CAP Clairty, Audience, Purpose

Clarity
For each of the images I made in this exercise, they are all literal, stylistic, and thematic messages that are clearly and efficiently presented. Each word had a different message and used different fonts, shapes and sizes. Overall, they are all working toward the same goal of effectively conveying the message of the word within the word itself. After overlooking each image, I do not believe that any misinterpretation is possible for the piece's image except for the word "brick" because I put an image of a house in place of the "i" and someone could possibly mistake it for trying to convey "brick house". I do not think there is one or more messages fighting for attention because the roof has a separation that creates the dot on the letter "i" but it could maybe be proportioned smaller in the width to create more of a "i" letter. Also, the word Lightly could be interpreted as a message of a underweight object, as an object that is gentle, or as an object that produces light. I clearly put a light in the "i" along with the typical color yellow for light to make sure there is no confusion. Overall, each image has one message and they all can be easily interpreted. 

Audience
The target viewer for this piece is my peers in class and my professor. The visual tastes of this demographic segment is crisp, clear images with simple messages. Do be sure of my conclusions I asked a friend in class to review my images and she agreed with my messages and understood them. Colors most preferred by my peers are usually calming shades of blue and green that do not overstimulate the eye and the lingo they will best respond to will probably be the same as my lingo because we are all around the same age and are studying at a university, so higher level vocabulary. The concepts will in no way "fly over their head" because they are simple words that are used by school children. The products can provide imagination to those who view the messages and possibly create new associations when writing the words used. I personally have never seen any of the images I made before so I am assuming that my design will stand apart from what my audience has already seen before. If each design were a person the XXL would be a really large person that was overweight and probably have facial hair, the Pillow would have clothes made out of feathers and walk barefoot, the Atom would be a very smart skinny person with glasses and a lab coat on, the Brick would be a strong person with dry, tan skin, the Lightly would be an explorer that always carries a flashlight, and the Shred would be a skater with torn up clothes and shoes. The audience would probably think of most of the people as typical stereotypes depicted in movies and amongst social groups.

Purposes
The purpose of each design is supposed to convey a message of the meaning of the word or what comes to your mind when you look at the word and express it by using the word itself and incorporating the message within the text. It is not meant to sell a product but the images could be used in an advertisement setting for a product like a pillow or a brick company. The purpose is meant to persuade the viewer that the image represents the word and this can be interpreted differently by others. There is no client or art director in this exercise but I have shown my professor several of the images along with a classmate. Each image has been simplified to show the sole purpose of the piece and narrowed to show the meaning of the messages.  
  
  

Typographical Conveyance

For this activity, we were given five words to convey using Photoshop. For each word, I used some sort of symbol in either the word itself or beside the word to give it animation. Most of the images were from the Custom Toll in Photoshop but the feather in the word "pillow" was from the internet. This was a creative assignment that I enjoyed. The word I struggled with the most to convey was "xxl" and the easiest one was "atom". 

Critical Reflection: Connotation, Attributes, Placement

Connotation:

           Throughout this blog I feel that the visual style has been a consistent theme of finished products that have a similar flow of work because it has been all done by myself but each exercise has required different skills so some of the components may not all flow together. Many skills were combined as we continued through the semester and we are more experienced with tools like Photoshop and Power point. The thematic goal of this blog is to showcase my work but the work being presented is also in many cases the first time I have experimented with certain elements so while I am pleased with  my work it is also a beginners work. The theme is neither too specific or too broad because many elements were used like font, emotion, color echo, colors, etc. and while they are all in the same category of media they are all different. Some of my work could be slightly adjusted with proportions or quality-of-finish but I am happy with my color and font choices. It would be helpful to show the compositional element to my classmates to get constructive criticism or acceptance.

Attributes:

       Overall, I am satisfied with the components of style in my blog entries. With any work made a person could look back and critique their finished product but I have reviewed all of my activities and am pleased with them.  Most of my works have backdrops that I am happy with especially the color echo and emotional design exercises. The theme of the color echo was colorful lips and I matched the backdrop with the same colors in vertical lines that I think looks really good. For the emotional design exercise my partner and I put a carpet texture in the backdrop of the paper shredder to make it look more realistic and I am very pleased with it. Most of the other ones are existing pictures with backdrops that I edited but they all follow the theme I wanted it to. Color is one of the main elements I focus on the most when completing the exercises given to us. I am very pleased with the color components I have chosen for each activity. Each color scheme of each element fits well with the scheme of the larger layout in my blog. Every activity is put into its own post to separate the different skills used but when scrolling through them there is a clear theme of consistent work. For every activity I feel comfortable presenting it to the class or to the teacher and if displayed on a computer screen or projector each activity would be large enough to see. Within each activity I chose different fonts to match the theme of the exercise but within my blog I have used the same font in each post to describe what I completed. I like using the same font to show consistency but maybe in future activities I could focus on using a different font that would appeal to a larger audience.

Placement:

    Placement is definitely a major component that was considered in each layout of my posts. It should call attention even if it is subtle because it should be visually appealing to everyone who looks at the activities. For each post I always position the product on the top center of the page and if there is an original copy I post that first and then directly below I put the finished product. This shows the reader what I started with or what I made from scratch first and then they can scroll down and read about what skills and tools I used to make the product and how I feel about it. I keep my images in the center and then begin to type flush left which is how the eye flows when looking at stimuli. Grouping the images and text together is important but also spacing it out so the reader doesn't feel overwhelmed is important so I always leave some space in between the images and text so that there is a clear separation. For some of my images I either have to enlarge the product like with the font activity, or i have to size it smaller so it doesn't overtake the entire post like the echo color activity. 

This blog has not only helped me organize the exercises we do in class but it showing me the improvements I have made since the beginning of the semester and I could potentially use it as a resource to showcase my work to a future client. 

  

 

Fonts and Images

For this exercise, we were asked to make a logo for a fake business/company and to use an image from Photoshop and incorporate it with our logo. I chose a light bulb from the custom tools and made it the dot in the "I". I chose the font Century Gothic because it has a fresh, crisp look that matches the logo Bright Minds, Inc. This was a quick activity and it taught me that images can be put into logos without looking phony and unprofessional.

Word Portraits

In this exercise, we were asked to choose a font and then write a word that is representative of the font. I thought it would take a long time to find the proper word and font combination but I quickly found two fonts I liked and thought of two words that I felt fit properly. The first font I chose was Curlz MT and I wrote the word "playful" and made each letter a bright color and then made a colorful background to fit the word. Next, I chose the font Stencil std and wrote the word "confidential" in red and all caps. I am happy with both words but I like the first word the best. This exercise brought to my attention that font is important.

Emotional Design

Original inspiration

Final Product

This exercise required that we take an everyday object and transform it to show emotion. My partner and I (Katie Casey) first started with a few different objects but we found it hard to convey an emotion. Then, we decided to make a paper shredder show fear. We imagined how we were scared of them when we were younger and decided to try and create a monster face on the top of the shredder. We used Photoshop to create the entire image and used the top picture as a guide. This was a fun exercise and really challenged our skills. I now feel comfortable with Photoshop after this exercise.

Color Echo

Original (from web)

Color Echo

 

For this exercise, I found an image of colorful lips off of a make-up website and then opened it into Photoshop to create the bottom image.I used the lasso tool to isolate the lips then I took them and put it on a new layer. Then, I used the color echo to get the colors from the lips onto the vertical stripes. This was a strenuous, time consuming process that was at first frustrating but it was worth it in the end product. Up to now, this is the exercise I am most proud of and I also learned the color echo technique.