Friday, April 30, 2010

Dingbat Portrait Write-Up
Answer the following questions. Respond in bullet point, complete sentences OR paragraph format.

1. What Illustrator tools did you use to create four values in your portrait?
Describe the steps you took, in chronological order.

2. What dingbat fonts did you use?
How did you manipulate them to fit the shapes of your face?

3. Where do you use negative space to define parts of your face?

4. What was the easiest or most difficult part of the project?

5. What makes your design different from others?

6. What would you do differently next time?

Thursday, April 29, 2010

POSITIVE and NEGATIVE SPACE

The success of your portrait depends on your utilizing positive AND negative space in an effective manner. But what are these two things? POSITIVE space is the 'actual stuff' in a picture, NEGATIVE space is the 'white' or inactive space with 'nothing' in it. Sometimes less is more, and you can say a lot with 'nothing.' Such is the case here.

Another way to think about positive and negative space is in terms of 'FIGURE/GROUND RELATIONSHIP', one of the components of Gestalt theory listed on pages 126-127 in Basics of Design. Our dingbat project touches on other components of this theory as well: PROXIMITY and SIMILARITY, which both essentially say that if you group stuff together, people will see it as a whole object--ie, like the DINGBATS we are using in the positive space areas of your portraits.

Here are some links to check out:
http://www.artsconnected.org/toolkit/watch_space_positive.cfm
http://www.artsconnected.org/toolkit/create_space_positive.cfm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_space


POSITIVE--NEGATIVE SPACE / FIGURE-GROUND RELATIONSHIP


PROXIMITY AND SIMILARITY

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

When you finish tracing the paths of your face, start looking for dingbat fonts here!
http://www.dafont.com/

Friday, April 23, 2010

STARTING YOUR DINGBAT PORTRAIT

Check out this website for some examples of dingbat portraits:
http://www.walyou.com/blog/2009/01/05/creative-singers-ad-bose-sound-system-designs/

***Make sure you have completed and turned in pages 3-18/3-35 and 3-36/3-51 in your Illustrator textbook before beginning this assignment.***

1. Take a picture of yourself using the Photo Booth application on the Macs.
2. Save the photo in your server folder.
3. Start a new Illustrator document. Letter sized, Portrait orientation.
4. Place guides .25" around the outside of your document, so you remember your print margins.
5. Go to File > Place. PLACE your photo file into the Illustrator document.
6. Experiment with the SCALE tool in Illustrator until your portrait fills the PICTURE PLANE of your document.
7. Make sure the photo is selected. Go to WINDOW > TRANSPARENCY. Dim your photo to about 50%
8. Name your layer with the picture in it TEMPLATE.
9. Select your picture and apply the CUTOUT FILTER to your picture. (Effect > Photoshop Effects > Artistic > Cutout.) Adjust the settings until you get the desired effect. You can tweak the effect after the filter is applied by selecting the picture and double clicking on 'cutout' in the Appearance panel. (Window > Appearance)
10. Create a rectangle the same size as your artboard. Select the rectangle and your photo and apply a CLIPPING MASK to the picture to hide the parts of it that go off the artboard into the scratch area. (Object > Clipping Mask > Make) Learn more on pages 4-30 thru 4-35 of your Ai book.
11. LOCK the TEMPLATE layer.
12. Start a new layer called PATHS or DRAWINGS or anything other than LAYER 2.
13. When done, poke TEMPLATE layer in eye and just print your PATHS. Verify there are 4 clear areas of value.
14. If good, proceed to downloading dingbat fonts that represent you in some school appropriate manner.

Friday, April 16, 2010

VECTOR ILLUSTRATION WRITE-UP

Answer the questions in paragraph format, making sure to refer to Design Components when asked. Use at least THREE of the Design Components listed below throughout your responses.

Paragraph 1:
What is your subject matter and why did you choose it?
How have you presented your subject matter in a creative way?
How do your designs simplify/change the subject matter from the photo?
Name where one incident of GESTALT THEORY from pages 126-127 in Basics of Design that can be seen in your illustration.

Paragraph 2:
What is the STRONGEST part of your illustration?
What part of your illustration needs the most IMPROVEMENT?
What would you do differently next time?

Use at least THREE of the following Design Components throughout your responses:
E’s (line, shape, form, color, texture, value, space) and
P’s (balance, contrast, rhythm, movement, pattern, emphasis, unity/variety)

Thursday, April 15, 2010

INTERACTIVE PROJECT PROGRESS CHECK

1. What steps of the project workflow have you completed?
*Treatment/Storyboard
*Audio/Visual Asset list
*Develop/Procure assets
*Import assets to library
*Animate movie clips and buttons
*Create label/action/button layers
*Program script
*Drop sound into timeline

2. What do you have left to do?
3. What do you feel has been successful so far?
4. Is there something you need help with? (In other words, what is not working? Is there something that would make your project better, but you're not sure how to do it?, etc)

REMINDER OF INTERACTIVE CRITERIA (also available here):
Keyframe animation
Tweenspan animation
Music
Sound Effects
Buttons powered by Action Script that control a Non-linear timeline

There must be a minimum of three points of decision and four outcomes.
The decisions made should GENERATE an outcome, rather than BEING the outcome itself. (ie the CHOICE is to STAY HOME or GO OUT, and as a result of STAYING HOME you PLAY BOARD GAMES, or as a result of GOING OUT you get EATEN BY A ZOMBIE.)
LINKS TO OLSON AND FALLON

http://www.oco.com/

http://www.fallon.com/

Monday, April 12, 2010

INTERACTIVE PROJECT

1. Interactive project must showcase the following Flash features:
Keyframe animation
Tweenspan animation
Music
Sound Effects
Buttons powered by Action Script that control a Non-linear timeline

2. There must be a minimum of three points of decision and four outcomes.
The decisions made should GENERATE an outcome, rather than BEING the outcome itself. (ie the CHOICE is to STAY HOME or GO OUT, and as a result of STAYING HOME you PLAY BOARD GAMES, or as a result of GOING OUT you get EATEN BY A ZOMBIE.) See diagram below.

Friday, April 9, 2010

VECTOR ILLUSTRATION

1. Find a photo of an object that is at least 1000 x 1000 pixels. You want a PHOTOGRAPH of an OBJECT, rather than a photo of a person or an existing illustration, for at least two reasons. A. There will be more geometric shapes in an object, which will be easier for you to draw with your skill level with the pen tool. B. When completed, if you start with a photo, your own drawing style will come through, rather than duplicating someone else's artwork.

2. Open the image in Photoshop.

3. Use pen tool to trace all details of the object. Save as separate paths.

4. Get all the intricacies of the object--the more paths you have, the more info is there, the cooler your end result will be.

5. After your paths are ready, we will export them to Illustrator and ink them.
File > Export > Paths to Illustrator.
Make sure "ALL PATHS" is selected in the drop down menu in the Save options.
Save file.
Open the Illustrator file.
Select > All
Hit default Fill/Stroke option.
Load default CMYK swatches. (Window>Swatches>Hit the down arrow in the top right corner of the panel to open the swatches menu. Go to Open Swatch Library > Default Swatches > Basic CMYK)
Save file.

6. Read and exectue the tutorials pages 1-8 thru 1-35 in Adobe Illustrator CS3 REVEALED. It is a required assignment and will create the understandings needed to better finish your illustration.

Define these vocabulary terms:
1. Artboard
2. Scratch area
3. Panels
4. Vector graphics
5. Anchor point
6. Line segment
7. Path
8. Resolution independent

State, in your own words, what these tools do:
(These are not vocab words you can look up, but you will work with the tools while you do the tutorial)
1. Fill
2. Stroke
3. Group
4. Scale
5. Rotate
6. Reflect
Yearbook Revision Standards

1. Use a blank page to start.
2. Apply the 'A10 L' or 'A10 R' layout to the page.
3. Place the relevant Course Header image in the top photo place holder. See me if you are unsure what to place.
4. Copy and Paste your Course Title and Description into the text space next to the Course Header photo.
5. Copy and Paste your photos and captions from existing layout into the new one.
6. Adjust photo size/caption placement if necessary.
7. Select all objects and align them to the grid.
8. Begin selecting the photos/captions and realign them to each other.
9. Verify the font standards have been followed.

FONT STANDARDS:
1. Use AHJ Paddington font, size 24 for headers.
2. Use AHJ Eddie, size 11, for course descriptions.
3. Use AHJ Helvetica, size 10, for captions.


When finished revising layouts:

1. Identify at least one way the layouts show an improvement in ALIGNMENT, according to the reading in Chapter 5 from Basics of Design.
2. Identify at least one way the layouts show an improvement in REPETITION, according to the reading in Chapter 6 from Basics of Design.
3. Identify at least one way the layouts show an improvement in FLOW, according to the reading in Chapter 7 from Basics of Design.