mintygreen

LA 5 - Adjusting Levels

2011-09-27T00:08:00.000-07:00

Before

This is a frangipani tree that grows out the back of our place. I decreased the brightness a little, reduced the contrast and increased the saturation slightly to get the sky bluer and the left hand flowers look not so burnt out.

After

Before

After

Above is a shot I took a few weeks ago at the end of our street in Fannie Bay, at about 6.45 in the evening. It is lacking in detail in the sand and generally just looks a bit too dark. I increased the brightness and reduced the contrast to get some detail and light.

LA 4 - Cropping an Image

2011-09-26T21:42:00.000-07:00


Before, with crooked horizon

I took the shot on the left in Bol, Croatia on a trip to Europe in 2009. It's a subtle change between the two so I thought I should explain: I didn't notice at the time that the horizon was quite off kilter. I had been trawling through my Flickr account for images to crop and noticed it then. I had previously watched an episode of Adobe TV where the Rotate View tool was used to help correct a crooked horizon and applied the process here. Although the aspect ratio of the shot is a little different it's an improvement.

The cropped version: with the help of the Rotate View tool.

Hobart from Mt Wellington, but this picture is mostly trees.

And now Hobart is framed by trees but is more a feature of the photo.

Jenny is surrounded by a lot of space

Changing the orientation of the picture by cropping out all that space on either side

Not a strong shot with all those distracting people in the background

A vast improvement, with space for the man to ride into on the left

My Flatbed Scanner Story

2011-09-25T02:46:00.000-07:00

My Darwin Life.

Blog Promo

2011-09-23T04:30:00.000-07:00

This little e-banner is the warmth and comfort of a cup of tea in visual form.
I wanted the eye to travel in a familiar left-to-right progression over the text and draw the eye from along and progressively down the page, ending in the url. The background is in a calming, soft shade of pink, which is also the complement of my favourite particular shade of mint green. The picture is friendly-looking and hand drawn, which I hope looks inviting.

LA 7 - 50 Apples

2011-08-20T04:44:00.000-07:00

My God - finally finished. I learned a lot (about Illustrator) but possibly got more than a little sidetracked along the way, almost forgetting that I was trying to finish an assignment!

LA 12 - Good and Bad Type

2011-07-08T03:38:00.000-07:00

1. This first example I think is really good - a creative use of type to make an image of the candidate, and a lovely clean and clear typeface for the essential information. Eye catching without being visually loud or loud or jarring.

2. This one, for Parap Fine Foods, I liked because the typeface is attractive and appropriate, and the fonts used across the whole awning are consistent.

3. This sandwich board for Easy Loans works simply because the font is lowercase, sans serif, making it feel casual and the rounded corners contribute to a friendly, informal feel. However it's important that it is regular and ordered, and easy to read, because after all, they are dealing with money - and a scrawly or crazy looking font would be the wrong thing altogether.

4. This restaurant sign appealed to me because even though the main font is a little bit zany and organic looking, it's still clear and easy to read. The font does look a bit cactus-y too. It looks like it would be a fun place to eat, and a little bit exotic.

5. Nomad Art - happily found just near Prickles! These are beautiful, modern, clean fonts, and although different in a few ways, still harmonise nicely. I think it won't look dated anytime soon.

1. This doesn't work for me because it swerves badly off the road of its main function - it needs to be read. It just looks sort of tarted up for the sake of being tricky. I dodn't see that it said Jani King until I looked at the web address below, it read Jan King to me, as my eye was drawn to the cartoonish crown. The font reminds me of a 60's american print-advertising font, which doesn't help how I feel about the business, especially since I've never heard of it. Also, my pet hate, too many typefaces in a small space! Too busy.

2. Well, no-one likes being screamed at, even in print. There is a riot of typefaces here, mostly in all caps. Possibly the desired effect is to get the reader's attention, but this "arrangement" doesn't lead the eye or seem to have any pattern. The reader can't discern any meaning and quickly loses interest.

3. Luckily people expect bad art from tradies, it fits a stereotype which works for travelling billboards like this guy's truck is. I just don't think it's as good as it could be - again, too many different fonts, especially the "TC" and "Lawns", which I imagine are both part of a single business name, are similar, but inexplicably not the same.

4. Dolly O'Reilly's paired with the already schizophrenic Hibiscus Tavern. The typefaces themselves aren't bad - but together they make a mess! Is this a theme pub, an after-work grog-trough or a smart and friendly bar? Aaargh!

5. I had fun with my partner looking through the yellow pages and couldn't resist putting all of them in. We kept finding more and more.
The first, going clockwise from top left, because it's a classic font problem - an L and an I ending up looking like a U at first glance. The second because even though it probably counts as a logo (?) it is confusing looking and the d is just plain weird for no reason. The last, because the lettering is all squashed together.

LA 13 - Poster Design

2011-07-01T05:48:00.000-07:00

I had a lot of fun looking all over the place for fonts. The free ones aren't that flexible it seems, and only have a few sizing options but there were thousands available. I liked the whispery look of the "Tell me the past" font and the hard, overheated look of the second, modern font. I wanted "Tell me the past" to look like it was a little ghostly, delicate and genteel, while I wanted "And I will recognise the future" to look edgy and noisy. I wanted it to clash with and grate on itself. I made a few lines vertical as it reminded me of the computer readouts of wall street ticker tape - masses of information tumbling out.

LA 10 - Typefaces

2011-06-20T02:38:00.000-07:00

LA 9 - Sketching Layouts

2011-06-19T03:23:00.000-07:00

This is my wireframe for the front page of a band website, a lot of the ones I like have a large image containing a lot of whitespace as the background, hence the big gap in the last third of the page. In fact looking at it now, I think the rule of thirds would be better applied here, moving the two blocks over further to the left, I don't like the centralised blog text box now that I see it here. But I suppose that's what wireframes are all about.

This is a wireframe for a corporate newsletter, fairly conservative layout.

And here is the business card - a background image or texture, with a couple of blocks of text. The simpler the better, in good colours and fonts, makes a good business card, in my opinion.

Darwin wordle Applet

2011-06-18T21:09:00.000-07:00

LA 8 - Grids

2011-06-07T20:43:00.000-07:00

This is a page from the Jetstar inflight Magazine, set in columns with small squares inset but all looking very ordered and associated and easy to read:

and this is from a really beautifully art directed magazine called Peppermint. Also heavily reliant on the grid for a clean and restful reading experience. (it combines fashion and environmental concerns)

This is a picture of my favourite building in Amstelveen near Amsterdam. Below that is a photo I took of it when I was there. I can definitely see the grid in that design! The Dutch love a grid, judging by the lines in their houses and apartment blocks and commercial buildings. They are rather an orderly people.

A classic grid, examples of which are found all around the world, this one my favourite city.

Yes, a Raygun cover. I love Raygun. This isn't a grid and has a loose feel. Some of their covers are filled with movement and tension - this one is more relaxed yet still breaks the rules and looks fresh.

Up here in Darwin there is a shortage of good magazines in the shops and I'm having trouble finding edgy, unusual magazines. I am even finding it tricky to see anything on the net with a design like Raygun's. Magazines seem to thrive on order and aesthetic appeal to the widest range of people. After all the goal is for them to sell I suppose.I did stumble on this article about grids which sums that up nicely.

This image I found of the cover of a gaming magazine seems to me to be the furthest I could get from a magazine grid structure without using another David Carson design, however I do recognise the title section "Play" etc is organised and associated, implying grid formatting. I'm wondering if I fully understand this grid business.

LA 6 - Whitespace

2011-03-24T20:18:00.000-07:00

This Learning Activity asked that we find 3 examples of the use of whitespace. The first, from a magazine was this advertisement for a jewellry shop (presumably, as locations are listed) which uses a block of colour, diagonally cutting across the page, on a background of white, and a large closeup image of a diamond-encrusted ring. The whitespace takes up the largest area of space.

For the second example I used the shop window of Luxe in Liverpool St Hobart. It's an expensive shop and the window's minimalist layout indicates this subtly.

This last example is a website -it's a very simple, quiet design that utilises a lot of whitespace and means that the image at the centre is the definite focus.

LA5 - Make 3 Logos

2011-03-19T19:41:00.000-07:00

I really laboured over this assignment and found it very difficult, the examples of logos I looked at on the link Chris sent set an extremely high standard and were really inspiring. I started out with one idea for a 24 hour locksmith which went nowhere so tried these other three. I had another which didn't make it past the brainstorming stage either. I'm glad to get this one finished; it took about ten hours more than the 3-5 hours that the course estimated!

LA 4 - Shape and Spatial relationships

2011-03-17T03:01:00.000-07:00

LA 2 -Elements and Principles of Design

2011-03-15T21:22:00.000-07:00

LA 1 - Focus

2011-03-04T18:43:00.000-08:00