e-Magine

At e-Magine we had the chance to see what all of the upperclassmen from Olathe NorthWest, and other Kansas schools were doing. It ranged from website designs to short films, but they were all equally impressive. Everyone did a wonderful job creating their creative project, and I hope to become as good as they are.

E.O.Y. reflection

e-9 is drawing to a close. Not only was I able to be a part of something very fun, I also learned a lot to do with what makes an appealing design through color psychology, CARP, text, and much more. Besides learning design tips, I learned the basics of the four rotations. 

I learned how to make an animation in animation. Animation was probably the hardest of the stands, but it was also the first strand, so I might have just not been prepared. Animation had many different steps in making something and was very complex; but in the end, it was worth it when you can look at the awesome final product. The bouncy smiley face was my favorite project that I made in animation.

After animation was video. Video was very exciting because you're able to let your personality shine through in videos. You can do the same in the other strands through voice and design, but in video you can act out funny, sad, or scary scenes. Video was not very difficult and it was very fun. My favorite video that I put together was the e-9 promotional video.

We were introduced to website design during second quarter. Web design is very good for letting your creativity loose. At least for me, it was very fun to put all of the colors that compliment each other together, and incorporating different fonts to make the website look appealing and clean. My favorite website that I designed was for my quarter four project, Pocket Cosmetics. I was designated the job of Website designer. I loved how the website turned out with its girly colors and fonts.



The last of the rotations was graphic design. Graphic design was very fun. It allows you to put your imagination down into a beautiful creation. Graphic design is a little challenging because it has so many different tools and shortcuts, but it's very fun. My favorite graphic design creation that I made was the AVAcado logo.

I also learned how to communicate, collaborate, and how to lead a group and keep it in check. This has been achieved mainly through the last quarter rotation where we invented a product. I would say that my greatest strengths are coming up with an idea, while my greatest weakness would have to be exhibiting the idea. It is easy for me to imagine what I will do, but it is hard to do the technical aspects of making it happen. I have improved, however, on learning how to do things so that I do not need as much help. With what I have learned throughout the year, I plan to create more creative and appealing things. If I am making a card or a power point I can use what I've learned to make it look really good. To make the e-Comm experience better and simpler for beginners, I would suggest a paper that has all of the keyboard shortcuts and how to do things, and buttons to press. Overall, my first year of e-Comm has been very fun, and I am excited for next year.

Pocket Cosmetics

For the last quarter of e-9, all of the first hour classes were mixed together. We were then divided into 4-5 member groups based on our ranging personality types. I was in a group with Mackenzie, Ella, and Anyzja. We all discussed what product we wanted to "invent". Anyzja came up with the idea of a pocket knife but for makeup instead of knives, which we named MakeMeUp! We went off of this idea to design the look of our company and product. We constructed a logo, web banner, ad, and coupon in the graphic design rotation. We made a 3D animation of our product in animation. Lastly, we made a commercial in video. Working in a group has its pros and cons because of all the varying ideas and visions. Luckily, I think that my group and I got together quite well. We worked well coming up with good ideas together, but we lacked communication along the way. We had our ups and downs but overall we made a good team.

This is our home page of our website. It has our commercial on it. Special thanks to Haley Couch for staring in our commercial. The logo was made by Mackenzie, and the web banner was made by me. I also designed the website.

 This is our "More" page. It has in depth information about what our product is. It also has an animation of the MakeMeUp, made by Ella. The bathroom scenery was made by Anyzja.

 This is the "coupons" page of our website. It has the coupon on it that was made by Anyzja.

 The "Ad" page has the ad on it which Ella created.

The company info page has the company information and the bios of all of the team members.

This is our commercial

This is the animation

Photoshop

For our last week in graphic design we had our photoshop unit. Photoshop deals with editing pictures. We edited four different pictures. 

This was the first photo. It started off as just a picture of Olathe North West, but I typed ONW into it and put the onw compass on it. I made the opacity low so that the picture beneath it could still be visible. This edit was very simple. 

This was the second picture that I edited in Photoshop. It started off as a monarch with orange wings. I selected the orange areas and changed the colors to make a nonexistent species of butterfly. A rainbow butterfly. This was very easy to do, and if I took my time it would look extremely realistic. This is why you sometimes can't trust a picture- because Photoshop can do a lot.

This picture was a little more difficult because I had to use a text mask. It started off as just a picture of NorthWest, and then I put the text mask over it and made the colors ONW colors.



The last picture I made was the most difficult. I had to first "trace" the raven out of a picture, and then layer a bunch of pictures on top of each other.  I personally think that the picture looks sloppy because of how many pictures are compiled onto one another.





On top of being our Photoshop unit this week, it is also the last week of graphic design. I enjoyed graphic design very much and am excited to take it next year as well.

Invasive Species Website

It's our Web design unit in graphic design which means we got to design our own website. We based our website on invasive species. To the left is my home page. I incorporated green and brown "earthy" colors because it has to do with nature. I made the headings bigger, bolder, and white so that it would stand out more. There are links to different websites and videos that also change colors when hovered on or clicked on.

Another one of my six pages was Africanized bees. I put pictures in of the bees, links, and continued the color theme. I did the same with my purple loosestrife page.

 Sadly my menu bar was not cooperating. In the design mode it looked like how it does to the right, but when viewed in safari, it looked all green with no white. I spent a while  trying to figure out what was wrong, but no one else, nor myself, could figure out why it wasn't working.

I like Web design. It is definitely challenging,
 but rewarding when everything is complete. Learning and remembering all of the CSS styles and phrases is very difficult, but I enjoy designing the website through the color and layout. Next year I am taking Web design as one of my two courses as a sophomore (along with graphic design).

Orthogonal cube

After creating our logos, we made orthogonal cubes. The root word "ortho" means straight and the root word "gon" means angle. My interpretation of the word orthogonal cube is: A cube with angles perfectly straight to make right angles. This makes sense, because when creating the cube in Adobe Illustrator, we had to move the lines to be exactly perpendicular to each other. If we did not do this, it would not have been a perfect ninety degree angle cube. But the cube actually doesn't have right angles. Each angle is one hundred twenty degrees. This is because it is an illusion. The cube is a 2D object on a screen appearing as a 3D object. Making it was quite simple, it was all copying and pasting lines. It was fun to see the lines turning into a 3D cube. The picture to the left is what my orthogonal cube looked like before I filled it in with color. It's amazing to see the cube "come to life" once color is added to it. If some shading was added, it would look even more real.

Link to tutorial to create the orthogonal cube:http://www.lynda.com/articles/draw-an-orthogonal-cube-in-illustrator-dekes-techniques

Personal logos

We have been studying logos, and how shape, color, and font play a role in them. So we were given the opportunity to make our very own logo! Logos can attract the eye of consumers, so it is important to have an appealing visual. Logos are supposed to be simplistic, have a story/ intention, and include reasoning behind color, shape, and font. To begin our brainstorming process, we were to draw out our ideas, refine them, and ask for the opinion of our peers. I had many ideas, but sadly I did not get to go through with all of them; so I chose my favorites.

My name is Ava. I have the amusing nickname of AVAcado because the name Ava is sort of in the word avocado. Incorporating an avocado in my logo, I thought, was a good idea. Avocados are round, and as learned in my recent blog, are welcoming. My logo having an avocado in it is, in my opinion, cute and creative. The round and un-curved avocado on the top in the picture to the left was my prototype in my avocado creations. Under it is the one I curved in at the middle to make the avocado resemblance more similar. I used this avocado in my final logos. Next, I typed out AVA-Cado using a friendly font. I made the Ava part bigger and bolded so that it would be more focused on than the "Cado". I also changed the colors in the words from the avocado. I used the darker green color in "Ava" because it is easier to read. I used the lighter green on the "Cado" to make it less recognizable. I couldn't decide between writing my name so that it was on top of each other or writing it side by side. These were my two final avocado logo creations. In addition to making logos, we also got to use them as a favicon. A favicon is the little website icon shown before the web address.

Not only is my name in a fruit, my initials spell out "AT". Someone gave me the idea to use the @ sign in my logo. I liked this idea because @ shows technology and social media. It is also round which is welcoming. I couldn't decide between three of my @ logos. For one I made the @ very big and brought the inside "a" up. Then I typed my name on the inside curve. I made the beginning letter in my first and last name the same color as @ to emphasize the correlation between my initials and the @. I chose the color teal because blue is often used to promote high-tech products, and the @ is known for being used in social media, which is a "techy program". It is also a very pretty and comforting color. The other at sign logos I made included my name written out straight (opposed to curved) and had the at sign at the beginning. In one I made the @ into the "A" in the beginning of my name. I continued the theme of coloring the at sign and my initials the same color.

I enjoyed making these logos in Adobe Illustrator. It was fun to be able to customize something specially for us. In the future I would like to construct another personal logo to see what else I could come up with.