Logo Sketch

I am not an art person. I am not a handwriting person. I cannot draw a stick figure. I hate drawing. I did try to make them simple, because I prefer simple stuff. I’m honestly okay with a logo being my name against a white background in all lowercase Times New Roman with a period at the end, but that may not be enough to use Illustrator to finish. I think in order just to fulfill the requirements on the assignment, it may work to use #5/6 or one of #s 2, 8, or 9.

Final Collage

Many people have somewhere that’s their home away from home; it may be their best friend’s house, the vacation they go on every summer, some even consider college the home away from home. My home away from home is a summer camp called Camp Christopher. I camped there for 6 years and I now work there as a camp counselor, which is a dream for most campers, but I get to live that dream. I tried to communicate the feeling of camp as well as I could. The beauty and togetherness of camp are the two things that make it so amazing. It’s a full week of being outside in the woods without phones, singing songs, and making lasting friendships. It’s the campfires that the entire camp attends to say hello and to say goodnight, but never goodbye. The skies are my favorite part of being outside all day, it’s always pretty. Whether it’s rained all day or the sun is relentless, it’s always pretty. Especially at night because unlike in Cleveland, you can actually see the stars clearly. I didn’t include a picture of those because that’s something I’ll always keep to myself and my campers. 

I used mainly the Layer Mask Essentials unit to show me how to make this collage. My critiques to myself are that I probably should’ve used a bigger canvas so that I could’ve expanded the sky that is underneath the sun rays, and also been able to show more of that, as well as the whole image looks darker than I would have liked and I should work on changing that. All of the photos were taken by me. I do think if I use a bigger canvas for the final draft, I can play around with the sizes more as well as the colors and it could make all the difference. Using Photoshop, I used “Create New” to make a custom canvas size, then using Bridge I added all 5 photos to Photoshop before adding all of them to the custom canvas as layers. For each layer I made sure the entire photo was shown by using Transform>Scale. Then after much confusion, I finally used Layer>Layer Mask>Reveal All, then used the brush tool to help blend them together.

To revise my collage, I took the suggestions of my peers and moved the fire from the top left corner into the middle where the previous fire was because the coloring of the original fire is much less vibrant. I also changed the coloration of the photo of those around the fire, as it looked dull in comparison to the other photos in the collage. I did this by using the Camera Raw Filter setting under filters and changing the vibrance and saturation. Finally, I added the sign that says “Camp Christopher” in the top left where the first fire was originally. I did this because a peer pointed out how it could look like a field trip or summer camp, I wanted to make it even more clear what I was trying to show. I used the same method as I did with the Layer Masks and Brush tools beforehand.

Graphic Collage Draft

Many people have somewhere that’s their home away from home; it may be their best friend’s house, the vacation they go on every summer, some even consider college the home away from home. My home away from home is a summer camp called Camp Christopher. I camped there for 6 years and I now work there as a camp counselor, which is a dream for most campers, but I get to live that dream. I tried to communicate the feeling of camp as well as I could. The beauty and togetherness of camp are the two things that make it so amazing. It’s a full week of being outside in the woods without phones, singing songs, and making lasting friendships. It’s the campfires that the entire camp attends to say hello and to say goodnight, but never goodbye. The skies are my favorite part of being outside all day, it’s always pretty. Whether it’s rained all day or the sun is relentless, it’s always pretty. Especially at night because unlike in Cleveland, you can actually see the stars clearly. I didn’t include a picture of those because that’s something I’ll always keep to myself and my campers.

I used mainly the Layer Mask Essentials unit to show me how to make this collage. My critiques to myself are that I probably should’ve used a bigger canvas so that I could’ve expanded the sky that is underneath the sun rays, and also been able to show more of that, as well as the whole image looks darker than I would have liked and I should work on changing that. All of the photos were taken by me. I do think if I use a bigger canvas for the final draft, I can play around with the sizes more as well as the colors and it could make all the difference. Using Photoshop, I used “Create New” to make a custom canvas size, then using Bridge I added all 5 photos to Photoshop before adding all of them to the custom canvas as layers. For each layer I made sure the entire photo was shown by using Transform>Scale. Then after much confusion, I finally used Layer>Layer Mask>Reveal All, then used the brush tool to help blend them together.

My Topic: Spoiler, it’s ME

So what could be easier and more self centered to talk about for an entire semester other than myself? I like to talk about myself. I have lots of cool stories (cool to me at least), I’m funny (according to my mom), and it’s an excuse to not have to do even more research in addition to my 5 other classes, its the perfect storm. I can talk about a lot involving myself, who knows me best other than me? I can talk about the love I have for my cat for a couple pages at least, and if I get the opportunity to do so, I will.

Finding media to post should be relatively simple, I need a selfie? I take one. YouTube style video? Create one. It more just involves what content I need to include that I’ll need to brainstorm for. Do I tell the story on being a volunteer at the Cleveland APL since I was 7, or do I talk about my experience getting lost in Target when I was 5. It all depends on the content that is asked for by the person grading this. Of course the preparation will mean doing hair and makeup… if I’m feelin’ it.

Now I’m not quite sure how all of this graphic design stuff is going to go for me. I can’t draw a stick figure with a pencil and paper let alone using a mouse and a complicated computer program I have absolutely no experience with. This leads me into believing that simple may be the way to go for me. The logo, hopefully will fit into the required criteria, I’m just hoping to make maybe a circle with my name inside in some cool, fancy, creative way. Maybe, I’ll get crazy and have my name going outside of the circle or something? For the video project it again depends on what the criteria is and what I’ll need to do to fit within those parameters. Regardless, a good idea might be something like what I do on a daily basis for school? Maybe? We’ll see.

Some sites I find cool are those people who do reviews like Tati Westbrook on YouTube. I know, I know, she does makeup reviews. I’m a big makeup gal what can I say? It’d be cool to maybe do a review on something, I’m really opinionated on just about everything. Another one I find hilarious and just simply amazing on YouTube is this channel, it’s literally just a bunch of Irish people that try American snacks and drinks. Not sure how I’d replicate this, but I would definitely be down to find a way to get food from another country and record myself trying it. Last but certainly not least, Jessica Slaughter seems to have college life down. I’d love to see myself evolve into something like this. Whether it’s the format or literally becoming her, I’d do it.