The Art Institute

Adventures in Art Classes

by

Home Depot Print Ad

For Design Layout we were assigned a business and instructed to create a print ad using the almighty grid as our guide. 7 products with info and one product needs to be featured. I used the grid, but purposefully “broke” it in several places.

Sometimes finding the right picture to illustrate the concept and then making that picture work is the hardest part.  I wanted one of the dogs with the leaves and this one from 2007 was my best option (ie the project is finished and bagged.) If I had known this 3 weeks ago, I could have gotten some fresh photos with the exact look I was going for… but it works! Thanks, Bailey (and Charlotte)!

The lesson I am learning this quarter… take loads of photos from different angles if there is even the remotest possibility it could be used later on for an assignment!

Follow up with class feedback: I should have made it larger. I constrained it to a specific size which was a bit small. The products feel like they are floating, so with more space I could have done a lot more with this.

Side note: The week I finished this I had messed up my back really bad… creativity was so not happening, nor was I sitting for long periods or even concentrating well. Now that I am feeling better… we will see if I can be a bit more inspired on the next project!

by

The Invitation: Final Photoshop Montage

Throughout the online Adv. Digital Imaging course, one of our assignments was to work on a project, applying that week’s learning, until by week 5 we each had an interesting poster. We had to include a poem or phrase and 3 photos of our own (preferrably).

I chose Charlotte’s poem, a photo of myself (this will be changed once I get a good photo of the 3 of us out to dinner sometime!), a photo I took of Charlotte and Lainey sharing a cup of tea (out of a teacup from a set a good friend gave us), and a sunset from our trip to Marco Island.

To bring cohesion to the piece as well as to keep it simple so the words wouldn’t get lost, I changed the opacity of a couple photos and made them more of a sepia (honey) color.  I also applied a background texture that was all scratched up, which shows through the sunset layer with it’s lower opacity, giving the piece a mildly grungy or old look.

There is more I want to do to this… but it is a great start. I enjoyed working on it.

As of this week, the class is over, dropping me down to 3 classes through mid-December. This was a purposeful choice as it will give me more time to enjoy the holidays! I am so looking forward to them!

by

Alchemie Client Logo

Rachel and I teamed up to work on the logo for Alchemie (a company created by one of our fashion programs). Alchemie will be selling wallets which they designed and are producing. 

Our Corporate Communications class participated in naming the “company” as well as each of us presented logos for their selection.  While our logo did not make the final cut, we were in the top 3! I think we hit the mark for the homework assignment; however, since we were told to design as if this were an international corporation that intended to grow and not to focus on simply this one product. We were also requested to keep our presentation limited to a specific set of slides, one black and white and one color version of the logo, and to a short timeframe.  

In our presentation, we were to outline our process.  Alchemie is a play on the French for alchemy. If you are interested in seeing the short presentation with some of our early sketches and explanation of our process, you can view it here> Alchemie Project.

So what did I learn? I thoroughly enjoyed teaming up with Rachel, and working the process with her was fun and helped fuel my own creativity! I have always preferred teamwork when the team is responsible and able to pool resources!

I think I also learned it is ok to break the rules outlined by the instructor if you really want the project? That is what the winning group did, anyway, with a long presentation and they definately took it to the theme of wind/earth/fire/water, which was for this particular product set only, thus locking the company into that theme forever. I don’t know and am a bit confused on that point.

What I am not sure of is if that would work in the real world. I think that is something I would be checking out ahead of time because to make such a gamble could sink your company if you were wrong. I have worked with companies where they will throw out your presentation without review if it does not fit the guidelines they set forth. They view it as you are not hearing their initial request and thus they do not want to work with you in the future.

So I am a bit confused as to what happened with this project. I think the Alchemie group was not looking at things long term and were a bit tunnel visioned with their current project. The logo  they chose (while excellent) was very specific to their current product line.

The majority of the class followed what we were told, and there were some wonderful offerings on the table for a global mark! There is real talent in this school!

by

You don’t know Willie Shoemaker?!!!

Photoshop project… pick a famous person and use their name with an appropriate photo. Turn the letters into a shape and do all these annoying little things to make a beautiful picture.

A few tears later because of one little step I kept getting wrong…

BTW- Willie Shoemaker is only the greatest jockey that ever lived! He is shown here on Ferdinand.

by

First “From Life” Drawing

This week we not only drew more muscle pictures, we were to choose something from our life or set up a still life. Jacob told me that drawing a skull would be a great excersize, so I borrowed a “medical skull” from my osteopath. 

We are becoming a bit attached to him as he sits on the side table in the livingroom!  Oh… and notice the names of the books, specifically chosen from Lainey’s library. 

  • Your Body Believes Every Word You Say
  • Health Care Reform Now!
  • Appreciative Intelligence

A little timely humor always helps even the most mundane activity! It was fun!

by

My Nemisis… Photoshop

The Advanced Photoshop class is once again, quite painful. However, this week we had an interesting activity in which we took an old photo and cleaned it up using masks, levels, brushes, etc.

I took an old photo of my Grandma’s kitchen from the 1950s. Once I had restored it, I felt a wave of nostalgia at the old items that came back to life, the colors, and even with the pixelation, the images of relatives from 50 years past. I love looking at the details of old photos… the rug crumpled up under my uncle’s chair, the ice crusher I had forgotten was mounted to the wall (right edge of the photo), the smoke on the wall above the stove, the broom hanging by the stove, the pans cooking food, the chairs. All of these things were a part of my family’s culture at a time in the past. It was all important.

The original scanned photo had problems with white speckles that don’t show up here, a scratch on Grandpa’s face, and color issues which I fixed:

The cleaned up file:

by

What is my name…again

For this project we had to take our previous assignment and add 2 photos to it. That, of course, represents the real world, because you will get a design to the point that you feel it really works, then the client will change something. It was a challenge! However, I love the photo Charlotte took of Samantha and I on Sunday!

by

“Zombie Muscle Dude”

Ok, so I can’t help it that this grosses me out a bit! My teacher said I am crazy, my osteopath (who loves it) laughed but validated my feelings and says it happens, and my friends are a mix of “well done” and I think a little bit of “ewww”. 

However, I felt good on the day of the test and aced it! Yes! The ol’ brain came through for me this time with a bit of Divine intervention! (I am learning I had best pray first before taking a test!) And I can’t even pronounce some of the muscle name! Brachioradialis? Latissimus Dorsi? Gastrocnemius? What was with those Latin guys anyway?

Here is the homework (the front view was labeled after the photo was taken):

by

Branding – Noah Grant’s

Beth Remsburg gave us a fabulous first assignment for Corporate Communications! We had to find a business we had never been to before, visit, and analyze it.  I opted to recruit Lainey for this project because this is right up her alley. She chose a little oyster bar in Zionsville that we had never visited before called Noah Grant’s. We had a wonderful experience as a customer! We will be going back, no question about that!

The premise for their business comes from the owner’s experience as one of 5 kids growing up in this area.  She said they could never find a place to eat where everyone was happy.  So she has an oysterbar with 5 star food offerings, yet you can also get a burger and fries.  The prices are more reasonable for fresh fish and local Angus than if you went downtown.

As far as the branding, I think they could use a bit of help. It is pretty basic black and white, but they have a good thing going and I think they could pump it up a bit. They have a black chalboard wall in each room with writing and drawings on them. They place felt fun, friendly, and the food was to die for!

We had to put a presentation together for the class outlining different points about the brand. Here are 3 pages as an example:

by

what is my name? you ask.

Design Layout Project #1

  • use the Adobe InDesign program
  • 1 photo of self
  • 100 words or more about self
  • masthead of your first/last name
  • 3 sizes… 8×8, 5×11, and your own choice for the 3rd using shape
  • mount them on black board with 1 inch boarder

I was tired of writing introductions of myself so I started thinking about it. Next thing you know the project took me over and became a typography exercise!  However, the poem that came out of me was what I fell in love with and then it was a matter of finding a photo that would work with the text. 

I tackled the 8×8 first (for reading ease, go to one of the larger examples further down):

 Then the 5×11

And then my favorite:  I chose a 4×16 in order to capture the words in a complimentary way (the poem sort of drove my design… making the project more difficult than it needed to be!)