My website

This website has ben a difficult task to complete, but in the end this project will help me in my future endeavors. This website will help promote myself and allow potential employers to see all the work I have done through out my career.

This website will be posted on all of my social media sites that way everybody can see it, and if someone sees them and wants to contact me about work they will be able to because it has my phone number and email on it. My website link will be displayed in the bio on each of my social media sites with witty wording to attract people to the link and get them to click on the link. This website will promote both my photography skill and my audio and video production skills. It will have all aspects of my talents displayed and only my best work will be displayed so the future employers will know what I am capable of.

The overall experience of designing this site was semi stressful. It was very hard understanding HTML and coding in such a short amount of time. I was able to figure a lot of the stuff on my own though. When future employers see my work and then also discover that I CREATED my own website I believe it will put me ahead of the game when compared to other possible candidates. The software was kind of easy to use because when you click on the coding it shows you what you’re editing and that is very helpful for people new to the software and HTML. I have had a little experience with HTML because of my Tumblr blog, but I really only knew how to change the colors of things, but with this website I have a firmer grasp on HTML coding now.

This website has helped me understand HTML coding and how to display my work in a professional matter rather than just posting a few things to Facebook for my friends and family to see. I will be able to give my future employers a better idea of myself rather than just giving them a sheet of paper with a few words on there. They can see all of the work I have done and the professional projects I have worked on for other people. This website project will help me through out all of my professional career.

Postcard

This postcard exercise was a very important exercise because it gives you experience in all 3 design softwares. You are able to learn how to create clipping paths in Photoshop, which I now use for almost everything. I also got much better practice on creating illustrations on Illustrator. Finally, I got better sense of creating a well organized hierarchy layout in InDesign. It is a great exercise in design communication because like I said with InDesign you get a much better sense of organized hierarchy.
Without organized hierarchy you are not able to communicate with your audience your personality.

I used a reddish burgundy color in my postcard because it matched my shirt and my hair. This created unity on my postcard between the background and my photo. With this unity of the photo and the background it gives a sense of balance to the assignment. The fonts I used were Marydale and Swister. I used these two fonts because they were very playful and bubbly while being serious at the same time. This represents my personality very well, it communicates that like my font I am very playful and bubbly, but when I need to be serious I am all about business.

While creating this you really have to focus on design hierarchy and I did just that. For this I made the text and my picture the same size to create a sense of balance between the two items. I also created a box out of graphics around the text and my picture. On the left and the right I put faders and I made it so they were the opposite of each other, one slider was at the top of the line and the other was at the bottom of the line. For the top I put my title and name while at the bottom I had a sound wave that while at different levels, creates very nice balance between it and the title. I also created one thin line that my picture rested on to make it not look like a floating head and connected my sound wave graphic with everything else. My hierarchy did work. Everything flows very nice throughout the postcard and it is very organized.

One element from Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator was required for this assignment, I think it was to get us all more familiar with the softwares. In a world of communication you really need to know how these three softwares work. With this assignment we got more away from basic, simple elements of these softwares and more into intermediate level design elements. These elements we used, such as creating a clipping path, have been very useful and actually would have improved my other assignments had I known how to create one when we were doing them.

All of the assignments we have created during this semester has been useful, but this assignment has taken our basic level design to the intermediate level design. We focus more on design hierarchy and how to keep balance throughout your designs. We are now able to communicate through our designs much more effectively.

Logos

Logos are a big part of having a company. They make your company recognizable to people everywhere. Without a logo your company would fail because no one would know how to recognize you. Five good logos are Twitter, Dominos, Apple, Fedex, and Target.

Target:

Target has a very effective logo for its color and simplicity. The logo is a target plain and simple, it's the name of the company so people are going to see it and instantly recognize the company. The color is also effective because when thinking about targets most people would associate the color red.







Fedex:

 Fedex is an effective logo because of its very subtle hidden design in it. In the logo between the E and the X is an arrow which is effective because it really conveys their mailing services. It is very subtle which is effective because because it's not thrown at you and in your face.

Apple:

Apple is one of the most recognized companies not only for their products, but for their logos. Like Target, Apple's logo is the company. It is an apple. When companies make their logos what their companies are people recognize them instantly and that is what makes them effective. This is why Apple has an effective logo.






Dominos:

Again with logos being what their companies are, Domino's Pizza has an effective logo for that reason. On top of the dominos being in the logo, the logo is very organized. Everything is enclosed in the square shape, which also looks like a pizza box.








Twitter:

Finally we look at the Twitter logo. In this day all social media sites have a blue logo, so twitter's logo is effective because it has that blue color that tells people that it is a social media site. This is also an effective logo because the logo is a bird and birds make a tweeting sound when they chirp, so this logo is effective because it symbolizes the name of the company.




If you're looking at a company the first thing you probably notice is it's logo. A logo is one of the most important aspects of promoting your company. It is how people recognize you. If you don't have a effective logo you won't have a very successful company.

Brochure Topics

Three topics that are somewhat underrated that really need to be addressed are going green, illegal immigration, and volunteering at local food banks. These three topics were really big a couple years ago, but now they have dropped under the radar without being fully addressed.

Going Green

Green stands for G- generate less waste, R- recycle everything that cannot be reused, E- educate the community on eco-friendly options, E- evaluate the environmental impact of actions, N- nourish discussions and activities that integrate environmental education into existing curriculum. This topic has been current because as time progresses we use more and more of our natural resources we need to be more conservative. Going green will never not be current, because we will always be dealing with natural recourses and their conservation. If we give more information on the topic we can extend our recourses as long as possible, but many people aren't going green. With this information people will realize what is happening to our environment they might consider going green.

Volunteering at Local Food Pantries

Organizations like Feeding America our great examples of how you can get out and help your local community. Feeding America has been helping deal with the hunger crisis for 35 years by providing to food to food banks all throughout the country. Feeding America has become the nations largest domestic hunger relief organization, with a network of 200 food banks. With these food banks Feeding America feeds 46 million people at risk of hunger. This is current because people every day deal with hunger and everybody should do their part to help feed some of those starving people. It is so very important that people should not go hungry, especially young children and the elderly, because they need their strength more than ever. If we all donated a few canned good items, that have probably been sitting in our pantry for months now anyways, we could make a huge difference for the people who don't have the luxury to let canned food sit on their shelves for months at a time. 

Illegal Immigration

Illegal immigration is something that has been happening in our country for years, but has become more of a recent issue because of the presidential election. Each presidential candidate has a strong opinion on the matter, but the fact of the matter is even though their immigration is illegal it benefits our economy. Illegal immigration benefits the US economy through additional tax revenue, expansion of the low-cost labor pool, and increased money in circulation. This immigration is also an example of following the American Dream of freedom and bettering a persons life. If we deny their entry into the states we are hypocrites denying them the same dream we all have. This thought illegal immigration is just a form of racism, we don't want "these people" coming into our country, eating our food, stealing our jobs, but we were once in a form "these people" when our ancestors first came to America. This needs to be properly addressed because people don't think about the facts when it comes to this, they immediately jump to "these people" mind set.


We need to really think about these three topics and not just go off what we heard from someone else. These problems are not going to go away any time soon unless we bring the proper attention to them and get people all the facts. With brochures we can get some of the vital information out and give people resources to find out more information on their own, and possibly make a difference.

What makes a good design?

In the design world you have to take in multiple factors such as color, font, layout exc. To make a good brochure, business cards, or flyers for example. If we don’t think about these things while making a flyer, or anything else, then we will have a terrible design that will not be effective at getting your message across.

Good Designs:

Brochure-

This brochure is an example of a good brochure because it has good images of Paris, showing you some of the nice sights you can see when you travel there, including the Eiffel tower. The picture on the front is also good because it shows Paris in the middle of the map and is very bold. The brochure also kept the words to a minimum while also giving you the information you need. One thing about a bad brochure is excessive amounts of writing where 90% of the brochure is writing. The font of the brochure is also good because it is legible which is very important, but it also fits with the “Paris” theme. It’s very elegant just like Paris is. This is what makes this a good brochure.

Business card-

This business card is good because it is very simple, and gives you just the information that you need and that’s it. The most important information, the business name, is in a large font while their motto is slightly smaller font. It is also in close proximity showing that you should associate the motto with the company. The color is also effective because it alternates back and forth between orange and grey, but the most effective part is that the motto says “we do everything” in orange and then listed under the name is all of the business card owner’s specialties in the same color.

Flyer-

This is a good flyer because it is very creative. Because it is a spiritual retreat it was a very smart choice on the designers end to use a creative font that is still legible to the viewer of the flyer. The font size was well done too it kept the events name in the largest font size, while still keeping other important information big without oversizing the event. The proximity is well done because the what, when, and where are kept next to each other all in the circle while all the other information is outside of the circle. The colors of the poster are also a good choice because it’s very calming pastel colors. This is a good choice because it’s a spiritual retreat and you go to be calm and relaxed.

Bad Designs:

Brochure-

This is a bad deigned brochure because it looks like the designer of it was a college student who waited 10 minutes before it was due to actually start the assignment. The designer barely used color, most of it is only white which does nothing to attract people to the brochure, and then the rest of the brochure is an ugly mustard yellow. There is also to much negative space meaning that there is quite a bit of information that could have been included but wasn’t. We know almost nothing about this school. There are also too many different fonts and font sizes which is confusing to the viewer.

Business card-

This business card is a bad example because it has way too much going on. There is no negative space so everything is in close proximity to each other. With everything clumped together there is no organization and things become very confusing. The font size is also contributing to the poor design because important information is very small. At first look at this card the viewer doesn’t know what this woman does, but if you look at the very bottom in the smallest font on the card you will find what she does. This information should be in a much bigger font than her social media sites. Also the graphic is kind of creepy and not very inviting.

Flyer-

This flyer is a bad example because of the font, graphics, and the layout. For starters the font is a cheesy comic sans like font, and we all know that comic sans is a joke of a font. The font also doesn’t go with the theme. A tea party is civilized so the theme should also be civilized or mature. Now same can be said about the graphic. Why would you include tiaras on a flyer for a tea party? What about the little girl? Why is she on it? Wouldn’t it make much more sense to have a picture of a tea party, or even just a mother and a daughter? Finally, there is the layout, there shouldn’t be a box surrounding where the information is going if it is just going to flow out of it. It just makes the whole design look bad, it shouldn’t flow out of the box. That’s what makes this a poor flyer design.