Module 6 Web Page Mock-up

Web Page Mock-up can be found here.   http://digitalartepiphanies.blogspot.com/p/portfolio.html

I was rather confused because I noticed that several people decided multiple pages for their mock-up   I wasn't sure if I was supposed to just post a "Home" page, or show mock-ups for the linked pages.  Hope this satisfies the requirement.

Module 6 Sketches

My website will be a non-profit website to help women who are both Soldiers and Mothers.  Most of the details for my design are included in my sketches.  Thanks

http://digitalartepiphanies.blogspot.com/p/sketches_17.html

Module 5 E-Card

Final product as well as techniques utilized are posted here:

Final E-Card Project

Module 5 E-Card Sketches

Module 5 Sketches

For this E-Card I've chosen solar power as the basis of my card.  Solar Power is very popular where I live right now (Hawaii).  Electric is very expensive here, so when looking for a home, it was very important to us to find a home with at least some solar power.  The home we have has a solar powered hot water heater.  Our typical electric bill is around $500 a month - and that's without AC running.

For this project, I really wanted to take advantage of some of the photos I've already taken since I've been stationed in Hawaii.  I tried to model my project around photos that I already knew I had in stock.  I would like to take advantage of some of the new techniques I've learned in the Lynda.com videos such as creating a reflection, color enhancements, and possibly creating a panoramic view.

I have an amazing picture of a Waikiki sunset from a Luau I attended and hope to use that for my backside once I make some color modifications to it.  I want to keep the card simple and too the point and try to incorporate some very vibrant colors.

For font, I plan on using Papyrus font.  I haven't decided on a font color - but I'm leaning toward either black or red to ensure it stands out on my likely blue sky backgrounds.

I researched some facts on solar power, and plan on incorporating these facts into the inside of the card.  I like the idea of using a question on the front side of the card to encourage the reader to open the card.  Since, I don't have any pictures of solar panels, I'll either have to figure out a way to take a picture of ones on our house or find a generic one on the internet.  I really like the idea of using a reflection of the earth on the solar panels as annotated on my Inside sketches.  Hoping that I can figure out how to make that happen.

Module 5 Sketches 

Module 4 Book Cover

I utilized In-Design, to create my book template of 6”W x 9”H front and back covers with a 1”W x 9”H spine (a technique learned from Lynda.com). I then utilized the "Illustration Solution" (as referred to in Designing Book Covers Hands-on Workshop) for my photo solution for the cover by converting a historical photo to a bitmap and applying a halftone screen with a frequency of 53.  By using the "Illustration Solution" proposed by Nigel French, I was able to use a public domain historical photo of the NYC Skyline December 1941 taken by photographer Jack Delano. I proceeded to place the picture into my template and subsequently applied an opacity of 65%.

My original design had the entire book cover in black and white.  I struggled with making the title and author visible utilizing just black and white.  I decided to change the title and author to a red color.  It still didn't seem to mesh very well with the historical photo that I used for the background.  In the end, I played around with the historical photo in Photoshop and ended up applying a 35% tint of the same shade of red I used for the title/author.  The title was accomplished by using a font called "City Life" from dafont.com by Janice Faucher.  The author font and book description were a simple Minion Pro. I used a picture of Leonard Bernstein taken by Jack Mitchell for the back cover.

View Book Cover

 

Works Cited

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Bernstein

http://www.dafont.com/city-life.font

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NYC_skyline_Dec_1941.jpg

http://www.lynda.com.org/

Module 3 Awareness Poster

This is an awareness poster meant to prompt people to contact their congressman and ask to stop sequestration.  I ended up deviating quite a bit from my original sketches.  I didn't like how the designs were coming out when I tried to implement the concepts in Photoshop.  In the end, I made it simple and to the point.  I started by utilizing some of the embossing and beveling techniques, as well as inner shadow and drop shadow, and completed with the strong layer effect.  Then I tried my hand at the 3D font techniques.  I found it rather difficult since the video was based on CS5 which has repousse -  CS6 does not use repousse in the same fashion as it is taught in the CS5 video.  I looked up some of the techniques in the Adobe forums and I finally figured out some of it. I experimented with a few fonts and finally chose the font Pencil Stencil from dafont.com and created by SpiderRaysFonts. Once I got the words down, I had to figure out an appropriate background.  I wanted to play with some textured layers and try to give the impression of words carved in stone.  It didn't quite come out the way I intended, but I still like it.  I used a picture of a rusted piece of sheet metal and used simple gradient layer to make it stony looking.  Finally the hardest part – what to use for an impacting symbol.  I chose a picture of the capital building.  I added a dissolve blending mode to it.  Not quite what I envisioned when I started, but I’m still happy with the final product.  Only thing I would change now would be to go back and play some more to achieve the etched/beveled look with some of the words that I was going for.  I really like what Deke McClelland did with the 3D font, and would've like to get more of that effect.

Awareness Poster

Module 4 Sketches

Module 4 Sketches
I chose Leonard Bernstein as the subject for my book design. I have uploaded sketches for 3 separate concepts. Leonard Bernstein was a famous modern American composer, conductor, musician, author, lecturer and pianist. He is famed for writing many pieces of chamber, modern classical, opera, and theatrical pieces to include the scores for West Side Story, Candide, and many other classical pieces performed by the famed New York Philharmonic. Leonard Bernstein grew up in the East Side of NYC. I thought the title "From East Side to West Side" was an appropriate title to encompass his life from his childhood on the east side to the popularity of the famed West Side Story- however after re-reading the instructions for the assignment, I see we were simply supposed to use the name of the musician as the title of the book, so I may have to deviate from concept sketches. I hope to delve a bit deeper in font choices for this project which is why I noted specific fonts that I am considering for the book. I also would like to play a bit with black and white tones. I also think it will be an appropriate play on themes to use some simple style for a book about a man who wrote some phenomenally complex classical pieces. Looking forward to your feedback.