Natalie's Blog

     For the portfolio project, I decided to go with a very simple design in order to let the projects stand out. Due to each project having a different theme, it was important that the overall theme of the portfolio allowed each one to be portrayed well. This project was fun because it allowed me to collect all the project I have done and see how well my skills have improved throughout the semester. I do wish that I kept to a theme throughout the semester so that I could have done a theme that matches the projects as a whole. That would be the one thing I would change about this project.  There were many problems for me personally regarding this project. Not so much at first but when it came to submitting the project. Overall, I enjoyed this assignment and appreciate being able to look back at all of my previous assignments, homework, and projects. I can't wait to use all of my skills from this year in the future during my career or for personal fun! 

Artist Statement For this project, we had to create business cards for ourselves. Using our logos we had to design the card with text, logo placement, and any other designs or graphics. I used a different vibe for each of my cards. The black background and the purple flower was a dark and bold look. The flower is bold and the lines on the corners draw a focus on the centered items. The green background is a gradient which adds an extra layer and look to the light and fun feel of the flower, which is paired with a fun writing font as well. The blue logo is very bold and tropic. I wanted a really curvy and tropical feeling font for the writing but a more clear one for the important information. The flower is in the middle but shares the spotlight with the name. Overall, I think this assignment was fun. I think it's a green chance to be able to be picky in the future with how my business cards will look.   

 For this project, I got to create my very own postcard. I had to chose a picture of an eclipse and create postcard around that image. I chose to do a simple picture of the eclipse that looked the most like how I saw it. When I viewed the Eclipse there was a plain orange around a dark circle. I tried to find a partial eclipse that looked similar to this picture but none fit the image I had in my head. I wanted to keep the back simple. The examples I saw basically restated the front text in the corner. the rest of the space is used for the address and message. The font was difficult to do because I wanted it to be both simple but work well with the image and aesthetic. I went for this specific font because I liked how the letters looked. They had a natural but also refined look to them. Overall, this assignment was really fun to do. I enjoyed learning how to make my own postcard and may use this assignment for the future. Especially when I have cooler pictures than the shop has....

  I felt that this video went bay really fast. It was both helpful but also confusing because it was too fast to follow along. The narrator had clearly sped the video up in order to show all the tools in a shorter amount of time. This video also shows what the shortcut is on the keyboard to help with quicker editing.  A cool tool they show is the content collector tool. You can grab all of the content on the board and then place it elsewhere from a conveyor belt. Overall, InDesign seems very similar to Illustrator especially with the tools and how this video shows what you can do with it.  In this video, the creator shows from the beginning on how to create a new file and project. He makes us follow him through the process of creating a flyer/ poster thing using all of the tools. I really appreciated this video because it allowed me to see the tools used in an actual project rather than creating a shape and using the tool then deleting it. In this project, he showed the p...

 For this assignment, we had to tell a narrative and use the animation tool on photoshop to tell the story. I decided to tell the story of a flower. This flower gets rained on in the beginning and then has the sun come out after. Then it turns into another flower. I used mostly clip art for the main objects such as the rain, clouds, and original flower. Then I used my own grass that I drew as well as a plain blue background. I chose that color of blue because I thought it could be both the color of a nice day or of a rainy one. Then the second flower is my type brush. So this sunflower changes into a hibiscus.  If I were to redo it or change anything, I think I would try to make it a never ending gif. One that looks like it repeats over and over again. I know how I should do this but I was too excited to do other aspects of the gif that I skipped parts that should have been first. Overall though, I think this was a really fun exercise  and I hope I can play around with th...