Week 15- westbury

This class was a completely new experience. I am not a very visual person at all. I really am more of a reading and writing person, therefore this class was very difficult for me. I learned so much in regards to the Adobe Creative Suite. I can definitely say that I would have never been exposed to these various programs if I had not taken this Graphics class. I enjoyed the magazine project the most. It allowed me to put all my skill set into one program in regards to InDesign. Overall I learned so much from start to finish and no matter how painful it was during the process the educational reward made it worth it in the long run. I received what I expected and a lot more. Overall I am satisfied with all the knowledge I gained from this class.

Week 15 | Walsh

This class was a great experience for me. I've never been artistically talented at all, but this class gave me an opportunity to create work that was somewhat visually appealing. It was also a nice variation for me personally. As a history major I have always found myself reading and writing papers, but this was a nice break from that. I was able to be creative while learning very useful programs along the way. The class was very informative and the teaching was great. Thanks for a great semester!

Week 15: Spivack

I have always wanted to learn the Adobe Programs and I knew that I would FINALLY get the chance this semester. I absolutely loved the planning and sketching that was involved in coming up with ideas; it allowed you to be super creative in your design. I am definitely not an artist, but I found graphic arts to be more of my niche. I learned so much in this class but the one thing that stood out to me would be now important nitpicking details of a graphic piece. I find myself reading brochures and reading magazine and criticizing the graphics. Another crucial lesson that I learned is that simple=good; in this fast paced world, people have no time to sort through clutter to find pertinent information. I feel that I have improved a great deal, and my friends and family agree. I will most definitely put the skills that I learned in this class to good use when I begin to work in the advertising field.

Week 15: Class evaluation

I did not really know what to expect from this class. I never really thought I was creative or able to create creative things. However, after taking this class, I learned that everyone is creative. The key to graphic design is to really sketch out and plan things. This class has taught me that a good design doesn't have to be packed with information. A good design can be as simple as a bone, or thought bubble in my case. Anytime a student asks me how this class is, I automatically tell them that they will never look at design and type the same way. Every time I look at a magazine, I think about how well or how badly it is designed. I also look for themes and continuity. Every time I see any type or font, I try to see if I can recognize it. Prior to this class, I thought all types look the same. Now I notice the tiny little quirks in every letter and stroke. This class definitely helped me get my two internships for the summer.

Week 15: Class Evaluation

I'm not the graphics type and visual projects are not my strong point. However, I am very glad I took this class. I learned a lot about the Adobe programs that I normally would not have. I know that these skills on these programs will definitely become useful as I get internships and jobs. I also am very glad that I know many visual techniques, such as gestalt principles, grids, hierarchy, etc. This class helped me learn a lot of that and I produced some projects I definitely would not have before this class started.

week 15| Del Castillo

I did not expect to get such a hands on experience with software when I signed up for the class. I thought I would get design theory, not actual practice. I was glad i got to learn how to use the software and to play around with it. I thought the projects were very good and they got me to think and be more creative than I normally am. I was pleased at how much I progressed over the course of the semester. I am also glad we learned about the practical applications of the skills we learned in the class.

week 15- westbury

The non-profit event I chose is the Annual ProjectFeedME Basketball tournament that takes place at Syracuse University every Novemebr. This event is a collaboration with Phi Beta Sigma, a historic African American Fraternity. The tournament is designed to raise money to feed impoverished inner city families in the New York City area during the Thanksgiving holiday.
For my website I wanted to have the central focus around a basketball. I implemented this idea by finding a Google image of a basketball. Then putting half the ball at the top of my screen, letting it gradually fade to white. With this structure it provided both an image of a basketball as well as effectively representing the tournament. I used brown for my navigation bar which complemented the basketball and used a peach color for my roll over. For the banned I wanted a simple white background with black lettering. I kept this simple structure for each slide.

Blackstone | Final Week

When I first signed up for this class, I expected to have my fair share of trouble. Before this class, I had very little knowledge of Macs and no knowledge whatsoever on how to use the CS4 package. I definitely didn't enjoy spending countless hours in the Newhouse computer labs every other weekend but, when I finished each project, I had a sense of accomplishment. I really enjoyed how when I finished a project, I had something tangible that I could hold and show to people. I especially enjoyed the resume project and the magazine project because I liked having a cool looking resume and since I'm a magazine major, I liked designing my own magazine and being able to write a little bit in the sidebar. Overall, while this class took a lot of time and was quite frustrating at times, I definitely took a lot away from it.

Week 14 \ Web Project

Week 14: Interface Design Posting

I must admit that I had some trouble picking an event for this assignment. I did consider the event that I did my poster project on but the information on it was not easily available and it was a very localized event so I thought I would go in another direction. However, none of my other ideas seemed to pan out. Luckily, I found an online brochure of my event, which made this project much more doable.

Once I chose my event, my design ideas became clearer. Having been to this event for ten years or so, I knew the event inside and out. I knew that the audience was pretty much solely local residents from all different backgrounds. Therefore, I wanted to make a simple, comprehensible website for potential viewers. I also wanted to make it informational, since the event is highly advertised in the area by name, but not much by content.

For this reason, I chose to use the simple pink (breast cancer) and blue (prostate cancer) colors, which I took from the ribbons in the site’s header as well as simple black and white text because they are simple yet get the point across.

The pink color that I used was a pantone with an R: 233, G: 101 B: 180. I used this color as a background throughout the site and in various locations as well. This color is the symbol of breast cancer, one of the causes of the walk. The blue color that I used throughout is a pantone that I also pulled from the ribbon with an R: 72 G: 145 B: 86. I used this color as a background for certain text (especially behind white text).

For most of my text I used Helvetica. Mostly, it was size 18 pt or 21 pt and black and a majority of my body text. For my headers, I used Gill Sans sized 30 in white in front of the blue background in order to make it stand out. For the nav bar, I used Helvetica size 24 pt in the same blue color with pink mouseovers. For the main header, I used Berlin LT Std Bold Italic size 55 pt.

Spivack Website Week 14

Typefaces:
Brioso Pro, Arial Black, Helvetica
For the event name I used the font Brioso Pro. I felt that the font was fun, but definitely still very readable. This serif font helped me to convey the fun but professional feeling of the event. For the navigation bar I used the font Arial Black. As a bold sans serif font, it stands out but remains easy to read. For the body of the website I used Helvetica. The movie we watched in class, for one, completely convinced me that Helvetica was one of the most widely used easily read fonts ever created. I felt that the level of readability of the typeface was what I wanted in my website. There are also many variations to choose from.
Besides the Brioso Pro, the fonts that I used were pretty basic. The reason behind that is because I feel that websites, due to readability and compatibility issues use more mainstream fonts. I understand that we were allowed to branch out, but I wanted the website to seem as legitimate as possible.

Visuals:
For the navigation bar, I used erasers as tabs, crumpled paper as the background and the pencil as a logo. I used these school supplies to make the website fun and also relevant. I found pictures from both the Youth Day BBQ current website and Google throughout the design.