WEEK 10

This week we did a tutorial in InDesign. I have worked with InDesign alot before in my typography classes at Umass Dartmouth so I understood everything that was going on. I like working with this appllication, I think its interesting to see everything you can do with type, changing the leading, tracking, kearning, etc.

Now all I have to worry about is getting my website finished . . .

WEEK 9 - websites

Today in class we worked in dreamweaver. The tutorial at the beginning was a little confusing, but once I was the one doing it (I understood it alot better. So far I have most of the main page set up in dreamweaver, now I just need to make the links to other pages and create the other pages. I do have an idea where Im going with all of this so I actually dont think it will be too confusing, now the only thing is finding the time to do everything!!!

WEEK 8

I know this is a little late but I completely forgot to make a post last week. In class last week we figured out that the school server didnt work, so we set up accounts in bravenet so we could have a host for our websites. The "worst" part of class was probably just trying things and keep having to see that ERROR message come up. That was definately frustrating. Everything still seems a little confusing but I'm sure after working more with everything I'll be fine.

WEEK 7 - motion guide and shape tween tutorial

We went over motion guide in flash today in class. We used a background image of a map of the United States and an airplane. The point of the tutorial was to learn how to make the plane fly across the page (or across the map). Here are the steps to the tutorial that we did . . .
• import images to the library
• drag your background image from library onto the screen (make sure you are on the first layer)
• make the background image fit in the window
- modify the cordinates in properties table
- main menu - view - magnification - fit in window
- use the free transform tool and make it fit manually
• make sure you lock the background layer so nothing unexpected can happen to it
• create another keyframe in frame 40 so you have the length of your movie
• create a new layer and re-name it so you know what it is
• drag other image into the first key frame
- use the free transform tool to resize
- to deselect image click on any white or gray area outside the image
• insert motion tween in keyframe 1
- click keyframe 40 and move the plane to the end of the path (around california)
- make sure the dotted line turns into a straight line with an arrow
- the movie will now be the plane flying in a straight line from Newfoundland to California
• to make the plane have a more fun flying path you can insert a motion guide
• in the motion guide layer select the pencil tool (have the color be white) and draw your own creative path from Newfoundland to Californian
• then make sure you are on the airplane layer and using the free transform tool make the plane fit with the beginning of the path
- make sure you click "orient to path" in keyframe 1
• moving to key frame 40, move the plane, use the free transform (if needed) and click "orient to path" again
• now when you play the movie (control - test movie) the plane will not be flying in a straight line, but it follows the path you drew (it wil loop and bump along with whatever you drew)


Now we are creating a shape tween
• we imported the U2 Vertigo image into library
• resized the image to fit the stage
• then we clicked on frame 40 and created a keyframe
• main menu - modify - break apart
• select a frame inbetween (frame 20) and insert - shape tween
• using free transform you can movie and manipulate the image to make it turn and twist in the movie, you can also add color and any other affects you want

This was a project I was working on for my color threory class and I finally finished it. It had to do with monochromatic and achromatic coloring. I am really pleased with how it turned out. I used the graphite pencils and prisma colored pencils.


Then, I scanned it into photoshop added a few filters, changed the hue/saturation, levels, overall Just tried to make it look more sketchy, less able to see exactly what It was at first glance . . . this is what I came up with

WEEK 6 - Flash Tutorial

We did a tutorial in Flash today. Some things we learned were . . .

• There are 2 ways to animate (1. motion guide 2. frames)
• Frame: "white pages" that are already there, defualted by flash
• Keyframe: you insert a key frame to set up parameters for an animation
• Blank Keyframe: a fram you can insert that has nothing in it
• Multiple Frames: allows you to see more than one frame at a time so you can edit them together
• Copy and Paste Frames: you right click the frame, and go down to copy frame, then right click again and paste
• Test Movie: You go to control, test movie (and you can see what you have so far)
• Add Sound by using a WAV file, Sounddog is a website where you can download sounds, or the MEDIA folder on school computers has already paid for sounds

I am a little intimidated by flash because I have never used it before, so Im not sure how my animation will actually turn out. I am looking forward to learning a new application.

WEEK 6 - Logo Design Homework

So at the beginning of class we did our powerpoint presentations on the logos we created for our websites. I really like the way my logo came out. The two figures are supposed to represent the two key words in the quote "classy" and "fabulous". I used my own images that I drew, then scanned them in and manipulated them a little (changing color, filters, adding text, etc.) In the end I had 2 logos, one is cleaner, more straight forward, the second I used a rough charcoal filter, it make is look like the figures are actually moving. The more I look at it the more I like the second one because I think it does have more of a design element to it.

WEEK 5 - midterm

so, we had the misterm today and I think I did really good on it. I liked the way my photoshop pictures came out. I added shadows, color burns, etc . . . overall I am compltely pleased with my photoshop part of the midterm. For the illustrator part I was a little confused on what to do at first, but I got an idea in my head and just kind of went with it. I tried to make the word fun relate to little kids and learning with the big letter blocks they use. I used basic colors, yellow, red, and blue. I then added a drop shadow to the blocks and the letters, I really like the way it turned out. Basically I like this class, I am learning some new things and refreshing somethings I already knew but forgot about.

WEEK 4 - illustrator tutorial

We learned about Illustrator today in class. I have used it before but its never my first choice of applications because it usually confuses me. This week I understood everything we did and actually went back and added in a sky background on my own. I am interested in learning what you would do if you started from scratch, not already having all the layers set up for us. Overall I think my picture came out good. I liked this tutorial

My most disengaged moment of class was the beginning when I couldnt get the password on my computer to work!! Other than that class was good. I like messing around in photoshop, indesign, illustrator, etc. Its really interesting to see how many things you can actually do with these applications.

PROJECT 2 - powerpoint presentation of manipulated images

The picture I chose I am not going to use in my website. I just really like the picture, the colors in it, and I thought it would be fun to manipulate in photoshop. Here is the origial pic . . .

•I then placed the image into photoshop in a 5x7, 72 resolution, and RGB color.
•The first thing I did was go to the filter gallery, brush strokes, and selected ink outlines. This made the image darker in most areas.
•I then took the smudge tool to bring some of the inside color outwards. Then I took the paintbrush tool (a transparent spray paint) and added some yellow throughtout the picture.
•I found a cloud image on that I wanted to use as a background, so I placed that behind the image I was manipulatiing. Using the magic wand and lasso tool I selected what I didnt want and deleted it to show the cloud background coming through.
•I wasnt really happy with the image yet so I went back into the filter gallery to texture and selected craquelure.
•Finally I selected layer styles, drop shadow and adjusted the blend mode, distance, spread, opacity, noise, distance, spread, and size

WEEK 3 - picture manipulation in photoshop

•In photoshop we took a the original picture of Arches, brought in the tile picture and adjusted the texture, added a shadow, and then transformed (you can change perspective, warp. skew, rotate, or simply free tranform). Duplicate the tile as many times needed . . . for the tile that was under the rock, simply place the tile where it should be, get the "lasso tool" and highlight the rock that should be shown, click delete and the rock looks like it is placed over the design. Next we brought in a picture of the ocean, dragged it to the top (covering the arches) . . . loaded the selection as arches, then layer mask - reveal all . . . and the ocean automatically goes in the background of the original picture.

• This week we learned about changing the preferences (making sure cursors and rulers are all correct), image size, canvas size, making sure the picture is viewed in "actual pixels".
• All picture dowloaded to the web should be 72 resolution, a higher resolution doesnt mean a better picture, it just means it will take longer to download on the website.
• Bitmat image is a digital picture

• RASTER VS VECTOR:
- Raster, is a bitmat image and is made up of pixels
- Vector, a combination of lines and dots



•º• RASTER IMAGE FORMATS •º•
BMP - limited bitmat file format not suitable for web (never save image under this format)
GIF - compressed format good for internet graphics with solid clors (not best format)
JPEG - compressed format (compressed at a lower resolution) good for photographs
TIFF - not a compressed format (cant lower resolution) most popular for artwork <~~ personal sketches, etc . . .

•º• VECTOR IMAGE FORMATS •º•
EBS - flexible file format that contains a combination of bitmat and vector information
PICT - used on Mac computers, can contain vector and raster data
SWF - flash applications (all animations)
SVG - emerging xml (what you save images as when you are coding)

WEEK 2 - tutorial

My most engaged part of this class would have to be when we were working in Dreamweaver. I have never used that application before and I actually am excited to work more on my webpage. I look forward to learning more about Dreamweaver and seeing my webpage really come together

My least engaged moment of the class was when we were going over photoshop. I have had classes using this application before so I already knew how to do what we went over. It was a good refresher though, it basically reminded me of everything I learned before.
Here is what we worked on in class . . .

wireframe for project 6

Here is the wireframe for project 6. The background is going to be a navy blue, the script at the top of the page (quote) will be pink and in a script font. The rest of the font will be Optima and will be white. The first page you see will be the quote only and you will click it to enter the site, then the quote will be at the top of the top of the homepage. From there you can click on the links history, different areas, about, contact info, etc. there will also be a few images on the homepage and at least one image on each link.

WEEK 1 - my first class

So this was my first class at The Art Institute of Tampa. I moved to Tampa about 2 weeks ago from the Boston area. Its alot different here but I have been getting used to it. This seems like its going to be a class that will help me learn more about computer applications. I did have a year of classes at Umass Dartmouth majoring in Graphic Design, I already like it better here being in a design school instead of a university. I do miss all my friends back home alot but its ok here.

oh ya . . . the red sox rally was in boston today