New Blog Banner

This wasn't an assignment, but I thought that my blog was due for a re-imagining. I looked through the new layouts for the blogs and found a black and white one. It's white with what looks like black paint splatters. The banner I had didn't go with that layout so I made a new one. I used a photo of me in my Halloween costume from last year (The Scarecrow from Batman Begins) and used a Gradient Map on it but made a quick transition between black and white. Then I just used the same font from before and added "Graphics Blog" below my name as well as a Bio-hazard symbol because it looks great and goes well with the look of my banner.

KEC Grad Wear

This was just a smaller assignment to design the new sweaters that the Graduates from KEC get after grad. Our school mascots are the Reivers, which were these raiders who lived around the border of England and Scotland. So I wanted to go with the sort of Warrior theme. I made a sword and an axe crossing around the text: "KEC 2011".

Type into a Scene

This assignment was to make 3 images where text looks as if it is a 3D object in a photograph using Photoshop.

For the First one, I just found a photo of some mountains in New Zealand and the text that I made to look like it was floating above some of the mountains said: "New Zealand" of course. The way I made it look 3D was using alot of Layer Blending Options. Gradient Overlay, and Inner Glow were the ones I used the most.

The Second image I did was a photo of Football players at the line of scrimmage and just put very big in between the two teams: "Football". I used the same Blending Options as before.




The Thirds image was the name of a band in a photo of that band. I made the text: "Thousand Foot Krutch" on the ground around the band's feet. I used the same I deas as the previous two images to make the text look just as 3D.

Audio to Visual

This assignment was different than most of the other assignments that we get. We had listened to a song and jot things down on what we visualized when hearing the song. Then we had to make a picture based on what we wrote down. We didn't know at first, but the song was from the soundtrack of the movie Moon. I visualized someone scared walking in the forest with scary silhouettes following them and eventually chasing them when the music's tempo picked up. I found some silhouettes of Zombies and put them into a creepy photo of a dark and gloomy forest. Then I thought of the idea to put that image and make it a reflection in someone's eye. So that's what I did. I used a grungy texture and overlayed it on the picture to top off the creepy theme of the picture.

Special Event Posters

This assignment was to design posters for 3 different Special Events happeningin Winnipeg. I chose The Central Canada Comic Con, The Teddy Bear's Picnic, and Safeway's Boo at the Zoo.

The Comic Con poster I did first. The major guest this year was Ray Park who played Darth Maul in Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, and it's a Comic convention, so I put the two together and found a picture of Darth Maul from a Star Wars comic. Then I just tried to fit that image in with the rest of the text info. I used a comic looking font (don't worry, not Comic Sans MS) to keep with that theme. Darth Maul is Black and Red so I used that color scheme for the entire poster.

The Teddy Bear's Picnic is obviously geared towards kids so I made it fun looking with lots of colors and big lettering. It took a while to find a good picture of a Teddy Bear for the poster but I managed to get one that worked.

Safeway's Boo at the Zoo is also geared towards kids but it's also supposed to be somewhat scary. So I used the Halloween theme for the poster. Black and Orange is the general color scheme for Halloween. I used the silhouette of a zombie to occupy the empty space because there wasn't a lot of information.

KEC Info Handbook

This is the First assignment that we were given for Grade 12 Graphic Design. We were to design a new cover for the Kildonan-East Information Handbook. I went with a vectored look that I started in photoshop, then I re-vectored everything over in Illustrator. Our school is very proud of our football team and other sports teams so I thought I would theme it accordingly. We had to include that horrible KEC logo in it so I managed to fit it in nicely on both the front and the back covers. Then I added all the text in InDesign.

Vinyl Decal

This assignment was to design a vinyl decal. It was just supposed to be a simple black and white vector. I vectored the logo of the metal band Demon Hunter that they use on each of their album covers in various innovative ways. I love the way this logo looks. It's a cool demonic looking head of some sort of creature. I just vectored the picture in Adobe Illustrator. I made it as simple as possible with as little lines that could be used.

Portfolio Cover

Since I am making a portfolio for all the graphics work I've done this year, I thought I'd post the cover that I made for said portfolio. I think it's probably my best work yet. I love the way it turned out. I put in and arranged the text to look as it does, then I made two shapes on the top and bottom of the page. One orange the other blue. Then I duplicated each one and moved the orange on up more and the blue duplicate down more and then overlayed them so they'd look darker. Then I brought in my own artwork. The picture was of a superhero character of mine, I originally didn't mean to make it look like me but everyone started saying it did, so I just used it here now that I agree on how much it does look like me. Except now I have shorter hair. Then I made the drawing layer a 'Pin Light' layer mode. Then at the top orange part of the page, I made some spiky shapes with the pen tool. Then I found a stock picture of a grimy cement wall from deviantART here. I made that layer a 'Color Burn' layer mode to finish off the cool effect I was going for.

Graphics Poster

This assignment was to make a poster for graphic design. We were supposed to get a quote about graphic design and incorporate it into the design of the poster. I went with the grungey and rugged look again because I think it looks really good. I found the quote by Alexander Isley: "Good design encourages a viewer to want to learn more." I 100% agree with this quote so I chose it and brought it into the poster. I played around a lot with colors, I was originally going to go with red black and white, but I've done that so many times before. Then I thought of making it purple instead of red, but purple doesn't fit as well with the gruney look I was going for. I eventually just settled on orange. The large rectangles were just blown up letters from the font 'Capture It'. As was the rest of the text.
To complete the look of grunge, I found a picture of bark from a tree and copied it into the file. Then I made the picture 'Multiply' and decreased the opacity to 55% so it would effect the picture perfectly.

Magazine Page Layout

This assignment was to design a layout for a magazine spread. We had to find an article and make it look like it's from a magazine by using InDesign. I, again, couldn't think of anything to look for. So I just went with Hockey again. The article was from Chicago's Daily Herald and was written by Tim Sassone. It was about the Blackhawks winning their series and moving on to play the Vancouver Canucks.
I took the article and pasted it into the pages. We learned how to make columns and how to properly make a layout for a magazine article. Then I Made up a title, and used the previous title as a deck (tag line). I brought in some pictures from the Chicago vs Nashville playoff games and moved the test around to fit said pictures. I made some rectangles for either above or below the pictures. The color scheme there was partly for the Blackhawks black and red but then I made the long rectangle for the bottom of the pages yellow to go with the red lines o look like the boards on the sides of a hockey rink. Then I put the Blackhawks logo in the background with a very low opacity of about 8%. The pull quote I made blue to stand out from everything else so that it caught the eye. I fought to get the text to fit perfectly so it could actually look good and professional. But in the end it turned out great, for my first magazine spread layout that is.