Typography

Learning About Typography

In e-Com we focused on learning through a series of videos and an article given to us online. These all focused on the subject of typography, which we are currently learning. 

Videos

The videos taught us the importance of fonts and the feeling they give off depending on the one that was being used. More covey style and cursive fonts would be used to show off something luxurious and a loud capitalized font would be for something important. We also learned about serif and sans serif fonts. Serif being the fonts with the 'tails', such as the one I'm using writing this. Sans serif is just the opposite. Sans, meaning 'without' in French, is for fonts without the tails. All these aspects are very important to graphic design as typography does take up a good portion of it.

Article

Now knowing the importance and personalities of fonts, the article focused on combining the fonts. All fonts, having a given trait, can be combined usually if they have a similar trait among them. Of course this isn't for all fonts. A loud sign font could be paired with a more simple and neutral font. to fonts sharing a similar design of professional could be paired together as well as long as they didn't compete for attention too much. Oftenly paired would be a Serif font and  sans serif font. Of course this is also a very important aspect of graphic design as well, paring up font to the match the style is a a necessity to make good works of art.
My favorite part of this article was the part that talked bout context. It's important that smaller fonts are still legible, which is something that is very valuable for future purposes.

Take Away

From the videos I believe the most important part that I learned was learning about the voices that the fonts give off, whether it be swirly or simple. I never took fonts into so much consideration before this. I mostly thought that if it looked good, that's it. However this has opened my eyes to how important fonts are. The impression they give to the reader is important for a work of graphics design.

Key Points

1.) Pairing

In typography putting two fonts together or maybe even three it's important to have them match, as in having a similar theme and not over power each other. 

2.)Hierarchy of Fonts

This just means the fonts that stand out more are bigger, such as titles. More simpler fonts that are used for context would be smaller. 

3.)Complementary 

A lot like pairing, fonts have to complement each other as in if one is large and extravagant then the complimentary font should be small and simple. 

Conclusions

Learning about typography has been a good experience and will affect how I create my designs in the future for the better. The videos helped me think of the importance of how the typography looks ad the article taught me the necessities of pairing up fonts. 

Snowflakes

Snowflakes in e-Com 

his past few weeks in Animation, e-Com students have been occupying themselves with the snowflake animation. The goal of the project was to create multiple snowflakes and animate them to fall down. The animation would be posed in a way to look like the camera, or person, was looking out of a window.

Creating Snowflakes 

We started by creating polygons, which was very easy. These polygons would be about a 1/6th of the size of what the final snowflake would be. After drawing pattern of stripes, it was mirrored over the x-axis then we made 5 more copies and arranged the six in a perfect circle. After adding more details to the final product we would begin animating.

Animation

Animating was also simple.  We picked a starting point and an end point for each of the snowflakes on a timeline. When it was finished all the snowflakes would come down. Also making a wall with a window on it, to make the effect of looking out of a window. Positioning the camera and then rendering the short video went smoothly for me. This was the final product.

Final Product

Ice Cream Project

Maya

During the another week in e-Com we continued our focus on Maya projects. This time our assignment was the 'Ice Cream" project. This consisted of us using bump textures in order too make our spheres look more like ice cream. The bump textured were easy to get too and I used the 'cloud' 3d texture on my ice cream. It worked very well and the product came out very nicely.

Next we went ahead and flattened a large cylinder, which would be used in order to create a 'Lazy Susan'. This is where I started to animate. Using the time line I had the cylinder do a full 360 in the span of 120 frames. The fill product came out like this:

The Pen Project

Animation class has always been fun and recently we've been working with a new software names Maya. This time it was in our mindsets to create a pen, modeled after one we actually owned. I chose a orange pen I kept around and began to model it.

The final product :

The pen went very well. I started with cylinders and from there, continued by shaping them and then eventually adding color into the mix. 

Salt and Cup

This week in e-com the class continued their work in Maya this time to create a cup and salt shaker. We used new tools and methods, including lofting and revolving in order to create the two objects.

Starting with the cup, we used  NURBS. In which we then started by simply tracing out a profile image that was half of what the official shape would be. Then using the rotation tool we brought in around to create a full cup. After assigning a material to it, the cup was finished. I wouldn't change anything in the process of how I made the cup since it came out very well.

With the salt shaker, it started with creating a shape and making copies of said shapes. With four copies some distance away from each other vertically we then used lofting to connect all 4 shapes together to crate one shape. This would be the base for the salt shaker The cap was a flattened sphere which took its place onto of the body. The work I did on the salt shaker went well and there isn't much I would do to change it.

Hammer in Maya

In e-commmunicaiton recently we've been using a program known as Maya which enables us to build  objects in 3-D. For this week my class has worked on the Hammer project in which we have been given the task to build a hammer and nail in Maya in order to broaden our understanding on how and when to use certain tools. 

Modeling 

In this case I started with the base, all known as the handle of the hammer, and from there worked up to the actual Hammer head. From there I used the extrude tool that allowed me to extend the back of the nail head into two separate pieces. From there I was off too do the head of the hammer, the part that hit the nail. Here, I ran into some trouble. It took a while but by using the fill tool I was able to fix blackholes that had gotten into my design. After finishing the build up for the hammer I got to work on the nail by starting with a cylinder then making it thinner , except for a part at the top giving it the look of a nail. Then using the scale tool I entered vertex mode and made the point of the nail. 

Shading

For shading I made the handle of my hammer a wood brown in a typical hammer fashion. The hammer itself was of course a shade of grey along with the nail. 

Lights

There are three types of lights used in lighting and I used all three of them in my project. The key light, the rightist and main light, focused on my hammer and shone a light straight onto it. The fill light came in on the side to give more shape to the project. He back with was in the back and shone off the top of the hammer. 

If I had to do this again I wouldn't change much other than how I built the top part of the hammer since it had started glitching and creating black holes. 

Semester Final Graphics

Graphic Design     

     The first semester of graphic design was a fun one. using what I learned this year and what I had learned the year before, multiple projects were created. Some were harder than others, all completed as to the best of my abilities. 

Fall Raccoon

The first project that I started this semester was the Fall Raccoon project. The project took all of us at the least two weeks since the project was our first one and bound to take a long time to create. I managed my project by dividing it into two sections. The first section being, to create a raccoon and other fall items, the second section was to create a fall scenery to suit the raccoon using the other fall items created in the first section. 

Challenges 

A big challenge for me in this project has actually been the scenery because I was unsure of how to incorporate the other fall items I created into it at first. Gradually, I got an idea for what I was going for. 

What I learned and Overall 

In the first part I learned how to create berries, leaves, nuts, and a raccoon in Illustrator. I mostly learned how to use some tools that I didn't know how to use at first. When communicating with my peers, I came to the conclusion I needed to add a better grass outlook. That's how the stokes of paint, mimicking shreds of grass came into place.  I do believe there is more room for improvement, when it comes to shading and how the sky looks like. Overall, I like how it turned out in the end. 

Typography Thank You

The next project we began to work on soon after this one took us a much longer time lasting at least 2 weeks for each of us. Now, using the raccoon we had originally created in our Fall raccoon project we were to create a card of any holiday or occasion where we would incorporate out raccoon into the card along with creating typography to suit the final product of the card. I started the project with an idea in my mind about what I wanted it to be like. Like I did with the Fall Raccoon I split the project into two parts. This time the first part would be designing the outlook of the card. I chose a Thank You card and blacked out my raccoon with a beige color out my raccoon and added in onto a lighter shade of the color. The second part was composed of making the typography for the card, then adding it into the first part.

Challenges

My biggest challenge was surely creating the Typography for the project. I knew where to start but had no idea where to go from there. I used a font to start of the basis of the typography but I didn't use it well and at first it looked horrid. I then changed fonts, which made a huge different as this font looked much better and suited the card better than the last font.

What I learned and Overall

While making this project I was sure to collaborate with some of the people around me to see if they saw anything off that I didn't. One of them saw I had a made a mistake regarding where the text on the back of the card was supposed to be placed and I corrected it. On the project I'm actually very satisfied with how it turned out it the finale. Despite my previous trouble with the typography, the type suited the card I liked the final look of the project. 

Infographic

The infographic was my favorite project to make. We were to pick a topic and then gather information on it to create our final product. At first I wanted to create an infographic on infographics for irony but I wasn't able to find good statistics to suit it.  then decided to change it the a real problem our world today. Basically speaking about child poverty in Africa as that is a big problem in todays world. For project management I split this project into three sections. The first part was to complete my outline of the project on paper. Second, to gather information on the topic I chose, third, I would start building the infographic.

Challenges

When creating the infographic I originally had a hard time deciding how to present my statistics using graphics and how I should center my information around those graphics. In the first infographic I created I started off with a munch large space but ended up cutting that space in half to better suit the graphics. 

What I learned and Overall 

During this project I learned the importance of color as I at first had a different color scheme than what I would eventually have after, The color are meant to suit the subject and also grab the attention of anyone passing by. I did also ask my peers for feedback in which they commented to me about the graphing tool that was available in Illustrator that I hadn't known about, which is how I came to create the graph in the upper right corner. In the end, I liked how the project came out. It looked nice, suited the topic I chose and had good statistics on it.

Vector Project

The final project we worked on took almost a month to complete as it was much more difficult than all the other projects. We were to take a photo of ourselves and vectorize it by adding vectors, then coloring them all in. This project was simple despite its difficulty. I ended up having to stay after in order to complete the final project.

Challenges

Work management, unlike all my other projects, was trouble with this one. Because I had to come after school I was having trouble organizing what would be more important to work on. My face? Or my hair? If it's my face then which feature would be easier to finish? It took a while to work everything out. 

What I learned and Overall

My technical skills surely improved during this project as. I spend a lot of time with the pen tool creating multiple parts before adding even more onto that part. When asking for what I could improve on with the other students It was suggested I don't copy the exact color of whatever part of the vectored part. The light on my face made some of the colors look weird I changed some of them to better suit ht final image. In the end, I didn't like this project as much as the others, but certain parts on the project turned out extremely well. 

My Strengths and Time Management 

When talking about my strengths, I have to say project management as I never really get off topic on what I'm doing or when talking to my peers. I also usually split the project down into parts then set a deadline for each part in order to ensure I have everything done. I get something done before a deadline, I look for something improve or just get started on the next project early. I also have to pride myself on creativity for what I did on the Thank You card with creating a silhouette of the raccoon and for the topic I chose in the infographic and how I chose to present it. Last, I tend to pick up on things quickly so uI never had any problems on being behind or not understanding how to use a new tool. I often try out new tools and look in different sections to see if there's anything new for me to try out.

Improvement 

What I need to improve on for sure is shooing statistics in graphics as I had struggled with that in my Infographic project. I also need to improve more on using some of the tools such as the pen tool. During the final project I had issues when creating my hair. Something else I nee to work on to to continuously ask for feedback from my peers. Although I did too so during my projects I get the idea thatI need to do it more often. 

Behance

Whenever finished with a project we were to create a new file where we would put a step by step process on how we created each project. For the fall raccoon I was very specific with my Behance, clearly showing the step by step project. I did the same with the Thank You card, also adding a mock up with this one. The Vector and Infographic were much more simpler, Showing what I did along with a mockup to go along bedside it. Each of the Behance's creating are linked with each project.t 

Summary 

I've had a fun time this graphics semester. I'm satisfied with the work I've done and how well it turned out. What I enjoyed most about this semester is the Thank You card project as I found it very fun to create typography. If I had to actually change anything I'd just change how I worked on my final project. Now I know a lot more about Vectors and how to incorporate one thing into another. For next semester I'll have to see if I can improve on Time management and collaboration.