mine Finding Nemo. After that you go to your brush set and your most recent brush will be at the bottom, so you click that, click on the colour you want and you'll then have your brush.

 

My favourite part of this task was using the history brush tool. This is where you make your image black and white but then colour a certain part of the image in colour to therefore make it stand out from the rest. To do this, you choose any image you want, so I chose this picture of Rihanna and Drake. This is because it's an image bursting with colour, making it easy to create an effective image with history brush. After downloading an image, you click image, mode, grayscale, DON'T FLATTEN and then you repeat this, image, mode, RBG mode, DON'T FLATTEN, and the image remains in grayscale. You then click on the history brush tool in the toolbox and select how big you want your brush to be, clicking shift and open or closed bracket ( [ ] ). You then choose where to colour in, and so I went for Rihanna's red lips because they represent power and passion, and I also coloured in their jumpers to show how aesthetically pleasing their dress sense in this photo is.

 

 

Guides in photoshop are very useful, helping you line up an image. By doing this, it can help you to get it in the right place much easier. To do this, you have to drag your cursor over the rulers at the side and at the top, drag it down to where you want it to be on your image. If you don't want to see the guidelines, you can always hide them, all you have to do is hold the Ctrl key and the colon key (:)





Afterwards, we learned how to use your own custom shape tool. This is selecting a different shape, other than a typical square or circle to make your posters or creative CVs a lot more interesting. To do this, you go to the icon to the left, you then click on the different shape tools at the top. All shapes may not instantly appear, so what you have to do is go to the cog and click on all to bring up all possible shapes.

Not only this, but we learned how to warp a shape. To do this, you firstly draw your shape, I chose a rectangle. Afterwards you choose a gradient. A gradient is using two colours, fading from one to another which is really creative and aesthetically pleasing. I chose to go from a light blue to dark blue, creating a monochromatic feel as it's two shades of one specific colour, meaning they match well. Having this at the top of my page looks professional yet creative. After this, we warped our work, which makes a simple rectangle transform into a funky looking shape, useful for a border maybe for your name to go in. As cool as this looks, we were introduced to opacity: a tool which enables you to choose how much a shape is faded in colour. So I decided to fade mine to 40% to see how well it would look and it turned out amazingly well. It's not as harsh, much more subtle yet still noticeable and looks a lot more aesthetically pleasing.

Afterwards, we were told how you create a stroke. By doing this on your page it enables you to look like you're creative and professional, you look like you know what you're doing. To do this, I clicked on the paint bucket and changed the colour to light blue, left clicking then onto my page to change the white background to blue. By using my marquee tool, I created a shape on top of my screen, leaving the light blue colour still showing, as seen in the image provided to the right. Just by using the stroke I've made my page look a lot more eye catching and pleasing. Not only this, but you can also stroke an image, outlining it to match the colour of your border. To do this, you have to CTRL and click on the thumbnail, and then go to edit. Once you've hovered over edit, you go to stroke, which then brings up a box asking you what colour you want your border and what width.

I chose to go with the blue colour I used for my stroke on the background to keep up the consistency. I also chose my width to be 40px so that it was thick enough to be noticeable but not too thick to be the only thing you look at on the poster.

After doing my border on both my image and the Photoshop as a whole, we learned how to edit an image. For example, there's such thing as iris blur, enabling you to focus on one particular part of an image. For example, the photo on the right is the original image, and so by using the iris blur tool on the left hand side I've been able to focus on the main flower in the middle. To do this, I had to go to "filter" and then scroll down to the "blur" option. After hovering over this, it brings up several options, including iris blur, so you click that which then brings up a new window to choose what you focus point is going to be. After clicking OK you're taken back and your image has been changed and you then have a blurred photo.

Afterwards, we were introduced to another sort of blur called tilt shift, a creative way to focus on a a part of a photo vertically or horizontally. So for my example, I used a firework display next to the Eiffel Tower. I figured that I should focus on the Eiffel Tower rather than the fireworks because the fireworks would still be recognizable even when blurred. So, I focused on the Eiffel Tower shown below. By doing this it creates an effective image due to your eyes instantly being drawn to the Eiffel Tower. You're allowed to make the tilt shift as wide or as narrow as you want, so I set it to be wide in order to get a couple of the fireworks in the background. This overall creates a powerful image.

 After blurring a photo, we learned how to create noise on an image. This is an example of noise. By doing this you had texture to your work rather than have it quite boring. This is an effective tool for a creative CV as it shows you to be inventive. I also added a stroke to this so it added the noise colour to the outer area of the image. I chose the colours pink and white as they compliment each other, using a subtle pink to match the purest of white, therefore creating a calm image, relaxing, yet made fun by the Noise effect.

We then moved onto the different texts. For starters, we learned how to download new fonts. By going on "dafont.com" you're welcomed to a page full of different fonts people have made around the world. After downloading it, you then extract it and add it to your downloaded font file at the bottom of your windows page. After doing this, it will automatically add to your fonts so from then on you're able to use it.

However, before doing this, we just used our default fonts, exploring what we could do with these.